Relative Something

It’s been pretty fascinating around the old home-front lately. Yesterday afternoon, I found myself on the roof again. The third time in the last several days. As much as I love the snow, and usually enjoy shoveling, I will admit at this point to being very interested in taking a long break from lifting any more shovels full of snow. Over the Christmas weekend, I successfully finished clearing the snow from the south-facing half of our house. I figured the front half of the roof could wait until I next have the time to deal with it. A few issues have conspired to push the urgency up a bit. The weather is going to be well-above freezing, while the sun is up, for a few days here. They are even predicting a high likelihood of rain by Thursday this week. Then, when I arrived home in the afternoon, Cyndie pointed out that the symptom that had alerted me to the problem in the first place on the back side of the house, was now happening on the front.

The icicles are not just growing from the edge of the eave, but now also along the line at the outside wall of the house. Ice dams! I needed to get up there right away. A neighbor walking by said it didn’t look safe up there. It probably isn’t. I’m not up there because I like it. I cleared as much as time allowed and enough to hopefully take advantage of the melting temps and predicted rain to remedy the previous situation. I paused on the roof after the neighbor hollered her concern and wondered why the universe would conspire to force me to need to clear the snow off our roof. Maybe I just needed to make my back and arm muscles become entirely exhausted for some reason. So far, so good, on that account.

Alia and John meet for the first time!

Meanwhile, the mysterious serendipity of people and connections has blessed Cyndie and me with being the go-between for an acquaintance of Cyndie’s to discover our friend, Ian and family in Portugal! I was able to meet Alia for the first time last night over dinner in Minneapolis. She is due to leave for Portugal in one week. Alia will be bringing her extensive experience with horses to contribute to the care of Lucy, Frida, Doll, and Sebastian. I think she will also be a wonderful companion to all the animals, as well as Ian’s family and friends. We never dreamed that our visit to Ian’s Forest Garden Estate might lead to something like this.

You just never know what additional good might blossom from the goodness you put forth into the world.