Archive for November 2019
Don’t Click
It’s a game I play with myself almost every day I’m online. Don’t click on that bait. Sure, I’m curious about the 12 most outrageous ways some common thing we are eating/reading/handling/doing leads to these 16 unbelievable/startling/amazing/scary results that some doctor/study/company/environmentalist/yogi has recently revealed/published/announced/proclaimed/guaranteed.
One facet of clickbait-ology I am anxious to find out about is how the “number” is selected for these attention-getting carnival barkings. A quantity of 10 seems like a very dependable collection. It’s an even number. It’s double-digits. If I was making a list, my first inclination would be to shoot for 10. Maybe I just watched too many years of David Letterman and his Top-Ten List.
From that bias, I find myself puzzling over why a title would feature a list with 12 or 13 items, or even bother when there are only 5 or 6. I saw one once that boasted 17, which starts to press the boundaries of believability. I’m skeptical the source was really able to come up with 17 of anything on a topic that worked for a click-baitable headline.
I wonder what I could come up with to entice people to click through to a page of mine that has no redeeming value to offer in return.
“Never ever give in to the urge to read 10 answers to the most essential question ever pondered.”
You know, the number 10 doesn’t seem to work so well, after all.
I get it now. It’s too status quo. It’s ‘ok boomer.’
Instead, the more ridiculous, the better.
“Eleventeen reasons why things you are already doing won’t make enough difference to matter.”
“These 16 ideas never worked before, but they will now after you’ve read this!”
“Take a penny, leave a penny by clicking this article 7 times a day for 13 weeks and feed a hungry kitty that looks exactly like a unicorn.”
For the record, I don’t always win at my own game. One time, I clicked to see the umpteen most amazing images since the beginning of time. Then, I clicked and clicked and clicked about umpteen more times. Each image was on a unique ad-filled page that took a painfully long time to load. Luckily, the first thing to pop into view for each page was the table of new clickbait ads across the bottom with strange quantities of subjects for me to try “ignoring.”
No one said this game was going to be easy.
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Enchanted Evenings
There is something extra special about simply spending time among friends for no other reason than the treasure of being together.
My good friend, Himalayan trekking partner, and fellow annual Tour of Minnesota bicycler, Gary Larson biannually hosts gatherings for dinner and music with long-time friends at his home. This past Saturday was our most recent celebration of food and tunes, with more than a few story-jokes that elicit as many groans as chuckles.
It is a priceless event to be a part of.
The food was divine. I’ve never met a stew served by Gary that I didn’t absolutely love. This time I was reduced to demanding a recipe. Not because I would be able to make any use of it, but Gary knew that and presented a printed copy for me to give Cyndie.
I thought it was the dijon mustard that provided the irresistible flavor I savored but Gary quickly corrected me that a second mustard ingredient is what I was tasting.
After dinner, a few of us bring out our guitars, banjos, and an occasional mandolin and delve into the depths of our memories to resurrect a variety of occasionally sing-along-able songs from years gone by. It truly does make for some precious enchanted evenings.
🎵 look what Gary has created
he’s done it again
gathered all of us together
to feast among friends
then we revel with some music
and lush sing-alongs
well maybe not so lush
we can’t remember the songs 🎵
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Hail, hail, our friend Gary!
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Showing Preference
It’s been almost two years since a DNR forester walked our woods marking trees to be cut down to improve the overall health of the forest. Certain trees tend to have higher value for their qualities, oaks and maples chief among them, but also trees of a certain maturity. The biggest trees definitely stand out as our most impressive.
To show our big, old oaks the respect they deserve, the forester painted the smaller trees beneath them, marking which ones to cut down. It seems counterintuitive to cut down trees to save trees but considering the bigger picture, it is understandable.
Yesterday, Cyndie and I set out to make overdue progress on culling more of the red-dotted clutter beneath some of our preferred oaks. It was invigorating, exhausting, rewarding work.
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It’s not real obvious, but if you click on those images you can see more detail of the before and after of our effort around one particular majestic oak on the edge of our property.
Cutting down a relatively small tree is a simple act, but there is a surprising amount of follow-up work necessary to deal with all the branches suddenly on the ground. We’ve only just begun to cope with all the wood and branches the hours of work brought down yesterday. There is now a wealth of raw material awaiting our chipper and splitter.
There are also plenty more small trees with red dots yet to be cut. So much opportunity on just 10 acres of wooded land.
We laughed yesterday over the time we spent years ago clearing one section of all the downed branches and grinding them through the chipper. At the time, we thought maybe we could clean up all our land. When the following season revealed as many or more new branches filling the area we had previously cleared, we realized the folly of our intentions.
After cutting trees yesterday, we were dragging some of the trimmed branches into the middle of our woods to deal with them.
When you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
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Precarious Perch
I would love to have been watching the action when this unlikely balance resulted. We’ve got a new “situation” not far off-trail in our woods today.
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It is so high that I’d rather not mess with trying to bring it down. Imagine what must have happened when that snapped off, tipped into the adjacent branches and then dropped back onto the trunk from which it had come. Impressive.
I would prefer that we soon have another high-wind event to wiggle the trees enough to dislodge that precarious perch so we don’t have to do it ourselves.
We probably have enough rope to toss a line over to pull it down, but I’m not too keen about spending much time beneath it.
For all the “widow-maker” half-fallen trees we endlessly see in our small acreage of woods, this one is a rarity.
Maybe our forest bathing excursions should require hard hats.
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Just One
Found out Cyndie bought eggs from the grocery store the other day. With the hours of daylight reduced this time of year, our hens have dropped production of home-laid eggs a significant amount. Yesterday, the grand total count was one.
Sometimes, you don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone.
Speaking of gone, more of our chickens have begun molting feathers, unfortunately, just when the early cold snap showed up. Seems odd that chickens would molt so late in the year. Although, I can see how it might have served as inspiration for early peoples to gather all the shed feathers to make beds or blankets just as the cold temperatures were arriving.
Cyndie chased a squirrel out of the coop yesterday. Maybe it was on a mission to collect feathers for his or her nest.
Chickens are hardly ever in there laying eggs lately, so at least someone is making daytime use of the shelter. Hah!
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Special Aroma
Imagine walking in the door after a long drive home through heavy traffic on a day when the roads are a mixture of snowy and not, and being immediately greeted by the intoxicating aroma of fresh-baked buns just out of the oven.
Such are the hardships I am forced to endure again and again living with a woman who creates magic everywhere her energy gets directed.
Guess what I ate for an afternoon snack. Mm, mmm, good.
If this isn’t living a blessed life, I don’t know what is.
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Missing Teeth
It was news to us. After Cyndie found a cat tooth on our bathroom floor, she scheduled a vet appointment for Pequenita. Yesterday, the coldest day of the week, they headed out for Nita’s big adventure.
Our wee little indoor cat has not been to the vet since we brought her home from the adoption agency. We haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary in her behavior, so there has never been a reason to have her seen, until now.
She has been eating normally, so it was just that unexpected tooth on the floor that alerted us something might be up.
We learned it wasn’t the first tooth she had lost. It was one of “quite a few” missing teeth according to the vet. Oops. I feel like a bad cat-parent, but I have learned that it’s not an uncommon occurrence for cats to lose teeth.
Pequenita is classicly stoic about hiding any discomfort she may be enduring. I guess that just means we will need to pay close attention for any hints she needs something new from us.
Cyndie said Nita was a perfect little patient at the vet and received a vaccine update shot without protest.
I’m a little jealous of our cat. I wish I could look that unaffected when I have dental issues.
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Cold Now
If we thought winter was coming on a little quick and fierce last week, today it has moved to another level of harsh. Single-digit cold temperatures are not a very friendly way for winter to show up and say hello.
So much for getting to know her first.
We have entered the period when any mechanical device that may have functioned normally in moderate temperatures is now being taxed to the brink of failing to function at all. When I attempted to back out of my parking space like usual after work yesterday, my car protested with unexpected sluggishness.
Oh, yeah. It had been sitting out all day in the Arctic chill. I forgot it’s no longer business as usual outside.
The flurries of snow that fell over the weekend hardly stayed on the ground. There was a small corner patch of the driveway that was the first to freeze and collect snow. The rest of the pavement still held enough residual ground warmth to melt the flakes that landed there.
That won’t be a problem any longer. At these temperatures, the asphalt is plenty cold now.
Our landscape pond is solid ice. If it wasn’t so small, we could use it as a skating rink.
The leaves might make the surface a little rough, though.
The cold air makes for a beautiful evening sky. Cyndie took this picture when making a trip to the chicken coop to close the door for the night. We have the water tanks plugged in to keep them from freezing, but the hens have to fend for themselves to keep warm. They are all winter-hardy breeds and fluff their feathers up in comical poofs of a genuine down coat to stave off the cold.
The coop provides shelter from the wind where they can smoosh together on the roost overnight to share their body warmth. I never watched to notice if the ones on the end are given a turn in the middle at some point. Seems only fair.
The harsh cold we are getting blasted with today is a fine ‘how-do-you-do?’ from winter, but maybe we can look at it as a bit of tough love that will serve us well as the season progresses.
After this start, returning to normal temperatures for November will feel absolutely tolerable!
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High Wire
I got in a fair amount of ladder time over the weekend. Cyndie recently dreamt up inspiration to try hanging a line in the yard to allow Delilah to run a bit more freely while still leashed. Her simple prototype worked well enough to spur me into action on an idea we’ve been tossing around for years.
We haven’t completely eliminated all the concerns that have kept me hesitant about doing this before, but as long as we stay in the vicinity when we connect her to it, I’ve decided to give it a try.
I discovered an old roll of twisted-pair fence wire in the shop garage that had more than enough length on it to reach the bottom of the hill and back again, so I decided to double the run for twice the strength. I expect that was probably overkill, but other than making installation a little more work, it doesn’t cost anything at this point. 
That spool of fence wire was left here by the previous owners and in seven years we had yet to find any other uses for it.
After I had selected the two trees and found enough wire to reach between them, I needed to devise a way to protect the trunks as much as possible. To keep the wire from girdling the trees, I placed a short segment of an old fence post on the far side of each to absorb the extreme tension. This will also spread the wire pressure across a greater area of the trunk.
We ran out of daylight on Saturday before I could finish, partly because I spent the better part of the day absorbed by the Gopher football game on television, so the final challenge of getting the wire taut and secured to the fence pully (which I stole from one of the anchors on the woodshed) became yesterday’s project.
I mulled over how I would possibly rig a way to clamp the wire so I could pull it tight with a come-along, which would then allow me to anchor it around the fence tensioning pully. It occurred to me that all this was a lot like putting new strings on my guitar.
Starting the day yesterday in the shop, I was thinking about bolting two boards together around the wire as a clamp when I spotted a better idea. I don’t know why I never threw away the broken metal tines of an old rake, but it turned out to work perfectly for this task.
I pushed the rake tines through the twists of the fence wire and hooked the come-along to it for pulling.
With that, I was able to get the rig secured and crank the wire tight to my desired result. It is high enough overhead to be out of the way and reaches from the top of the hill to the bottom.
Delilah was a little tentative on the first test, not sure how much distance this would allow her and a little uncertain about the sights and sounds coming from overhead, but she’ll figure it all out soon enough.
Now we can really put the hill to work as an energy-draining workout for our high-energy breed of dog. Afterwhich, we can all rest easier when we head back inside.
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Relative Something 