R is for Ruts

I enjoy Sue Grafton’s alphabetical murder mysteries. In W is for Wasted, she writes that “every good mystery takes place on three planes — what really happened; what appears to have happened; and how the sleuth … figures out which is which.” I couldn‘t agree more.

As I said in a blog a while ago, when we arrived at the cottage, Greg reported on "some ruts" in the untended part of our field. I was too busy sorting linens and food stuffs and generally getting the cottage back to liveable form to pay a lot of attention to his observation.

However, a few days later, I went for a stroll in the field. Our mowers make paths so we can meander down to the water and back; it’s very peaceful, full of birdsong, interesting spiders, and all sorts of wild flowers:

But that day, my goodness, what had happened!  Much of the field was torn up. Deep muddy ruts cut across it in several places. It appeared as if a couple of brontosauruses had engaged in a battle of the epoch. A person could twist their ankle in the up-heaved dirt.

I felt trespassed upon. Not only had someone come on our field without permission, they had damaged it, had so far not ‘fessed up, and had not made things right.

But as Ms. Grafton points out, appearances can be deceiving. What had gone on?

My detective work was made easier in that I could see clearly where a track came from and where it went.  It cut diagonally  across the field next to ours and then continued across our field until it ended in the torn up sections next the property line with another neighbour.

I spent a sleepless night convincing myself that I didn’t need to lose sleep over this, and then I called on the neighbour whose field was also affected. We had a confab, inspected our fields, shared our hurt feelings, and concluded the other neighbours were tearing down trees (on their side of the property line, mind you) and might mash up our fields again. We decided we had to act.

But what exactly to do?  Our paramount hope was that we could restore our fields while at the same time maintain “good neighbourly relations”— a value held dear by Islanders. People trust each other to do the right thing.

For example, our cottage was built over the course of about six months, and I saw it only once during the construction process. The next time was when it was all finished. Everything worked out fine. We chose a great builder. We had our field mowed by a company whose owner we did not meet for literally years. He had the field mowed, trusting us, sight unseen, to pay him, and we trusted him to mow properly. It worked. As in many rural neighbourhoods, people don’t lock their doors around here, a habit that can have disconcerting consequences.  A friend of ours from Upper Canada awoke from a nap and found a stranger in her kitchen; he turned out to be the plumber she had called.

So tact was paramount, but so was firmness. We decided it was better strategically not to include Greg right off the bat. He is big, and with his beard, he can look quite severe especially when things don't go right. We did not want to set off more testosterone than absolutely necessary.

We felt a couple of bewildered five-foot-two grannies would be more likely to get the results we hoped for: reparation of the field with neighbourly feelings intact. It felt like a tall order.

Evening came.

My neighbour reported that she had seen activity in the driveway of our prime suspects. We hopped in her car, drove around the corner and parked in their driveway.  “I parked behind them so they can’t leave,” she said, clearly way ahead of me.

A gaggle of 20-year-olds stood in the driveway looking at a large piece of earth-moving machinery. They did not look pleased to see us:  no smiles, no hellos.

I did not know where to begin, so I said the first thing that came to mind, “Boy, that’s a big piece of machinery.” As a conversation opener, it was a non-starter.

My companion in sleuthing came more directly to the point, “We need to talk to whoever’s in charge here.”

Then we introduced ourselves and explained the reason for our visit:  We were simply puzzled by the ruts in the field, as it seemed to have been torn up by some kind of big machinery. Did they know anything about that?

Three of the yoots  (yes, it was a My Cousin Vinnie kind of moment) faded back leaving the fourth  alone to explain there had been a family emergency last December when the furnace quit and they had to replace it. It was easiest to come over the fields, rather than up their driveway, “We thought, it’s just a farmer’s field.”

I expressed my sympathy for the plight of a family in a freezing cold house, but nevertheless, it seemed to me asking permission would have seemed a wise and proper thing to do. My compatriot agreed.

But no, youth-in-charge had had no way of contacting us for permission. And anyway, his father had asked him to do it.

Ah well, there you go… I did not press that point beyond making it but persevered in the real purpose of our visit.

“So when can you get it fixed?”

“Well, later when we are not so busy.”

“Well, maybe we should get your phone number so we can contact you later.”

Neither he nor I had any paper or pens, so my friend went back to her car to retrieve some. While she rummaged around, I said only half-joking, that it was lucky they had not destroyed the labyrinth because if they had done that, I would probably have come over and personally lynched him. He looked a bit startled at that remark. I was a bit surprised at myself as well.  I think I intended to say “throttled.”  So I navigated the topic around to other happier times when Greg and I had chatted with him and his dad in previous summers.

I added that I did want to be a good neighbour and would not want to stand in the way of their dealing with an emergency. I left other of my thoughts unspoken.

My partner returned, and we all exchanged names and phone numbers. Dad did not have a phone number, alas. “Oh well, then we can call you if need be?” I said.

“Oh, I see my dad every morning.”

“Ah, well, that’s good then.”

“So when might your dad get at this work? End of this week, maybe end of next week?”

He’d have to ask his dad.

While this was going on, one of the other yoots began hitting the shovel part of the machinery with a sledge hammer thereby making it very difficult to talk. (Apparently, they were under a time limit to disassemble it).  I ignored the noise, figuring it was not my problem. Finally youth-in-charge told his friend to “stop that.” He did.

Much easier on the ears. Then mission accomplished, we thanked them, got in the car, drove back to the cottage, and had a cup of tea to calm our nerves.

Now what would happen?

As it turned out, youth-in-charge did speak to his father, who came over a couple of days later. After some preliminary chatting about the awful winter and the slow spring, we discussed fixing the muddy mess. I reiterated I understood things were different in an emergency and added  the fields didn’t have to be garden perfect, just smoothed out so we could walk safely on the paths .

But, what had actually happened?  Well, the ground wasn’t frozen in December, was very wet, and the truck carrying the new furnace got stuck and had to be towed off the field. No wonder it looked like a saurian playground.

 “And this won’t likely have to happen again?”

“No, it won’t.”  

“Well, okay then.”

And a couple of days later, the equipment operator  he hired came over and restored our fields to a walkable state.  The undergrowth will grow back soon enough. So all is well again on the happy little island.