A friend of mine called yesterday to say he needed a bit of welding done. Seems he’d broken a cross member on his snow blade and was concerned about getting it sorted. There’s no snow in the immediate forecast, but I guess he figured better get it taken care of before there is. I looked at it as insurance…seems the better prepared you are, the less likely the thing you’re worried about will happen.
Got up early today and tossed the Cebora in the back of the wife’s SUV, then drove up to the farm. It’s a pretty lightweight MiG unit, so I was concerned about being able to make the repair. No need…after cutting out the rusted/broken bit with an old acetylene torch, we welded in a new piece of 3/16-inch angle bar that looked more than up to the task. I hadn’t welded anything in probably fifteen years, and have rarely used this Cebora. I can confidently say I am the master of some of the ugliest welds ever…keep the grinder handy.
He lives up on a ridge just east of Taneytown with a great view of the Blue Ridge. It’s cold up there, probably one of the coldest spots in the state. He heats the house with propane, keeps his thermostat nice and low. His wife is a saint in my books…most women wouldn’t put up with that. Thankfully, he’s got a big old milkhouse heater he uses in his shop which kept the hands limber.
I love the austere look of winter around here, the more desolate the better. You can see stuff you can’t see when the trees are leafed out and the brush is thick. That said, a bit of the melancholy settles over me after the holidays, perhaps a bit of Churchill’s “black dog”, but a drive in the country goes a long way to alleviate it.
With the exception of the ring-neck pheasant, much of the wildlife of my youth are again plentiful. We’re up to our neck in white-tailed deer, fox, turkeys, rabbit, and a host of others. The song-bird population seems a bit depleted, and there are various theories on that, one being the explosion in the population of feral cats. Not sure about that. Meanwhile, we have the recent addition of bald eagles and coyote.
On the way home I drove through Uniontown, a small village halfway between Taneytown and Westminster. Uniontown was an up-and-coming place prior to the Civil War, but when the Western Maryland Railroad bypassed them, the town became a backwater for economic development. I suspect it’s the same size today it was in 1870. The Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac bivouacked on the eastern outskirts of Uniontown for a couple days prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, making a hasty march to the field on July 1, 1863. Major General Hancock, the Corps commander, rode ahead and managed to stabilize the Union line at Cemetery Hill, halting the rout that was Meade’s army’s first day at Gettysburg.
Meanwhile, the geese are still on the move, not that this Red Angus gives a damn…he’s cold and sick of standing in mud up to his knees. I don’t blame him…heading home for a pot of coffee and some football.
Healey
