I started watching Man, Fire, Food on the Cooking Channel recently. Roger Mooking goes somewhere different every week and cooks dead animals. I think my grilling is improving.
The show is entertaining and educational. The problem is I’m always trying something new and adventurous on the grill. The Woman Whose Garbage I’m Responsible For doesn’t like new and adventurous. She likes steady, boring, and unsurprising. That’s why she’s remained with me for so many years. That and I’m willing to give foot rubs.
One of my latest experiments involves placing wood on the charcoal fire just to smoke up the flavor while cooking. A tree that fell last fall gifted me enough small limbs to last for a while. I didn’t split them small enough, so when I use one, it raises the cooking temperature a little.
Some cooking website mentioned using wild vines as smoke enhancement. We have dozens of those growing in the trees surrounding our place. So I picked out a few and showed them to the boss. She vetoed several because she wants birds to get the berries. This narrowed my list considerably, but I’m still okay. Got enough to last a lifetime. At least my lifetime
I singled out one relatively thick vine near the road, and one afternoon when I was feeling frisky, I tried to pull it from the two trees it was entangled with. All I did was pull it closer to the driveway.
I dodged it for a couple of weeks then decided to use my tree saw and rope to expertly remove the vine from the trees. After ten minutes of my expertise, the rope was entangled in the top of the vine 15 feet up, and the tree saw was in two pieces; one of which was dangling just out of reach of a normal sized man.
Since I was committed at this point (when a man takes tools to do a job, he’s no longer messing around and has to either complete his mission or wallow in the self pity of defeat), I tried a different approach. I tied the dangling end of my rope to the rear of my ancient Highlander.
After pulling several feet down the drive without rousing suspicion, I’d freed the tree saw but barely budged the vine. Not wanting a saw hanging from a branch on the driveway where Terry can see it every time he visits, I put it away and focused exclusively on the rope.
I did cheat and use a come along type device I keep in the car for emergencies. It took a while, but I was finally able to loosen the vine from the trees enough to get some leverage. I pulled the rope several times and got tiny shifts each time until the vine gave up with a groan and all but the tiniest runners let loose.
At this point I disconnected the rope and pulled the last vestiges of the vine down with bare hands and human strength. Haven’t felt this manly since grilling steaks while wearing a catheter. Sometimes that’s the only thing that works.
At least that’s what Van Heflin told Shane.
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