Archive for November 2016
Don’t Fear
I watched a movie last night that scared me, contributing to some unsettling dreams. It depicted one possible scenario for rural life after the power grid collapses. It’s not the kind of thing I’m inclined to focus on, but it could happen.
In the middle of the night, awakened by a startling dream, my thoughts began to wander to another thing that could happen. Our worst fears could be realized.
It starts with outrageously unlikely things that seem as though they could never happen. Then they do happen and the world somehow accepts it, allowing it to become a new normal. The first example that comes to mind for me is, “Ed TV.”
When that movie showed up in 1999, I thought it was too bizarre to be believable. A camera crew follows a person everywhere? Yeah, right. It made no sense to me. Then the reality television genre experienced an explosion of global popularity. It happened. Outrageous became the norm.
In 1998, I watched the unlikely gubernatorial election upset in my home state of Minnesota when former actor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura surprisingly beat the two major-party candidates. Most people figured it was too outrageous to happen, but then it did.
With the bizarre outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the outrageous has happened again. One fear many people have is that discrimination and bullying will be allowed to fester as (a not so new) normal.
I was wondering why safety, happiness, peace, and love don’t end up being the norm that naturally blossoms. It’s not where people automatically go without energy to make it so. It’s not hard to do, but it takes intentional effort to avoid succumbing to the lowest common denominator.
Let’s not allow worst fears to be realized. Put effort into loving everyone. Do not go silently into normalizing discrimination. Sow intentional peace and love in all your endeavors. Fear not.
Every time we manifest loving-kindness we increase the total amount of love in the world. The bounds of love we can produce is limitless. Our souls are able to love even in the hardest of times. But we have to put forth effort to make it happen.
Love is more powerful than fear when we allow it to be so.
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Cold Blow
The prolonged warm spell this autumn has finally come to an abrupt end. We swung from warm sunshine to blowing snow in about a day, making it feel colder than it probably is. I had planned to avoid the expected precipitation by holing up in the shop and working to restore some order after days of dumping piles of tools and lumber used on the chicken coop construction project.
After a morning of some lightning, thunder, and hail, I stepped out to find a temporary reprieve. It was almost sunny for a moment. I decided to postpone the shop tidying and wander down toward the chicken coop to look into fixing the ramp we have in mind for the chicken door.
Cyndie had tried weaving some grape vines but bailed on that idea after discovering the vines she collected were not supple enough for her methods. I suggested we simply slide small branches over/under a center strut as an alternative.
After finding and attaching the integral strut, and testing my concept with 10 or 12 of whatever sticks and twigs I could find lying around, I switched modes to collect a bigger batch of raw materials for the weave. Conveniently, I had planned a new route through the trees between the coop and trail to the shop garage which needed to be cleared of saplings. These will be ideal for making the ramp.
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Those shots are dark because I can’t seem to finish anything around here before the sun sets anymore. By the time I finished clearing the trail and thought to snap an image, there was barely enough light left. A fact which also makes it difficult to discern the horizontal flying crystals of frozen rain that were happening at the time.
I found it surprisingly disorienting to have a new opening in our woods where one had not existed before. It was shocking to suddenly have the feeling of not knowing where I was for a second.
What doesn’t show in the path is the old rusty wood stove that I had just hauled away. It is a relic of days when they tapped the maple trees here and boiled off the sap for syrup. It wasn’t visible through all the greenery during the summer months, but for the last 5 years it has been very conspicuous during the fall and winter, looking like a sad neglected relic.
That’s one more thing taken care of that I’ve wanted to do since we got here, discarding scrap and making this place ever more our own.
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Disappearing Loaf
On Wednesday, Cyndie baked a couple loaves of bread and we cut into one of them right away at dinner. Yesterday morning, I received a text from Cyndie:
“Did you bring bread to work today or did Delilah eat a half loaf last night?”
I did not take any bread to work with me, so I guess…
Cyndie and George were going to have some toast for breakfast but she couldn’t find the loaf we had cut into. I can imagine her mental gymnastics of trying to figure out where it could be. Did we completely clear the table when we retired to the fireplace in the living room after the meal?
Looking innocent, “helping” Cyndie change the bed sheets.
Our dog has no history of taking anything off our kitchen counters, but anything lower than that might be a risk. If she took it from the table, there is a little bit of history there.
Early on in getting to know our new canine family member, Cyndie placed her coffee and toast on the table with her computer and stepped away to grab one more thing. She returned to find Delilah standing there with marmalade on her whiskers.
“Did you just take my toast?!”
Cyndie reported the look she received seemed to indicate Delilah assumed the toast was left there for her to take.
There were no crumbs of evidence detected anywhere yesterday morning. All I know for sure is that I didn’t take the half loaf of homemade bread.
Now I wish I had.
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I Wanted
I wanted to be a recording engineer. At least, I thought I did, back at the time of my life when I was feeling pressure to pursue an education beyond high school. With no strong drive toward any particular career and no interest in committing money to a general college program, I considered vocational training.
My passion was music, but it seemed like a 1-in-a-million long shot to become anything more than a “starving artist” if I started down that path. I landed a full-time job in a record store after high school and mulled over what kind of schooling might suit me best.
With little confidence or drive for the struggle toward making a living off performing or writing, I decided to look into the production side of the business. Brown Institute on Lake Street in Minneapolis was well-known for cranking out broadcasters and disc jockeys back then, and I discovered they also offered AA degrees in Electronic Technology that incorporated a multi-track Studio Recording elective.
Sounded good to me (regardless the fact that was a pun). I dove into the program, quickly discovering the basic electronic curriculum was easy for me to grasp. I had no idea. My impression of the guys who knew electronics was framed by images of NASA flight control engineers with white shirts, pockets of pens, and tape holding their eyeglasses together. I had zero practical experience with wires and transistors. This was unfamiliar territory for me.
Uncharacteristically, I arrived late on the very first day at Brown, interrupting the instructor to walk the length of the classroom with all eyes judging my late arrival and my “not-an-engineer” appearance. Much later, I enjoyed hearing the honest perspective of a significant number of classmates as they admitted to first impressions that I was likely a loser who wouldn’t last the year.
The math and electron physics turned out to be easy for me to grasp and I led the class in test scores. I’d found a good fit. After a year of basic electronics, we were able to choose from a variety of electives. I was there for only one, Studio Recording, and actually considered cutting the program short after I got what I wanted. It only took one presentation from the school to alter my thinking.
They laid out our options, boasting of the 3 potential job possibilities they knew about for local recording studios, and the hundred-or-so opportunities for general Electronic Technicians. On top of that, the starting salary possibilities for Technicians were eye-opening and beyond my expectations.
It changed the course of my future. I did learn to splice tape and clean heads, coil cables, run a huge multi-track sound board and produce a recording session. Massive fun, but like my songwriting and guitar performance, it would ultimately end up playing out as a hobby-level pastime.
I thought I wanted to be a recording engineer, but my pragmatic tendency to choose a course with safer probabilities has paid me back handsomely. Happily, my eventual career path through industrial electronics manufacturing didn’t end up diminishing my love for music one bit.
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Don’t Miss
If you are a fan of popular music and the art of multi-track recording, don’t miss this documentary currently showing on PBS!
We stumbled upon the second episode last night and became instantly entranced. I always marvel over seeing that someone made the effort to record video —and subsequently save for later discovery— of surprisingly authentic moments of activity, like musicians working on a song.
Who thought to record video of these bands before they knew the group would turn out to be worth the effort?
This show renews my appreciation for the amount of creative manipulation behind all the recorded music we get to hear. It’s something that is too easy to take for granted.
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A Recap
How did we get to this point in the story? …Previously, on Something Relative:
John (that’s me) and his friend, Gary, were going on a trek in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal and wanted to share stories and photos of the trip with friends and family. Son, Julian, suggests I should use a blog for the purpose. I look to post something new everyday to keep the thing from becoming stale.
I write some poetry and take pictures. One day, my wife, Cyndie, tells me I should put my poems on my images. Words on Images becomes a regular, occasional feature.
I share stories and pictures from an annual bicycling tour and camping week that happens in June every year.
Cyndie and I go on a trip to Portugal to meet Ian Rowcliffe and his family and friends. Life altering trip inspires us to dream about creating a forest garden of our own and leads Cyndie on a path of discovery with horse communication.
When we decide to look into selling our suburban home of 25 years and shop for horse property, Cyndie gets recruited for a lucrative position with Boston Public Schools. Blog becomes filled with posts depicting me trying to cope with her absence while doing some minor remodeling in preparation of putting our house on the market.
Cyndie comes home after a year and we get our first offer on the house. We take a look at a few new properties in town before seeing the paradise that we chose in Wisconsin.
Blog becomes a chronicle of our transition to rural life while making property enhancements toward becoming first-time horse owners. Oh, we also got a Belgian Tervuren Shepherd dog named Delilah who has a knack for commanding all attention possible. Cat, Pequenita, is a sweetheart who demands less attention, but is no less loving and lovable.
I begin to figure out power tools and tractors. Cyndie and I trade off years staying home full-time to manage the property. We plot launching an equine-assisted training business. A relationship blossoms between our family and the Morales family in Guatemala, growing from a first meeting between Cyndie and Dunia at the Epona apprenticeship in which they were both enrolled. Trips back and forth to visit each other in our home countries ensue.
We decide to try building a chicken coop ourselves and make plans for a couple of years, fretting over how we would keep dog, Delilah, from killing them if we added a flock.
Neighbors (and our farrier), George and Anneliese temporarily move in with us while they are between homes in a plan to move closer to family back in Minnesota.
Somehow enough people overlook the crude and bullying, most times inappropriate, and occasionally vulgar statements and behaviors of a candidate with no previous governing experience to elect him as our 45th President in our national U.S. election.
Super moon arrives to the closest proximity in the last 69 years. It looks like a sunrise in my image.
I’m not quite sure what to expect next. Will we actually get chickens? Will we figure out how to grow our own hay and get it cut and baled? Will we launch the business? Will we ever get our dog appropriately trained? Will the climate continue on its trend of increasing warmth and extreme precipitation events? Will I continue to post something new every day? Will I find a way to get back to visit Ian in Portugal again? Will we get the significant projects under control enough that I can ride bike and play guitar more? When will I cut my hair again?
Stay tuned and keep following along. I’ll probably post about all the above and more, with photos!
Thanks for reading my “Relatively Something” take on things and experiences!
John W. Hays
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Coop Features
I based the specific footprint dimensions of our chicken coop on the size of the crates that I acquired from the day-job. We built the roost on one side and nest boxes on the other.
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We want to have chickens specifically for the benefit of their penchant for eating flies and ticks, but we won’t turn down the added benefit of collecting eggs they produce. Toward that end, on the side of the coop where we installed the nest boxes, we built an access door for collecting eggs from the outside.
To keep the chickens from perching over the nest boxes, we installed a slanted board above them, which resulted in dead space beneath it. Putting in an additional door turned that space into convenient storage potential.
Expanding on the access theme, we also put in a small access door on the back wall to facilitate frequent removal of the poop board beneath the roosting bars. Having the removable board will allow us to scrape manure to add to our compost piles and reduce the cleaning burden on the sand we plan to use for the rest of the coop floor.
We made the chicken door to slide sideways for opening. When closed, a rod fits in the groove to prevent the door from sliding, providing added security overnight.
The coop receives plenty of light through the translucent roof panels and three windows. That will provide necessary inspiration for egg laying.
There is no ceiling in the coop, simply a barrier of hardware cloth between the walls and the roof, so the entire top is ventilated. When we’ve been working in the warm sunshine, the inside has remained noticeably cool.
I may need to add something of a temporary barrier on the outside edges of the roof in the winter in case blowing snow becomes a problem. We’ll see when the time comes. Maybe it won’t blow at all.
While working on the coop Saturday, the wind was blowing hard enough by the house that one of our rocking chairs blew over. I could hear the gusts rustling the dry brown leaves still hanging on the branches of the big oak tree. However, there was no wind at all while I was beside the coop.
We picked a spot for the coop that is nicely protected from the elements, a little downhill from the house, nestled at the edge of a wooded spot beside the back pasture.
That location may just be the best feature of all.
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Coop’s Up
My carpentry lesson is coming to its conclusion. Yesterday we finished the corner trim and some inside details, bringing us very close to the end of construction. There are several final things on the punch list yet to install, including hardware to critter-proof all the doors and a ramp for the tenants, but we are just about out of excuses for actually getting some birds.
Maybe we’ll get around to taking this to it’s logical conclusion.
Built using substantially salvaged materials, all the way down to some reclaimed nails, it came from this:
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…to become this:
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Recovering Slowly
It’s a process. I’m still sad about the embarrassing outcome of our election, but some of the shock and traumatic stress is wearing off. The commodity of a good night’s sleep, which I hold dear, is possible again after several disturbing bouts of disruption. It is a mental illness I know all too well that leaves me wide awake at oh-dark-thirty with unhelpful thoughts running rampant.
I know depression. The events that played out to even allow the President-elect to be a choice in the end was depressing enough, but for the voting results to prove there are that many people in this country who would accept his rhetoric as deserving nearly sent me back to my darkest place.
How can I live with that? I live among them. How do I deal with this disturbing reality?
Love.
It’s all I can do. I know how I recovered from my life of depression. I will work my program. I will send love in every direction. I will strive to love the men and women who believe things with which I disagree. I will find a way to send love to people who find solace in hate and fear. I have fears, too, but we don’t fear the same things and we don’t respond to our fears in the same way.
Nothing is as exclusive and extreme as our minds are inclined to perceive. There is “both” where we see “one or the other.” We tend to be more similar to those with whom we disagree than we want to admit, especially in times of conflict.
People are inclined to inflate a point in order to make it. It’s too bad humans haven’t instead worked to develop a keener sense of detecting a point so there would be no need for the inflation.
Spend a little more time around horses and you can witness the art of keen perception. You can also come to discover the incredible power and reach of a heart-field.
Our horses help me to send love everyday. They are tapped in. We put the soccer ball out for them yesterday because the weather was nice and they were showing signs of being in a playful mood. Legacy spent the most time testing out the odd obstacle while the mares focused on their grazing, well placed in comfortable proximity to him.
Hunter expectantly waited for a turn.
They eventually moved over the hill and left the ball alone for a while. When we came back after lunch, the ball was all the way down the slope up against the fence, so someone had been playing with it again.
I’m following their example and letting my perceived obstacle be ignored for a while. When I reclaim my heart center and bolster my love beams, I can approach the situation again to see what happens when I show up.
I am not any less of a person as a result of what happens around me, unless I choose to react poorly.
After some faltering, I’m choosing love.
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Relative Something 