Breakdown

Things only work well often enough for us to expect them to.

They give us a few easily felled and bucked trees,

a few smooth rides over the snowdrifts,

and then, try as we might to go easy on them,

the machines always break down.

 

More often than not something's broken.

I see that every plan involving a machine ought to have a stand in.

 

 

Here's our girls waiting patiently while the day comes undone:

Part way down the trail we find the skidoo will need a new carborator.

Maybe we can get one on e-bay.

We limp it back to the road.

 

Here's the stand in plan to get home:

 

We leave everything on the skimmer but the fresh produce

and the library book Hop on Pop (Selwyn's nightly reading).

 

This way of travel involves

more exercise and fresh air than we had in mind,

a picnic lunch in the sunshine in the lee of a strong wind whipping snow up into dunes.

 

which obliterate the trail but make for excellent sliding.

 

Five hours later we are heating up our little house in the setting sun.