Using Time Wisely Has Different Meanings

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I guess time just makes fools of us all.

— Father John Misty

 It is no longer possible for me to deny that there is far more in the rearview mirror than ahead in the windshield. I am determined to spend time wisely. This might be an exercise fraught with failure, as Father John Misty (Joshua Michael Tillman) notes in his Dylanesque song, which you can listen to here. That song, which I love, strikes me as a version of the Yiddish expression: Der Mensch Tracht, Un Gott Lacht, or Man Plans and God Laughs.

When I was younger, rarely did time go by unplanned. I was a project guy, who spent much of my time, when not running a newspaper, on one project or another. That has not changed a great deal. Being co-proprietor of Three Geese Farm means a bevy of tasks constantly await. A thunderstorm sweeping through often brings hours of driving the tractor around, picking up fallen tree limbs, which is what I will do when I get off work Friday. As spring approaches, fence rows need clearing, fertilizer spread, seed sown. Mowing season will soon commence.

I have a blessed work schedule at the library, which leaves me four days to tackle projects on the farm, starting at noon Friday through noon Tuesday. I generally devise a plan. For instance, little brother Gregg came over last Saturday. As he resurrected the 20-year-old Kawasaki Mule, installing a kill switch and a pair of new headlights to bypass its glitchy electrical system, I painstakingly used snippers to cut several dozen 18-inch pieces of hardware cloth that I planned to attach to the fence around our chicken coop. I did this nearby so I can hand him tools when needed.

Hardware cloth is woven or welded wire, named for being flexible and sold in hardware stores. The term came into use in the 1890s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It is actually considerably stronger and thicker than what is commonly called chicken wire. I bought a roll from the Habitat Restore here (an excellent source for building materials, light fixtures, and more) to use as a predator deterrent around the coop’s perimeter. I am folding each piece once snipped – an arduous process that belies the material’s description as “cloth” – in an “L” shape. Next, I attach it to the bottom of the fence around the coop with cable ties. Then I pile crushed limestone rock around the base of the fence, in hopes that predators intending to tunnel beneath to get at the as-yet unacquired chickens will be foiled.

I define this as spending time wisely. It’s admittedly a loose definition.

Gregg successfully got the Mule running, with a few glitches. At one point, on a test drive out in the side pasture down by Witcher Creek, it refused to move either forward or in reverse, though the engine would run. I trudged back to the shop to get the tractor and a strap, and we towed it back to the shop. The problem was easily diagnosed and fixed, and Mule has been running well since. More time spent wisely; little brother’s assistance greatly appreciated.

The following day, I began the final assembly of a large Mission-style Ottoman I have been building out of black walnut, glueing the pieces together with pipe clamps. I also began building a frame for the cast-iron sink my Beautiful Mystery Companion bought for $15 at the aforementioned Habitat Restore. The sink/potting table will be placed behind the new greenhouse, stained the same color, and will provide an ample area for messing with plants – my BMC’s true love, after family and critters. I will need to use the tractor with forks attached to the bucket to get it into place. Between the sink and the frame, it weighs about two hundred pounds. Definitely time well spent.

By late Sunday afternoon, I was physically whipped. Sawing lumber, drilling pieces together, wrestling a 75-pound sink into the frame, all took their toll. I grabbed a cold beer and my book, sat in the front-porch rocker, and read while sipping that Saint Arnold’s IPA. Once the beer was drained, it was nap time. There is a wicker couch with cushions on the front porch. There are advantages to being built as low to the ground as I am. I love to curl up on that couch and nap while a gentle breeze flaps the flag on the pole nearby, birds chirp and squawk, vehicles whizz by on the country road 100 yards away. I snoozed for an hour.

That was most definitely time well spent.

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