Archive for August 2018
Partly Smoky
Cyndie and I drove up to the lake last night. It was a long day in a car for her, because she started the day yesterday up at the lake. She had gone up on Wednesday with Melissa and daughters, in an original plan to have me drive up to join them Thursday night, but that changed when a memorial for Charlie Weller was announced for Friday.
Charlie was the husband of Cyndie’s close high school friend, LuAnn (Miller). The revised plan had Cyndie riding home with Melissa and the girls yesterday afternoon, taking a moment to freshen up from beachwear to something more appropriate, driving us through afternoon traffic to Eden Prairie from our house, and then heading back to the lake from there, after paying our respects.
LuAnn and Charlie were dating in high school, not long after Cyndie and I had begun our relationship, so my memories of Charlie are wrapped in fragments of events that I haven’t thought about in decades. Even driving on roads in Eden Prairie, now approaching only six years distant from when I drove them almost every day, was feeling a little fractured.
I had to ask if we turned right or left at the intersection by the House of Kai restaurant to get to the funeral home.
In our haste to pull off this plan, we left out one pertinent aspect of determining the optimal route back to northwestern Wisconsin. I was tempted to try the old way we always drove when our kids were little and we regularly made the trip on back roads, but construction and traffic made the city portion an unwanted annoyance.
We paused for dinner at Jake’s to give traffic more time to thin out.
In the end, we chose to skirt the metro area on 494 and head up toward Stillwater to cross into Wisconsin on the new bridge. The resulting country roads we picked provided a rich reward of light traffic, gorgeous rolling hills and spectacular scenery.
We chuckled over the MPR radio weather forecast of “partly smoky” from the many fires burning out west, but when changing stations to our old favorite WOJB as we got far enough north, we heard the same phrase used again. Maybe it is an actual authorized weather service term.
It sure made an impact on the setting sun. It was looking dusky a lot earlier than the actual time of sunset. I held up my phone through the open top of Cyndie’s convertible at 7:52 p.m. and experimented with capturing it at 60 miles an hour.
Then I tried zooming in. It looked like a cartoon drawing of the sun.
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The optics of my iPhone seem to have added special effects without my input. Yes, that’s the sun glowing through the smoky sky.
Between the funky looking sun, my grasping at recollections of interactions with LuAnn and Charlie back in the 1970s, and finally, unexpectedly stumbling upon a portion of our old back roads route, but from a different point, my mind was feeling partly smoky.
“We’ve been here before…”
Yes, we have.
And now we are up at the lake again this weekend.
Ahhhhh. I remember this.
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Now Ten
I didn’t hear anything from Cyndie yesterday, before she headed to the lake with Melissa and her girls, so I’m guessing there was no sign of what happened to our two missing chickens. Now there are ten.
Before Cyndie left, she was very industrious and constructed quite a netted courtyard around the coop for the chickens, so they weren’t confined to quarters all day after all.
The second I got home from work yesterday, I hopped on the lawn tractor to mow all our grass, so I didn’t even chat with Jackie for more than a brief moment to make a plan for Delilah. From the looks of things, I’m guessing she probably assisted in the installation of the coop fencing.
While I was mowing, she headed off to her night job at a local pub/eatery until closing time, so it was just me tending to all the animals, getting them tucked in for the night.
It was a gorgeous August night. It feels a little like nature is at a plateau lately. Even while putting conscious effort into focusing on the immediate moment, there is an unmistakable hint of summer’s end teasing of what comes next.
While walking one of our trails through the woods, I noticed the view through the trees is already opening up beneath the canopy. The late summer shade of our forest has brought an end to many of the lower plants that had started out strong in the early season sun.
That shade provides valuable air conditioning which takes the edge off days like yesterday, when the heat index was climbing into the 90s. It felt a lot hotter while I was commuting through the cities on the steamy pavement than it did when I finally arrived home.
Ahhhh. Living in the country. Huzzah!
It’s a real blessing. But you do have to keep an eye on your chickens.
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Aw Heck
Two chickens missing at bed check last night. No evidence visible in the low light of evening to account for their absence.
We knew this was likely to occur eventually, but, of course, that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Cyndie’s audit identified the missing birds as a buff orpington and a golden laced wyandotte.
A survey for any sign of feathers dropped will commence after daylight this morning.
It’s enough to make you shake your head, going bonkers…
Hunter knows how to do it. That’s his cow face.
I think he was shaking off flies when I happened to snap that photo.
Those pesky flies love the eyes.
I bet the horses know what happened to the two missing chickens. I haven’t mastered the level of communication with them that would enable me to hear their version of the story.
Well after dark last night, I thought I might have heard coyotes in the distance. Maybe it was just my mind’s effort to provide an explanation for the unknown. Coyotes would seem a logical possibility, although, a certain fox would be an even more plausible alternative.
There was no memory card in the trail cam at the time, so the culprit(s) will probably remain unidentified.
For the immediate future, the plan for the 10 chickens still with us is to confine them to their coop. There’s no reason to believe this will solve anything, but it just feels better to take some kind of action against an unknown foe.
Maybe this will spur the hens on to make full use of those fabulous nest boxes in there. We’ve still only found 4 of the small eggs associated with the start of their laying career. That leaves six who have yet to reach this milestone of maturity.
We are even more vested now in hoping the rest will live long enough to get there.
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Pulling Vines
We are in the time of year when the vines are making surprising daily progress toward swallowing everything they can climb. Heck, some of the vines aren’t even climbing, they are simply smothering the grass.
While I was away this weekend, Cyndie pulled some weed growth near the edge of mowed yard and discovered it was a compound web that had already eliminated much of the grass beneath it.
My drive to and from the lake this weekend offered a wide variety of examples showing the aggressive reach of Wild Cucumber. Both trees and farm equipment were getting swallowed in multiple locations.
I have my eye on two spots where this vine has shown up near our north and south borders. My goal would be to keep them confined to the neighbors’ side of the property line.
I always pull wild cucumber vines out of our pine trees the instant I notice them. In the case of one of our neighbors who has done nothing yet to protect a prominent pine in the front of his lot, the front of the tree is covered all the way to the top, and beyond.
I check it every day that I drive past.
Because the wild cucumber is so pervasive, I did some research to identify it. I wanted to learn what I might be risking if I leave it grow on the north border, where I am slowly developing a natural hedge wall.
I have been piling pruned dead branches along this section, and welcome any safe growth through the tangle —it’s been mostly tall grass up to now— that will help hold soil in place during heavy downpours.
Cyndie and Delilah joined me in a walk to that spot to confirm my research findings. Passing many other varieties of vines along the way that didn’t have the same leaves, I was happy to see my suspicion was spot on.
I’m going to leave it, for now, partly because wild cucumber is native to Wisconsin. If it were an invasive, I’d be less inclined. There are no valuable trees growing along that natural hedge I’m forging, so I’m game to let the wild selection play out with a survival to the fittest mentality.
On our return trek toward the house, Cyndie took a couple of stabs at pulling other vines out of trees.
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We could spend a couple of days wandering the property with a sole focus on vine removal this time of year.
With plenty of other things commanding our attention all the time, saving our preferred plants from vines tends to happen in small, spur of the moment bursts whenever we spot them. It’s generally subject to whether we have available hands while en route toward other tasks.
Vine pulling work is never done.
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Family Visits
In my rush out-of-town for the weekend, I skipped over the adventure we enjoyed on Friday with visiting family. Three generations! My great-niece, Brooke, and great-nephew, Drew, each brought a friend, arriving with my niece, Tricia and my sister, Judy.
Friday morning started with significant thunderstorm, but by afternoon, the weather was pleasant for hanging out with the chickens and doing some exercises with the horses.
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Cyndie spent the rainy morning in the kitchen, baking fresh buns and some chocolate chip cookies. Combined with the snacks Judy and Tricia brought, and some brats Cyndie had grilled the day before, we had plenty of fuel for the adventures.
Hunter was the star horse of the day, seen above making faces with Drew and participating in some communication connections in the round pen with Brooke. It is thrilling to witness the horse-human interactions as they play out. I think I get as much pleasure watching as the people who are engaged in the activity.
It looked like Hunter was getting a fair share of pleasure out of it, too.
The chickens were pretty happy to have a lot of hands feeding them fruit scraps from Cyndie’s morning kitchen projects. That’s a much better way to dispose of food scraps that are otherwise commonly ground up in sink disposals and flushed into municipal waste water systems. Since we don’t have a kitchen disposal, if our food scraps don’t go to the chickens, they end up in the compost bin.
Shortly after getting a bite to eat, I dashed off for the lake place, but I did hear the kids trying to negotiate their way into an overnight. There was too much fun to be had and not enough time to fit it all in.
Their glee was so inspiring, it renewed my appreciation for everything our place has to offer. Living it day after day changes the perspective. It was refreshing to have their invigorating, contagious energy knock me from taking the adventure of this life for granted.
I always say, this place never reaches its full potential until company shows up for a visit.
Especially when they are able to stay long enough to try out an exercise in the round pen with one of the horses.
Thanks for making the trip over on Friday, Judy, Tricia, and kids! It was a blast having you here!
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Machine Ghost
I don’t know what it is about this place, but my laptop is showing mysterious behaviors when I try using it up at the lake.
It doesn’t make sense to me that it is related to the internet connection, because the symptoms appear so hardware related. It’s as if the touchpad is getting repeated input, despite not being touched.
Maybe it is picking up electrical interference from something here, but I don’t know what that might be. It’s happened in different rooms. Once it starts, relocating doesn’t seem to help. Shutting down and then rebooting sometimes works for a short while, but not dependably.
The phone hasn’t been affected, so I am finger-poking the screen to create this post.
We sat around the fire till late last night and saw stars in the sky, but this morning dawns with a foggy overcast. I need to knock sand off my bike and pack it in the car for the trip home early today, hoping I can get there with time left for the weekend chores I skipped out on with this unexpected getaway.
The many laughs have been well worth the modifications to my routine.
I’m looking forward to getting the laptop back home to see if normalcy returns like it did last time it showed this spooky behavior up here. What are the odds the ghost will travel all that way just to haunt one specific machine?
Don’t bother answering that. It was mostly wishful thinking on my part.
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Plain Wet
A last-minute opportunity to join a guys weekend at the lake has brought me up to Hayward just in time to get rained on incessantly. Rumbling thunder entertained my sleep last night and this morning’s downpour made sure the mountain bike trails will be a sloppy mess.
That’s okay for me, but all the golfers are unhappy.
Unfortunately, computer connection is wonky, so this is all I got.
Stay dry!
Update: We got in some riding between soaking rains!
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Who’s Friendliest?
It’s no contest. When the chickens hear us out and about, they come running. Lately, a pattern has developed in which one of our three breeds is demonstrating an unmistakable preference to socialize.
Our black australorps are the first to approach and then will linger and visit socially, far longer than the rest of the flock.
Cyndie brought out some food scraps from dinner last night, which eventually attracted all the buffs and wyandottes to join in the fun.
On Wednesday night, Cyndie came in from a walk with Delilah and was completely out of breath. She described a scene that sounded totally hilarious.
Since we have little trust about Delilah being near the chickens, we practice a lot more avoidance than we do spending time trying to teach her to respect them.
When the chickens heard Cyndie and Delilah walking by, the birds emerged from the woods and started running after them. Cyndie hoped they would notice the dog and maybe back off a little bit, but they kept coming. So, she prompted Delilah to pick up the pace a bit and chose a path straight for the house.
The chickens kept coming. Soon, Cyndie and Delilah were running for the door, being chased by the flock of twelve chickens.
Led, of course, by the friendliest four.
What fun they add to our days!
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Pinnate Leaves
Back when our regional DNR Forester paid us a visit, he pointed out how many ash trees we have. I had been mistaking many of them for butternut trees, but closer inspection, and a noticeable lack of nuts, changed my perspective.
As a result, now my first impression of our trees with pinnate leaves is that they are likely ash.
While we were sitting with the chickens on the edge of our driveway the other day, I gazed skyward and became aware of a large umbrella of the pinnate leaves looming over us. Mentioning it out loud to Cyndie, I assessed it as a big ash that we didn’t even know was in that spot.
Until I saw the nuts.
Oh! So, it’s back to a butternut again.
From the class we look last winter, I was quickly able to detect one of the simplest identifying differences: the petioles or leaflets of the compound leaf.
The ash tree has about 7 leaflets arranged in opposing orientation along the stem.
On this butternut, I counted repeated occasions of 13 leaflets, and they are arranged in alternate orientation along the stem. Combined with the obvious groupings of nuts, there was little question about what kind of tree this was.
I’m a bit surprised by the significance of the canopy of leaves on this tree because the butternut canker disease is stunting the progress, or outright killing most of the butternut trees in the area. It is possible this tree has an inherent resistance to the fungus.
That would be great luck. Offspring from this tree could lead to additional trees with resistance. Invert the pyramid, I say!
On another note, I received a reply from our Forester about my findings on root girdling on the red pines. He found the report interesting and surmised the trees weren’t planted properly. He still concluded with, “Your trees may have still actually been killed by Diplodia.”
Another fungus. What’s up around here?
I blame climate change.
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Relative Something 