Man Down

Last week, John and Bryce built a wooden tree stand with 2×6′s, a generous platform, with side rails.  These guys are professionals, making sure the monstrosity weighed in at 350 lbs. and installed it on a parcel of our farm John refers to as his “Legacy Land”.

Fast forward to high noon on Saturday, May 26, 2018:  The characters in this three ring circus were Uncle Bob and his son, Johnnie, who came up to work the land so when November rolls around, Johnnie can drop another 140 class buck or better. The ringleader was my husband John.   Despite the long walk through the vines and brush and all the bugs, they were getting a lot done.  John climbed up the newly built tree stand to tighten the turnbuckle.  I guess stands have to “settle” and then you tighten them.  Just as he reached the top, about 25′ up, and unbuckled the turnbuckle, the 3″ “guaranteed for life” peg he was standing on cracked in half.  No safety net.  The lions roared as Humpty Dumpty fell.

On the way down, John twisted to shove the ladder away from crashing on top of him.  When he did that, his body rotated and within milliseconds, he was flat on his back in 6″ of water.  A corner of the ladder stand ripped through his super thick Cabela’s jeans and he had his bell rung.  Send in the clown cars for distraction.  The two man crowd gasped at the horror.

He saw stars for a moment and Bob and Johnnie did a great job getting him out of the woods.  He was slow, but ambulatory.  So fortunate for the water to break his high fall, that he wasn’t impaled by a stump or stick, that he didn’t land on a log.  He just took a licking and kept on ticking.  The only message he left me on my phone was, “When are you going to be home, I might need some of your oils.”  So of course I took my sweet a**  time coming home, stopping for a Culver’s butter burger after boot camp yoga, completely unaware of his near death experience.

He looked okay, nothing tingled, no blood, no bruising so I couldn’t talk him into going to the hospital.  So I did the next best thing.  Applied ice packs and DoTERRA oils up and down his spine.  The next day he got up and went to work in Saginaw followed by attending a house warming party for another nephew and checking on some of his franchisees in the area.  Still, he refuses medical care.  Whatever.  You can’t fix the 150 percent Polish in him.

This morning, only two days since the fat lady sang, he was up at 3:30 a.m. to do a cooking segment on the morning news.  Ahhhh…now, finally, he admits, “I might have over done it.”

Note the picture on the wall: lots of his DNR Successful Deer Hunter Patches