Putting up the sign

We are much relieved to get some rain today. It has been awfully dry here. We had an inch of rain 10 days ago that evaporated quickly in the hot weather. Hilda and I just finished getting landscape cloth between the rows of corn before the first sprinkles. It’s been coming down gently but steadily since 11:00. Terry is hoping for “a good three-tenths.”

The last time we had rain (May 31) a pair of robins lost no time building a nest of mud and grass under the deck. Seriously, they had it done in a day. I haven’t seen any chicks yet. Because I saw a robin feeding a fledgling on the lawn this morning, I assume the birds under the deck must be trying for a second clutch.

Robin under the deck

A few days ago, I watched a robin torment an earthworm. It picked up the worm, dropped it, stabbed at it, picked it up again, repeat. After some minutes it was able to catch the worm in two places so it made a circle, and then the robin flew off with it. Since observing this the first time, I have been able to verify that robins always make a circle of the worm before carrying it away, presumably to feed chicks. If they are eating for themselves, they gobble the worm linearly.

We have an eastern meadowlark that likes to forage in the lawn this year. I’ve never seen one this close to the house. It is so handsome with its yellow shirt and black tie. How cool is that?

This meadowlark forages in the lawn by the house.

I had just finished mowing Tuesday afternoon and was about to go in to take a shower and get ready to go to work for a meeting when Terry said, “Are you done mowing? Let’s put up the sign.”

We had discussed putting up the sign for his tree business over lunch. I knew it was going to happen in the near future. I did not think it was on the agenda for that day. In Terry’s defense, I had only told him about my required meeting at 4:00. I had not mentioned that I was going to try to catch an optional meeting at 2:45. He was eager to get the sign in. Did I really need another meeting in my life? Probably not.

I have mentioned in the past that my husband has a tendency to overbuild. The sign frame, which was what we were going to erect, weighed close to 200 lbs. He had it laid out horizontally on saw horses. The plan was to attach the top of the sign to the bucket of the tractor to lift it up and pull it to the holes that Terry dug the previous day.

Many years ago when I was post-docking with the USDA, I saw a gruesome film during Tractor Safety Training in which a badly secured heavy chain with hooks snapped, flew forward, and brained the tractor driver, killing him instantly. So I was pretty sure I was going to die when Terry got out the heavy chain with the hooks. Terry, not having seen the film, was unconcerned. He put the chain around the tractor bucket and slipped the hook around it to make a loop. He wrapped a strap with hooks around the top of the sign and hooked the strap to the chain. He hopped on the tractor and lifted the bucket while I awaited my fate.

The chain held as the sign rose to a 45° angle. Terry climbed down and instructed me to move the sawhorses and boards from my side while he did the same on his side. He got back in the driver’s seat and started backing up. I did what I could (which was next to nothing) to get the posts lined up with the holes. With the sign as close as he could get it and the bucket as high as it went, Terry and I pushed and jiggled until the ends of the posts were in the top of the holes.

The bucket didn’t go high enough to get the sign vertical, and the posts would not go in the holes at an angle. Also at this point, the tractor was backed up to a sizeable corkscrew willow. Terry explained that we were now going to brace the sign with 2 x 2’s while he disengaged the bucket. Soon I was standing beneath a 6 x 6 cedar beam braced by a puny-looking 2 x 2. I was pretty sure I was going to die when the 2 x 2 snapped and the beam landed on my head.

In reality, what happened is that the sign started moving sideways as soon as Terry released the hook from the bucket. I heaved in the opposite direction while Terry ran to the other side to put in another brace. Very slowly, as I steadied the sign, Terry moved the tractor by inches back and forth, right to left, to get the bucket clear and not mash the corkscrew willow. At one point, we had to lower the sign a little to get the bucket past it. Amazingly, he spared the willow and got the tractor moved out of the way.

The sign frame with corkscrew willow behind it. The blackbird on the top thinks we put it up for him.

In the final step, we each took a post and got the sign dropped in the holes. And it was way off of level. Terry got some temporary braces in, and I was dismissed to go to my meeting. By the time I got home, he had it level. The next day, he put cement around the posts. Next step: paint.