Archive for September 2015
See Ya
We’ll see ya later, September. It was nice knowin’ ya! Somehow, when I blinked, the whole month of September slipped past me. How can it be the last day of September already? I must be having fun, because time sure is flying.
I definitely had fun last night. Since I didn’t drive all the way home after working extra long at the day-job, I had the opportunity to take in a movie on the big screen before heading to Cyndie’s parents’ house to sleep. It’s been a long time since I was in a movie theater, and this one had been recently renovated, making the experience something special.
When I asked to purchase a ticket, the gentleman asked me what seat I wanted. He had a map of available seats on a monitor, from which I was to make my selection. I’ve never had to do that before. It was kind of strange. It was like picking a seat on a plane when purchasing a ticket to fly, which is becoming standard practice, but for some reason the standard didn’t translate in my head when it comes to movie theaters.
They boasted that one of the obvious advantages was the ability to buy your ticket in advance and show up right at the time of the movie. Your preferred seat would be open and waiting for you.
The reserved seat was just the beginning of the fun. The real wow-factor was when I stepped into the theater and discovered the seats were like giant leather Lazy-Boy recliners, with built-in cup holders.
The only things missing were a little lap blanket and maybe a dog or cat to snuggle with during the feature presentation.
With the month of October perched to begin tomorrow, that lap blanket idea has some merit, if you ask me.
For the record, I saw the latest Mission Impossible movie, which I found perfectly entertaining, but little more than that. Rather typical fare, which is not a knock against it. I didn’t actually expect it to be something beyond what fans of the Mission Impossible series want.
Probably the best part for me was being introduced to the beautiful face of Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson. That definitely added to the fun quotient.
Hopefully, her movie acting career will hang around a lot longer than the months of the year seem to. Seriously, September is closing out today. The best month of the year, gone, just like that. What a shame it has to end.
See ya later, September.
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Random Miscellany
My writing may not seem very well thought-out plenty of times, but composing a post with some manner of a theme or point does involve a fair amount of mental exercise for me on a regular basis. Let’s see if there is any difference in the result if I purposefully neglect any planning whatsoever for today’s post, and allow myself freedom to spout off on whatever comes to mind.
Trust me, there is a part of me that genuinely fears the possibility there will be no noticeable difference.
It is normal for me to oscillate between doubting everything we have decided to do here since our move from the suburbs, and feeling like the last 3 years are a destiny that we couldn’t have avoided if we tried. That’s probably not an uncommon thought process for a person to experience. It does tend to make me feel a bit schizophrenic on occasion.
For me, it is easiest to just continue to plod along in the general forward direction during the periods of doubt and confusion, so there isn’t much worry that I will panic and bail out all of a sudden.
Sometimes it helps to have Cyndie support my decision, or encourage me when I hesitate to come to the conclusion myself, to give in and call a professional on tasks that frustrate me. I am relieved we have elected to seek out a plumber to look at a leaky frost-free hydrant on the house. It enables me to have our whole-house filter installation verified, because it appears to be in backwards to me and has always bothered my sensibilities.
Another task that is frustrating me is getting our hay-field cut and baled. We have been relying on the generosity of our neighbor, George, for the most part in the past, but that’s not reliable because his availability is limited. It stresses me to not have control over the harvesting of our field, but I haven’t reached a point of finding a solution, so I plod along with that on-going stress simmering in the back of my mind.
Once again, Cyndie comes to the rescue with a wonderful gesture(s) of supporting my interest in being mindful of eating a healthy recommended amount of sugar in my daily calories. Last night she baked a banana bread after researching recipes that had low glycemic index numbers. It tasted great to me.
Too bad I won’t get any of it tonight, because the day-job is so busy I will work late today and spend the night in town at her parent’s house, instead of driving the long commute home.
I noticed Cyndie checking out a mail-order catalog last night, and it struck me how much life has changed for us lately. Now she stays home to manage the ranch and scans the FarmTek “wishbook” that arrives in our mailbox, and I spend too many hours distracted with demands of the day-job.
It is lucky that I paused my drive up the driveway yesterday afternoon, to drop off a few supplies I picked up on my way home. Opened the door to the shop and was met with the distinct odor of dead rodent. There was a drowned chipmunk in the water trap that would have been extremely unpleasant by the time I get back home on Wednesday.
It definitely feels like I’m not in Kansas (*Eden Prairie*) anymore.
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Turning Trees
Despite the mid-summer-like temperatures over the weekend, the trees are starting to reveal the onset of fall. They aren’t in concert with each other by any means, nor even with themselves, as you can see by this picture.
I was feeling a bit of disappointment last Thursday when I looked at the edge of our woods from a distance and got the impression that the leaves of many of the trees were beginning to just fade to brown and drop off.
There was evidence supporting that on the trails, which are becoming increasingly paved with dried brown leaves. Where is the color?
It is not unusual that our trees change colors at different times, but I am always a bit surprised by the significant difference in timing of the variety of maple trees we have. I suppose it wouldn’t be confusing to me if I would simply figure out the identity of them all. That would likely allow me to discover the typical behavior of each to the changing seasons.
On one corner of the hay shed there is the tree with several limbs already a deep red, while the one beside it on the other corner of the shed, remains all green.
The green one made more sense yesterday, when the mid-day heat felt like it might still be June. I won’t even get into details about how much the grass continues to grow.
I have no complaints about the incredible comfort this weather affords. When we stepped out last evening to watch the spectacle of the full super-moon becoming eclipsed by earth’s shadow, the air was marvelous.
The universe put on quite a show.
We walked down to the gazebo in the back pasture to sit in chairs there and enjoy the view. I was hoping the horses might wander over and share the moment with us, but they opted to stay off in the distance.
On top of all the excitement of the beautiful night and shadowed moon, I spotted two shooting stars. The only thing that could possibly have made it any more impressive would have been a display of Northern Lights (aurora borealis) showing up.
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Hope
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six times
I reached for the solution
in that beckoning dream
sixty times
it was
of revolution extremes
without once recognizing
any hope to yet capture
a golden ring of uncertainty
sailing past all the action
cast off without doubt
simple oversight in large part
for reasons unreasonable
shed with no heart
to the wind in tall trees
where hope hopefully rides
to be found on the breeze
available to all sides
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All Here
Focusing on the concept of being “all here” is akin to the moment when uttering the phrase, “I’m all in.” To say you are “all here” reflects something of a simultaneous conscious and meditative state. It is a practice of experiencing a hyper-awareness of everything you feel within, in conjunction with the sights and sounds of the environment surrounding you.
It is an exercise of recognizing the energy radiating from your very core, realizing how far beyond your physical boundary it reaches, with attention to the external stimuli imbuing influence. In a moment, you can be aware of your breathing while sensing the involuntary flexing of your toes as a bird’s tentative song wafts through an open window.
Our horses are brilliant at helping me slide into a place of feeling “all here.” Silently standing among the herd in a mode of total relaxation, while also practicing the art of keen awareness to everything, provides a unique equine experience that most of our visitors miss out on, due to the natural tendency of people to be excitedly verbal.
Of course, I have the benefit of being alone with the horses. Experiencing the herd in this unique way can be achieved with a group of people, as long as there is coordinated attention of all present toward focus on the exercise.
Cyndie has a different opportunity to be “all here” with the horses when she is riding them. Here she is with Cayenne in a photo taken by Rachael Walker during a lesson earlier this month.
I feel richly blessed to be learning to practice this relaxed awareness the horses have shown me, even when away from them and involved with other activities. It is an exercise of aligning with my authentic self, breathing into being “all here.”
It generates a feeling of wholeness that feels divine, with echoes of the equine.
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Two Hunters
It’s getting to be that time of year when critters prepare for the harsh realities of winter survival. With that, it becomes time for me to get back to a daily schedule of setting and checking mouse traps in the garage at the house, down at the shop, and in the barn. The varmints are making their way indoors, again.
Turns out, we happen to have two “Hunters.” One is our champion horse, and the other is the wee one who has turned into a great hunter of mice! Pequenita must be paying tribute to her former house-mate, Mozyr, whom we named for the anticipated/hoped-for trait of being a mouser to protect our domicile from rodent invasion. The past three nights she has been disrupting our sleep with robust acrobatic all-night maneuvering that has been accompanied by telltale squeaks from her prey.
It seems there might be a new breach in our house somewhere, of which mice are taking full advantage. Pequenita, the wee great hunter, has shown no mercy and dispatched two in her first two nights.
Well, I should say, we have found two. Cyndie cleaned long and hard in search of evidence of the third one, but nothing has turned up. It’s hard to say whether Delilah happily picked up where Pequenita left off, however.
While Cyndie was cleaning in our bedroom, she did suddenly report, “I found a half-eaten grasshopper!”
I can’t say that I ever expected to hear that phrase in the bedroom.
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Gushing Review
I don’t normally tend to watch movies more than once, but while Cyndie was out of town, I opened up Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha” which came in the mail from our Netflix subscription, and let it run without her around. I realized immediately, it was something Cyndie should see, which gave me a chance to experience it twice in a week. I was looking forward to it.
I got to show it to her last night, and despite critical reviews that disparaged the movie as “meandering and insubstantial, …most sentimental and least compelling,” we both found “Aloha” to be gush-worthy. I liked the mix of humor with drama and romance. It never dragged for me, and the actors (wonderfully cast, despite the “white-washing” of using Emma Stone in the mixed-race role) played the characters well enough to keep me from ever thinking of them in any of their other noteworthy rolls of efforts past.
The aspect of the movie that I found most engaging was the significant use of non-verbal communication. I am most often inclined to feel a story read in a book tends to be a better experience than a movie, but in this case, reading about the facial expressions wouldn’t produce the results that seeing the situations play out on the actor’s faces does.
They moved me to tears with their performances, especially young Danielle Rose Russell, as Grace. The use of conveying messages by mere facial expressions occurred throughout the film, sometimes subtly, and other times overtly to the point of awkward. It was powerful stuff.
I can’t gush enough to express my level of joy for having been able to watch this wonderful result of the work from this cast and crew.
Bill Murray, as billionaire, Carson Welch, gets to deliver this wonderful morsel, which is used in the trailer above:
The future isn’t just something that happens
it’s a brutal force
with a great sense of humor
that’ll steamroll ya
if you’re not watching
“Aloha” is a treat that I sure hope others who feel tempted will find a way to devour.
But I’m gushing. Stop me.
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Greener Grass
There was a depression in the ground where the soil had settled along the area where, 2-years ago, we had a water line buried in a trench deep enough to get below the frost line. Since we have a never-ending supply of composting manure, I have often taken to using it as fill around the property, so it was only natural that I did so in that spot to level the ground just above the larger paddock.
Then I planted some grass seed.
Take a look at how green the grass is in the area I filled.
Next test will be to spread manure in the area of older grass to see if it responds similarly. It certainly has inspired me to look into spreading some in our hay-field. It’s why we are composting it, after all!
For now, it has just been a lot simpler to use it as fill. To spread it on the big field will require my borrowing a manure spreader from George and filling it with the loader bucket on my tractor. It’s not an impossible feat, but it does take things to another level.
Small loads by pitch fork in the ATV trailer just happens to be easier to pull off in a moments notice.
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She’s Home!
My fellow blog readers, the week-long nightmare of my whining about Cyndie being gone is over. May life return to the usual chaos that masquerades as normal around here. May Delilah go back to having two people from whom she can constantly demand attention.
There were a couple of moments last week when I began to question whether I truly have what it takes to be a responsible dog owner and caretaker. Delilah pushes me to my limits, and I haven’t put in the effort required to command the obedience from her that would allow me to relax and enjoy her company.
I am really happy to have Cyndie back to resume her role as primary dog handler. I’m a little sheepish about all the burrs that were waiting to greet Momma on her return, but in my defense, I had them all brushed out earlier in the day, yesterday.
There is a confused racoon that I have to thank for the burrs. At least now I know what Delilah was so obsessed with when I took her outside Sunday night for a failed attempt at one last pee before confining her to her Crate-bed-den for the evening.
She went nuts the second we got out the door and pulled like her life depended on it to go after something that was completely invisible to me, given the short distance my head lamp projected.
Delilah was so freaky about this that it scared me a little bit. I didn’t know what was going on. In the morning on Monday, we headed out for the sunrise walk around the property and had only taken a few steps when Delilah cornered a surprised racoon behind our backup generator.
At the sound of all the snarling and growling, I gave her leash a yank and that was all the racoon needed to sprint for the nearest tree. The weeds at the base of that tree are where Delilah picked up her first batch of burrs before I could convince her she was at a stalemate with the critter and resume a walk with me.
Fast forward to late afternoon, after I finished a battery of property management tasks during which I had let Delilah nap in her kennel outside, I headed over with tennis balls to fling so she could get a little exercise before going inside for dinner. During exercise time, I usually get away with letting her run off-leash, because she is so fixated on the toys we throw that she stays engaged.
Not this time. She completely ignored the second ball I threw and ran past it in a sprint with a mission. In a blink, she was gone. It made no sense. I circled the house, calling and whistling, wondering where on earth she went with such intense purpose. Then I heard her bark. That is not usual behavior when she runs away on us. Next, I spotted the horses running away in the pasture.
Was she chasing our horses? What’s gotten into her, I wondered. I arrived to find the answer. It was that dang racoon, again. Twice in one day, during daylight hours? I’m concerned that something might not be right with that critter. Especially that it would hang around when it is obvious there is a threatening dog that lives here.
They ended up with another stalemate when the racoon made it up a tree again.
Cyndie kept Delilah on a short leash for her evening walk last night, and experienced no further excitement, so maybe the racoon got the message that it should seek refuge somewhere else.
Today, I return to my routine at the day-job, and get to do so without fretting about how Delilah is doing at home all alone while I’m gone. It’s so nice to have Cyndie back.
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More Mowing
Does it look like the labyrinth was in need of being mowed?
I can assure you, it definitely needed it. I worked long and hard to conquer the task, but remained cool and comfortable the whole time in the September sunshine.
I looked up at the world around me when I finished and discovered that the leaves of some of our trees had changed color in just the span of the day.
I expect it will take a couple of frosty nights to finally get the grass to take a break for the season, but trees have begun their shutdown. The autumnal equinox is just days away.
I’m lovin’ it.
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Relative Something 