Scattered Thunder

We haven’t solved the drought, but we got a little more relief yesterday from scattered thunderstorms rolling through. A fresh batch of heavy rain showed up right as we were heading out to feed the horses. The roar on the metal roof is so loud it becomes hard to hear each other talk. The intensity of the downpour became a little unsettling to the horses. Mia didn’t want to eat in her usual spot and kept retreating to the other side where Swings and Light were.

When a close lightning strike hit, the clap of thunder made all four of them jump and scatter for a few seconds before settling back down. Throughout much of the day, the sky shifted between bright sun and dark clouds. It seemed like thunder was happening around us regardless of what the sky looked like.

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I needed to keep looking up the radar view on my phone to see whether I should be concerned or not. It ended up being mostly not.

Meanwhile, I received notice of an extreme heat warning in Missouri, where my friends and I will be riding the Katy Trail for a week.

I can’t help feeling like all the warming planet impacts that are simultaneously playing out should be catching more people’s attention than it seems they are.

Fossil Fuel use continues unabated. It’s heartbreaking. We will need to get creative about finding a way to ride in these conditions. I sure wish we had a team car like the professional racers do, so we could get handed blocks of ice to tuck into the backs of our jerseys.

Maybe we’ll get lucky, and the high heat will trigger some scattered thunder to give us something else to cope with on this adventure.

I’m planning to post from my phone for the week (if it doesn’t melt), so don’t be surprised if you find little more than a picture a day here for the next 7 days.

Bon Voyage!

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Trailer Loads

We resumed moving trailer loads of composted manure to the high spot of the hay field yesterday. We got to this just one day after an overnight thunderstorm would have soaked it in nicely. Better late than never. We received a whopping quarter of an inch Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

It was nice that the horses came out to graze while we were working in the field. It’s rewarding to have them calmly accept most any project we do that infringes on their space or disturbs the peace of their surroundings.

Being free to open gates and drive inside their territory without them threatening to take advantage of an opportunity to get beyond their fence line makes our activity that much easier.

Coincidentally, Cyndie discovered that neither of us had chained the barn gates earlier; an oversight that could have let them escape through the barn. We leave barn doors open all day for airflow, although there is a hanging screen that covers each opening and keeps pigeons out.

No harm, no foul, as they say, but mistakes like that trigger a chill down the spine when we discover them. On the plus side, it renews our vigilance for quite some time afterward.

Maybe Swings was aware the gate wasn’t chained. When we showed up to serve dinner, she was giving Mix the business in a most demonstrative way, pinning her ears and backing up toward Mix with an unusual intensity and duration. She absolutely would not let Mix get near the alleyway between the two sides under the roof of the overhang.

The alleyway is where the unchained gate was. Mix is the one most notorious for nosing that gate open while I am doing the housekeeping and Cyndie is filling feed buckets. Maybe? Although, I don’t know why Swings would have a problem with them getting out. Maybe she doesn’t want to jeopardize a good thing.

I eventually opened a gate between the paddocks that is beyond the waterer and coaxed Mix to come around the long way to get over to her side for feeding. At that point, the four horses stayed put and focused on food.

Earlier in the afternoon, Cyndie and I went out and shook down as many ripe plums as we could from the wild American Plum trees populating the brush and bramble along our northern property line. By dinnertime, Cyndie had canned 10 jars of plum jam. I helped pit the olive-sized fruit these trees produce.

It was an extreme exercise of tolerance for me to allow my hands to become covered with squished fruit, which meant the knife handle was a mess and all my sensibilities were tripped well beyond my usual comfortable mode of operating. Yucky! Somehow, I survived.

Today, Cyndie will be heading to pick up her mom to drive to the lake for a long weekend. I leave tomorrow to begin a week of biking and camping in Missouri. No more trailer loads will be moved in the foreseeable future.

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New Path

Have I mentioned lately how pleasant it is to ignore anything and everything related to the criminal-in-chief in the White House? I have also been slowly increasing my distance from any business or institution that clearly supports any policy put forth by the current administration. Doing so has been good for my mental health.

I’m not having as much luck when it comes to climate catastrophes. The disaster videos from Nepal-Tibet glacial collapse/landslide/flash flood keep showing up from differing perspectives. Headlines about the super El Niño appear on Reddit with distressing regularity. Nothing about weather will surprise me anymore, unless it suddenly stays normal for an unusually long time.

Yesterday turned out to be very hot for a day that didn’t seem like it was going to be so hot. The intensity of direct sunlight feels like it has a sharper bite lately than usual for our latitude. I received a midday alert from our electric co-op that they would be initiating a load-control event due to the high heat. That notice always helps to make me aware that I need to adjust my outdoor activities accordingly.

The morning started fine. The high dew point temperature created a hazy landscape that illuminated the sun’s rays.

I was happy to find the horses grazing in the back pasture when Asher and I emerged from the woods. The spider webs were plentiful and very visible with the combination of dew and low-angled sunlight.

After running some errands in the morning to pick up a few conveniences for my upcoming biking and tenting adventure, I put in some time out in the heat cutting a new trail through our north loop field.

It had come to our attention that our animal sitters felt a pathway across that tall growth would be a great feature. The idea had crossed our minds before, but we just never got around to putting in the effort to make it happen.

Since I’ll be away on the bike trip and Cyndie will be taking her mom to the lake for the Labor Day weekend, I wanted to surprise our friends who will be staying here while we are away by granting their wish.

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