Archive for July 2016
Altered Plan
Okay, I admit it. I spent much of yesterday focused on a plan of what I could accomplish today, instead of living in the moment of the tasks at hand. Admittedly, the majority of yesterday’s activity involved “tractor time,” which naturally provides ample opportunity for a mind to wander.
I was going to distribute composted manure and overturn the piles still cooking. I wanted to power up the trimmer and clean fence lines and drainage ditches.
Today’s weather has given me a chance to rethink those plans. It is raining.
Yesterday, I contemplated the absurdity of how much anguish I was feeling over the difficulty I was having maintaining my cut lines, while people in other parts of the world are living in the middle of wars, unable to get enough to eat.
On the diesel, while chopping weeds in the back pasture, my mind looked ahead to how I could clean the edges of the field with the trimmer.
Now I don’t know what I am going to do. The ground is wet enough that I am hesitant about bringing out the big tractor because it can really make a muddy mess of the ground.
Maybe I’ll split some wood.
Looking at the radar, I’ve got a little more time to think about it before the precipitation clears.
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Falling Behind
This place we call Wintervale is truly a paradise and a joy for me, but this morning it is feeling a little overwhelming. Can it be that one day makes that much difference? The day-job is very demanding right now and I needed to work on my usual Friday-day-off yesterday. Between that and our spending the long weekend away last week over the holiday, I have fallen behind on the grounds keeping at home.
The growth is like a jungle in the yard and on our trails. In addition to the usual lawn mowing, the drainage swale and fence lines are overdue to be cropped. The composting manure is also overdue to be turned and distributed, and I am behind on wood splitting and several other projects I had hoped to accomplish.
What can I do about it?
I’ll mow the lawn today. It makes the biggest difference in giving the appearance that things are under control.
I’ll note that it feels more overwhelming than it really is because Cyndie is away this weekend and I am home alone.
I’ll spend some time among the grazing herd and absorb their calm and peaceful energy. This option is the most rewarding for me …as long as I can avoid noticing the overgrowth of weeds we were hoping to control.
I’m hoping to squeeze in time to mow the back pasture with the brush cutter behind the diesel tractor, since it is not being grazed enough to keep things in check. Left to neglect, these fields are incredible weed factories.
Grazing has been curtailed this summer after Cayenne showed up lame while I was on my bike trip and the vet exclaimed the herd needed to lose weight immediately.
All this grass and they shouldn’t eat it now.
All this growth.
On the bright side, we are definitely not enduring a drought!
I have to go mow.
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Failure Happens
We received 3-and-a-half inches of rain in the storm that hit this region on Tuesday evening. With reports warning of wind gusts between 60 and 70 mph, we were a bit anxious about what might happen when the full force arrived. Luckily, we did not experience any loss of trees from that high of wind, but the paddocks have the makings of a couple new canyons shaped by the heavy rain.
While cleaning up manure, I came across evidence of a failure I had been suspicious of for some time. The drain tube that was buried from the barn gutter to the main drainage swale has made its way up to the surface. There is no way it can be draining properly.
That helps explain the dramatic runoff that has been occurring from the corner of the barn. It doesn’t really matter that I cleaned out the bird’s nest from the down spout when the drainage tube the spout is connected to is plugged somewhere down the line.
After work yesterday, I disconnected the down spout from the tube that leads underground and rigged up an above-ground series of tubes as a temporary solution for protecting the paddock from erosion.
I don’t know what I would do different, but the failure of that buried tube reveals a flaw in our plan. Once again I am reminded of how fluid (as opposed to static) the “solid” ground actually is. Buried things don’t tend to stay buried around here.
Each spring farmers find new rocks sprouting in their plowed fields. Those rocks aren’t falling from the sky. They are pushed up from below, just like that section of my drainage tube that now protrudes above the surface.
I probably won’t ever succeed in preventing erosion from runoff of heavy rains, but I would sure like to reduce and confine it as much as possible. My next idea will involve a way to capture the water running off the roof into a giant barrel of some kind.
Then I just need to figure out what to do with the overflow from that vessel whenever it fills up.
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Latest View
It happened by accident. This week Cyndie unintentionally sent me a text of her location. We were involved in a text conversation on an unrelated subject when I received the surprising reply. Curious, I tapped the screen for more information. In the background I could see an image of our property and recognized immediately that it was a recent satellite view showing the gravel driveway around the hay shed we put up the first year we were here.
Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out the navigation to give me a full view. Since I have been anxiously awaiting the Google map view to get updated, I decided to check that for comparison.
Nope. Still the old view from before we bought this place. I checked the view from Bing. Still old. Next I contacted our son, Julian, for his insight on the apple map app. I had thought it was just on iOS devices, but he clarified that it was on my laptop, as well. He provided a link to the view of our address.
There it was, plain as day. I can hardly stop looking at it. Finally, I can see our fence lines, the paddocks, the new hay shed and added driveway, new sand in the round pen, the gazebo, and even our cherished labyrinth. The bright red pickup truck stands out, too, but the biggest treat is seeing the 4 horses out grazing.
I’m posting an old mock-up of the possibilities we were considering before even starting to install new fence, to provide a reference for comparison with the latest view.
I can tell the new view was taken sometime last summer, close enough to autumn that some of the trees were starting to turn color, because the pasture north of the driveway had been mowed.
You can barely make out the outline of our arena space, over by the driveway, not where we were originally thinking it might fit. Also, for now we have settled on one round pen, instead of two. When we were thinking about the essential horse infrastructure back then, we had yet to decide where the labyrinth would end up.
I think the labyrinth is in the perfect location. Can you find it?
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Eight Weeks
How long has it been since I wrote about the fish that appeared and then disappeared from our landscape pond in the span of one day? I checked last night and found it was almost 8 weeks ago. Why do I care now?
When we got home from our glorious celebratory weekend at the lake, I noticed the filter on the pond pump intake needed serious cleaning. The waterfall was down to a trickle and the overall water level was a little low. I got out the hose to clean the filter and add some water.
I don’t see it.
While moving the pump in order to slide the filter back over the intake cage, I was startled by movement in the water from behind the pump. A somewhat lopsided, fat and ghostly goldfish made a surprise appearance from beneath the rocks behind the pump.
When I was done, it immediately darted back into hiding beneath the rocks at the edge of the water.
Really? All this time there has been a fish hiding in our pond and it has successfully remained out of sight until now?
Apparently so.
I wonder what it has been eating all this time.
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Spectacular Weekend
I’m back at work today, but I expect my mind will be flooded all day long with thoughts of the spectacular weekend we just enjoyed. The weather was divine and complimented everything that was planned to honor the 50-year anniversary of Wildwood Lodge Club in Hayward, WI, on the Independence Day holiday weekend.
Sunday we held our traditional games such as water balloon toss, shoe kick, 3-legged race, and watermelon eating contest. A typical number of rules were circumnavigated in pursuit of victories, but that never lessens the laughter and frivolity enjoyed by all.
In the evening, after a catered dinner, one member from each family ever holding a membership participated in a game of Wildwood Jeopardy. When that was over, dancing to live music carried on into the wee hours of Monday morning.
Despite the late hours, I woke up early enough the next morning to sneak out on another beautiful bike ride with Cyndie’s brother, Ben.
Then it was back in the water for one last swim before it was time to pack and leave for home. Leaving the beach before the day is done is always one of the hardest things to do. It gets me begging for science-fiction to hurry up and become science-fact, in terms of a transporter ala-Star Trek to eliminate the travel time needed to get home.
Pushing myself to leave the lake during the best part of the day becomes a much more difficult thing to do when the weekend is as spectacular as this last one just was.
I feel like I deserve a medal for making it back to work today.
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Fifty Years
Coinciding with our usual 4th of July celebrations up at our lake place this year is a gala weekend recognizing the 50th anniversary of the community we call Wildwood Lodge Club. It’s like taking the most awesome event of the year and turning it up to eleven. No, make that twelve.
The brief history is that in 1966, one man spearheaded an effort to enlist a group to chip in and buy an old fishing lodge. The membership has changed a little bit over the years, with Cyndie’s family joining in 1969. The current 7 families decided to celebrate this year’s milestone by inviting everyone they could find who had ever been a member to come up for this holiday weekend.
It was a brilliant idea and the last two days have been more fun that we imagined possible.
I enjoyed a little milestone of my own at the start of the day by getting back on my bike just a week after the Tour of Minnesota. Last year after the ride, I hung my bike on a hook in the shop and didn’t get around to riding it again for the rest of the summer.
Cyndie’s brother, Ben, enticed me to bring my road bike up this year so we could get out for a ride together. It was a gorgeous morning and we made the most of it with an easy breeze through some of the beautiful lakes and woods of northern Wisconsin.
Back at Wildwood, we cooled off with a dip in the lake before the rest of the families and guests started their big day at the beach. For this special weekend, some extra floatation toys were added. They were well-used all day long.
In the evening, we gathered at the lodge for a brat and corn feast highlighted by a slide show and videos that overflowed with memories of the last 50 years.
It was informative and confirming for me to hear from some of the past members who spoke about what this place means to them still, long after their families moved on from the association.
As beautiful as this lake property is, it is the people of the member families, and the community they have created, that truly set this apart as a spectacularly incredible thing. I have always known it was special, but it is possible to take it for granted over time.
Celebrating a milestone like a 50th anniversary serves to remind and reorient me to the magic I fell into when I became a part of Cyndie’s amazing family and this special place.
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Relative Something 