Making memories one day at a time.......and then I write about it.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

One Trip. No More. Even If It Kills Me!


When I was a kid growing up in rural Montana, USA, one of my jobs was to haul wood for the wood stove. We had a wood shed up the back of the property where we stacked the wood. It had to be chopped and then hauled to the porch so it was easily accessible for my Mum.

I loved chopping wood. I loved slamming the sledge hammer down on the wedge and having that wedge go straight through a piece of wood cutting it clean in half.

I do NOT!!! Like hauling the wood to the house. I was bound and determined to make only one trip. No more. No less.


To make only one trip seems impossible since a wheel barrow doesn't hold enough wood to fill the wood box on the porch. Enter Rachel and her scheming mad wheel barrow loading skills.

I would take some wood that I could find that was long. Usually pinched from my Dad's wood shop. A couple of pieces of 2x4s or 1x6s. I would put them on the end of the wheel barrow that sits over the tire because we all know that is where you want the majority of the weight right? Not in the front by the handles where you are lifting. I would then proceed to pack that sucker so high and full I don't think someone over six feet could see over the top let alone scrawny short little ol' me.

The trick was you had to walk super slow and do not, I repeat, do NOT let that sucker tip over. The Native's use a wheel barrow that has two wheels. Mine only had one and was prone to tipping if not careful. In the event if it did tip and you knew you weren't going to be able to stop it then it was very important to make it tip with gusto. You helped it tip by shoving it really hard and saying words that if your Mum was standing next to you, you'd have to wash your mouth out with soap.

The wood would then be loaded back into the wheel barrow and once again a slow walk to the wood box on the porch where it would be unloaded in one, thank you very much, trip!

It never occurred to me that it might be faster and less painful if I just made a few quick trips with smaller loads...... One load. One trip. No more. No less.



I did some pruning today in my yard. I giggled and chuckled as I took some larger sticks and made my garbage can taller so I could load it up nice and high. One load. One trip. No more. No less.

Some things you never grow out of.........

9 comments:

  1. Just one more thing we have in common! I was always a pathetic specimen in jr. high, especially. I remember barely making the "acceptable" range on the Presidential Fitness tests we had to do--until the time came to hold my chin above a bar for as long as I could (not chin-ups--just holding). I stayed up...and up...and up...and up...I finally let myself down after passing all the benchmarks. To what do I owe my incredible upper body strength??? JUST ONE LOAD of wood!

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  2. Korrie, That cracks me up!!! Too funny. I did the same thing with the hanging there by the chin too! Kindred spirits.

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  3. I was just thinking of those nights recently! Out in the dark picking up all the mess and laughing about how we just made a mess Coby Smith would be proud of.

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  4. Funny. From the title I thought this post was going to be about trips to Wal-Mart.... ;)

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  5. I do the same thing with so many other things. Load them all in the mental cart - get them done once and for all. It's why I've always hated visiting teaching and mortgage payments - every month, you start all over again. So I stacked the money high and straight and paid that sucker off soon as I could. But there's no way of doing a lifetime's VT by packing it into a month=

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  6. Sarah, He would have been very proud!!! :) Good times.

    Nat, I wish! I wish I could say one time and only one time but I am afraid that I will continue to pull in profits for all of the Wal-Mart share holders for many more years to come.

    Kristen, Laundry! Scrubbing the house! Yes! All of those things. I just want to do it once and be done with it. I was thinking that very thing as I was working out in the yard. I just want to spend a weekend working hard in the yard making it all pretty and then it needs to stay that way!!! The whole summer!!! None of this going back out and doing it all over again in a few days....

    Jenni, :) You'd have really laughed had you seen the temper tantrum I'd throw when that darn wheel barrow would start to tip! My poor mother! She thought she was raising ladies not sailors!!

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  7. My back hurts as I read about your childhood wood-carting travail.

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  8. Ginger, It was good for character building. :D

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