Brad Nelson

Late last summer, we had a pair of stray dogs show up. Big dogs. With paws almost as big as my hand. One had husky or malamute markings in mostly white and a head size and shape showing some Great Pyrenees characteristics; the other was a beautiful tan and brown-and-white fellow of the same size whose markings were similar to a German shepherd, with the head also showing some Great Pyrenees.

“An acquaintance saw what I had done with this old bread truck and was so impressed that he went out and bought one like it to make into his own camper.

It was well past “zero-dark-30.” It was winter. We were hauling hay south from the Mountain Home and Bruneau area in southwest Idaho to ranches south of Mountain City, Nevada.

By the time you’re reading this, I’m sure my grandson will have adjusted his previous “retire for the night and arise for the next day” schedule to something more to the liking of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Inside an engine, like the engine of your pickup or truck, is a crankshaft. As the crankshaft rotates, it ties together the rest of the engine to change the up-and-down motion of the pistons into the rotating flywheel at the rear of the engine that transmits the power generated to whatever that engine is mated to.

I visited with an old friend, seems like better than a year ago now. He’s since left this world. He’d lost both legs from complications of diabetes and was fairly miserable. But he hadn’t always been that way.