Slippery Mess
Yesterday, the 13th of January, we endured another day of serious melting, having not dropped below freezing the previous night. Our trails in the woods look like a super-highway for deer traffic in some areas. There isn’t a single trail where at least one deer has left its hoof prints.
We found a spot where deer had lain down and melted the snow right in the middle of one of the trails. They must be well aware of Asher’s presence because, despite all the tracks, they are conspicuously nonexistent during the daytime hours.
The songbirds sounded pretty happy about the big thaw. The false echoes of spring floated in the air as we made our way among the leafless trees of our woods.
Mid-40s(F) in the middle of the day allowed for a stroll without my outer layer insulated shirt-jacket. My vest was perfectly adequate. Playing with Asher rendered my mitts soaked from the wet snow.
One of my favorite things is when Cyndie sends me pictures she took that look exactly like something I would capture. She knows me oh so well. At least the melting mess makes for interesting photos.
I have done some custom cropping of her images, but she gets all the credit for capturing these views for my entertainment.
Where was I while she was walking the dog and seeing all this beautiful scenery? In the house, finishing the jigsaw puzzle and reading more chapters of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography.
At the afternoon feeding for the horses, Mia got covered with a blanket again, which she calmly accepted. I believe it helps our cause to remove the blankets when the temperatures warm up. They tend to fret less when the time comes to put them on again. We like to get them on before bad weather makes them cold and wet, but that can find them less interested, if you know what I mean.
Since I believe they are picking up information that we’re not always aware of sending, it’s on us to visualize the desire to keep them as warm and dry as possible when the weather is expected to change. Mia must have sensed this yesterday.
At this point, I’m hoping we can get some new snow on the ground soon to offer a little added traction. The paddocks are a ghastly, icy mess to navigate across until that happens. Twice yesterday, when Mia tried to execute her hurried escape from the reach of maneuvering horses, her hooves slipped dramatically.
That’s a rather nerve-wracking sound when it happens right next to where I’m standing.
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Fear Not
Someone posted a thought experiment question to supporters of the ICE agenda, asking for a genuine response that describes what their endgame truly is if they were to succeed with their campaign of abductions. As one might expect, the responses, as far as I was willing to wade through, only came from opponents of the ongoing terror, stating what they believed the ultimate intent is.
Who would openly admit what they want to see accomplished? I’m guessing some people truly imagine that only verified dangerous criminals are being captured and that our society will be better for it.
I think we all recognize that there is something much bigger than just this misguided effort to address immigration at play in the chaotic current version of governing in the US. I suggest it all boils down to money and power, not necessarily in that order. Something, something, pedophilia, best friend Epstein, rapes, grifting, profiteering, selling favors, duping supporters, stiffing creditors, staying out of jail, patsy to Putin, something, something. Oh, and malignant narcissism.
It’s as if we are living inside a movie screenplay where the villain(s) is/are gaining the upper hand. Too bad it’s real life, and no one has written out the part where a hero or team of superheroes, even, will show up to dispatch the evil tyrant and return normalcy to the universe.
Cyndie and I listened to a vivid recounting of a near-death experience yesterday that resonated in its close correlation with repeating versions of every NDE I’ve ever heard described. The details also seamlessly aligned with what we’ve come to understand in the realm of divine universal consciousness and telepathic communication.
We truly believe with awe and wonder that there is a consciousness that exists above the level we humans are conditioned to perceive. There are so many aspects of this that permeate history to varying depths, and which, over time, have been discounted as unreliable fantasies. Yet, a vast majority of people believe in their religious teachings and pray to an unseen deity and don’t perceive that as fantasy at all.
It is difficult for me to reconcile the combination of extremely reprehensible individuals reaching positions of global power, while at the same time, a divine wisdom is vibrating within reach of anyone who learns how to tune in to it. The human race has so much untapped potential, yet we now find ourselves teetering on the edge of fascist atrocities reminiscent of almost 100 years ago in our past.
The woman who described her NDE was dying of cancer, an illness she greatly feared. Being outside her physical body at the time when doctors were telling her family she would not survive, and receiving messages from her deceased father, served to eliminate her fear of death and of the cancer.
Just like many others who’ve experienced the same thing have described, reaching that out-of-body awareness felt so amazing that she didn’t want to return. However, with her father’s encouragement, she did return to her body. Freed of her previous fears, she was able to heal from the cancer.
Imagine if all humans gained the insights that would dispel what they fear most.
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NFL Playoffs
- I don’t remember what my earliest memory could be.
- I don’t remember interacting with any of my grandparents.
- I don’t remember learning to read.
- I don’t remember how intensely I was exposed to second-hand smoke growing up.
- I don’t remember most of what I was taught about Electronic Technology in the 1980s.
- I don’t remember how many Minnesota Vikings NFL games I attended in my life.
- I do remember witnessing Drew Pearson pushing off Nate Wright in the 1975 playoff game.
I watched most of the Wildcard Weekend NFL games and was duly entertained. Two things stood out for me.
This sport is so violent, and the strain on players’ bodies is so intense, that injury is a huge factor contributing to which team advances and which team is eliminated. By this time in the season, teams have already lost star players to season-ending injuries before the first playoff game kicks off. During these now single-elimination battles, there were knee, Achilles, and concussion injuries that benched several key players.
Given that, it still comes down to athletes executing some mind-boggling feats requiring precision timing, extreme reach, great leaping, powerful strength, sustained stamina, and incredible teamwork. Eleven players with immediate duties to dominate eleven opponents who are intent on doing the same back at them.
As much as I’ve grown to loathe the NFL as a business, I can’t seem to shake my fascination with the dramatic competition that happens live in front of stadiums full of incredibly passionate fans and involves such impressive athleticism combined with split-second decision-making.
In many ways, NFL football is a stupid sport, but at the same time, it offers plenty of excitement for interested viewers.
Despite having tried multiple times in my life, I just can’t get myself to quit it.
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Horse Time
It was a quiet morning with the horses today. They were all business when the buckets of feed were served. I found a fresh clump of tail strands on the ground that has us wondering why. It’s the second time in a few weeks, but we witnessed the first strands dragging off of Light from beneath her blanket.
They are blanket-free currently, and their shaggy hair looks great on them.
When Swings walked over in front of me, her hooves clomped in the classic “horse sound” (knocking coconut halves together) as if she were walking on concrete. The temperature has dropped below freezing, and the rain-soaked, well-packed snow surface probably is as hard as concrete.
We’ve been collecting all the dropped hay to be scattered over the icy surface beyond the overhang to provide a little better footing for the horses (and us).
Yes, Swings has a funky laying mane. It used to bother my sensibilities, but I’ve gotten used to it.
It being January, we’ve incremented all the horses’ ages for 2026, in the convention of Thoroughbreds and the horse racing industry. So Swings is now 31, although her true date of birth is in April.
Mia is next oldest, coming in at 26 this year. Her birthday is in February.
Light is 23 (May) and Mix is 22 (March).
Mia tends to grow the least shaggy coat of winter hair among the four of them, but even she is looking good and fluffy this morning.
Mix’s winter growth tends to look wet even though it’s not. We would brush it out for her if she preferred, but we don’t bother them if they don’t want to be touched.
This morning, Cyndie bent over to fill in a hole dug by a critter, and Swings backed into her butt. Taking the friendly bump as a message, she stood up and offered Swings a scratch. It didn’t take much, and Swings moved away when she’d had enough.
If a person wants to turn their back on the ugliness occurring in the world for a while, spending time with horses is hard to beat. It is sure working wonders for me lately.
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Dizzying Dissonance
The firehose of ridiculousness and the horrific is flowing at a dizzying rate from one main point in the country of the USA. The buffoon acting as the figurehead is busy spouting his aggressive desires to take over other countries and much of our own, by force if necessary, while simultaneously claiming himself to be the most peaceful person to ever deserve a peace prize.
It is so comical while being equally evil that the rest of the sane world seems to just stare, dumbstruck, wondering what the heck could possibly happen next to stop the madness.
Those who made this mess have no interest in stopping anything. As with so many realities of this world, it will likely get worse before things end up better.
Cyndie and I romp on our beautiful rural acres with our dog and horses, enjoying what diminishing features of winter remain. Rain in January has become the new normal for our position on the planet at this point in the warming climate. Asher behaves as if he doesn’t have a clue about the evil in motion in the world. His pure joy of chasing his rope-pierced Jolly Ball is a healing balm for our fractured sensibilities.
The horses, on the other hand, give off a different vibe. From everything we have come to know about the far-reaching sentience of these amazing equine beings, it doesn’t surprise me that they recognize the nastiness that humans are spewing into the world (again).
It means a lot to Cyndie and me to be able to give them our love and attention each day, letting them know we understand when they are uneasy. Having been rescued from some truly dire situations, our four horses are well familiar with what humans are capable of when acting at their worst. Every good thing we can do for them helps to heal whatever previous suffering they have endured in their lives.
The best thing we can do for ourselves amid the dizzying dissonance of the transition to an authoritarian state is to avoid the blasts from automated bots working for the propaganda machine and increase our loving attention to each other, our children, our friends, our neighbors, and all the animals in our care.
The little things we do matter in ways that too often get overlooked. As individuals, we can’t solve the threat of ICE agents murdering citizens, but we can help each other to cope with the storm of hatred rumbling over the country (and world).
Give a little extra love to people you encounter every day. Share a smile with someone you’ve never met. Give rise to a feeling of love for yourself and everyone you know.
The human race is so much better than the way the worst of people can make us all seem. Two different things can be true at the same time. It’s dizzying, I know.
I’m thinking about going outside to hug some of our trees. Then I’ll go retrieve the empty feed buckets from the horses on this picturesque Saturday morning.
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Random Distractions
Despite the smothering grief we are feeling over the murder by federal ICE agents, and the incendiary rhetoric being spewed from the White House ever since, Cyndie and I trudged through yesterday with faith that those intent on hurting others will never fully extinguish LOVE.
Living in a rural area while choosing to abstain from guzzling at the firehose of news broadcasts tends to leave us feeling disconnected from the rest of the world about how like-minded folks are responding to the extrajudicial killing of Renee Nicole Good.
I struggled to focus on most tasks I attempted, but managed to distract myself for a while with some meditative jigsaw puzzling.
It was above freezing most of the day, and it was fun to see the horses romping in the snow that remained in the hay field. We had removed their blankets for the day to give them a break from the artificial covering. It’s wonderful to see them rolling around on the ground to scratch their itches and feel the direct contact with the ground again.
By their dinnertime, we learned rain was expected, so Cyndie put a rain sheet on Mia. The other three needed to figure out the simple act of staying under the overhang to stay dry. We know Swings does it, but we worry that Mix doesn’t tend to demonstrate those same smarts.
Before we went to bed last night, it was raining like a spring shower again. That’s almost as depressing as having ICE agents destroying citizens’ lives every day.
Cyndie took a picture of Asher with his squeaky/krinkly campfire chew toy in his mouth, standing beyond her red waxed Amaryllis bulb and her wooden roses puzzle, which Elysa helped her assemble the previous weekend.
Red, red, and red!
We find ourselves looking for any distraction in a storm. The likelihood that things will continue to get worse before they get better weighs heavily on both of us.
Cyndie left voice messages on phones at the offices of our representatives, expressing her anguish and dissatisfaction with the illegal activities of the masked immigration agents. We have not ruled out finding a protest that we can attend to offer solidarity with others equally despondent over Renee’s murder.
The days end up being a blur of sadness and frustration, mixed with the contrast of love and hope we are striving to conjure up to feed the world.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
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Sadly Predictable
Unfortunately, we all knew there was a high likelihood that the Federal ICE agents’ escalating actions and repeated violations of citizens’ rights would eventually lead to shots being fired. That doesn’t make it any less horrific that they murdered someone in broad daylight while witnesses recorded video of the act yesterday in Minneapolis, MN.
Just to make things even more disgusting, our government quickly released a fabricated cover version of the incident to justify the killing.
It’s heartbreaking and soul-crushing to live through the unraveling of law and order and the grim, methodical destruction of our democracy. Is there any way to reverse this evil plot?
I don’t think all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will ever be able to put our Humpty democracy back together again.
R.I.P Renee Nicole Good
May LOVE save us all.
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Predatory Behavior
Last Sunday, we were blessed with a visit from our kids for one last day of mirth before the return to regularly scheduled programming of the work world in 2026. The weather was a bit of a risk as we were under a warning for sleet and freezing rain. They braved the drive anyway, with utmost caution, and the weather didn’t turn out to be as bad as it could have been.
As soon as they headed home and Cyndie and I went down to tend to the horses, the murky sky opened up a bit for a sweet show at sunset.
Two days later, we received what I feel is the worst weather for winter: rain. Once again, the snow is a saturated mess. I took Asher for an afternoon explore, and he fixated on a dead tree trunk that he seemed certain contained a rodent snack.
I stood waiting while he worked furiously to gain access. Seeing him so harmlessly entertained is a reward worth allowing to play out uninterrupted, so I busied myself with tamping down the wet snow where I stood.
He showed no sign of giving up and began to attack the little trees in the immediate vicinity that were getting in his way. They served to fulfill his urge to chomp on things better than any of the artificial chew toys in his extensive collection in the house.
He worked on that effort for so long, my project of tamping snow grew to create a raised median at the intersection of the two trails where he was busy at it.
As much as I wished to let him play to his heart’s content, his distraction had lasted so long that it became time to feed the horses, and I was forced to call him off. We trundled away through the snow slurry toward the barn after a minor struggle to redirect his attention away from the prize he never reached.
If there was a mouse in there, I wonder what its experience was like during the onslaught. Did it assume there was an earthquake, or did it sense the telltale signs of a predator at its door?
I think I can relate to what it must have been like inside that hollow section of the tree limb. That is what it feels like every day for citizens of the United States under the criminal control of the current administration. If only there were someone who could call off the brutal regime and send them on their way.
That terrorized critter suffered for less than an hour. Our suffering shows no signs of abating.
To the rest of the world: I’m sorry you have to witness this, or worse yet, be directly impacted by the actions of the disgusting few who are systematically dismantling our country for their personal gain.
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Jumbled
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I am every mistake I’ve ever made
I am just what you make of me
our laughter is feeding energy to every single thing
what if we never heard the song that would become our favorite
would it change who we’ve become?
I can almost see far enough to understand
the lust lingering large in walls of sound
buried within the prose
if you are seeking access to my spending history
press one now
when we were swinging together
side by side in a previous life
I was the kid in somebody else’s drama
waiting for my bit part
to play out in the elegant design
saying those three old words
as if I’d always known
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Loving Home
This is how much I love being home: Cyndie looked at our calendar of activities for the month and identified a block with nothing planned, offering me a chance to go up to Hayward for a few days of solo time. After that week, she has a series of consecutive days when she will be away.
All things considered, I thanked her for the opportunity, but I would rather just remain at home for a while, now that all the holiday activities are over. Especially since I will get the benefit of some solo time at home anyway, when Cyndie is in the cities.
Granted, I will have the dog and horse care responsibilities that wouldn’t require my time and attention if I were up at the lake.
But, I’ll be home! Where my heart is! And caring for our animals is a labor of love.
With the snow-covered trees around our house, it looks a little like the gnome home up in the woods on the Wilkus’ property. Walking Asher through our woods yesterday, I found that there are still snow-laden tree branches drooping across the trails in many places. It hasn’t been warm enough or windy enough in the middle of the woods to knock the snow off the branches yet.
I took the initiative and got covered with snow, shaking the branches free myself on a few of the trails.
Gee, but it’s great to be back home. Even if it means spending extra time cleaning up manure in the paddocks that accumulated while we were away up north. Nobody is as tenacious as I am when it comes to tending to the cleanliness of our paddocks.
It’s my way of helping the horses to love living here as much as I do.
Home, sweet home.
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Relative Something 