Our day starts with the first chickadees at the feeder in the dim light of early morning. Dan whips up a cabin style breakfast and we sit and share our plans for the day. First, we need to get our other two snow machines out of their summer dormancy. Will offers to get a tree, Dan will make baked beans and I'll get started on the Christmas cookies. Dan and Will proceed to have a conversation about where to put the tree. They discuss hanging it from the ridgepole like its the most normal of everyday practice. "Well we can't hang it over the table", offers Dan. Obviously, wouldn't want it in the way of eating. They wonder if we can hang it over the couch. They both agree that in front of the couch won't work because it will be in the way but over the couch??? I can't believe we're having this conversation although it's pretty inventive thinking outside the box. We have a lot of that around here. But there really isn't enough room anywhere in our cabin kitchen/dining/living room. In the end we decide to put it upstairs. Lots of room to set it up in the traditional way, put presents under it, walk around it to decorate it. That settled, Dan starts his beans. I find the brown sugar and molasses then dig out Pearls recipe for Christmas cookies. I have no idea who Pearl is but Dan's mother took the trouble to write out this recipe and mail it to us and it has proved over the years to be pretty good.
Later I have the Christmas cookie dough wrapped and chilling and have started the peanut butter cookies when I see Dan and Will trudging towards the shed where the snow machines sit waiting, each with some gadget or other in each hand. Half an hour later as I'm putting the first batch of cookies on the cooling rack I see them both walking back and I realize I didn't hear any snow machine.
In they come with statements about where "it" may be. "I know I have one here somewhere", Dan is sure. Dan goes for the box of snow machine stuff under the stairs. Will climbs on a stool and gets down other stuff stored in the nook over the pantry. That gets spread out over the table while Dan heads for the basket of collected stuff on the window sill. Then they are both out to the workroom at the back of the cabin to check out all the stuff out there. Still no screw. "I know I didn't throw it out," insists Dan. I take the second batch of cookies to the cooling rack and notice already six of the first batch of twelve are gone, disappeared without my even noticing as they both went about their rummaging routine.
Finally I ask, "What are you looking for?" since I usually can come up with whatever they can't find. I get a detailed description of a certain screw but it doesn't match any of the dozens of screws we have.
"I know where one is," Dan says pleased with himself. I can tell he thinks he has solved the problem. "We can get one from Mike's machine." I point out that Mike is in Mexico. "But his machine is just two miles down the creek". Even though we know Mike would be glad to help it doesn't feel comfortable. Quiet looks between me and Will change Dan's mind. "I guess we'll get one from Tim".
Tim is a retired aircraft mechanic living three miles down the river. Like a cat he seems to have nine lives. Some he already has used up. We know this because he is such a great story teller. He crashed and burned his plane and walked away from that pretty badly burned but still alive. And he blew off his left hand and lower arm with a shot gun shell and somehow didn't bleed to death. In fact he made his own prosthesis equipped with magnets to hold tools and other innovations and he still lives in the woods with his wife Carol doing pretty much everything he used to do. Like fix everyone's snow machine. He's bound to have a screw and he can provide expert direction in how to put it in right.
In spite of Dan's reluctance to start up the machine without the screw it really is the most efficient way to get the machine to Tim's. So they start it up and off they go.
After about three hours it begins to get dark and with the dark comes more cold. I stoke the fire with fresh wood and light the lanterns. They will come home to warm lantern light in the windows and the smell of wood smoke from the chimney. Its always a nice feeling. I check Dan's beans, which I'm sure by now he would be worrying about, and take the cover off for the last half hour of cooking. I'm beginning to peer out the window every five minutes hoping to see snow machine lights coming over the ridge and down the hill, hoping to hear the snow machine engines. Nothing. Maybe they stopped to have tea with Tim and Carol and have been listening to one of Tim's stories. Or maybe they couldn't get the machines back up the hill from Tim's. Or maybe the engine blew up like Dan anticipated and they never got there. And just as the maybe's began to careen out of control here they come over the ridge.
I can tell as they walk in the door that the machine is fixed. The rest of the days agenda will wait for tomorrow. Dan heads for the stove asking, "Did you check the beans ?"