Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Who Needs Tom and Jerry? Val Has Hick and The Pony!

You may recall that Hick decided to dig up the bricks in the sidewalk in front of the homestead, move that sidewalk a couple of inches towards the road to straighten it, and put the bricks back down. Yes, Hick was like a cat who suddenly decides it simply MUST be somewhere else IMMEDIATELY, and tears out of the room like a Red-Bull-powered Usain Bolt out of the starting blocks. He has worked on this project for over a week. Every spare moment. In fact, Hick even took Friday off so he could stay home with his bricks.

He sent me a picture Friday evening.


I am not belittling Hick's mad sidewalk skillz. I like my sidewalk. The bricks came from the alley behind my $17,000 house, after the city came by and dug them up to put down a blacktop road. Not an alley like between towering tenements, like in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. An alley like a little-used road that connects one main street with another, with expanses of back yards and side driveways bordering it. Our brick sidewalk is a little piece of history, that of the town, and that of Hick and me. Maybe we need to tell the boys that story.

Anyhoo...is it just me, or does that sidewalk still look not straight? Perhaps it's just perspective. But I'm fairly certain the sidewalk is STILL under the steps. Which is a condition that Hick said he was remedying when I told him I didn't want the sidewalk messed up, because it has been part of our homestead for 20 years. Today Hick drove his tractor (the newest one from the MODoT auction, the one that didn't have steering for the first six months Hick had it without checking the steering fluid) down to the second low water bridge to scoop up some sand. Our sand isn't good enough, it seems. Actually, our low water bridge is known more for big flat rocks. Hick has picked up his share of them, too. Nature is just one big supply central.

You might notice that Hick is not the most conscientious picker-upper. It was evidenced in that previous picture where he was putting in the steps. Tools here. Tools there. Bits and pieces strewn about while waiting to get that sand to dump on the bricks and pound it down in the cracks.

Enter The Pony.

Trash gets picked up Thursday mornings. The Pony's job is to pull that green dumpster to the end of the driveway. On the way home, he brings it back down. Well. If I can persuade him. Usually it takes a couple days to get it back, even though I let him out at the end of the driveway and follow him down. This time he brought it Friday afternoon, but only because I chastised him that he would be gone all day Saturday to his scholar bowl tournament, and I wasn't waiting until Sunday to get my trash back.

The Pony made the turn at the carport to park the dumpster. I pulled into the garage and waited for him to come in to unload T-Hoe of our school accouterments. In he came through the people door.

"You know how in cartoons, you see people step on a rake and hit themselves in the head? Well...I just did that. Only I didn't know it was leaning up against the picket fence, and I was turning the dumpster around, and I stepped back on it with my heel. I hit myself in the back of the head. It kind of hurt."

"What did you do with the rake?"

"I put it back."

"Just like it was?"

"Uh huh. I reset the trap."

I might as well open up a bookmaking service and take odds on whether Hick or The Pony will be the next victim of rake fate.

14 comments:

  1. The sidewalk looks awesome. Hick is a real doer. Who cares if it might not be straight. He finished the project. So many guys aren't finishers. Yes, and he even set a trap for the next critter to wander by with critter-cism.

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    1. There's a list of undone projects longer than my new half-heeler/half-wiener pup waiting for Hick's tender loving care. I guess that's why he sent me a picture of this one.

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  2. Tough pattern to keep random, really old bricks perfectly in line.

    I say Pony will fall for it again...really smart kids sometimes are dopey like that.

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    1. I don't care about the brick pattern. The length of the sidewalk doesn't look straight, and his whole excuse for digging it up was because he said it was a couple inches off from one end to the other. I would have liked it to stay the way it was, all settled into the ground, a monument to our humble beginnings here in the house that Hick built (with a few jobs contracted out to his ex-con acquaintances).

      Yeah. The Pony will get whacked again. Sooner than Hick? Who knows?

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  3. Well, it's a straighter, better job than I could have done.

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    1. But he could have built a whole 'nother shed in the time he spent on this re-do!

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  4. In regards to your response to Stephen's comment: You WANT another shed?

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    1. I'm still holding out slim hope for my own personal writer's retreat that I don't have to go buy at Lowe's and haul home and set up myself.

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  5. It looks a little wonky to me (but maybe it IS just the perspective ...) and it's definitely still under the steps. But it's done, it's finished and it has character. Keep us updated on the rake score!

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    1. Thanks for the VALidation. I just don't get Hick's urgency to tear it up and put it back pretty much exactly like it was. Maybe he buried a treasure under it. Or his spy credentials.

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  6. I am just impressed that he finished a project. Wish that happened around here. He started the day working on the sign that directs one into the correct drive, then started building a windmill .....

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  7. I like the brick walk, and I laughed out loud at the rake to the back of the head. Warped humor. Ahem, he set the trap. Be careful.

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    1. Maybe this is a trap Hick learned about in his secret book of spy techniques that he buried under the sidewalk...

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