Real country women have bulls.

A Real Country Woman
Robin Hoselton

I came across a marvelous book at the library entitled Country Women which seemed written solely for me. The book’s premise is to inspire rural women to be self-sufficient, not subjugated to the role of go-fer, holder, and watcher. It explains basic homesteading chores like operating chain saws, building sheds, butchering chickens, shearing sheep, fixing plumbing, putting up fences. Apparently my 39 years of city life doesn’t count for much, as I don’t know diddly-squat about any of these skills.
I’d already tried, unsuccessfully, to get Tom to teach me things I thought I should know how to do myself–simple things like how to turn off the water supply to the house in an emergency. Invariably he dismissed my requests, commenting that I didn’t need to know since he was here to do whatever it was that needed doing. I labeled this his “barefoot and pregnant” attitude and seethed inside but resolved to keep the peace.

A Self-Sufficient Country Woman

Witness my latest attempt at learning how to become one of those self-sufficient country women:

Me: “I want to learn how to operate the chain saw.”

Tom: “Naw, those things can be pretty dangerous. You can get hurt if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Me: “You taught Brian how to use it. Are you saying a grown woman can’t do what a 14-year old boy can?”

Tom: “But Brian’s stronger than you are.”

Silence. He’s got me there. Then determination. Surely there must be other 114-lb. women in rural American who don’t have to rely on a man to cut their winter supplies of wood.

The Chainsaw Bust

So the next time Tom went to town on an errand, I lugged the chain saw into the house, heaved it up onto the kitchen table, and opened up my book to the chapter on chain saws. Alas and alack! The diagram shown in the book is not the same brand as this implement I’m staring at. I can’t locate the thingamajig the instructions are referring to. Is it this one, or maybe it’s that whatchamacallit over there? If I tamper with the wrong doohickey, I might mess it up. The last thing I want is to confirm Tom’s belief that women have no business using “men’s” tools.

Disappointed, I put away the machine. Am I destined to return to a city apartment if something tragic were to happen to Tom, just because I don’t have the knowledge and skill to cut my own wood? Will I have to leave this country paradise because I only know how to bat my eyelashes at the landlord when the heat doesn’t come on?

No Mid-Life Crisis For Me
I turned 40 two days ago. I thought I would either dance a jig because “Life begins at ..”, or wake up with snow-white hair. I did neither. Isn’t reaching middle age supposed to be a crisis of some sort? I suspect I missed out on one of life’s milestones simply because I was too busy with my chain saw trauma.
Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to attending a square dance or a Clairol dye job as I suppose I’ll dance my jig or get gray hair eventually. In the meantime, maybe I ought to persuade Tom to buy a different brand of chain saw!