Sleeping Giant
Ed Colby
It’s early September as I write, and full-speed ahead and damn the torpedoes at Paul’s honey house.
Paul casually mentioned that Salvador recently extracted 280 honey supers in an eight-hour day. That’s 2,520 frames, or almost double his predecessor’s output.
Salvador’s a cheerful strapping six-footer who somehow pounds it out in the insufferable heat of the honey house. He laughs when I call him “El gran Mexicano.” After he got in a car wreck, it barely slowed him down. I told Paul’s foreman Derrick I’d help out, and lift, push and pull for a stiff-and-sore Sal, but it never came to that. Derrick did allow as he’d keep me in reserve as his “secret weapon.”
I pulled my mountain honey at the end of August. I stacked medium honey supers six-high on my flatbed and used my foot to cinch down extra-hard on the truckers’ hitches on my tie-down ropes. Even so, the load shifted on the bouncy 4WD track back to the main county road. Not good! I continued on to a little pullout and began re-stacking supers. I let the engine run, global warming notwithstanding. I love my one-ton ’83 flatbed Ford, but like another love I once knew, she’s not to be trusted.
I was wrapping it up when a car slowed down as it passed, then backed up and stopped. Gary’s an old ski patrol buddy. He and Nancy were on their way down from Meadow Lake. I hadn’t seen those two in a spell.
As we were catching up, my truck engine stopped. Not sputtered and stopped like it was out of gas. Just stopped. One second the beast purred. The next, nothing.
And it wouldn’t re-start.
All this was unlucky, or lucky, depending on how you looked at it. I was on a lonely road in the middle of nowhere with an old broke-down truck, but I just happened to be chatting with friends eager to lend a hand. Gary and Nancy offered me a ride home, but as an afterthought, Gary gave me a hard look and popped the question: “You’re vaccinated, right?”
My bee suit was filthy, but luckily I had a halfway clean pair of jeans to change into.
Back at the farm, I gave Gary and Nancy some honey and a copy of my book – A Beekeeper’s Life – Tales from the Bottom Board. Gary initially looked a little skeptical. “Try it,” I said. “There’re some ski patrol stories in there!”
I did a pretty quick turnaround and headed back up the hill in my pickup. I didn’t have time to fiddle around and try to get the flatbed started, but there were 48 full honey supers on the back, and I was parked close enough to the bee yard that bees were already robbing.
The truck-to-truck super transfer went pretty smoothly. I had just enough room on the pickup. Getting that honey down off the mountain was the important thing.
The next day I pondered my options. My truck problem appeared to be electrical. The engine didn’t sputter. It simply stopped. Coil? Unlikely, although they do sometimes go out. Distributor? It was in pretty good shape, last time I looked. Timing chain? It better not be! But I knew there was a mini-computer called an ignition control module, bolted onto the firewall. I knew because I replaced it 17 years ago outside of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, when my truck suffered a similar fainting spell. I remember at the time the anticipation I felt when I connected the wiring, said a quick prayer, and turned the key. She started right up.
I was so impressed that I bought a spare control module and tucked it under the seat. It had been there ever since, still in the box.
I couldn’t get back to the flatbed for a couple of days, which gave me cause for concern, because I have a lift gate mounted in the truck’s receiver hitch that’s worth more than the truck.
When I did get back, I could hear the fuel pump running when I turned the key. I never disconnected the fuel line to see if gas was making it to the carburetor. My money was on the control module. But to my chagrin, my spare had an extra set of wires coming out of it. Otherwise it looked the same. I went ahead and put it in anyway, leaving those spare wires dangling.
I had the same helpless/hopeful feeling that I had the last time I replaced the control module, in 2004. Trust me, I’m not a mechanic. All I had was a hope and a prayer. And a spare control module that might not be the right one. I didn’t know what to expect. But when I pulled out the choke and turned the key, the sleeping giant roared. Praise all the saints!
I figured I needed another spare module, because who knows how long this one might last? And you never know when they might stop making them. The guy at the auto parts store said he no longer stocks them, but I found one online. It was only 40 bucks.
My gal Marilyn thinks I’m delusional, because at my age, how many more control modules am I going to need? But just between you and me, I’m only 74, so I played it safe and ordered two.
