Ted Emerson is one of the big men in trucks who live in the country, he is a legendary brush hogger, he rides his tractor like a cowboy once rode a horse, performing all sorts of brave and impossible tasks. He has absolute confidence in himself and his work, and he and I have the kind of ritualistic and trusting relationship that makes me so happy to live where I live.
Everybody has a Ted Emerson story, he brush hogs hundreds of farms and properties. Brush hogging – think of it as a big circular mower that cuts brush and small trees – involves pulling a tough rotary mower that leaves the grass to grow but chews up weeds, brush an other obstacles to healthy pastures and proper grazing. He gets his blue tractor into places no one thinks is possible, and he does so with joy and a ready smile.
Brush hogging a pasture is essential if you want to grass to survive and the pasture not to be overrun with brush and junk trees.
I think Ted is the brush hogger to the stars, country style. There is nobody better. He now has an impressive fleet of tractors and trucks.
On my farm, we have a marshy stretch of wetlands alongside the farmhouse, nobody will drive a truck or a tractor anywhere near it. The fertilizer company wouldn’t even let their truck enter the farm when they saw the marsh. Everybody does not include Ted. Every year I remind him not to go into the marshy part of the pasture, every year he smiles and completely ignores me, and every year he gets stuck in one of the deepest parts of the marsh.
His son Ted Jr. is prepared for this, he knows when he comes here he will probably have to come and help pull him out.
It works this way. When the weeds and brush are too high, I call Ted and leave a message on his machine. He never answers or replies. One afternoon, weeks later, I hear the dogs bark and there is a a rumble, and a familiar blue tractor in the pasture. Ted knows animals well, he opens the pasture gate, drives in, closes it, brush hogs and then leaves. It takes him a couple of hours.
Most years, I never see him. If I run into him, it would be at the Bog having a hamburger. We catch up.
Weeks after that, I get a ridiculously low bill and send it back with a payment I think is fair. We never discuss money.
And every year, as faithfully as the Summer Solstice, Ted gets stuck in the marsh and has to get his son Ted Jr. to help pull him out. It’s no big deal, it’s annual and predictable. I have never been able to unravel the mystery of Ted Emerson. Why does he drive into the marsh every year?
When I ask him why he went into the marsh, he just smiles and shrugs. “I thought I could go it,” he said, and this year, he almost did do it. He brush hogged 98 per cent of the marsh before going a bit too far in and getting stuck. Here is a photo today.
Why does he do that?, I asked his son Ted Jr., a big and genial man and a brush hogger also. (His son Garrett rides along in the tractor, one day he will be a brush hogger too I imagine. Sometimes Garrett rides in Ted’s tractor.)
Ted Jr. smiled. “He thinks he can do it,” he says. “He always thinks he can do it.” I think of those old John Wayne movies when I think of Ted. If the head guy says the cows will make it to Montana, then by gum, they will make it to Montana.
Yesterday, when Ted came, I cautioned him once more not to go into the marsh, the animals don’t graze there and there is no need to cut the marsh grass. I know he will go into the marsh, and so does he. He smiles and nods.
I went out to take a photo of him in the back pasture, and was amazed seeing him back his tractor right into dense and boggy brush and come right out again.
We never say goodbye to Ted, he just leaves when he is done.
We went out to shop and go to the movies and when we came back, Ted was gone, his blue tractor was up over the rim into the marshy mud.
The thing is, Ted is a man who loves his work and is fearless and confident about it. People who love their work are sacred to me, they can, in fact, accomplish almost anything.
This afternoon, Ted Jr., wife and kids arrived in various trucks and tractors for their rescue mission. It is no big deal for them. Soon, both tractors were mired in the mud, and Ted came over to ask me if I had a long, heavy-duty chain. Hmmmm, no, I said, not imagining what such a thing would be or why I would have one.
But I called my friend Jack Macmillan, a big man in a truck himself.
Sure, he said, I have three heavy duty chains. I went over and got them and Ted Jr. and Ted hooked them to their tractors and Ted was pulled out. He never stopped smiling and laughing, and pointed out that even though he got stuck at the end, he did brush hog the pasture and the marsh.
The two tractors rode out of the pasture behind one another, each one shedding mud and trust, two proud mechanical stallions who had accomplished their mission.
And it was true. Ted has brush hogged the marsh. Let Ted be Ted.
Next year I will tell Ted not to go into the marshy part of the pasture and he will smile and laugh. Maybe I’ll get some heavy duty chains. We exchanged hugs all around and I asked Ted if I could take a portrait of him for my portrait show.
Sure, he said, laughing, why not.