Outside The Box

Before we built our house on my grandparents’ old farm, I spent many hours wandering the woods and looking. I’d sit and imagine the view through a window or across a porch and absorb the feel of the place. Then the other side of my brain would back‑of‑the‑napkin calculate what it might cost to build a driveway, dig a well, and bring in power. More than one site was rejected because of a stand of trees old enough to have earned respect.

Towns County was a lot quieter back then, but I still wanted a place where we didn’t have to endure the noise of a road or weather the nuisance of a future neighbor. I found a spot with a nice view of a ridgeline, but protected from the weather. The age of the trees suggested that storms tended to skip over, bumping against the higher mountains. In the morning the warming breeze lifted up from the valley, and in the evening the cooler air came down from the mountain, filtered through acres of mountain laurel. The site was a short walk from a serviceable old barn and what I thought was a perfect, south‑facing garden spot.

When I showed my dad the place, he agreed with my reasoning, but when I mentioned the garden, he laughed. “Well,” he said, “we always called that ‘the old rocky hill.’ Pa said there was as much rock there as dirt, but the dirt would grow beans and potatoes. If you make a garden there, you’re going to have a strong back.”

He wasn’t wrong, and those were busy days. Up at 4 AM every weekday to drive from the house we rented in Shooting Creek to open the restaurant. In the summer, after I clocked out at noon, I’d drive to Jackrabbit Campground, dive into the lake, and swim under the oil slick that came from standing next to a griddle for eight hours. When the cabinet maker had a project, I’d head next to the cabinet shop where I worked part‑time. The balance of my time was spent doing tree work. That was big money then, but a fraction of what it costs now.

Weekends and any spare time in between, I made the journey to the eastern fringe of the county where a heavy‑duty Sears Craftsman 7‑hp front‑tine tiller — one that weighed as much as a small car — waited in the barn, along with post‑hole diggers and enough creosote posts and fencing to surround an oval patch about 50 by 40 feet.

On day one I headed out to the cleared garden site to break ground with my post‑hole diggers. I raised the handles high and struck. A loud crack echoed and a jolt vibrated my arms. I had located the first rock of many. The words of Senior Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Frasier came back to me as he quietly spoke to our platoon before ordering us to do pushups until we passed out: “Boys, you’re stupid. But you’re going to be [—] strong.”

I think it was the very next day that Dad showed up and, with a smile, pulled from the back of his truck a 5½‑foot rolled‑steel pry bar. “Thought you might need this,” he said. I’ve still got that bar. The end terminated in an edge when it was new. It’s completely rounded now. Time tries to do that to all of us.

When Tracey said to me the other day, “Can you till me a patch over there so I can plant some sunflowers,” I knew that rocks would be involved. They are not hard to find on this old rocky hill, but Tracey is something of a dowser when it comes to rocks. When she picks a spot for another rose or an azalea, I know there will be a rock the size of a basketball somewhere underneath.

The rock‑solid old Craftsman tiller wore out years ago, but its memory lives on in the wheels I kept. I was glad to have them the first time my new Husqvarna bounced on a rock and bent the wheel frame. The Husky wheels were made to sell. The Craftsman wheels were made to use, and with a bit of drilling and a weld or two, the modern tiller became usable on our rock pile.

Tracey’s sunflower patch still needs work. There is a square patch of roots and rocks there now, and a bit of soil. Good soil. It was hard‑fought, like much of what gets done on this hill. The belt that powers the tines objected to the strain and broke. (The Craftsman had a chain drive, but again, it was made to use.) An hour to find the replacement belt, dig out the old one wedged against the pulley, find the tensioner spring that sprang — same color as the dirt, of course — and convince the dilettante tiller to both crank and run.

Then one of the wheels came off.

I don’t have visions and visitations, but the Creator speaks to each of us in ways we can understand when we bother to listen. A series of moments like the tiller ordeal means stop and listen. So I sat in the sun and let its warmth settle into my shoulders in the cool spring breeze. I relived the collection of memories we share here today. I miss my dad, and I miss my mom, who always tucked an extra sandwich into his cooler for me when he’d cross over the mountain to help me on the old rocky hill. And I’m grateful for those rocks that became walkways, spillways, and retaining walls. Each one made me stronger.