Real man's work: dancing with dirt
BY NICK CHURCHOUSEI'm a desk operator from now on. That's what I want to call myself.
I work the desk and the desk works me. I drive the mouse, monitor the readout on screen and make things happen through the keyboard.
I create great mounds of whatever you want to call what you are reading now.
It's dangerous, it's physical (from the shoulder down) and if stuff goes down, I'm on the line.
Actually it's not very dangerous and I've been doing this for while. 
But on the weekend I got a taste of what real men do. They shift dirt.
With a little landscaping to do I decided the time was nigh for hiring a big orange diesel-driven digger.
Two days later I have a great bloody pile of dirt with nowhere to go and some craftily shaped surrounds in the house in the bay.
But results are incidental. The best part was creating those results.
For those of you who have never driven a large two-tonne tracked and hydraulic-armed excavator with nobody telling you what to do but yourself, you need to remedy it.
Like many shirt-and-tie chaps, I have often driven past a roadworks site or a construction zone and thought, "Wouldn't mind that for a day."
About halfway through Saturday I was seriously considering given up the desk permanently for a hardhat and earmuffs.
The skill of manipulating a swivelling, extending, tilting and lifting piece of machinery does not come easily. I almost tipped it twice in my preliminary practice session.
But after a few hours, the double joysticks became extensions of my arms and the swinging, diving, digging and dumping 200kg steel bucket I was in charge of was like a logical extension of my mind.
The driveway slowly took a different shape as my hands, through the machine, carved a new reality into the very earth.
By early afternoon on Saturday I looking proficient and I started thinking about those guys who go in digger competitions where they pick up eggs, fold blankets and mix a dry martini with the things to prove their artistry.
I could do that, I said to myself.
I thought about the International Festival of the Arts show set for next year that is a guy dancing in a digger.
I'm doing that, I marvelled to myself, taking care not to swing the bucket into the lounge.
All in all, it was an essential experience for any man.
I described it to the Southern Belle as akin to having a new baby. You tell another guy you have a digger, he focuses, pulls his chair in close and wants to know all about it and see the pictures. He gets quite clucky.
"Amazing, yeah, wow, look at it do that! Ha! Can I have a hold?"
It took digging a hole to a new level. Shifting large lumps of the planet and putting them somewhere else is extremely gratifying.
I had to take the digger back this morning. And now I'm back driving the desk.
Such is life. A fleeting dalliance with dirty delight.
I think I might have to open an account at HireQuip. There's this great bobcat in the front yard...
And does anybody need any dirt? Free to a good home.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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Good for you, Nick!
Where is Tom, by the way?
@ em #2
Tom will be back with us in short order. I'll leave him to fill in the details. We'll just say sometimes life gets in the way of the daily blog post.
Watch the Malcolm in the Middle episode where Hal hires a bulldozer ... classic!
Even as a girl, I love big machinery. If I so much as see a crane, I get hypnotised. I could literally watch it for hours. My best job was when I first left school, and worked on a kiwifruit orchard. I got to rider-mow, and tractor-mow using a massive mulching mower. Whole forests would tumble before that mower. Good times, good times. (Now, unfortunately, I also only drive a desk).
Sounds like you had a great weekend!
I drove a horse float with two horses in it for the first time this weekend. OMG scary with live animals in there! I also had to turn it around which involved reversing the trailer! This is a great achievement for a 29yr old female in my opinion.
I'm probably the only person reading this today who actually gets what you're saying. If I win lotto I am SO going to buy a tank or a digger.
A friend of mine won the title of NZ digger driving champion (I'm serious) several years back. Watching him drive one is amazing. Its so fluid and pretty to watch. The subtlety he is capable of with such a huge machine is incredible.
And not only does his job look satisfying, fun and manly, he seems to make a crap load more money than any of my university educated, office boffin friends. Anyway... back to the keyboard... Plink.
... maybe Tom had the baby?
Oooooh, so jealous!
My favourite book when I was a kid was 'Are You My Mother' and to this day I have an eternal love of diggers (cause one saved the baby bird and put it back in the nest people).
When I was in the UK I worked in the site office at a big civil engineering site - diggers galore, I was in heaven! Could have spent all day staring out the window at the diggers except my boss kept insisting I did work, basteurd.
My brother-in-law said he almost got a digger hire for a day as my Christmas present a year or two ago, I was quite upset that he hadn't followed through with that idea. Would love to hire one myself but don't think the landlords would appreciate me redesigning the back yard.
My dad has a digger, a few tractors and at least five bulldozers.
Did the earth move for you??
That's really beautiful Nick... :)