Willy Nilly
I put in a few more miles on the bike yesterday, making my way down to the Rush River valley. That is such an invigorating drop in elevation from the flat farm fields to the bottom of the tree-covered, steep-sloped valley below. The road follows the river, with multiple low bridges where the water meanders back and forth until it gets confusing which side it’s on for a minute or two.
At the turn that leads to the Vino in the Valley restaurant, I paused for a brief chat with a couple of fly fishermen who were just about to head down to get their waders wet in pursuit of the perfect casting spots.
The restaurant wasn’t open; however, there were some people who were out shooting in the open field. I pedaled up the driveway, but wasn’t able to speak with anyone. I had guessed they might be skeet shooting, but it looked more like hunting for burrowing varmints at ground level. I chose not to interrupt.
I was hoping to ask about the giant teepee of large branches out in the middle of the open field. If that is for a burn, it is going to be one heck of a bonfire. Checking their calendar of events, I see they are holding a music festival on the 5th of September. Maybe it gets burned then.
Back home, in the afternoon, I did a little mowing in a manner I call “Cyndie Style.” We have company coming for lunch today, and Cyndie wanted the grotesquely tall foxtail grass and various weeds along the edges trimmed. It’s all been neglected because I’m trying to stay off the dead grass to avoid turning it into a dusty hellscape.
So, instead of methodically mowing entire sections with straight passes, I simply drove willy-nilly to any spot that had noticeable patches of tall growth while strategically avoiding any area of scorched turf. For the most part, I think it worked. Looks good enough to me for a drought-scape.
After the exhausting effort of sitting on the mower, or maybe it was the hours of pedalling earlier in the morning, I sat down in the yard with Asher. It didn’t take long for me to conk out in the chair. I’m happy to report that Asher was still there when I opened my eyes again. But we weren’t alone.
This was the sight that greeted me just to my left:
Was he trying to sneak up on me as I slept? I shuddered at the thought. At least snakes are much easier to spot in the scalded grass. I immediately pointed the snake out to Asher, hoping he would protect me from its advances.
He was entirely uninterested. Didn’t give it a second glance.
After a looong stare-down, the snake eventually did a 180 and rapidly headed for the cover of brush at the edge of the mowed yard. I reckon wildlife around our place must be putting a lot of energy into finding a drink of water lately. Maybe desperation led him to expose himself like that.
Extreme thirst can lead to some willy-nilly decisions, I suppose. I sure am glad my little nap ended when it did.
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Precious Dew
Any moisture in a drought becomes all the more precious, so a little dew in the morning takes some of the edge off how harsh it feels outside. The dew also causes all the overnight spider webs in the pasture to become highly visible in the low light of the rising sun.
The horses seem to be tolerating the dry and dusty conditions with their typical demonstration of coping skills.
In their favor, the lack of wetness has inhibited the fly populations to a significant degree. However, it has also drawn a large number of bees to hang out around the horses’ automatic waterer. Cyndie put out some apple cider vinegar-baited traps and tried a couple of bee spray applications to discourage the establishment of a hive in the body of the Ritchie waterer.
Paddock Lake has become nothing more than a dug-out depression good for dust baths.
It’s getting hard to imagine how much rainfall it will take to ever fill that crater again. With the month of September just days away, the outdoors present a distinct feeling of an early onset of fall, minus the cooler temperatures.
Maybe we’ll get a wet October, which doesn’t seem unusual at all, but I don’t recall rain in the tenth month of the year historically amounting to the level of moisture we will need to put a dent in the dryness that has occurred this summer. I’d like to hope for a lot of snow over winter to give us a kick of moisture during the spring melt next year, but the strong El Niño is expected to result in a warmer winter with less snow in the Twin Cities.
I’m getting what pleasure I can from the early morning blankets of dew until the next rain event. There’s a tease in the forecast of a 70% chance on Saturday, but I’m not holding my breath. We are hosting guests for lunch that day, so maybe that will increase the chances. One can hope.
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Tough Days
Since I didn’t need to mow any grass yesterday, I went for a bike ride. It was only a short ride in the late afternoon, but it was my first pedalling in three and a half weeks. I need to do a little more conditioning via hours on the saddle in preparation for a week of riding with 4 of my cycling besties beginning on Labor Day weekend. We will be heading to Missouri to ride the Katy Trail, which crosses the majority of the state from west to east.
It’s practically like riding from Kansas City to St. Louis.
The grass in front of Cyndie’s perennial garden doesn’t really resemble grass anymore.
It looks more like a brown rug.
Over by the barn, there is clear evidence that shade can make a huge difference in protecting grass from the harsh, baking sunshine.
It looks like a shadow of the maple tree canopy over that slope.
Tough days lately. Both Dolly Parton (80) and Tim Curry (80) died; our grass is dying; and Nepal and Tibet have had a massive flash flood that created a wall of water, mud, and debris that slammed into people, buildings, and bridges. The videos are harrowing to watch.
People the world over could use a hug. Let’s cut ourselves a little extra slack for a while as we cope with so much loss all at once. Put some energy into producing healthy doses of love and send them out into the physical and spiritual worlds in waves upon waves. The more we send, the more that will find its way back over us.
A healing balm for others and for ourselves.
Peace to you, dear readers. Namaste.
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Layin’ Low
Asher and I were at a low ebb of motivation yesterday. We did a fair amount of lolling about, though that’s not really that rare.
This is what it looked like back on a day before things shriveled up and turned brown. Sometimes I just wander up and sit down next to where he is lying and do nothing but keep him company. The thing is, if I lay back and close my eyes, sleep usually takes over, and when I wake, he will have disappeared. He’s no dummy.
It wasn’t too hot yesterday, but it sure felt lazy outside. Eventually a nice breeze developed, but that never did much toward motivating us to any productive action. I made several trips between the hay shed and the barn to stage more bales for convenience. That and one wheelbarrow of manure dumped was the only physical work I did.
Asher and I augmented that effort with a few rounds of play with his favorite yard toy, the Jolly Ball with a heavy rope strung through it. Then it was back inside to see if my recliner still worked.
While I was feeling particularly sedentary, I exercised my brain with a deep dive into some history of my school days in Eden Prairie. I discovered a variety of rabbit holes to get distracted by. Even though my focus ricocheted to and fro, I collected and compiled some details and numbers that will help me to present a fuller picture of our past on the reunion website I am setting up.
We had a private Catholic school and two public grade schools that fed our middle and high schools. I’m contemplating the possibility of featuring a list of kids who were part of our young lives but moved away before graduating with us. It’s tricky when all I have is an unidentified face shot from a class photo. I am struggling to come up with all the names.
I hope to rally assistance from classmates once the website is published to fill in missing people in the puzzle. Getting a dialogue going with folks would be a rewarding outcome for me. As a group, I imagine we could go a long way toward filling in the gaps in each other’s memories. That seems like a worthy exercise on the occasion of the passing of 50 years.
Going through the effort to set this all in motion feels like a good use of my lolling about time. I may be lying low, but I’m getting something accomplished at the same time. You guys know how much I value “win-win” opportunities.
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Dryer Still
And somehow we have arrived at the 25th day of August in 2026. I don’t feel like I’ve been waiting a lifetime to reach this day, but it has taken my entire life to get here. Yet, it’s just another day. A Tuesday. Whatever.
We paid a lot of money to fill Cyndie’s car with gas in Hayward and made our way home without incident yesterday, despite needing to navigate our way through three construction projects. We found the land at home even drier than it was when we left, Asher in good spirits, and the horses looking healthy and content.
We had a fabulous time over the weekend with Cyndie’s brother, Steve, and her mom. Steve was able to take Marie home, which allowed us to drive directly to our place. As much as we appreciate settling into our usual environs and routines, we were already feeling a little sorry last night about the absence of the extra atmosphere of fun that permeated the last four days.
Maybe Marie was noticing the same thing, as she phoned just after we finished dinner to report she wasn’t feeling 100%. Out of an abundance of caution, Cyndie opted to grab her favorite pillows and head to Bloomington to offer support and extend the pleasure of being together for one more day.
Asher and I will be running things at home this morning.
It’s tough to see everything so dry around here, but it does reduce the amount of mowing that I need to do.
Somehow, the plum trees have found enough moisture to produce a fair amount of good-looking fruit. More power to ‘em. I suspect we will be collecting fruit soon for Cyndie to can or use in some baked goodies. We’ll need to collect them before thirsty birds or critters go after the fruit simply for hydration.
I’m counting down the days until we receive the next measurable precipitation. May it arrive sooner than anyone is expecting.
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End Begins
We have officially witnessed the first obvious example of a tree’s leaves making the transition to fall. The end of summer is moving well into sight.
There is a high possibility that I played my last pickleball match of the season on the court up here. I had the pleasure of being invited to fill in a foursome two days in a row over the weekend. I was just beginning to get my touch back after a long gap since the last time I’ve played, and the next long gap is most likely starting today.
We set out for one more pontoon cruise after pickleball, taking advantage of the beautiful weather and reduced boat traffic of a Sunday. Since we had no destination planned, Steve brought his dog, Vern, along for the ride.
I think he was loving the wind in his hair.
When we got back from lunch on Saturday afternoon, we noticed a lot of large, white spots of bird droppings on the deck and a rare lack of activity around the hummingbird feeders. Wonder what we missed.
Eventually, one, and then two, made an appearance again, and soon the numbers returned to normal, with the usual swarming and flailing at each other for the shared resource. Cyndie has barely been staying ahead of their appetites for the sweet water. They are preparing for the journey to come, which will mean an end to the season of entertainment they bring just outside our sunroom windows.
Today marks the end of our August visits to the lake this year. We are driving home this morning to relieve our house/animal sitters in caring for things at Wintervale. We’re leaving behind a smaller-than-usual Round Lake. Dry conditions up here have added a foot of beach width due to the lake level being unusually low.
We’ll all be a lot happier when the end of this dry spell shows up. The uneven distribution of life-giving precipitation around the planet is maddening. While we are suffering, places like Edmonton, Canada, have broken records for rainfall amounts this summer.
Feast or famine. Something tells me these kinds of weather extremes will not be ending anytime soon.
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Lunch Cruise
Saturday at the lake was so incredibly pleasant that we opted for a pontoon ride across the hardly-round Round Lake to visit The Dock Bar and Grill. It’s a place folks up here have been talking about a lot this year, but none of us had been yet. Great burgers and pizza, they said. Marie had a burger, but Cyndie chose the broasted chicken, Steve went for brats, and I ordered the fish sandwich. We’ll have to go back another time to judge the pizza.
As Steve navigated away from our boat lift, the water was calm.
Out on the open water, conditions were a lot choppier.
Cyndie wanted to take a picture of Steve and me with the massive mounted moose head in the background.
“Let me get one without your silly expression,” she said.
I removed my glasses and told Steve to sit up straight and suck in his gut!
Somehow, this made his bicep muscle incredibly well-developed. Look at the guns on this guy!
Is there any question why I have so much fun hanging out with this family? Laughter is the foundation of pretty much every situation occurring at any given time.
It can make it difficult for me to focus on writing a blog post from beginning to end. That, and the fact that some scrumptious breakfast is usually being served and I’m called to the table.
Right now, I need to go have Cyndie’s French toast, bacon, and fruit to fuel myself for our next adventure.
Maybe the next activity will be something worth writing about. Our Sunday is wide open.
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Classic Wildwood
We are up at the lake again. Imagine that. Cyndie rode up with our friend, Melissa, last Tuesday for a quiet two-day respite in the magnificent surroundings of northern Wisconsin. On Thursday, I drove to the Cities to pick up Cyndie’s mom, Marie, and brought her up for the weekend.
Adding to the classic Wildwood Lodge Club vibe, Cyndie’s brother, Steve, showed up for the weekend as well, on his way back from Chicago, where he had been visiting his kids.
The clouds of hummingbirds have been consuming quarts of sugar water at an unbelievable rate.
Another classic Wildwood flying creature visited us in the sunroom in broad daylight while Steve and I were talking. Out of nowhere, a bat was suddenly flying circles around the room. I jumped up and closed the double doors to the house, and Steve moved to open the sliding door to the deck.
The silly flying mouse didn’t figure it out on its own, so Cyndie showed up with a broom and helped shoo it out the door. Just like the good old days.
While I was working on the website for my high school class reunion next summer, I could hear the speedboat, driven by Steve, pulling tubers and skiers for repeated laps. That’s a Wildwood tradition if there ever was one.
Topping off the day in the most precious of Wildwood style, while the four of us were sitting on the deck, Cyndie and Marie in the middle of a game of CrossCrib, members of the Whitlocks next door (plus one guest) came up to join us. Soon, our group expanded to include one of the Wrights, and an impromptu cocktail party was born. That eventually led to a full-on dinner party.
How does that work?
Well, one of the secrets is that Cyndie had prepared dinner for the four of us by cooking all of the chicken on hand. There were more than enough mini potatoes, and we broke corn cobs in half. An already prepared elote corn salad was contributed by the Whitlocks, and we had a perfect summer feast on the deck over the lake.
Stories flowed from both deep in the past and the retelling of the events of the day. This amazing Wildwood community celebrated its 60th anniversary in July. Yesterday was a great demonstration of how vibrant and rewarding it still is.
It’s a priceless version of what the term “going to the lake” means to people in our part of the world. There are differing versions, but anyone who has experienced Wildwood Lodge Club tends to agree that what we’ve got here stands out as worth any effort to maintain.
It truly is a classic.
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Special Visit
Despite the prolonged drought, some of our flowering plants continue to put on a show and attract hummingbirds.
The 10-day forecast shows no sign of precipitation to ease the suffering of plants that are clinging to life. I think most of them have simply started their transitions toward the end of their growing season.
Even though our grounds look far short of their best, I enjoyed the pleasure of hosting a visit from a couple of my Eden Prairie classmates, Jodi and Kelly, yesterday. (Cyndie is up at the lake with a friend for a couple of days.) This was the first time Kelly had been here. It was a great chance for me to notice through Kelly’s eyes how many different things we’ve done to enhance the property over the years.
As always, the precious energy of Wintervale comes alive whenever people visit to experience the natural beauty of our sloped terrain, forest trails, and open fields.
It doesn’t hurt to have the eye-catching labyrinth and mystical spirits of four beautiful Thoroughbred mares on top of everything else special about our place.
Light and Mix were mostly well-behaved, but not the least bit bashful about insisting they deserved endless carrot bites from our guests. Swings stood back for the most part, not being as interested in trying to chew a carrot. I held a soft treat for her that I was able to serve up in a fleeting moment as she moved past when they all rearranged positions.
Mia removed herself from the area for much of our visit, then eventually made her way in, swinging her head up and down the whole way. She had a cloud of flies bothering her, so I grabbed her a fly mask, and that seemed to help. She even came close enough to receive some carrots, as well.
I expect that none of you will be surprised that I made sure to show off my composting area, but in my defence, Kelly brought up the topic first!
We were blessed with a gorgeous summer day, and the opportunity to spend some casual time with lifelong friends made for a really fine afternoon. I appreciated that they were willing to make the trip. It’s usually an hour-long drive minimum from the Twin Cities, and that can be perceived both as a long trip and as not so bad. Usually, after people have done it, they report the drive is worth it.
Cyndie and I have gotten so used to it that the distance seems perfectly reasonable to us. Still, I respect those who may not be inclined to drive so far, but on occasion do so for our sake.
Sharing our sanctuary with others is as rewarding for me (and Cyndie) as it is for the people who visit. I strongly believe that the horses and Asher tend to agree.
Great minds think alike, you know.
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Relative Something 