Archive for November 2017
So This
I admit, I have never done this before. I have never been as old as I am today and faced everything that November 2017 is presenting. Is that why this season’s onset of freezing temperatures feels more jarring than ever before? My blood is definitely not winter-thick yet.
Maybe I’m off my game because of how unsettling the last year under the current U.S. leadership has been. The increasing turmoil of extreme storms from the warming planet has definitely contributed.
Sometimes, looking back for reference provides some insight on present day issues, but there are so many unique technologies now woven into our lives, it feels difficult to compare events from decades ago. This weekend, our Netflix queue offered up a documentary DVD about the Freedom Riders of 1961.
I was two years old at the time of those civil rights dramas playing out in the deep south. I suppose the white supremacists at that time were terrified their racist version of society was being threatened.
It has me trying to fathom how history might perceive people and events of 2017 some fifty or a hundred years from now.
The next movie that showed up was a documentary about the Rwandan cycling team that rose from the ashes of genocide that country experienced in 1994. Nineteen Ninety Four. I wish such human carnage wasn’t something that still occurs.
It all serves to put my travails in perspective. Feeling weak against the cold air? I’ll get over it.
I can go out and hug our horses, absorb some of their warmth, and see if I can pick up some of their energy and perspective on the present moment.
They can help me to breathe and get back to grazing.
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Safety Glass
One of our Barred Plymouth Rock hens was checking out the scene on the deck this morning while Delilah napped nearby.
Apparently the dog wasn’t in a deep enough sleep to miss the vibes of a creature entering her sensory field.
Delilah spent a lot of yesterday barking at the sound of gunshots. It was the first day of the deer hunting season. Maybe this has her on a heightened sense of alert today.
We are grateful there was a safe glass barrier between our animals for their encounter this morning. No feathers were ruffled, although the dog did suffer a brief abolishment from the bedroom for her unrestrained outburst against the glass.
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Cereal Torture
With our Thanksgiving holiday less than a week away, the inevitable overindulgence of delectable foodstuffs is close enough to taste. Yesterday, Cyndie unleashed the first assault with one of my all-time favorites: Chex mix.
The most difficult healthy change I made in my diet when I decided to monitor my daily sugar consumption was to control how much cereal I ate. Sure, I love ice cream as the absolutely best treat around, but I even garnish some of the best scoops with Grape-Nuts cereal to take it over the top in extravagance.
Admittedly, one of my big reasons for loving cereal so much is the fact it is ready-to-eat without cooking. Can you say instant gratification?
Unfortunately, most cereals are also high in sugar, among any number of other less than ideal potential additives. While I used to avail myself of unfettered bowlfuls, my servings now are precisely measured to keep portions at or below 10 grams of sugar per meal.
It’s torture.
I have one other persistent craving. I like snacking almost more than a meal. Appetizers are better than dinner. Finger foods are the best!
Yesterday, the house smelled amazing. There was a fire in the fireplace and Chex mix baking in the oven. Butter and salty spices slathered all over the cereal, pretzels, garlic chips, and nuts, slowly roasting.
This morning the giant oval roasting pan filled with gold sits atop the stove and I am desperately trying to pretend it isn’t there.
I already snitched a double-dose beyond my ration yesterday, so I would like to demonstrate a little more restraint today.
Cyndie is gone for the day, so I had a very respectable serving of some banana nut crunch flakes for breakfast. Two bowls of a half-cup each. Ten grams.
I closed the box and put it away. Washed my bowl.
Then I lifted the lid on the roasting pan, just to see if the treasure was still there.
Yep.
I told Cyndie yesterday that I noticed she forgot to include any Cheerios.
As if that will make it any easier for me to resist.
Oh for the love of cereal.
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Grazing Again
There is a jarring amount of stupid that is getting mixed in with the amazing and sacred energy to which we have access these days. It all flows right over the top of us. We dash headstrong into it. It sashays past when we aren’t paying attention. Sometimes it just lays there and waits to be noticed.
The brilliant, the inspiring, the spectacular light of pure love, and then some dingy gunk getting smeared around with reckless abandon.
Have you ever noticed how some people are able to move through the gunk without allowing it to leave a mark, while others end up covered with it? There are some from the latter distinction who even thrive on the mess and seek out more.
All this energy, the good and the other, is like the air we breath. Many people don’t ever think about breathing, and similarly, many people don’t pay attention to the energy, both from within as well as from other sources.
It is very helpful to notice energy if you are interested in becoming teflon to the gunk.
However, it usually takes more than just noticing. I recently enjoyed some success using what we learned from our horses, along the lines of getting “back to grazing.”
After any of our horse’s many instances of practicing critical evacuation maneuvers when they run emergency response drills, they have a remarkable ability to quickly return to grazing, as if nothing dramatic had just occurred. It’s a skill that I have come to cherish.
It’s a skill I would like to master for myself.
I’ve been practicing, and when I am successful, it works wonders. Consciously choosing to instantly give up whatever just triggered a critical response, and becoming fully aware of my breathing and energy –to return to love and a healthy mindset– is truly life-changing.
Yeah, teflon to the gunk.
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Subtle Change
For most of my adult life I have maintained a pattern of growing my hair long for a several years and then in an abrupt change, having Cyndie crop it close to my scalp. One haircut every five to seven years suits me just right.
The years that I kept my hair in dreadlocks were a temporary deviation from the norm which I particularly enjoyed. Those came off at the beginning of 2011 (see it here) and I haven’t had an extreme cut since then. In the last year, I have had a few days when I wanted to take it all off again, but something kept me from following through.
Earlier this week I was searching images for current hairstyles and found the ones that appealed the most to me were all long. Of course, the primary trend for 2017 was long on the top and cropped on the sides, but I can’t quite pull that off because my top is disappearing with age.
The difference in color between my long ends, which are rich with a reddish-brown hue, and the new growth that is increasingly gray-tinged is dramatic.
I searched images to find haircuts for graying and thinning hair with a receding hairline, but the results were a bust.
After a consultation with my barber, Cyndie, we decided to keep it long, but give me a healthy trim. Usually she takes off the frayed ends a few times a year, but this time we opted for several inches at once. She also trimmed around the temples and along the neckline, which almost always gets neglected in my usual unrefined version of styling.
I figure it’s a pretty low-risk experiment. If I find myself still thinking I’m ready to be done with the length, I know I will enjoy the feeling of rubbing the stubble again after I convince Cyndie to go to that extreme.
I think both of us know that the next time she cuts it all off, each passing year there’s a chance it will never make it back to long again. For now, we’ll enjoy it while I’ve got it.
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Shared Pain
It’s the time of year when the bucks traversing our woods are leaving plenty of calling cards. I always wonder if we are seeing marks from just one, or if there are competitors making their presence known.
Cyndie came upon this spot of cleared leaves beside the trail yesterday morning.
Just a short distance away, I found a tree with bark scraped off.
Delilah took particular interest in scents along the path, so I expect there is a lot of aroma communication going on out there.
It is much nicer experiencing the deer activity in our forest than it is dodging them on the road. There have been an unsettling number of deer hit by traffic and staining the road surface on my route to the day-job this year.
If one of the local hunters don’t take down the buck that is visiting our property, I’m hoping I might get a chance for a shed antler.
It will be an opportunity to scour our woods, off-trail with Delilah after the hunting season is over. I just need her health to improve enough that we can ease her activity restrictions.
She had a second treatment from a dog chiropractor last night, where Cyndie learned of a massage technique we are hoping will continue to relieve Delilah of her pain.
The dog and I are on parallel paths of recovery. I’m not using massage to calm my troublesome back, but have returned to my regimen of exercises and stretches to strengthen my core and improve flexibility.
It doesn’t seem like it should work as well has it has for me, but in a rather short amount of time I have regained a remarkable amount of mobility and am enjoying much less pain. The lingering symptom is a constant dull reminder of not-quite-pain in the lumbar region of my spine that occasionally warns me with brief increases of sensation a couple of notches down from the real thing.
Little hints that I’m not all good, even though I’m not feeling all that bad.
I understand exactly what Delilah is going through.
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Drifting – Again
Revisiting a “Words on Images” from 2013 that fits for me lately, as change around home has been not so apparent, day-to-day. That, and the fact I haven’t been taking many new pictures that inspire words.
Just drifting away on the light… and breathing; less verbal than my usual old self.
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Words on Images
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New Perch
Cyndie took me shopping for a new recliner and we came home with a new perch to kick back in while watching the fire. Guess what I did every chance I got for the rest of the weekend?
It amounted to about 15 minutes total, but that was because I had a lunch date in St. Paul on Saturday, company for dinner in the evening, and was outside most of yesterday’s Second Sunday toiling in the nice sunshine, while Cyndie was hosting my niece, Liz, and three of her kids in an extravaganza of collage making and cookie baking.
I was able to join them in the labyrinth for a quick circuit while the kids covered about twice my distance after they had visited with the horses and chickens.
Time in the cozy new chair will come in the long nights ahead with winter precipitation sure to fall.
In the mean time, I’ll need to make sure we have enough firewood.
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Touch
..
I missed it
when some sort of chance
snuck past
silently
snow flakes falling
fearlessly
without even knowing
I reached out
through everything
that was nothing
hoping to touch
a mystery
to feel what it’s like
a perfect reality
that laughs
and loves
while I was thinking
simply
in a moment
I should have been
feeling
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Vet Visit
It’s like going to the dentist for an annual cleaning and checkup, only it’s horses and the dentist comes to them. The tools involved are a little bigger, too.
Unfortunately, it was ridiculously freezing cold yesterday, but that is when the visit was scheduled. We learned that Cayenne’s eye isn’t scratched and the vet flushed her tear duct just for good measure. She may simply be displaying symptoms of an allergy. The swelling could well have been a reaction to getting something in her eye after rubbing it against her leg in response to itchiness.
Beyond that, the bulk of the fall horse health care focused on their teeth.
Before we owned horses, I had no idea that filing their teeth was something that had to be done, just like I didn’t realize their hooves needed to be regularly trimmed. Horse’s teeth keep growing, and they can develop sharp high points on the molars that become uncomfortable for them and interfere with chewing.
There is a cure for that. After administering a little injection of a calming potion, the vet gets out a big drill with a fancy adaptor on it that spins an abrasive disc. While the horse is becoming woozy, they slip on a barbaric looking apparatus to hold the jaw open and start grinding away.
I expected the horses to react with a big startle when the sound and feel of the procedure resonates in their heads, but they each accepted it calmly, albeit druggedly.
It’s as if they understood it a necessary evil and tolerated the invasion of their space with grace. Well, not all of them were so graceful. Legacy is a total lightweight when it comes to sedation. Even at a half-dose, his legs get hilariously (and somewhat scarily) rubbery.
Yesterday, he spread his front feet wide and got the back legs awkwardly crossed a couple times as he teetered against the corner of his stall. Then he slobbered a big ugly drool just for good measure.
When the doc is done filing away, the horses tend to fade off into a snoring nap until the sedative wears off.
I felt like we should give them each a sticker and a new toothbrush when it was all over.
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Relative Something 