about that tub

I’m certain you’re as excited as I am about my San Francisco Giants acquiring

Carlos Beltran from the New York Mets.  Beltran debuted as the American League

Rookie of the Year in 1999.  He has 295 home runs in his career and was one of the

game’s premier hitters not too long ago.  At 34, he’s no longer a player you could

build a team around, and he may just be a ringer for the rest of the season.  But,

oh, how the woeful Giant offense needs him.

None of this great fortune, however, explains the bathtub in our front yard:

You might remember the tub from this post.  Until a few days ago, it was on the far

side of the creek that flows past the house.  Since Jude and I had no plans to bath

there over a wood fire, we decided that the tub could best serve us by catching the

rain off the new chicken coop.  We put away our garden hoses for the winter, so a

source of fresh water near the girls then would help a lot.

The tub is cast iron but not full-sized, so it wasn’t too difficult to ease into the creek

bed — the ferns and salmonberry bushes slowing its descent.   I actually floated it

down the stream until it took on too much water through the drain.  But even then

it was easy to push to a spot on the near bank where I could wrestle it onto two

loading planks.

Then I attached a towing strap to it and pulled it out of the creek with the F-150,

leaving this hole in the vegetation:

The tub was a bit unwieldy.

But it went straighter after that.  And I have to tell you, it’s pleasingly weird to look

in your rear view mirror and see a tub chasing you.  Kind of like a Freudian dream

in real life.