Good Results
It’s that time of year again when the invasive Common Buckthorn becomes easier to spot because its leaves stay deep green while most other growth in the woods fades. I brought Asher with me on an exploration through the middle of our woods in search of rogue sprouts that have established themselves since last year.
As we descend the slope toward the edge of our property, it is easy to see the difference between our woods and the neighbors’ woods. They don’t make any noticeable effort to eradicate the buckthorn.
Uncontrolled, the invasive will continue to dominate the understory, excluding native growth over time. Unfortunately, any of those trees with berries create potential for birds to spread the seeds throughout our woods.
Since I try to stay on top of new sprouts on an annual basis, most of what I find can be pulled out of the ground by the roots.
When I pull them up, I turn the sprouts upside down and hang them up in nearby branches. I tease that I do so to serve as a warning to other buckthorn what their fate will be if they try to grow here, but in truth, it is so the roots dry out and to help me identify that those green leaves have already been dealt with.
If I let them lie on the ground, the green will keep catching my eye unnecessarily, and there’s an outside chance the roots could find their way to the soil again. The plant is tenacious enough as it is; I don’t want to give it an opportunity to live on after I’ve already pulled it up once.
My efforts are producing good results, as can be seen in the photos above, but the best compliment came from a visitor who noticed on his own and commented on the impressive lack of buckthorn we’ve achieved.
It’s good to get that kind of confirmation from an outside source.
Storm Drama
With the temperature and dew point climbing to summer levels once again, Asher and I headed out to chop down tall growth in the drainage swale. I try to knock that down each fall to remove any hindrance to water flowing when the spring melt occurs. That implies an assumption that we get enough snow for that to be an issue.
Since we lost track of Asher the last time we were working on this project, I tethered him to a fence post with a long leash. He was impressively patient for much of the time, right up until he wasn’t. Then the irritation of his whining stopped my progress.
While I was sweating away in the afternoon heat, I made frequent checks of the sky for the arrival of the stormy weather that had been predicted. It didn’t look very threatening, but we did start hearing thunder in the distance when feeding the horses.
When I came in for dinner, I turned on the news and looked up a storm chaser streaming live on YouTube. I found a guy driving toward Ellsworth, and the TV offered a radar view of the most intense activity aimed right at us.
The TV broadcast was hyping the intensity of the hail core and mentioned the possibility of up to baseball-sized hail. The fact that we had just paid to have our roof re-shingled heightened the drama in our minds.
Cyndie was texting me from Chicago to get updates. She asked if Asher and I were going to the basement. I told her I wanted to get a picture of the hail first.
Alas, the drama ended faster than it had started. We received a few minutes of heavy rain, but that was all. No hail. Little in the way of wind. No lightning. Barely any thunder.
Thank goodness. I prefer to have our new shingles last more than one week before getting pummeled by large hailstones.
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Different Routines
One of the things we strive to give Asher and the horses is regularity of routine. It suits me well because I tend to prefer routine over less predictable randomness. It also works well that I would rather stay home than travel, because that makes me available to continue to provide the animals with a consistent pattern of care.
Cyndie is headed to Chicago for a few days with friends, taking the train down for variety and then flying back. Unfortunately, the timing is such that she will not be here on Friday when Mia is scheduled to be moved by trailer to her new adoptive home.
We think the adoption will be good for Mia, but there are plenty of questions about how the horses will behave when a trailer shows up and we segregate Mia in preparation. Will Mia be cooperative about loading into a trailer? Will Mia and her two new horse-mates all get along and adjust to their new quarters without too much stress?
Michelle, the person adopting Mia, and Cyndie and I have been doing our best to mentally prepare the horses with visualizations about what’s to come. I will be thrilled if they all accept the process of this change calmly and without surprise, to show us they all “heard” what we’ve been trying to communicate.
In communion with the changes the horses will be experiencing, I’ve changed one of my routines that has been static for a very long time. Possibly in reaction to the software changes I am striving to figure out related to Block Editing on my WordPress blog, I decided to update the lock screen on my iPhone. I have no other idea why I suddenly chose to do this simple thing now, after multiple phones with the same unchanging water droplets image that served me well enough that I never before considered a change.
I feel like I have a whole new phone! Our good boi will be the face I see every time I swipe my phone awake. I’m good for another several years.
Shout out to my long-time cycling friend, Rich Gordon, who is departing the Twin Cities today for Nepal to do some trekking in the high Himalayas. I lingered for a few hours on the possibility of joining him before coming to my senses.
I’m not lying about my level of affection for the routine of staying home to care for our animals and tend to our property.
Accessories
sometimes
when I'm pretending
to myself
that I'm a celebrity
that I admire
it occurs to me
I can't remember
the lines
or how I even got here
from the previous dream
without the right glasses
befitting my station
giving away the truth
of my vivid fashion senselessness
aghast
the masses
must be
to see
such a boorish sight
as me
in this dream
missing the mark
of accessories
Tick Scares
In the 14 years we have lived here, I have never seen as many tiny adult deer ticks crawling on me (4x), biting me (3x), walking on the keyboard of my laptop, and walking on Asher’s leg as I have in the last month. It’s crazy-making. They keep showing up everywhere I turn. The extended warm weather this month must be treating them well.
If I were going to a scary costume party, I’d go as a deer tick.
Cyndie’s party Saturday night had an Americana theme. There are plenty of scary possibilities, but from the photos Cyndie showed me, this was a happy, silly, and creative view of our country’s history.
The “Flintstones-looking” gavel I made for her survived the evening. If I get it back from her, it could become a mallet for use in future woodworking projects.
At the very least, it could serve me well in dealing with the ticks that keep showing up on and around me.
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Night Scare
This morning, I am contemplating fourteen years that have passed since we moved from the Twin Cities to western Wisconsin. It’s good for me to look at pictures from when we first arrived to see how much the trees have grown. It happens so gradually that it’s easy to lose sight of the change.
While I was looking back, I liked seeing how the inside of the house looked before we filled it with furniture.
For the first time in all these years, I had an uneasy feeling that someone might be lingering around the house in the middle of the night. Cyndie spent the night in the Cities at a friend’s house after the costume party they attended, so I was alone with Asher. I had fallen asleep at a reasonably early hour and was deep in slumber when Asher interrupted the serenity with a sudden outburst of barking.Â
That alone wasn’t all that unusual, and I chose to ignore him and keep sleeping, assuming it was a passing raccoon or herd of deer that he sensed. Maybe whatever it was wasn’t actually passing. Asher kept barking. I kept trying to sleep, mostly successfully, while his shouting became my white noise.
Sometime after 1 a.m., I came to again and realized he was still barking. Poor guy. He must be getting hoarse. I got up to pee, and he noticed and came to find me. I tried soothing him, and he followed me back to the bedroom to settle down and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, I didn’t. As I lay there, my mind decided I could smell cigarette smoke.
It took a while to clear my head, but it sent me down a rabbit hole of wondering what imaginary scenario might be playing out. It helped that Asher was no longer bothered.
In all the years we have been here, there have been no known prowlers. It is a very unlikely probability. I’m writing last night’s anxiety off as a momentary loss of confidence due to Cyndie’s absence. In reality, she wouldn’t have let Asher keep barking as long as I did, and we all would have been back to sleep much quicker.
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Didn’t Do
Soon after I married Cyndie and settled into a routine of occasional dinners with her family, I noticed a pattern in their table conversations. When her father asked, “What have you done for your country today?” it was time to recite a list of worthy accomplishments you’d achieved that day. Cyndie tells me he was asking that since they were little kids.
The question was loaded with the implication that you had better have done something worthwhile or face the shame and embarrassment of receiving a disapproving scowl. I’m confident that Fred was well aware of my frequent attempts to fluff my reports by stretching my descriptions or playing devil’s advocate and admitting I did nothing.
I’m a fan of the thought that happiness is doing nothing all day and, at the end of the day, resting.
Some days, I’d like to get credit for the things I didn’t do.Â
- I didn’t drive my car and produce auto exhaust, and I didn’t contribute to traffic or wear and tear on our roads.
- I didn’t make any non-essential purchases.
- I didn’t take an airplane flight.
- I didn’t get into any arguments.
- I didn’t yell at any kids.
- I didn’t harm any animals.
- I didn’t send any campaign spam messages to clutter people’s inboxes.
Yesterday, I didn’t nap and barely had a chance to do nothing.
Cyndie volunteered to clear excess leaves from the grass around the barn and hay shed where I hadn’t mowed the last time I cut all the rest of the property. It looks a lot better now; cropped shorter than usual to be ready for winter.
With the mowing done, I decided to take a chance and park the mower behind the ATV in the garage, in case I’m done mowing for the season. Before I did that, though, I figured I should bring the plow blade forward to where it could be reached in case it ever snows more than a few inches at a time this winter.
We also had several packs of extra shingles that I wanted to stow away in the back of the shop garage. That triggered a full-on garage cleaning with Cyndie’s help that neither of us had planned on doing. Luckily, we were both in similar mindsets about things we uncovered that weren’t deserving of taking up space anymore.
Now the recycle bin is full, the garbage bin is full, and there is a bunch of stuff at the end of the driveway beneath a “FREE” sign.
As light was fading on the day, I hustled to finish a woodworking project for Cyndie that she needed to have before she leaves this morning for an overnight with friends. She needed a gavel for a costume party, so I offered to make her one.
It looks like it’s from “The Flintstones,” but her costume is a famous judge who was known by three initials. It’s a rustic gavel. The handle is a section from a grapevine in our woods, and the head is a piece of insect-carved branch from an ash tree.
One thing I’m hoping she doesn’t do is pound the gavel with any force because the glue hasn’t had sufficient time to cure all the way.
With Cyndie gone today, there’s a possibility that Asher and I could turn this into a do-nothing day without much effort. [see what I did there…?]
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Actively Ignoring
One of the things I find myself enjoying during this midterm election season is what I call “actively ignoring” the onslaught of messages from campaigns. Since I have never opened one of the messages to see if there is an unsubscribe feature, they just keep coming.
I like to move them to the trash as fast as they arrive. Bing, bang, boom. Delete, delete, delete. For all of the energy someone puts into these solicitations, it is getting effortlessly tossed aside without a glance.
That’s not entirely true. I do get some pleasure out of noticing the first few words of phrasing to “not bother me,” “not asking for money,” “not begging,” “hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” “please, please, please,” “this is the last, last time.”
It’s an attempt at clickbait that never comes close to working for them.
It reminds me a little of the NY Times games subscription campaign where they have been announcing the last day to get their “75% off price” for several years. Sure. Last day. Uh huh.
There’s a smug self-satisfaction I get from not wasting any more time than it takes to swipe left on my phone to trash each email.
The roofing crew finished every last detail yesterday and did an impressive job of cleaning up after the very messy process of reroofing. However, even after their thorough effort to pick up after themselves, plenty of shrapnel can be found by someone with a keen eye.
It’s a little like searching for jigsaw puzzle pieces, which is something my brain enjoys. Some of the scraps I found were about the size of a puzzle piece.
After the roofers left, I got a call from the company owner saying he would stop out this morning with a magnet for one last sweep and to pick up anything the guys missed, so maybe I’ll have to resort to a real puzzle to feed that part of my brain.
Not that our weather is cool enough yet to inspire indoor projects.
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Update Mode
I guess we are in update mode. Roofers started arriving to our house before it was even light out yesterday morning. While we are in the midst of getting a new roof, it came to my attention (thank you, Patty) that my Relative Something posts might not be showing up the way they had before on readers’ devices, since a software update forced me to edit in block mode.
When I asked about the widgets in the right margin staying in view all the time, I learned it is related to the WordPress theme I’ve used since 2009, created before block editing became a thing.
Just like our aging roof shingles have forced us into updating, I’m feeling WordPress is succeeding in dragging me, kicking and screaming, into updating the theme I am using for this blog. I took a peek at some options yesterday while our roof was being rocked with banging staplers and scraping pry bars, and ran into more options than my old brain can process. 1,634 Block Themes, to be exact.
It’s going to take me some time to come up with a new look for Relative Something. I hope you will bear with me if you suddenly find things unrecognizable one morning. In the meantime, I’m limping along with this old theme in the new block editor mode.
We have a great crew of hard-working, good-humored guys roaring through the project with an artistic flair that makes it appear like a choreographed dance.
Cyndie and I were thrilled with how well Asher coped with all the chaos of activity and noise. Sure, he had his moments of barking at the arrival of strange vehicles and the number of people he wanted to check out, but he settled down and napped throughout the majority of the noisy day.
They made enough progress on the first day to guarantee they will be able to finish today, barring any unforeseen complications.
The weather certainly isn’t something they need to worry about. Warm sunshine and little wind made for ideal working conditions yesterday, and the forecast for today is expected to be more of the same. Great weather for working outside.
Not particularly inspiring to stay indoors and hunt through WordPress themes for something that I want to define me for the next how-ever-many-years I can make this last. Maybe I’ll settle into that exercise when things return to the usual serenity of our natural surroundings after the roofers are gone and a rainy day arrives to give me a good excuse to not be outside.
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Manic Fixation
Lately, Asher the wonderdog has become hyperfocused on capturing mice that have taken up residence in tree cavities. Obviously relying on his nose to tell him when a rodent is home, their presence will flip a switch in him that blocks out the rest of the world and gives him super-endurance to stay on task until he gets what he’s after.
He ripped the bark off this little tree and crunched and chewed the wood for so long that I grew tired of watching him and started doing something else nearby. There was no reason to interrupt his fun. Finally, I spotted him with his prize, a big, fat mouse in his mouth. He dropped it, pushed it with his nose, satisfied himself that it was out of its misery, and then instantly lost interest in it.
Apparently, his primary interest is in the hunt more than the capture.
Later, he took a new interest in an old log that once had a mouse in it. The first time he zeroed in on it, I watched as a mouse jumped out one side and ran off while Asher chewed on the other end. The fact that he was fixated on it again could only mean one thing. There must be a new tenant. That afternoon, I did have another agenda, so I asked him to keep on task with me and deal with the log later.
He couldn’t do it. The solution he settled on was to simply bring the log with us.
That’s motivation. It was really challenging for him to hold it up and walk at the same time. I didn’t honestly believe there could still be a mouse in there, but I know better than to question his nose.
Asher got away from us yesterday afternoon while we were working on clearing the drainage swale that forms the southern border of our property. Cyndie walked off to locate him, and I soon spotted her driving down the driveway to search for him along the road. Suddenly, I thought I heard yelling at a neighboring property; the one with a horde of cats, indoor and out.
It sounded like, “Go HOME now!” which made sense if it was Asher.
As I was calling Cyndie on the phone, her car came into view, and she was passing that driveway. I told her what I thought I was hearing, and just as I got the words out, I saw Asher running out of their driveway.
“He’s right behind you!” I excitedly said.
I’m assuming we’ve burned up some precious goodwill with those neighbors for a while. May need to bake them some “apology cookies.”
I much prefer Asher being fixated on rodents in our woods over the place down the road with cats.
“Property!” I keep reminding him whenever his attention strays to anywhere beyond our boundaries. When I say it sternly, he quickly turns his focus back to our pathways. Unfortunately, the word and concept don’t seem to stick when we aren’t around to reinforce the command.
I can’t really blame him. The enticing odors wafting in the wind certainly aren’t constrained by property lines.
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