The Minnesota Farm Woman

For my birthday, I asked for and received just what I wanted: A handy-dandy garden cart which is kind of like a green metal wagon with sides. It came in a box in about a gazillion pieces and one page of directions. Those of you that know me know that I can do a lot of things as long as those things are not mechanical. I can read music. I can read a map. I can even follow a recipe, but mechanical directions generally do not call for two cups of sifted flour and a teaspoon of vanilla. You might be wondering why I just didn’t ask HIM to do it for me. As a former electrician, HE is much more mechanically inclined than I am, but sometimes in putting things together, he lets a few naughty words slip out, and since it was Sunday, I would rather not hear them. Besides, he wasn’t home. So, on this bright and beautiful spring day, I sat on the front porch and tried to figure out how to “attach rear axle support assembly to rear of bed using M8 x 20 carriage bolts, M8 washers, and nylon nuts.” Yes, there were fuzzy black and white pictures of all the washers, nuts, and bolts that looked exactly the same, and I have no idea what nylon nuts are, since everything was made out of metal. None of the nuts screwed on to the bolts as tightly as I thought they should, and for some reason the “wrench provided in the hardware package” wasn’t provided, so I used my fingers. These kits are always missing something, and by the way, does anyone know what the heck a hex bolt is? After several false starts, I finally gave up altogether on understanding and/or using the directions and just started putting those gazillion parts together, and guess what? It worked! At least it seemed to be working. I stopped before I was finished, because with all that stooping over and the stress of trying not to say naughty words on a Sunday, my back started hurting and I broke a nail, so I came inside for a cup of coffee. The rest of my nails look pretty grubby from attaching the wheels to the axle, which is connected to the strut, connection bar, and support assembly. I am pleased to report that I didn’t get any of them on backwards or upside down, either. I was getting a little concerned, though. Grubby fingernails, not reading directions, and a few (but only a few, I promise) naughty words….I thought I just might be turning into a man. Do you remember the missing wrench? Apparently, it was needed, because my wagon had a few wobbles. My knight in shining armor…er… a blue pickup truck arrived. HE actually knew what a carriage bolt was plus had a ratchet wrench. Since I’m not such a quick learner with a ratchet wrench and it would have taken me an hour, HE tightened everything up, added the handle, and checked all the wheels. I sat back to admire my handiwork. Yes, it sure gave me a warm feeling inside to know that I put that nice little wagon together all by myself.

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In northern Minnesota during my growing-up years, a sure sign of spring was when all the neighborhood kids played marbles. We played in the typical Minnesota spring climate, shooting marbles into gigantic mud puddles and snowbanks. There wasn’t a specific game, we just aimed our marble at another kid’s, and if we hit it, won their marble. That was only if we played “for keeps” or “for keepers”, though. Otherwise it was just for fun. We had cat’s eyes, shooters, steelies, puries, commies, and others in a whole myriad of colors and sizes, carried in fringed leather bags bought from Ott’s Drug Store or sewn by our mothers. The first house that my parents bought in the early 1960’s had a basement full of stuff, including a gallon pickle jug full of old marbles. I could fill my bag whenever I needed to, and I would often grab a handful. It was like reaching into a jar of colorful candy in all colors and flavors. My favorites were the marbles that had animal figurines inside the spheres of glass. There were only a few of those, and I wish I knew what happened to them, but I never took the chance of losing them in a game. When summer arrived, my best friend and I were too busy catching frogs and fish to play marbles, but we often carried a homemade slingshot in our back pockets and instead of using pebbles, we often used marbles. We were only allowed to use those slingshots when we went to the woods, because there were just way too many windows in town. Through the eyes and thoughts of a child, that big jar of marbles should have lasted just about forever and a day, but by the time I was in high school, they were gone. I didn’t feel any sense of loss until years later, when we cleaned out our parents’ house and I found a few, tucked into the back of the junk drawer. Over the years, I have picked up a handful here and there at estate sales, and now I have three small jars of them on my dresser. Looking at them always brings back the memories of Minnesota springtimes and childhood. I have often wondered how much that big jar full of old marbles would be valued at today. It would probably be worth quite a bit of money, but even if it was, I know for certain that it is worth far more than that in memories.

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There I was, plugging along in my own happy little world, when I found out that someone changed the rules. The grammar rules, I mean. I know that most of you probably don’t give two hoots about the rules of commas, spaces, and parentheses, but believe me, if you have an internet blog that is read by people from all parts of the country and beyond and you leave out a comma, someone, somewhere will be sure to let you know about it. I recently learned that it is now all right to remove your Oxford commas when writing a list of things, such as this: Drives, me and crazy. An Oxford comma would be adding the comma after the word me. No, I didn’t much care or even know about Oxford until someone sent me a chastising letter about commas, and I decided to stick with good old Oxford and not to fret about someone who has nothing better to do than write comments to people about punctuation. In my never ending quest to publish a book, I ran across an article that said that it is “old-fashioned” to type two spaces after a period in a sentence. It said that editors actually check that out and toss out or delete manuscripts with the extra space because they wanted new and fresh writers. Fresh? What`s wrong with vintage? Both wine and Farm Women get better as they age. Besides, after a hundred years of my fingers hitting the space bar twice at the end of each sentence, I do it without thinking, and as they say, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Alas, dear friends, my steamy love story about love and chicken coops, and my sinister mystery novel set in Talmoon, Minnesota will have to be published at a later time, once I learn the rules all over again.

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