Relative Something

Honestly, I’m trying keep a positive attitude about the lack of progress with our situation at Wintervale, but my efforts seem futile against the elements. Wet weather is the greatest culprit. It takes several days after a measurable rainfall to see the crest of ground water drainage, so even two beautifully sunny days after a storm, our land just seems to become wetter. I doubt we have had more than two days without rain yet this year.

On top of that, the precipitation we have been receiving has been in crazy large doses. The storms rolling through have commonly dropped 2, 3, and even 4 inch totals. The horses have been reasonably tolerant, for which we are extremely grateful, but it is apparent they are burdened by the disastrous conditions of the paddocks.

We still have a temporarily roped small space on the gravel driveway where they can get a break from the mud. Cyndie recently helped me move the temporary fence defining a grazing area, to expand it onto some untouched growth. They seem moderately happy with it, but struggle to reach it through an area that is extremely soaked and soft. The sad truth is that everywhere is soaking wet, so it gets only marginally better after they cross that worst spot.

Often times, we find they have taken it upon themselves to come in from the grass and we find them standing up by the barn. It surprises us that they give up on grazing before we need to force them, and their acceptance of standing under the barn overhang is a new behavior, too. I’m guessing that they have just finally come to recognize all the sounds that come from wind and the creaking expansion of a steel building on a sunny day. The horses used to stay away from the barn whenever the wind was blowing.

It has been a week since I returned from the bike trip, and the lawn is in desperate need of mowing again, just like it looked when I got home and needed to dive into the project at that time. Too bad it is so rainy this weekend and I need to work the day-job next week to cover for my assistant who is on vacation. My chance to get some of it done yesterday was foiled from the get-go. My Saturday started with this message from Cyndie: “I have bad news…”

It was a special day for us, because Cyndie had scheduled her first mini-seminar of training. Our daughter, Elysa, was bringing friends and it would provide us the chance to do something of a test run through the routine we are envisioning will become the mainstay of our future operations of Wintervale Ranch.

“The kitchen sink isn’t draining.”

On the bright side, I got out of needing to do the vacuuming (which unfortunately still needs to be done). So, Cyndie had to prepare her welcome brunch and lunchtime meal without a working sink. I got to spend my day running a snake through the stink of drain muck, negotiating over the phone with local plumbers, running to the hardware store for a longer snake, spilling nasty water on myself and the kitchen floor, and finally succeeding and putting everything back together in time for dinner.

Try as I might, the ultimate victory over that battle didn’t do enough for my attitude to keep me from feeling helpless and inundated by the overwhelming number of things that await attention around here. We are sinking beneath the water and all the projects that are falling behind the endless passing time of days and weeks.

July is around the corner. I better get after those April and May projects pretty soon. Oh boy, I’m trying.

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