Soooo, during Birthday Season, I fell in love. (Birthday Season in a novel concept introduced to me by a friend, whereby your birthday no longer occupies a single, solitary, lonely day). So, on Facebook Marketplace this popped up during MY Season.
I had been researching late 1970's International Scouts for a friend, so Facebook had been throwing classic truck adverts at me for a while. But this one made me swoon.
My fleet of work trucks have always been Fords, but deep in my soul, I'm MOPAR all the way. My beloved 1972 Dodge D100, with 225 slant 6.
The body was last to be restored, but that's because I had spent my money on the important stuff: everything under the hood had been meticulously restored.
While in college in Canada, my 17 year old self didn't partake in sisterhood sessions spent playing with makeup and hair products, I'd found myself a group of local boys, GM enthusiasts... We all had late 70's G-Body muscle cars. Evenings were spent in John's garage playing with timing lights and adjusting carburetors. My car was a Frankenstein: I took two junked cars, one 78 Buick Regal and one Grand National and Attila was born.
I drove her for years, she and I racked up quite a slew of speeding tickets while I lived in Massachusetts. I still regret the day I sold her in Alabama when I was struggling to pay for tuition.
They say to be truly happy, you should be the person you were before adulthood saddled you with resentments, loss and disappointments. I may not have a gang of 18 year old guys to hang with, but I do have a crazy hillbilly mechanic friend who acts like he's 18. Will that work?
Meet Bubba. Call him not by his given name of Robert, but Bubba, unless you feel like arguing with a 6'6" former football player. For now, the 1979 Dodge Ramcharger 4x4 shall remain at Bubba's until she runs well enough that I can get her home. (She was delivered to his shop on a flatbed). But I spent an evening tinkering with her...
... until I could earn this:
My baby's heartbeat, let's see if I can make it more consistent.
Little peak under the hood for you:
Made you weak in the knees, didn't it?
Be still my beating heart and greasy hands.
She has already been christened Bumble, after the darling billy goat who visited with me last month.
Aaaahhh, the 70's, they weren't half bad, except for the fashion, of course (80's wasn't any better mind you).
Yes, after 9 LONG, i mean LONG months, my Kropf camper has come home. She'd been marooned at the welding shop waiting on custom axles. From this:
To this:
Original axles were unworkable, with obsolete rims and brake drums, requiring a level of ingenuity that only one cantankerous welder could dispense. It became a tense hostage situation towards the end, where I thought I'd never get her back. She was sitting in his horse paddock, immobilized without any way to roll and he liked to taunt me every month with promises that he was going to work on her. Patience is a virtue, but it's highly overrated.
Now that my 1954 Kropf Cruiser has nestled her 33' self in my backyard, she's not going anywhere for a while. The leaky roof is the next item on the list to tackle and I've found a RV repairman up the road who is eager to lend a hand. For now, I'll keep puttering around tinkering with the inside and imagining what she'll look like next year.
Having a German Shorthair Pointer isn't like having a spaniel, or a shepherd, or even a Lab, for that matter. You ain't met ballistic, until you've hung out with Dax.
90 to nothing, all day, every day.
Monday morning, after feeding the horses, I was bringing the dogs home. As I got out of the truck to shut the gate, Dax leaped out to chase a squirrel. Par for the course. Over the roar of the diesel truck, I heard a sharp yelp, then a series of blood curdling screams. Peter jumped out the truck and pointed me in the right direction.
Dax had managed to give himself a 10" long laceration. Dr. Brown, who was expected later in the morning to work on the horses, detoured from wherever she was, and made it out in 20 minutes. Alone on the farm, I struggled to keep him quiet and from biting at himself. Our pool man stopped by and helped until the vet arrived. Quick assessment made that this was a clinic surgery emergency and Dax was sedated enough for the drive.
Dr. Carattini was advised and he prepped for surgery.
No time wasted, Dax was under within minutes of arriving.
Bad news, he'd tried to deglove himself and a large patch of skin couldn't be saved. I watched as Dr. Harris prepared to cut 3/4 of his trademark brown patch off and toss it in with the biohazard.
Speechless at this point. Watching the good doctors work.
Spools of sutures used.
All hemmed up plus drainage tracts.
Considering a new nickname: Quarterpatch.
Coming out of anesthesia.
The ride home. Spared him the 90 mph with flashers on that we did on the way in.
Once home, I had to find what had ripped him open. I scoured the trees in my yard for possible spurs, checked the fencerows, then discovered hair on my camper's hitch. Dax agrees, this is it. Ants are even busy carting off some of the flesh.
The suggestion had been to crate him to prevent jumping up on things. I preferred to drag a mattress into my tool room.
3 chickens started in the stock pot. Settling in for a long 10 days, with daily sedatives, of course.
I slept on the floor with him and he seemed to be feeling better.
