Unlikely Plan
It seemed like an unlikely plan, but somehow I pulled it off. After a short errand to River Falls in the morning, I felt overcome by sleep when I got home. A 45-minute period of deep slumber in the recliner followed. I did not wake full of zest and pondered the possibility of illness brewing within.
The hour of lunching had arrived, so I decided to try fueling my body to see if that helped me feel more alive. I asked Cyndie if it seemed dry enough outside to mow after our overnight rainfall watered all the growing things. Her answer was rather noncommittal, but it wasn’t a no.
It had gotten late enough in the day that it was entirely uncharacteristic of me to start a project like mowing the back pasture with the diesel tractor and brush cutter, but that is what I decided to do. I hadn’t used the New Holland 3415 since mid-April, so I checked the oil, added air to the tires, added liquid grease to the brush cutter gearbox, and greased the universal joint. For good measure, I got under the brush cutter and used the grinder to touch up the cutting edge of the blades.
By the time I got in the field, it was almost 4:00, but I didn’t let it bother me. My intuition was telling me I could make worthy progress, and if I couldn’t finish by a reasonable time, it didn’t really matter.
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Well, I did finish. It was about 6:00 when I stopped the tractor in front of the garage to blow it off with compressed air.
When I first rolled into the field, the grass looked to be a little wetter than I expected, but not enough to be a problem. It actually seemed to get drier as I went along. This is the earliest in the summer that we have mowed the back pasture. We always waited in the past because we anticipated it would get cut for hay along with the front field, but the guy doesn’t want to bother with the short distances back there.
Now that we know that, there is no reason to wait. It was an easier job to cut it before it got too tall, and the sooner we nip the weeds, the better. And, gosh darn, it just looks so sharp freshly mowed. I don’t know if the horses are as thrilled with it as I am, but how can they not like it?
Probably the most exciting for me is that I succeeded in pulling off such an unlikely plan for my comfort level in getting things done. I credit the nap. I think it might be my new superpower.
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Sour Dock
Also called Curly Dock, we learned of sour dock from a local farmer who was supplying us with small squares of hay back when we had the Arabian horses. He pointed out that it was the only weed in his hay and that horses didn’t like it. It’s toxic for livestock, so I don’t blame horses for not liking it.
Yesterday, Cyndie and I took a crack at digging up the larger sprouts around the paddock, since they are too much for the string trimmer to chew through.
Some of the stalks are beginning to swallow our fence wires. While we were working, the horses wandered over to inspect our progress.
Cyndie had been putting the stalks into old feed bags, but they filled up so fast that she went back and got a wheelbarrow. Mia came over, grabbed a mouthful, and pulled a bunch of them back out of the bag. I thought she was going to eat some, but no, she just dropped them on the ground. She knows sour dock is toxic. I think she was just messing with us.
Then the mares turned around and formed a line to graze the short grass in the paddock.
Each time I finished digging up one plant, I would find another one nearby. Soon, I realized that this would become an endless task. Our two big fields may not look like there is a lot of sour dock at first glance, but wherever there is one, you can find another close at hand.
The weed is difficult to pull up because the main root is carrot-shaped and can reach ridiculous depths. I wish our attempts at growing carrots looked as good as some of these.
We filled two wheelbarrows full and are now left with figuring out where to dump them so as to avoid any possibility of spontaneous regeneration. It does enough of that on its own.
Away from the fence lines, we resort to mowing the fields to disturb the cycle of growth. The back pasture is more than ready for me to bring out the big tractor and brush hog to knock down the weeds and shorten the grasses to a more enticing blade height for the mares.
The front field we let go until the guy who grazes cattle on the neighboring field has someone cut and bale for feeding his cattle in the winter.
It was so fun having the horses come mingle with us as we worked that we’ve decided to find other activities to do in their spaces that might add a little excitement to their day. Their life of retirement is pretty much filled with napping, grazing, and waiting around for feed bucket servings.
They could benefit from occasional disruptions to their routine, triggering an urge to satisfy their curiosity.
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Visiting History
I went for a little bike ride yesterday that took me into the stomping grounds of three of my ancestors’ families from 1860 to 1880 in Pierce County, Wisconsin.
Destination Esdaile brought me to some road construction.
I sure am loving my new, more aggressive tires.
The portion of the road under construction that I needed to travel was not very long. You can see my right turn ahead of the trees in the distance. That rough surface was still probably an improvement on the terrain my ancestors were traveling on in the 1800s.
Much of my ride was along Isabelle Creek that powered the mill my great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Sleeper, ran. It’s wild thinking about the decisions made before any infrastructure existed to utilize this creek for powering a mill.
It felt like I had ridden back in time to pedal the gravel road that follows the winding creek valley. I am repeatedly amazed at the unlikelihood of our choosing to move to this county without having a clue about my family’s temporary connections to the land. I suppose it is the transient nature of their subsequent generations that explains the detachment.
Searching through old newspapers from the time period reveals details of my great-grandparents’ accomplishments in school. They were just kids romping around the woods and ravines along the creek. It’s wild to think about.
It made for a thought-provoking ride while pedaling up and down the rolling hills between Esdaile and our current home.
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Getting Bit
Before the horses came into view on my way to the barn, I heard an uncharacteristic whinny from one of the horses. As I came around the wall of the overhang, I found three of the horses coping fine, but Mia was flinching and stomping her feet and whipping her tail. She was obviously uncomfortable with the amount of harassment being dished out by the flies.
A day or two earlier, Cyndie had spotted big welts on Mia from her reaction to the bites. I returned to the house to interrupt Cyndie and her three lunch guests for a consultation. Since she hadn’t covered Mia with a fly sheet earlier, she decided to leave her friends and come with me to help Mia without delay.
The sheet is white, so at a glance from a distance, I couldn’t tell her apart from Mix. This morning, Mia was walking with an awkward timidity because the straps around her back legs bugged her. We agreed that the sheet could come off for the time being.
She still has on her extremely fashionable hand-me-down fly boots to protect her lower legs. A brisk wind would do wonders to reduce the abuse they suffer from flies, but we don’t have much say in making that happen.
I suffered an insect bite of my own yesterday. Found a tick firmly attached to my upper arm that I needed to enlist Cyndie’s help, again, to extract. We will be monitoring the site for evidence that demands professional analysis. In the meantime, I will seek to ensure I have all my critical affairs in order.
My dreary attempt at bleak humor aside, I have been bitten by so many ticks in my life and dodged major consequences that I’m fully expecting this to resolve similarly. You’d think I would take it more seriously, given Cyndie’s experience with Lyme Disease, but her situation involved an unknown source of infection and a lengthy period of confusing symptoms before being identified.
My distress would be much greater if I didn’t see the tick that bit me and know it hadn’t been on me for more than a few hours. Experiencing symptoms of illness with no known cause, like getting bitten by a tick that is almost microscopically small and never realizing it, scares me a lot more.
Both Cyndie and I chose long ago to accept the gamble of risking exposure to ticks in order to fully experience our outdoor activities at Wintervale.
This latest tick bite does have me missing the chickens a little more than usual today. They would have gobbled this critter up long before he had a chance to get me, I’m sure of it.
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Psychic Power
There was a period in my life when I figured out that every project/task/repair includes an unwelcome difficulty that arises to complicate things.
- A stripped screw head.
- Rusted bolt that won’t turn.
- Drill bit breaks off while drilling.
- Tap breaks while cutting threads.
- Unable to locate a missing tool.
When I figured out this was such a common situation that it was almost an integral truth to DIY efforts, I tried to adjust my attitude to avoid being triggered into a temper tantrum when problems crop up. If I convinced myself to expect that something would inevitably foil my plan for a smooth flow to a desired outcome, I could simply frame it as another step in the series toward completing whatever I was working on. It made it a lot less anger-inducing.
It turns out that this idea of an inevitable “fly-in-the-ointment” is not accurate. Unfortunately, that presents a new psychological struggle for me to process.
On Wednesday, the multiple errands I ran in succession before my reunion planning meeting went off without a hitch. I actually arrived at the restaurant half an hour early.
Yesterday morning was cool and dry, so I decided to try the riding mower first thing. After about 5 minutes, the overtemp sensor tripped off the PTO. I drove the mower back to the shop garage, put it up on a ramp, and swapped out the blade motor with the new replacement I picked up on Wednesday. The fix was quick and happened without any difficulties.
We had technicians show up to install our new dehumidifier, and I took a break from mowing to check on them, showing up just in time to confirm he had it oriented opposite of what we planned. As he described his intentions for the rest of the job, it sounded like a better setup than the salesman had proposed.
My luck was on a roll.
We had the guests from Sweden coming to visit, and I really wanted to finish the mowing before they arrived. The combination of switching back and forth between the push mower on the labyrinth and steep parts of the yard and then the riding mower for the rest, while the other machine’s batteries charged, worked out to a tee.
I completed all the mowing with time to spare.
This presents me with a challenge: It is not in my nature to accept such good fortune without trepidation. I am waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. I also struggle with feeling undeserving of so much trouble-free success. How did I get so lucky?
We are strongly hoping our quick transplant of the trillium plants from Hayward will be viable and that they will thrive in this new location. 48 hours later, the once droopy transplants are standing tall and looking as happy as can be.
Could it really be possible that focusing on positive outcomes and the practice of holding expectations that things will play out flawlessly produces actual results?
Honestly, I believe it can. I just find it hard to believe that I might be pulling it off.
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Mostly Minutiae
What if one day I completely ran out of ideas? Would I write about that? Probably. Good thing I can fall back on simply describing the minutiae of my days. Like how I started the already too-hot day early in the morning yesterday, trying to get manure management back to my high standards after our long weekend away at the lake.
After breakfast, I wanted to use the riding mower to harvest our crop of too-tall grass, but the overtemp error code came on the instant I turned the key. The blade motor had worked a week ago when I mowed the backyard, but now, after sitting dormant while we were away, it tripped before even starting. Doesn’t make much sense, unless it’s reacting to air temperature.
Thankfully, I picked up the replacement motor yesterday, although not until after I pushed the hand mower for a few hours to completely exhaust myself first. The afternoon became a precision-planned exercise of errands I stacked together for maximum efficiency. A stop at our eyeglass place to have them snug up the fit on my new prescription safety glasses. The trip up to North St. Paul to pick up the motor from a repair shop certified to work on Greenworks mowers. A run to my bike shop to get a front light for my bike. A stop at a taphouse in Woodbury for a kick-off meeting for planning my class’s 50th reunion next summer. And finally, a stop to pay over $4/Gallon for gas on the way home.
The timing worked perfectly. Had time to spare, actually.
I’m hoping today will end up just as smooth. We have HVAC installers coming to add ductwork and a dehumidifier in our furnace room. I want to make the motor swap first thing in the morning, in case I can get some additional mowing done before our new Swedish friends stop by to see our place.
I truly hope the dehumidifier installation can be completed in one day. Cyndie has company coming tomorrow, too. I need to get the labyrinth mowed before then. I wish I were better acclimated to 80° F days already. Working outside in the hot sun felt brutal yesterday. Last night, when I checked the 10-day forecast, there wasn’t a day when the high was less than 80.
That gives me an idea. We should just stay at the lake all summer long.
What a wonderful thought. Since that is just a fantasy, I don’t have to bother figuring out how the grass would get mowed, and the animals cared for at home. I can just focus on how that massive air-conditioning body of water beats the heat.
I think I’ll dream about that today while sweating on the riding mower or trudging behind the push mower.
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Transplant Completed
Just as we planned, at the last minute before departing from the lake place, Cyndie and I went into the woods and dug up three bunches of trillium. When we arrived home, one of the first orders of business, after making sure the ice cream Cyndie brought back from West’s Dairy was safely in our freezer, was to get the trillium transplants in the ground in proximity to the batch of previously transplanted beauties.
As I was putting them in the ground, I was a little sad over the fact that a couple of them had tipped over, kinking the stem, and others looked droopier than I liked. Cyndie stopped by not too long after I had watered the area and found them looking much perkier. We’re hoping for the best.
Before all our attention moved to the trillium, we had our eyes opened to the presence of morel mushrooms growing near the gravel driveways up at the lake place. This was a complete surprise to us. Steve’s friends from Sweden had been on a walk and noticed the highly coveted wild shrooms.
Eva and Matilde had found seven of the distinctive honeycomb-like caps growing around a big old tree. Cyndie brought along a knife and cut and bagged our first batch ever, thanks to their sharp awareness. This has inspired us to be more observant in our woods at home, keeping our eyes open for the possibility of the edible fungus growing right where we live. Of course, we now also want to remember to keep watching for the proven presence of morels up at the lake.
It would be a shame not to take advantage of this valuable resource in our woods, especially if we can find them growing in both places.
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Energy Fade
Today is one month away from my 67th birthday in June. Everyone ages differently, but my experience is that my level of energy has dropped noticeably in my mid-sixties. That’s not necessarily problematic for me. I really enjoy lounging around. I had a wonderfully luxurious day in the most fabulous lake weather yesterday, enhanced by some great conversation with Steve’s guests from Sweden, Eva and her daughter, Matilde. I also checked in on Cyndie, who was threading beads to create Morse coded bracelets.
Looking at some of the shiny beads in her collection, I was fascinated by the reflection of the red umbrella overhead. She was working at the table on the deck. When I leaned over to take a photo, my phone camera obscured the view of the umbrella, but that added some mystery about what was going on in the image.
As the afternoon advanced and people with weekday responsibilities departed for their homes, I rallied my resources and hopped on the bike to do some light-effort pedaling. I’d spent much of the day recovering from my extended workout on the bicycle the day before, but in the hope of building more stamina using the same muscle groups, I thought it pertinent to ride again on consecutive days.
It took me a long time to warm up my legs, and just when I started to feel myself hitting stride, I noticed the residual fatigue was making sure I was still aware of it. It wasn’t going to be a long-distance outing even if I’d wanted it to be. Luckily, I was within a few miles of Wildwood when all this was happening. I had been using the electric assist the whole time to baby my rubbery legs, and the thing that became clear to me was that the effort to ride at my usual pace of around 12 mph without the electronics helping ends up being remarkably similar to the effort to keep the pedals spinning at a battery-assisted 18 mph.
It’s a function of being a high-cadence rider. The motor helps, but it is no cure for not having the strength to spin the pedals.
The hour-long cruise on the paved country roads was perfect for my goals and left me with plenty of time to resume luxuriating afterward in the cool breeze off the lake on a warm, sunny day. Then, I stayed up too late watching another overtime hockey game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
I think spectator sports are going to become more entertaining for me as my advancing age continues to reduce my energy resources. Tensing my muscles as the action in the game gets exciting and then relaxing when the whistle blows provides an added bonus of processing the lactic acid buildup in my legs. For now, I’m getting benefits from both participating in a sport and watching professional athletes ply their trades.
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Biking Progress
A search of the area behind the cabin where Cyndie had previously seen the fawn turned up no signs of it. It may have lain down in a tiny curled ball, but since we didn’t see or hear from it the entire rest of the day, we prefer to imagine its mother returned and they wandered off to live happily ever after. The walk through the woods turned up some rewarding scenery in consolation.
The trillium is putting on a pretty good show for us. My second favorite adornment of the forests up here is the ferns. They are coming on strong this weekend.
The surprise we least expected to find was methodically pecking away on the shady side of a tree. It took some hunting to find it by honing in on the most likely direction the sounds were coming from and then staring long enough to catch a glimpse of the movement.
That’s a Pileated Woodpecker way up in the tree. They are the largest woodpeckers we have in North America, but they are a somewhat rare sighting. That makes it doubly special whenever we have one pay a visit.
I was able to take advantage of good weather yesterday afternoon and get out for a 39-mile loop riding my bike. My derailleur recalibration worked well, and I pushed my mileage to more than double my previous rides this season. My new gravel tires worked well, too, allowing me to confidently ride a road I didn’t know would be gravel. That portion offered me the chance to witness the smallest fawn I have ever seen in person. Compared to the one that was bleating outside our sunroom, this one was practically a quarter of the size.
It looked like it could have been born only a few hours earlier. I came up over a rise in the road and found the mamma and baby staring directly at me from the middle of the gravel road. As I approached them, I spoke a few words, which triggered the doe to leap off into the sparse growth beside the road. The matchstick-like legs of the fawn wobbled their way to follow the mom.
Steve arrived yesterday with guests who are friends from Sweden. We enjoyed a big feast for a late dinner after offering tours of the house and surroundings, and visiting with several neighbors for happy hour on the deck next to our place. I was feeling pretty self-satisfied about the distance I had traveled on my bike ride earlier in the afternoon, but my pride was taken down a notch when I learned a couple next door biked 55 miles, 20 or 25 of which were unplanned. They missed a turn and rode much farther south than they had intended.
My leg muscles were on the verge of cramping after my effort. I don’t want to think about the pain of riding that many unplanned miles.
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Baby Deer
In the middle of a card game among six of us in the sunroom, a strange bird call started up. Someone suggested it was a catbird. It wasn’t a chirp or a cheep. I would describe it more as a higher-pitched “Meh!” repeating singularly. Cyndie was about to pull out her Merlin bird call ID app on her phone when someone noticed a baby deer out the window.
The sound we were all hearing was this wayward fawn, presumably calling for its momma. It was cute at first, but then it quickly loomed as a sad situation. Something didn’t seem right that this sweet little thing was choosing to wander so close to civilization when no other deer were anywhere in sight. We are not far from the heavily traveled Hwy 77, where wildlife roadkill is not uncommon.
Was this youngster orphaned?
Well, the sad reality is that when Ben and Beck arrived, they commented about seeing an eagle feeding on a deer carcass nearby. It’s not entirely an obvious confirmation, since the remains look like they have been there for a long time. Although it’s not clear that this fawn has only recently been left alone.
As evening settled in, Cyndie went for a walk and found the fawn still alone, hanging around in the woods between our place and the road. We plan to take a stroll soon to see what we might find. With luck, maybe another momma will show up and adopt the lonely little Bambi.
Cyndie put out some water in the area, but her research helped confirm that the best thing we can do is leave nature to take its course. By staying away, we actually increase the chance that another herd will come by and take it in as one of their own. However, this morning, she got a call back from a wildlife rescue organization, and they asked her to take a closer picture if possible. If there are flies around it and/or poop around its butt, it is a confirmation that no mother is taking care of it.
If that is the case, they seemed interested in taking some action.
Ben and Beck just returned from town with fresh donuts and reported that there are even more dead deer along the road, with eagles feeding on them. The wildlife must not be used to all this new traffic showing up to kick off the summer season of northwoods vacationers.
It would be best if we didn’t keep hearing the sad bleating of the poor thing for much longer today. That’s rather heartbreaking.
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Relative Something 