Chapter 53: Winter Conditions - Chains Mandatory

About the second week in February I received a long distance phone call that really surprised me. It was from a big wig at the correspondence school that I’d complained about and the man was extremely apologetic. According to him the person who had handled Sandy’s and my request to take the course on small business management had been quite inexperienced. The person in question had not realized that the material sent to us had been withdrawn from use and should have been destroyed since it was no longer applicable. He advised me that there was a refund cheque in the mail to us and as well the school was sending us the proper materials for the course at no expense. The man even thanked me for my accurate critique of the course material I’d seen previously and for calling their attention to the fact that the wrong study material was in use. The man was so apologetic and so effusive that I had a hard time getting a word in edgewise, but finally I managed to get off the phone.

I thought I’d best call my lawyer right away, just in case this was a snow job, but Cyrus soon eased my worries on that account.

“Actually, Chris, the man refers to himself as the school Principal and he asked me to approach you to assess the new course for a rather generous payment,” Cyrus laughed softly. “It seems he reviewed a copy of your test results as was extremely impressed with what you had written, then with the critical letter in which you pointed out the faults of the old course.”

“Well, I talked to him and I hope he got the idea I wasn’t interested in any further courses from his school. They had their chance and wasted a month of my time and I can’t afford to screw around with any more of their mickey duck courses. I’ve got far too much work to do as it is. If they’re offering to pay someone to go over the new course they’re sending out, why not have him ask Mom and Dad to look it over? After all, they’re the people who taught me what little I know.”

“But the man has apologized for their mistake and offered restitution?”

“Cyrus, apologies are cheap and the cost of the course is really just peanuts. The man is sending me a cheque for the cost of the course and a copy of a duplicate course, which he isn’t even certain is corrected. That is all he mentioned to me, and your mention of his offer is a second hand conversation, which sounds to me like a shyster’s trick. To me the man and his school are nothing more than a waste of time, but I have a ranch to run and time to me is money. You don’t seem to understand that I feel that crook wasted almost a month of Sandy’s and my time and we cannot get that time back. In that time I could probably have repaired a few thousand dollars worth of equipment, but now I may have to repair broken equipment at a time when I can ill afford it or else I’ll have to rent equipment from someone else. His waste of my time in January is going to cost me money next July or August. If he calls you again, pass that on to him and you might mention that he should think about reimbursing all the people who have taken that crappy course for both their time and their money.”

“Chris, I think you’re being slightly unreasonable.”

“Cyrus, you don’t seem to understand just how busy I am. Do me a favour and review the file you have on me and on the Bender clan as a whole, then have a look at our influence on the community. We have that influence because of our reputation and that reputation is based on two facts; one that we treat people honestly, and two that we work like beavers to beat any deadline we promise to meet. Grampa Bender had the faith to ask me to care for the property and the people of this extended family and I’ve done my best to follow in his footsteps. I take the task he passed to me quite seriously and I’ve extended that attitude to include a large number of friends and neighbours. You were mentioning the other day how much people seem to trust me to make good decisions, but you aren’t listening to me right now. With that in mind, and before I say something both of us might regret, I’m getting off this phone. I’ll talk to you when I’ve cooled down and you’ve had time to think.”

I had just hung up the phone and was taking a deep breath when Sandy set a cup of coffee on my desk.

“What was all that about?” she asked quietly.

“I just can’t seem to get Cyrus to understand how much I hate the time we wasted on that stupid correspondence course we did in January,” I held up a finger and thumb almost touching each other. “He had me so angry that I was about that close to telling him I wanted a new lawyer.”

“But he’s a very good lawyer, isn’t he?”

“He’s an excellent lawyer, but he seems to think that all I do is sit on the front porch and twiddle my thumbs, watching the snow fall or the grass grow,” I grumbled. “I don’t think he has any idea how hard we work most of the time.”

“You should invite him out to work on the haying next summer,” she smiled wickedly.

“No, he’d die of exhaustion and we’d be held to blame for his death,” I had to grin.

Just then the phone rang. It was Dad.

“Our lawyer just called. He hardly had a chance to explain why he was calling before your mother lost her temper, chewed his ear off by telling him he had no fucking idea how the real world worked, then hung up on him and told me to call you. So, do you know what’s going on?”

“Oh, it all goes back to that correspondence course Sandy and I took last month, which turned out to be a waste of our time. I made the mistake of getting Cyrus involved by asking him to check a letter I’d written to the correspondence school when I complained that the course was worse than useless. The guy who runs the school contacted me and they’re refunding our money and sending out a replacement course which they want me to critique. Cyrus can’t seem to understand that I don’t have the time to waste on it and to be honest, he pissed me off by being so damn obtuse. He seems to think we have time to burn.”

“I have noticed that he doesn’t think we work very hard,” Dad commented. “Do we need to look for a new lawyer.”

“No, but I certainly thought about it,” I had to laugh that Dad knew me so well. “It annoys me that most folks seem to think we laze around and do nothing all winter long.”

“Well, there are times when we don’t do much more than the chores, but there are other times when we work our buns off for sixteen or eighteen hours a day for weeks on end. Town folks never seem to notice those times.”

“That’s because during the times when we’re busy we don’t go to town, not unless we absolutely have too. Then if we do go to town when we’re busy, we rush in and out so fast no one sees much of us.”

“I think I’ll go to town today,” Dad frowned deeply. “I’ll take along a copy of the time sheet that Corrinna made out for the month of August since it lists what she and Wil did during the month. I’ll just happen to mention that Corrina and Wil are only two of the six people who work on this farm and that right now you and Sandy are alone on the ranch.”

“But that’s August, not now, and they were working on a farm, not a ranch.”

“Just how many tons of hay did you two and the two McAdam boys take off the fields in August last year?” he snorted. “Then what if I mention that road you guys built, or the equipment shed and workshop you put up? Besides, how many horses and cows are you feeding right now and how many machines have you rebuilt in the last while? I have a very good idea of how much work you do, but does Cyrus?”

“Okay, okay. Maybe you can convince him that I stay busy and that I earn my money, but I don’t want to know anything about your discussion with him right now. Why don’t you tell him that I’m having thoughts about finding a new lawyer and ask him what effect he thought my yanking our business out of his hands would have on his business in Mountview? Tell him I still have a copy of that letter I wrote about that correspondence school and I could easily add his recent advise to that, then send it off to the newspapers. Ask him how that would look to people. Or don’t do any of that, right now I really don’t care one way or the other. I don’t want to talk to him or even think about him until I’m in a better frame of mind.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to you in a day or two then,” Dad said and hung up.

Since I was in a bit of a grumpy mood I went out to the shop and found a job that required me to do some hard physical labour. I straightened out the bent and twisted metal plates of the old manure scoop which fit the front end loader. It was actually rather satisfying to heat a section of bent metal, then hammer it back into shape and swinging a sledge hammer let me work out my frustrations.

I was certainly in a better mood by the time I was done evening chores and sitting down to listen to the news and weather, but that was hardly finished when the phone rang. Sandy answered it, but handed it to me.

“It’s Beth, she wants to talk to you,” she looked at me with slightly raised eyebrows.

“Hi, Beth. What’s up?”

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know, what am I supposed to have done now?”

“You bought me a truck, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“A pickup, a real neat little pickup truck, with new tires and stock racks and everything.”

“What pickup truck?”

“One that looks like your car, the same colour and the same make, just a different year and style.”

“I’m sorry, you’re losing me somehow. Just where did this pickup come from?”

“It was at school, at lunch and Mr. Dolens came into home room with a set of keys and said someone had given him the instructions to give me a pickup truck, but he wouldn’t say who. He even gave me the ownership papers and all, right there in class in front of everyone I know. The bill of sale says it was paid for in cash, so that’s no darn help.”

“Well, then I’d say whoever gave it to you wants to be anonymous,” I chuckled softly. “I do wonder why you’d think it was me though? I do think it’s a neat stunt, so if you find out who it was tell me, huh?”

“I was sure it was you because it’s the kind of thing you’d do and you’re the guy who seems to be in the middle of all the neat stuff,” she squawked in frustration. “Nobody seems to know who did it though and it’s driving me buggy. Mr. Dolens is no help either, he just laughs when I ask him anything about it.”

“Well, I can’t seem to help you much, so what are you going to do?”

“Right now? I guess I’ll drive over to George’s and show his parents. I don’t know.”

“Well, I wouldn’t come up here tonight if I were you. The wind seems to be coming up, there’s some snow in the air and the weather people are forecasting an incoming storm front.”

“Oh great, I’ve been given a nice truck that’ll be fun to drive and a blizzard blows in. Thanks for nothing, Big Brother, that’s no help at all. Now it looks like I’ll be parking the truck somewhere out of the weather for the night.”

“Well, why don’t you take it down to the big equipment shed and polish it up or something?”

“There’s no point,” she giggled. “It’s already polished within an inch of it’s life. It looks brand new. Anyway, I’m gonna run. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye Beth,” I grinned as I hung up.

“So what was that about?” Sandy asked.

“It seems Frank Dolens handed Beth the keys to a pickup truck today and wouldn’t tell her who paid for it. She was certain it had to be me.”

“So was it? Do I have to hide a big cheque from showing up in this month’s accounts?”

“Sandy, the last cheque I wrote was at the hardware store for about eighty six bucks. The cheque before that was the big one at the auction. And for your information, the only thing I’ve added to my monthly account at Frank Dolens’ in the last while is some parts for the engine of the big Ford truck and some paint that Art delivered. I’ll be honest after those two auctions, I don’t think the checking account could cover the cost of a road worthy bicycle, let alone a fancy truck,” I sighed then, thinking that this darn white lie was getting too darn complicated. “And, before you ask, I didn’t trade Frank either a cow or a horse for a truck and I didn’t offer to do a favour for him, or anything of that sort either. Okay?”

“Okay, please don’t get annoyed about my questions,” Sandy grinned. “It’s just that Beth called me before you came in. She thought it might have been Jess, Jean and I, but when I denied it, she decided it had to be you. She said she’d call you and ask, but thought you might trick her, so she asked me to double check for her. I told her I thought it might be something Carissa and Corrinna dreamed up.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Carissa likes to be in the limelight too much for that. She wouldn’t hide any gift, instead she’d broadcast it to the world.”

Then the phone rang again and I picked it up.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Chris, it’s Carissa. Is Sandy somewhere close?”

“Gee, were your ears burning, we were just talking about you,” I chuckled. “Here’s Sandy.”

So I handed the phone to Sandy and thought I’d do a last check around outside. It was blowing hard and gusting at times, so I turned on the yard lights and went out to check that the snow ropes were all still in place and while I was out I checked the animals again. When it came to winter blizzards I believed in the old adage; ‘Better safe than sorry.’ Everything was okay, so I was back inside in a very short time.

That blizzard set in and we ended up being stuck for three days as it blew and snowed, but the day the blizzard broke we got hit by a chinook for a few hours. While it was warm I managed to plow out most of snow in the yard and even cleared the few drifts that had formed on the way up the hill. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to plow the section from the top of the hill out to the municipal road. That night the temperature dropped, so the wet snow drifts soon developed a solid crust, then temperature remained well below freezing for a week. Then just to make things interesting we had a mini- blizzard blow through, dropping six inches of fresh snow on top of the ice. That really put a kink into everyone’s travel plans, because fresh snow on top of an icey crust can even make walking dangerous if you aren’t exceptionally careful where and how you place your feet.

I just love Alberta weather, it’s never boring. Yes, I am being somewhat sarcastic, because at times like that one, the weather makes life rather inconvenient.

The wheeled tractors that I had at the ranch weren’t really up to handling the crust on the heavy drifts and Dad’s D4 Cat had ended up down at the home farm, but my D4 wasn’t repaired yet. That meant we were stuck at home, which wasn’t really a problem, after all we had plenty of supplies, but if we wanted to go anywhere we had to use snowmobiles. Neither Sandy nor I were really ready to fight Mother Nature though and we both had ample work to do, so we could stay busy. Which meant that after doing my normal chores, I worked in my workshop, while Sandy found things to do in the house. Now I don’t mean to imply that she was a total ‘house mouse’ because she wasn’t. If I needed a hand doing anything outside, she was ready and willing to help, but she just didn’t like cold weather, so if she had a choice she stayed inside. Not only that, but Sandy loved our new forced-air furnace that kept the cabin at a toasty 72 degrees fahrenheit even on the coldest days of the winter.

While we were somewhat isolated by nature’s version of a skating rink, we certainly weren’t cut off from anyone. The phone still worked, so did the CB radio and, as I’ve mentioned before we each had snowmobiles. In fact as far as snowmobiles were concerned, I think every farmer or rancher in the area had one or more of them, and each person seemed to have his own favourite brand. Which meant that while we didn’t get out much, other people did drop by to see us and at times our front yard looked like a used snowmobile parking lot. One Saturday morning I happened to notice all the different brands parked in our yard. There were three machines made by ‘Ski-Doo, ‘ an ‘Aloulette, ‘ two by ‘OMC, ‘ a ‘Snowcruiser, ‘ a ‘Starcraft, ‘ and even a ‘John Deere’ sitting there that day. That didn’t include Sandy’s machine or mine either, they were parked in the carport next to the house.

There were about ten visitors in the house that day and all of them were quite young, so it was a madhouse. That was also the day Beth came up to me and gave me a huge hug, then grinned as she beamed up at me.

“I know it was you,” she declared. “I even figured out how you did it. You paid cash, you bugger, and you took it out of your old personal bank account, the one that you’ve had since you were a kid, so it wouldn’t show up on the regular ranch accounts. But, now I have a favour to ask of you.”

“Well, I’m glad you think you’ve figured out some mystery or the other and I don’t mind being made to sound generous, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I laughed. “Now just what have I supposedly done and what is this favour you’re asking me?”

“I’m talking about my pickup truck and you know it!” she giggled. “But, I’d like to repaint my old horse trailer that I left parked here last year, only it needs some work done to it first. I want it to be just as clean and neat as the truck. I can do most of the work, but I might need some help. I’d like to do it here since you’ve got the best workshop around and I know I’m going the need help doing some of the work, especially with the painting.”

“Yeah, I’ll help you do that, but you’ll have to do most of the work and buy both the parts and paint you need. I’ll just show you how to do the work and help if you get stuck, okay?”

“Oh yeah, that’s just what I want. I’m going to fix it up nice and paint it so it matches my truck so when I take a horse or two to a show everyone will notice,” then she ran off, almost bouncing as she raced away.

I just shook my head and grabbed a cup of coffee, then went to sit down. I’d hardly gotten comfortable and had a sip of coffee before Wil came in and sat down near me and smiled rather tentatively.

“Hi, Chris, are you in a good mood?” he asked.

“Well yeah, I think so, why? What’s wrong now?”

“Well, Dad and I were wondering if you’ve done much work on your D4 yet?”

“Nope, and I’m not sure that was the best deal in the world right now. I was hoping to get a lot more work done on D4 this winter so I could use it in the spring, but everything else is taking up my time. Why, do you want to buy it from me for parts to use on yours? Considering that your D4 is in a lot better shape, that’d be a bit silly, wouldn’t it?”

“Actually right now, that’s exactly what we’d like to do. You see we had a little accident late yesterday afternoon,” he sighed deeply. “Before this storm blew in Dad and I were working on our old chisel cultivator, changing the chisel blades. To make the job easy we’d flipped it over, upside down and we’d just finished when the storm caught us, so we didn’t get a chance to flip it back right side up. Then yesterday I was running the D4, taking the heavy drifts and Dad was running the front end loader, cleaning up the lighter stuff. I was clearing out the front of the equipment shed since the drifts were deep there, and Dad was working on the west side when he accidentally hooked the loader bucket under the edge of the cultivator. Something distracted him as he lifted the bucket, so he wasn’t watching what was going on as closely as he should have. I happened to be plowing past just he lifted that damn cultivator from one side, then it caught an edge and flipped over, landing right side up and pointed side down. But, all those chisel points dropped right on the front end of the D4.”

Wil took another deep breath and shook his head. “Another five feet and I’d have been there when all those spike teeth came down and those damn things made a helluva mess of the old cat, but what they’d have done to me isn’t something I want to think about. Needless to say that cultivator screwed the D4 up but good. First off, the points tore up the hood something fierce, but they dropped further than that. They did a hell of a pile of damage to various engine parts, not the block, but other things. Right off the bat I saw they had busted the water pump and a rad hose, so I knew we had troubles. The D4’s engine was still running though, so we hooked a chain on the cultivator frame and Dad lifted it with the loader while I backed away and got clear. I was able to drive the D4 inside the equipment shed before it overheated, but it left a trail of antifreeze on the snow and we had to clean that up right away, so it wouldn’t kill any of our dogs or cats. I’m not sure that I was all that much help about then though, I was shaking too much.”

“Holy cow, I’ll just bet you were pretty darn upset about then,” I chuckled.

“Oh, I was,” Will managed a wry grin. “I think I accused Dad of trying to kill me, amongst other things, but he was just white as a ghost so I knew it was an accident. Anyway, we got the D4 inside, then started to look it over. What a mess! The hood and the engine covers are destroyed, but that’s nothing compared to the other crap that happened. One of the spikes wiped out the cast iron clutch bracket on the pup engine and even left a dent in the steel casing that covers the flywheel ring gear. Another spike cracked the air intake manifold and a third broke the water pump. Of course that shifted and tore one of the rad hoses, then knocked the fan into the rad, which wiped out a circular pattern in the rad core,” he paused and looked at me somewhat hopefully. “To make a long story short, instead of going on a wild hunt for parts, we thought perhaps you’d sell us the old D4 you bought and we could use what we want, then part out anything we don’t need. We’d be quite willing to pay you what you paid for it and we’ll split any profit we make on selling spare parts. Besides that we’d even commit to doing some extra work with one of us to run the cat, if and when you need any cat-skinning done next spring.”

“That sounds reasonable to me, but you’re going to have a job getting it down home right now, aren’t you? Between all this ice and drifted snow you’re going to have a hard time getting a flat deck truck up here at this time of the year. There are three and four foot drifts up around Matt and Carissa’s places, and that fancy gate we put in is almost buried, then who knows what’s happened on the county road coming up the long hill.”

“Well, actually we got through to Charlie Engels on the phone and he’s going to be coming out this way to work on the Hydro’s access road for them anyway. Jason Dumfries hasn’t had electricity for a week and Hydro gave Charlie the job of clearing the road to the break in the hydro lines, which is up on one of the hills northwest of here. Somehow a pole got wiped out and they have to get in there with a pole truck, so Charlie’s cat will be going right past here on the way. Then while the cat is clearing the road out to Jason’s place, Charlie can have his truck driver come here, load out your D4 and deliver it right to our yard.”

“Hmm, so when is Charlie’s crew going to be starting the job?”

“Charlie’s cat operator will be starting on the county road on Tuesday. He’ll probably be at the top of the hill by sometime Wednesday, so I’d say Charlie or his driver should be here sometime about the middle of the week, depending on other commitments of course.”

“Oh man, and I was hoping to get at some other work this week,” I sighed. “Oh well, getting rid of that beast is probably a good thing, but I’m going to insist that you take the whole rig. I want it completely out of here, dozer blade and all, because I’m not going to start keeping things that aren’t useful to my operation, not unless they have sentimental value in some way.”

“Yeah, Dad and I were saying the same thing just the other day, so we’re going to clean up down home too. Now if you’d like, I’m not doing much for the rest of the day, maybe we can draft some of these bodies to help and get the D4 ready to move out next week.”

“Heck, it’s parked in the unheated equipment shed. It’s going to take a day or two to even heat the block enough to start the engine, just so I can load the darn thing,” I snorted. “Then I’m going to have to hope I don’t throw a track as we’re driving it onto the trailer.”

“You mean the engine runs?”

“Oh yeah, I drove it onto the trailer in Olds and into the equipment shed when I got home, but I was praying that I wouldn’t throw a track as I moved it because the track rollers are worn so badly. The engine runs well enough, but I don’t know how badly worn it is. The rest of the machine is in rough shape too. The track is sloppy and the track rollers are badly worn, which is why I went out and bought the lathe and the welder. I was planning to pull all the rollers, build up the surface with hard metal rod, then machine them to spec. That alone is probably a two or three week job, which is what I had originally counted on doing this winter, but I suppose instead I can start to swap out the engine in the two-ton, because that should be done as well.

“Actually, I was counting on using that cat and doing a lot of work up on the half section up near the road next spring. At one point that whole half section was plowed and planted, back when the Frenchmen owned it, but that was before Grampa Bender bought it. They used to have their sod shacks right where Matt and Carissa built their new houses, which is how I knew there was drinkable water available if they drilled a well. First I was going to use the brush hog and chop down all the scrub brush and weeds in that area, then I was going to run over it with the Cat and rip through it with a subsoiler. I figure if a guy breaks through the hardpan, maybe that’ll stop the rain and snow melt from running off so quickly and it’ll absorb into the soil. Then I perhaps can grow hay up there and make the land worth something.”

“But what about the new lease agreement with the government, doesn’t it say you can’t do that sort of thing to large areas? Isn’t there some big percentage that needs to remain just as it is, so the land is almost completely natural on the whole lease,” Wil frowned.

“On the lease, yeah,” I grinned. “But you see Grampa Bender bought that half-section of land from the original homesteaders when they moved out, and I bought that land from him last year. So I own that half-section free and clear, not just the part where the McAdam boys and Carissa each have their leases. I can farm that land in whatever way I want, as long as I don’t cause problems on the leased land, and don’t disturb any of my neighbours.”

“What neighbours?” he laughed. “There’s a road on the east side and your lease on the west and south, then there’s a hill and a big coulee to the north, but that’s all on government land.”

“Well, I’m working with the district agriculturist and the hydroelectric company on the project, just to be certain I don’t tread on any toes. For instance, I think this winter is already proof of what those caragana hedges can do in place of snow fences. Everything else is drifting in badly, but our section of road is relatively clear, so I want to plant more caragana hedges along the road, probably about fifty or a hundred yards back from each side. I’d like to run that hedge from the top of the hill all the way to Matt and Carissa’s leases, and if I work it right I might get some government or even hydro funds to help cover the cost of the plants I’ll need to do it. On top of that I may end up getting government help with the cost of the grass seed I want to plant on the half section. According to the district agriculturist there’s a good chance they’ll go for it, especially if I use native grass seed, which is mostly fescues and grasses of that sort and those are good enough for a hay crop. If that works out, I might even scatter some alfalfa and clover seed on the area in a few years, but we’ll see about that.”

“Man, you are working every possible angle, aren’t you?” Wil chuckled.

“Hey, why not use any goverment freebie or service you can get?” I grinned. “Let’s be honest, we pay a lot of taxes, so we might as well take advantage of whatever services the government provides. If I can milk a little bonus out of them, it’s better than seeing it go into some pork barrel project proposed by some crooked politician.”

We chatted a while more, then Wil and I, followed by Tom, George and Matt, wandered out to the equipment shed and checked over the old D4. Wil wanted to be certain they could use the parts before they went to all the work of moving it, and I didn’t want to fool around with it if it wasn’t a workable idea either. It was tucked in a dark corner though, so the guys set out to shift the old manure spreader and the discs that were blocking it in, because Wil thought we could drag the D4 back into better light. It was fairly warm inside the equipment shed that day though, so I thought it might be possible to run the engine and move it on it’s own, but first I checked over the oil and antifreeze levels, then made certain it had fuel.