I’ve been using a girl grill drill all day

In the wonderful cacophony of the Oscar Tango early on a Friday night (before people start to turn into jungle aminals) someone at our table was talking about buying a grill, you know, one of those things that you cook food on when your power is out or any time. The GG said, “Oh, I’ve been been using a girl all day.” At least that’s what *I* thought he said. I was pretty sure that wasn’t true but you never know 👀 He texted me a pic at the end of the day from flat on his back on the couch that it was “desd” around here. I did not see a girl (or a grill or a drill in the pic). What he *actually* said was that he had been using a *drill* all day. Okay, that sounds more like the GG.

And so here is what he built today. It is a cart that will haul a chainsaw along the North Country Trail. I am calling it a Chainsaw Cozy. Maybe he could test it out in the mini-woods behind our house this weekend and *maybe* he could chainsaw a couple of the big old logs that are across the path. We won’t talk about the safety rules that might prohibit him from doing this. It’s okay. I can easily step over the current logs. A number of years ago I had to create a detour around a particularly difficult set of logs. It was fun for a while. I found a “door” leading to a “secret path”. Eventually I got sick of it and I think the GG finally went out there and mitigated the situation with my (late) brother’s malfunctioning chainsaw or maybe it was one he borrowed from Houghton Lake. Nowadays the GG has his own chainsaw.

The school district (which owns the woods) is lackadaisical about maintaining the woods. Trees fall down in there frequently enough that I sometimes wonder why I feel safe walking through there. Sometimes somebody comes out and moves them off the path, mostly not. I am all for leaving trees that fall in a forest alone. It’s part of the forest life cycle. But this is a *very* small woods where people walk (and walk their dogs), I mean it is probably a five minute walk at the most and I think the trail should at least remain clear. Occasionally the school PTO organizes a “work crew” to come out and put wood chips down on the trails. This is wonderful but it would be more wonderful if they would prioritize putting wood chips on the parts of the trail that flood when it’s wet.

On the other hand, the school district has a hissy fit about dog poop and once upon a time they PADLOCKED the woods shut. I was only a year or two past being the PTO treasurer at the school so I still knew some folks over there and I emailed them to ask WTF? I was forwarded a response from the [new] principal saying that we couldn’t have dog poop in the woods because there was “science” going on in there. I called b*llsh*t on that for a number of reasons but mainly that school kids are almost never in the woods on supervised school missions (science or not) and I don’t *ever* encounter dog poop in there. I’m sure dogs *do* poop in there but they don’t poop on the trail, they poop where all of the *wild* aminals who live there poop. I guess the principal had forgotten about squirrel poop and raccoon poop and opossum poop and rabbit poop and bird poop and deer poop and feral cat poop and the occasional drunk or homeless human poop. And what else? Anyway, my PTO contact wrote the principal a nice polite email reminding her that “our neighbors” like to walk in the woods and the padlocks were soon removed from the woods.

Nowadays, a bunch of responsible dog owners have set up a system where there are always plastic bags available for dog poop and a trash can is at the entrance to dump them in. I love that they are doing that but really, dog poop has never been a problem. Don’t tell the school (or my neighbors) but when Bandit or Ernie and Alfred were visiting and I walked them in the woods, I never picked up their damn poop or even paid attention to whether or not they were doing the deed.

And on that note, g’night!

One Response to “I’ve been using a girl grill drill all day”

  1. Margaret Says:

    I absolutely hate stepping in dog poop, but human poop is worse. (as I discovered to my disgust) Some principals love to sit in their offices and dictate memos and try to look strong and in charge by making ridiculous rules. I’ve worked under a few of them, but fortunately most of my administrators have been reasonable. The guy the district imported from Texas(and whom we ran out of there in under a year!) was horrible though. He had no clue!