Sunday, October 22, 2006

Stubborn Norwegian "Boys"

I went to my dad's house last Thursday and had so much fun that decided to stayed an extra day. My brother and I had numerous projects planned and actually got most of them accomplished before the weekend ended.

One of our tasks was to help Cousin Danny hook onto a tree across the river and bring it over to his property to cut up for firewood. The tree was dead and dislodged from the earth, but hadn't fallen into the water because it was hung up on the live tree next to it. The plan was to have Danny cast a fishing line across to my brother, Mike, on the other shore. Mike would then hook a rope to the dead tree, tie the fishing line to it and Danny would reel the line in, bringing back the rope. The rope would then be affixed to the bumper of Dan’s vehicle and he would drive forward, bringing the tree with him across the river and onto our shore. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

I was late getting to the rendezvous point and by the time I arrived, the Norwegian boys had determined that the original plan wasn’t going to work. The fishing line broke as it was being reeled in and the rope went into the water. I joined the ensuing brainstorming session and we came up with several plans, none of which worked at all well; although I imagine they were quite humorous to watch. If I hadn’t been so involved in our attempts to put the plans into action, I would have taken pictures. I could have used them for blackmail purposes later on.

Suffice it to say, by the time we figured out that we weren’t going to succeed, both my brother and I were soaked to the waist and things were looking quite bleak. Cousin Danny said he thought stronger fishing line would work and I set off in my car to locate 20# test line. There was none to be had in the town of Absarokee so I drove off to Ole’s Corner Convenience Store (yes, I am not making this up) outside of town and located some 12# test.

Back to the river I went and yes, we did, against all odds, succeed in getting the rope across the water, the tree dislodged from its neighbor and across to the other side without any loss of life or limb (ha-ha).

The tree is at the shore

but the branches caught on the rocks

so of course, they had to go.

And finally, success.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That all looked so much like something that would happen here at Northview that I laughed out loud. Except that your river is a whole lot prettier than ours.

dmmgmfm said...

It really is a pretty little river, I grew up fishing and floating it. We had so much fun, it was good for my cousin. He has had a lot on his plate lately, his mom died a year ago, his dad is in the nursing home with advanced alzheimer's and his brother has leukemia. He needed a chance to unwind.

Unknown said...

I'm glad him and mike got a chance to get out and relax, i can only imagine how stressfull things are there for you guys. I'm thinking of you all and give them all my love

Unknown said...

I'm glad him and mike got a chance to get out and relax, i can only imagine how stressfull things are there for you guys. I'm thinking of you all and give them all my love