cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I Built A Bridge Today I built a bridge. Ok, half a bridge. But it was some serious engineering, for a guy working with a hatchet, pocket knife, and 50 feet of light cord. So last week I cut and blazed that new trail out on my parents' land. Today I brought Ida out there with me with the intent to spend the whole day fishing for carp. Obviously this was not going to work well. A 6 year old does not stay on task for very long. She worked on her technique with casting an adult fishing rod and then I taught her how to use the cast net. And then we somehow ended up spending hours building a bridge over the creek that meanders between the two ponds, right where the trail that I cut comes out in front of that creek. I hauled easily a ton of stone down from a cairn of rocks up on the hillside that was probably around 150 years old or more. Good thing it was uphill. Actually, since we were building in a creek bottom, pretty much everything was uphill. I built 3 stone piers to foot the bridge on. The one in the center is about 30 inches high and involved some serious motherfucking rocks being moved. I had to sink them down in the muck and mud and build on to them. Then I went up into the woods on the opposite slope and looked for standing dead cedar trees to cut down. I hacked off the remaining stubs of limbs and dragged 3 great old trunks down to use as the main structural members. Like joists. I laid them across the 2 branches of the creek over the stone piers. Then I took some of the rope that I keep in my pack at all times for this sort of thing and I taught Ida how to lash several sections of oak saplings across the main beams in order to tie them together. Now we have a serviceable bridge over the first branch of the creek, but I've got to lay another 3 sections of beam across the other branch and then cover the whole thing with more cut sections of oak saplings for planking. I want to figure out a hand railing on at least one side. As it stands, one can get across but I can do much better than this. Now Ida knows how to build a simple bridge. And she knows how to melt the ends of a frayed nylon cord together with a Zippo lighter to keep it from fraying. I came home and Ida and I were telling Trish about what we'd done, and suggested that she and Harry come with us tomorrow to finish it (no school tomorrow, Columbus day). And she just got so sour on the whole thing and was trying to convince everyone not to bother. Seriously, bitch. Building a bridge out of the natural materials on hand to get over a creek to a good fishing spot that will help to feed us. What, exactly, have you EVER done in the last few years that was even a fraction so worthwhile as this? Oh, you need to sit on your ass at home and read shitty slash fiction and watch some retarded fucking Korean cartoon to tiddle about it with your friends. Your life, and the things you fill it with, are stupid, vapid and pointless. She is so fucking dull and unadventurous. What the fuck was I thinking? Why can I not have a woman around who is all about building the fucking bridge, and a tree house over it, and a fort and a fire pit and camping out right there? Is this all women? Seriously, is it? It can't be. It mustn't be. I hope Ida won't be like that when she grows up. 9:24 p.m. - 2010-10-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||