Leara Rhodes

Chris is a handyman who can do anything around the house and yard that one man working alone can do. His work is stellar but getting to know Chris takes time. After five years of working for me, I only knew his name and that he lived in Winder, nothing more. His clothes offer no clues and are meant for outside work. The t-shirts he wears over his thin six-foot frame are pristine when he arrives. And though his work shoes are patched with duct tape, the tape is neat and evenly applied. His grey, straggly beard hangs half way down his chest with equally long grey hair pulled back in a pony tail covered with a baseball cap, never the same cap. He looks the part of a fifty-year-old single man who works with his hands.

He brings his own tools and works at a steady pace for the length of time needed to get the jobs completed whether it is one hour or eight. No breaks, no lunch, no stopping—water is taken on the run. His no nonsense work routine includes having a list of the projects he needs to complete in advance so he can bring the appropriate tools, he doesn’t like mine especially my shovel, and will adjust the order of what needs to be done. He texts; no calls nor emails. He arrives when he says he’s going to or else he texts to let me know the delay. When his small red truck pulls up in the driveway, his tools in the back, he is ready to go.

Then one day I told him that I wanted him to build some raised beds where a giant white oak had to be taken down in the middle of my yard which opened up the canopy for more sun. I was retiring and wanted to have a vegetable garden. He was the man to do it. After five years of offering no advice, he says, “If you bought metal fire rings it would be a lot cheaper and do the same thing.” Two rings later and beans planted, we had a brief conversation after his projects were finished on growing food crops—our first conversation. 

Getting into the gardening mood, during the pandemic, I decided to build a stone wall to stop some erosion in the yard. I ordered a ton of stone, read every book and article available on how to build “no mortar stone walls,” and watched really bad YouTube videos. I call it my Irish Wall based on a saying I read in a book on walls in Ireland where the writer wrote “once a stone is laid, it should not be unlaid.” I interpreted this to mean that one needs to ponder where the stones should be placed. I pulled a chair in front of the area and would sit outside with a glass of wine and ponder. It took me six weeks and a lot of carrying stones from where the truck dumped them in the front yard to the back yard where the wall was to be built. When Chris saw my wall for the first time, he stood quietly looking at it. I think he liked my stone wall though he made no comment, he just nodded to acknowledge that I had done this all by myself. 

By the next spring, I added two more fire rings and two rectangle beds to fit in specific spots. That’s when Chris and I began to talk about the armadillo that had invaded my back yard and what to do about it. Chris helped plug some of the tunneling under the fence made by the armadillo. The wildlife had us talking about what came into our yards. I have red shouldered hawks that hunt in the yard, fox, armadillo, racoons, squirrels, and chipmunks. He has racoons, squirrels, and deer. I learned that he put little twinkly holiday lights around his crop bed fence to keep the deer away; it seems to work. 

One day, after seven years of working for me, he finished and I paid him. But he stood looking at the yard, not leaving. “You’ve done a lot of work back here,” he says. We had put in another larger raised bed in the middle of the yard using Oldcastle bricks and boards, something I saw on the internet. He met me at Lowe’s and we bought the materials and loaded them into his truck. We worked on many projects in the house and yard. We totally cleaned out the attic and through the years he has kept the gutters cleaned; the boardwalk, deck and patio pressure washed; and helped me manage the leaves from the huge oak trees covering the yard. At the end we would talk about various projects. 

Recently after some major storms that damaged the backyard boardwalk with snapped off tree tops and giant limbs in the middle of the yard, I texted Chris to get his help. Some boards needed to be replaced and the yard swing removed since a tree top squashed it to pieces. He texted me a thumbs up emoji. I didn’t know which day he would come, but I knew he would come. I went on my early Monday walk and when I returned Chris’s red truck was in the driveway. I went around back and he was preparing to work. “I didn’t know you were coming today; I haven’t gotten the boards but can run to Lowe’s and get them.” “I texted you that I was coming on Monday,” he says. I offered a “I must have missed it, sorry,” and rushed to get the boards, checking my text messages from him and saw that there was none as to when he was coming. Nothing else was said and the day’s projects got finished.

As is now our habit, at the end of the projects, no matter how grimy from pressure washing or cleaning the gutters or how hot it is, Chris stands on the “new” improved patio and we visit. I find out about his three chihuahuas; Tina has had some real health issues, she’s thirteen. We talk about sweating in the July heat, his white t-shirt is water-wringing-out wet, and I suggest he looks into running shirts that will keep him drier. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he says. We talk about storm damage and even some of our next house/yard projects that need to be done. During these talks I have learned about a friend he had had, about spending time with his family, that he has a brother. 

Later that evening, Chris sends me a text. “I couldn’t find where I had texted you that I was coming today, sorry.” I responded, “No worries, I was happy to see you, thank you for coming and taking care of things. The new storm only left me with little branches down, nothing major.” “I didn’t have much of anything here,” he writes back. We’re into our eighth year of working together and what I have learned about Chris is that the time it takes getting to know him is just fine. He did finally say he liked my stone wall.