So I had an accident today. There was a fatality. It wasn't me (obviously) - it was my iPhone.
You gotta understand I sort of have a history in that department - I have dealt more death blows to small electronic devices than a normal person. (I also should not be trusted with office machines - especially fax machines, very bad karma with fax machines.) In the course of one month in medical school I dropped not one but THREE pagers into the toilet. Deader than doornails. My first iPhone, I sent through the washer. I tried all kinds of creative solutions - I packed it in rice, put it in a low oven, nothing. Dead. Then we had our one hot week that August, like 115 degrees one day, and I happened to leave my poor dead phone in the truck, where it was probably more like 150 degrees. When I got in my truck after office that day, voila! The iPhone sprang to life! Not having learned my lesson whatsoever, I managed to soak the stupid phone while watering the lawn and went through the whole thing all over again.
Today, however, my techno-destructive tendencies reached new and creative heights. I was just out enjoying the day on my tractor. I had the idea that I could use the front end loader as a receptacle for harvesting the filberts, and it was actually working nicely. Plus I just really enjoy taking the ole Kubota out for a spin around the firelanes. But maneuvering the tractor into and through the orchard is a tad tricky - not only are there low hanging branches and narrow lanes, but there are lots of blackberry vines. If one of those big gnarly ones catches on the front end loader it can thwap the poor hapless driver with nasty thorny force before it catches on the rollbar. So I was going slow and trying to gingerly grab hold of the larger vines and guide them up and over the rollbar behind me before they could thwap me.
One particularly large, purple, heavy branch caught me unawares, and I quickly twisted out of the way. In so doing, I apparently knocked my iPhone off the tractor. I know, I know - what was it doing on the tractor you idiot? Well, in my defense, I have it in a rubbery case precisely because it adheres to things, like the console of my truck, and it was staying put quite nicely up to that point. The trouble was, I didn't even miss it until some time later when I was cruising around the edge of our upper field which had been burned. I reached for the phone to take a photo and - no phone. Not in pocket, not on tractor. I remembered that big branch and figured it had to have fallen there somewhere.
So back to the orchard I went, turned off the tractor and hopped down to tromp through the underbrush. I was so thrilled when I saw it finally, and was feeling rather smug about how I didn't have to tell my husband I had dropped my iPhone and nearly lost it, when I actually picked it up. Pushed the button and - nothing. Lifeless. How can this be? The rubbery case has saved it from disaster in many a fall onto hard surfaces, and this was springy grassy undergrowth. Was my battery just dead?
Ohhh no, MUCH worse. It was BENT. MY iPHONE WAS BENT!!! I clearly drove over it with the tractor. Seriously, people, how can I drive over my own phone with a tractor??? It was very sad looking. So I made a rush trip into Salem to the AT&T store and found I was eligible for an upgrade and got a new one for 49 bucks. But the lovely pumpkin field photos I had not yet uploaded to my computer - gone. My new LSU Football App - gone. This is going to be a pain to restore.
But the upside of the evening was that the front end loader was indeed a very spiffy receptacle, and just in the span of 4 trees I half filled it with filberts, then drove down to the lower meadow and filled it up with apples, pears, and purple plums. And a few walnuts too. And this was a teeny tiny fraction of what there is to be harvested. The phrase "an embarrassment of riches" comes to mind. I think I need to borrow several teenagers, perhaps an entire high school class.
Anyone want to come pick fruit and nuts??
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