Back in 2000, when any excuse for a road trip would do even with deer abounding in record numbers state-wide, Sven and Ula drove to Tuff Rubber Balls for free seed corn to plant and feed the deer that winter.
“Yah, Ula, dis ‘ere looks like vulf feces,” observed Sven from the open drivers door of his old Ford pickup as he hung from its steering wheel. He was looking at several deer-hair infused cylindrical objects with tapered ends, piled one upon the other on the one-lane gravel road through Thief Lake Refuge.
“Scat Sven!” said Ula from the passenger side of the truck. “Scat!”
“I’m not t’rough lookin’ at ‘em yet. Is dere a car coming?” Sven said perturbedly, his right foot hooked under the clutch pedal should he lose his grip hold on the steering wheel.
“No Sven, feces is also called scat,” explained Ula, who says he knows just a little about a lot of things rather than a lot about a little, thereby exuding the impression of great intelligence rather than having to prove it all the time at the Wannaska Cafe.
He and Ula were returning home to Palmville from ‘Tuff Rubber Balls,
Minnesoter.’ (Thief River Falls, Minnesota) where they had picked up
some free seed corn from a deer hunters association. “Vulf poop 'as all dose different names?” asked Sven, still eyeing the textured grey matter laying along the edge of the one lane road along the south side of Thief Lake Refuge. “Vy’s dat, den?”
It was a rare occurrence when he and Ula made two road trips together in a week’s time. The timing must have suited Ula because it sure wasn’t Sven’s company. Sven is a bit on the gassy-side, if you know what I mean—and Ula, is such a proper guy. (That’s primarily why they only take one trip per year.)
“Any excrement is termed feces or scat, Sven,” said Ula quite prepared for a long stay on that remote stretch of rural road far from any farmhouse, roadside inn, or thru-way traffic; just the kind of road he and Sven liked to travel the older they got. They had their usual assortment of beef jerky, summer sausage, sardines, crackers, lefse, longhorn colby cheese, salted cashews, navel oranges, seedless grapes, venison pepper sticks, a loaf of Jerry Solom’s homemade pressure-cooker boat bread; 2 lbs. of butter, 1-gallon whole farm-fresh milk, 1-1/2 dozen farm fresh eggs; a no-stick frying pan, a spatula, a can of Sterno, and a free sample case of Jerry Solom’s homemade-best-when-served-and-consumed-at room-temperature beer. A light ale: “With a whack like a mallet, yet kind to your palate,” Solom said.
“Ve’re talkin’ ‘bout ‘excrement’ ’ere,” Sven said impatiently, hoisting himself back into a sitting position, his face and head all beet-red from hanging upside down for so long. “I tell you Ula, sometimes you never ‘ear a verd I say! Vulf poop ‘as all dose different names—vy’s dat?”
Catching his breath, Sven said, “I’m kinda ‘ungry vur some reason. Is dere any more of dose pepper stick sausages I got from Palm’s Town Pump fame in Hoyt Lakes, Minnesoter? Dose gut-casing viener-like t’ings dere…Yah. Cut vun from da string dere vit’ your Swiss Army knife. . . Good ‘nuf, tok.”
“Vulf ’poop’ as you so eloquently describe it Sven, is excrement,” Ula explained to Sven quite patiently, something he has had to do on more than one occasion about more than one subject the last 20 years, giving Sven the equivalency of a B.S. degree in socio-economics, English grammar, and communication skills.
“Vait a minute, vait a minute…,” Sven said, chewing a venison pepper stick. “Sose yur sayin,’ vulf poop is feces, scat, and excrement!?? Good-googa-mooga! Vy can’t dey yust call it shit and be done vit’ it? Why do dose educated-types alvays ‘ave to make t’ings so complicated, Ula? I’ll ‘ave another vun of dose dere pepper sticks.”
Looking down through the open drivers side door, then back at the last two inches of the sausage stick in his right hand, Sven said, ”You know, dese ‘ere t’ings sorta resemble…”
“I’m EATING, SVEN! Don’t be crude now, please,” Ula pleaded, convinced his partner was about to describe something truly un-gastronomic just about the time he was chewing anything.
“You must t’ink I’m so base Ula, Sven said matter-of-factly, reexamining his pepper stick. "I vasn’t goin' to say dis pepper stick lookt like vulf excrement. You ‘ave quite da imagination fer an eastern Palmvilleian. Before I’d suggest dat, I’d say dey resemble mebbe bean sprouts in cylindrical cellophane, or bubbly brats cookt over da fire. Hey, you got any brats in dere? Ve always bring brats.”
Ula looked somewhat pale and asked Sven if they couldn’t just resume their trip towards Palmville, their motherland for this portion of their life.
Obligingly, Sven closed his door with a whomp! The drivers side mirror, hinged at the vent window post, swung in and out of the rusted-thru outside panel of the door, the bolts in its base visible, retained nothing. He started the truck and continued driving northeast along the south shore of the shallow lake toward the Branch A ditch, a well-known springtime sucker run.
Sven had read about a free distribution of corn, grass, sunflower and beet seed to plant for deer by a local deer hunting association. The seed was to be handed out from 1:00-3:00 p.m. from the front of a now-defunct trucking company in Tuff Rubber Balls.
One of his nearby Grimstad Township neighbors, Harold Whats-His-Name. up on No. 4, six miles north and two miles west of the Palmville Town Hall, had invited him over for coffee. Sven mentioned the good deal he had read about in that 3rd class bulk mailer paper everybody-that-has-a-mailbox gets ‘free.’
“Yah, 'arold, eh, ve can get free seed in Tuff Rubber Balls on Saturday to feed deer over dis 'ere vinter,” Sven said between sips of hot coffee in Harold’s milk house. He brushed a dangling fly strip away from the bill of his cap, its 15” yellow sticky length adorned with dead flies turning in a slow spiral.
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| Harold didn’t milk cows anymore—in fact, he never milked cows but had bought this farm with an old red hip-roof barn and a milk house alongside with all its equipment still inside. |
Harold liked to go to his milk house to sit an’ make up stories of his glory days as a dairy farmer expounding at length about ol’ Bessie or ‘Ruth Ann,’ cows he had never known with huge udders he had never washed. All the equipment in the tiny milk house gleamed, from the tiny 150 gallon stainless steel bulk tank to the three stainless steel milk pails with pneumatic milkers hanging on the white enamel wall; their dozen inflations still somehow supple after all these years. A two-compartment stainless steel sink was bolted to the wall, its drain pipe angling to a drain in the painted concrete floor; a bar of abrasive soap laid on its splash board with a dispenser cabinet full of brown paper towels above. He had added a 10-cup coffee maker and a few stools for when the neighbors would drop by to exchange stories about the golden age of dairy farming.
“Free seed corn to plant for deer??" Harold exclaimed emphatically, rollin’ his eyes and grimacing like what Sven had told him was simply the most idiotic thing he had ever heard. "Hell, there’s so many damn deer out there they’re like vermin! We don’t need to be feeding no damn deer, Sven.”
“Uh, 'ow are deer like Ervin? Ervin Slidohowski is as big as an Angus bull, t'ick-necked and tick-'eaded and don’t look not'in' like no deer. Now, Mrs. Slidohowski, mebbee... She’s a looker. Long slender legs. Graceful. Big brown eyes. Able to clear a four foot vulven wire fence vit two strands of barbed vire on top vitout a running start.”
“No, you dummy Sven!! Vermin! Not Ervin! Vermin are like rats and mice!” Harold said, spewing graham cracker and coffee into his clean sink by the milk parlor door, then washing the sink immediately with cold water, followed with a wipe of his towel. “For crying’ out loud, you from Palmville or someplace?”
“'arold, you’ve been in this milk house ‘vay too much. Deer look nothing like rats and mice,” Sven said, with his own brand of incredulousness. “Mebbe dey grow dem dat small an' mousy in Grimstad, but not vere I’m from. Ve take care of our own.”
“Where do you live Sven?, Can’t say I’ve ever known for sure,” Harold asked growing serious now as though he was onto something -- like mastitis-detection.
“Deer country, 'arold. Deer country. Skol!” called Sven, popping the cone-shaped plastic insert out of his cup holder and tossing it into the garbage can near the door. 'arold, Sven thought, had been inhaling too much non-foaming acid fumes.
But Harold’s argument was a good one. The last three years had been terrifically easy on the deer herds in northwestern Minnesota. Mange had swept through the coyote and gray wolf populations helping reduce their once prolific numbers, so the predator base was down. Deer hadn’t had to suffer deep snow and bitter cold these last few years and many had wintered over in farm country last winter rather than yard-up in the swamps. Multiple births were common; the deer herds had multiplied to near-record numbers. It seemed sort of unnecessary to plant food plots for a species that seemed to have it so good.
Still, Sven thought, a road trip was in order even if they had to carry two fifty pound bags of seed corn home with them to prove they had been there.
Ula’s wife, Ursula, always required proof-of-presence or Ula wasn’t allowed to come out and play with Sven, who until only recently was viewed by her as a negative influence on her beloved Ula –a proper man, she was fond of saying, dreamily.
Sven and Ula had learned to simply comply, as is custom in a proper marital relationship where the Scandahoovian woman rules the roost. So thus they were allowed to fly free and reckless as long as they didn’t boast about all they did on their road trips—at least in truth.
"Proper editing is an art in itself,” Ula often stated, and did so again as he used his Swiss Army knife to open a bottle of Jerry Solom’s homemade-best-when-served-and-consumed-at room-temperature beer… A light ale."
“Bliss… Simply bliss,” sighed Sven, wiping his mustache with his sleeve, “Cut me anudder slice of dat dere summer sausage, eh!”
The navigator position (i.e. shotgun) on their road trips was multi-duty: food prep/server; map reader; deer, moose, cow, bear, skunk, coon, and pedestrian watcher; weather predictor; pothole and frost-boil detector. All the driver had to do was keep it between the ditches on gravel roads—between the shoulders on asphalt, and to the right side in traffic…
“Ya know Sven, ya don’t see any moose anymore. Ust to be dey vere ticker’n ticks on a dog’s backside. Ya alvays saw moose on dis drive…” Ula commented, as he looked into the woods.
“Me and da dog saw two ‘bout ‘ere in February,” Sven said. “Almost t’aught I vas seein’ t’ings ‘ceptin’ da dog saw ‘em too an’ growled. She never liked no moose. I took a couple pictures of ‘em t’rough dem trees, even got out of ol’ truck dere and walked on one…”
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| "I took a couple pictures of ‘em t’rough dem trees…” |
“Valked on one? Din’t ya see ‘em layin’ dere? Da t’ings are as big as 'orses, Sven. Some days you vurry me…” Ula joked, as he ate an orange; the juice disappearing into his beard. Finishing, he lifted the floor mat and shoved the orange peels through a hole in the floor…
Sven said, “No, I dint valk on vun, you foo,’ I valked on vun, you know, like sneakin’ up on ‘er, only it couldn't see me-- as if moose could see furder dan two 'unnert feet. I yust vanted to get a wee bit clearer shot vit’ me camra.
"It reminded me of da time ven I vent drivin’ me uncle, the late Ray Palm—’member dat dere old guy in da veel chair dat used to fix vatches an' sell guns next to da East Side Grocery in Roseau? ‘member ‘im, eh? We vent t’rough ‘ere vun time, an’ ‘ad ‘is great nephew along, Jeffrey R. Davidson from near Tuff Rubber Balls ‘e vas—Still may live there, dat’s yust da kind of guy he vas, you know…’e vas all of tirteen or fourteen years old and ornerier dan—vell, you know how dem Davidson’s are…”
“Ennavays, as Jerry Solom sez, we see dis cow moose cross da road a'ead of us an' slip into da canebrake on da lakeside of da road. I vanted to get a pichure of ‘er, so I parked da car near da ditch and snuck into da canebrake to try to get a little closer. It vas difficult to keep an' eye on ‘er—a cow moose ain’t nuttin’ to mess vit’, you know Ula, ‘specially if they give you The Evil Eye.
“A 'olstein cow can get you yust as fast Sven," Ula said, brushin’ crumbs and sausage rinds from his lap onto the floor. "Dat’s vat 'arold Vatshisname, up on No. 4, six miles nort' and two miles vest of da Palmville Town 'all at top o’ da hill says, ‘Ol’ No. 9 crowded 'im right into da stanchion an’ ‘bout broke 'is arm. If it ‘adn’t been for ‘is faithful cow dog, dat dere cow mighta kilt him.”
“'arold Vatshisname never milked no cows, Ula!” Sven said. “'e’s yust blowin’ smoke! You can’t believe a verd ‘e says. You’re so smart in some vays an’ so dumb in udders!
"'arold yust ain’t all dere ven it comes to . . Vere vas I? You vent and got me side-tracked, Ula… Oh, yeah, The Evil Eye. . . So I’m t’inkin’ ‘bout dat pretty 'ard—'ow dose cow moose are dangerous critters, an’ ‘ere I vas courtin’ danger in svamp grass ‘igher dan da top of my 'ead…”
“Courtin’ a cow moose, Sven?” Ula snorted, seein’ his chance to poke fun at Sven. “Don’t let da neighbors catch vind o’ dat or dey’ll laugh you out of da cafe ven it opens up next time…”
“Geesh Ula, you vant me to finish my story or not?” Sven said, exasperated. “Somet'in’ you been eatin’ ‘as made you a bit more ‘obtuse’ dis trip dan normal…”
Staring at Ula to get his point across Sven continued, “Vell, I stood stock-still for a second tryin’ to ‘ear 'er valkin’ in da canebrake. Den took a step furder, ven Jeffrey, dat dad-blamed lil’ cuss, goosed me, yelled, an' scared da begeesus outa me! I ‘bout ‘ad a ‘art attack den an’ dere an' I chased dat boy all da way back to da car, yust a veezin’ fer air. I vuda killed ‘im, iffn I caught ‘im!”
"‘eard tell New 'ampshire ‘as moose…,” Ula said, rummaging in the cooler on his lap.
“New 'ampshire??“ Sven said, sarcastically. “'ell, iffn dere’s any dere dey’d be almost tame from valkin’ t’rough subdivisions an’ malls leaving trails of ‘excrement’ from one end of town to da udder like gigantic rabbit pellets. Reckon New 'ampshire kids ‘ave fights vit dem like we yused to do, Ula?”
“You got me mixed up vit dat Vayne LeTourneau fella in Golden Valley Township—I ain’t never picked up no moose excrement an' t’rown it at you, Sven! Ish dah! Who vud pick dat stuff up an' t’row it?”
Sven laughed, “Ve used to shoot dem t’rough our potato guns like triple double-ot buck shot. Stung like 'ell. Rabbit pellets patterned like No. 4’s!”
“Sven, Sven—moose are moose—in Minnesoter, in New 'ampshire, same animal,” Ula said, authoritatively. “Dey simply ‘ave more moose den ve 'ave. Face it…”
“Dere’s no vay a stinkin’ New 'ampshire moose compares to a nordern Minnesota moose ven da only predators a New 'ampshire moose has to concern demselves vit ‘ave eighteen veels an' veigh eighty t’ousan’ pounds or have da veel base of a diesel locomotive. Minnesota moose ‘ave to contend vit real predators like Minnesota gray vulves–an dey don’t ‘ave dem in New 'ampshire.”
“An’ dere moose don’t ‘ave brain parasites eeder, uddervise ve’d still ‘ave moose, an’ vere do da brain parasites come from? An over abundance of DEER… an’ we vent to Tuff Rubber Balls to get vat? Seed to plant to feed vat? DEER…so we can 'ave more DEER…and less moose…Vat ‘ave you to say ‘bout dat, den eh?”
“Vell, vulves need to eat too Ula,” Sven said, shutting off the truck. “Vulves need to eat too and dat’s no excrement.”
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| “Vulves need to eat too and dat’s no excrement.” |
ReplyDeleteAh, Sven and Ula. As amicable pair as you'll ever find.