Archive for December 2019
Many Blessings
We are celebrating Christmas this morning at Wintervale with our kids and thoroughly absorbing the blessings of peacefulness, luxury, and love that we are lucky enough to enjoy here.
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To all who follow our escapades and my particular “take on things and experiences” here on Relative Something, it is our sincere wish that you discover blessings of peace and love wherever you are in the world today!
Nurture seeds of love from within your hearts and radiate blossoms of genuine lovingkindness to those around you and beyond!
Namaste!
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Ferocious Feline
Settling into an upright seated recline on my side of the bed, I positioned my laptop across my legs as Pequenita jumped up to join me. It was time to do some writing, but not before the obligatory routine of granting our feline her daily intense head-to-toe scratching. If I don’t grant her my full attention right away, she begins a pattern of looping around my computer screen over and over again until I change my mind and adjust my priority.
Of course, eventually, I give in. Soon, Pequenita is in a trance of purring while I grind my fingernails across the loose folds of the back of her neck and drag them over her eyes and down her nose. She seems completely willing to stay and receive this attention indefinitely, but my alternative agenda usually brings the lovefest to an end.
As I reach for the keyboard, ‘Nita will stroll away to the end of the bed and give me back my space. Often, after I have entered my own trance of typing and thinking, the calm will be broken by the sudden appearance of “Attack-Cat!” Either it will be my toes under a blanket or a fabric project on Cyndie’s lap that becomes the target of our ferocious feline’s wide-eyed aggression, so we are quickly forced to take evasive action in avoidance of an incidental over-application of a sharp claw in her zeal.
Occasionally, our defense involves a scramble for the laser pointer to give Pequenita an alternative target.
Sometimes, I get back to what I had intended to write about. Other times, I just tell the story that happened instead.
rrrrrreeooOOWWW!
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Other Places
Some days I find solace in escaping within a visualization of a pleasant memory. It’s a version of filling this moment with a moment that I’ve borrowed from another moment.
Today, I am breathing deep and remembering when I stood high in the Himalayan mountains over ten years ago.
That place is a very long distance away from where I live, but it is as close as a thought that I am able to recall at will.
Focusing on such single visualizations tends to discount all the sundry details that came before and after that moment, in something of a selective memory. The effort involved in arriving to that place was significant and tends to repress the likelihood of my ever returning, despite a lingering urge to be able to stand there once again.
It makes the mental return visits all the more precious.
Here’s to enlightenment.
Om Mani Padme Hum…
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Defend Democracy
For the record, lest there be any confusion over where *This* John W. Hays stands on the issue of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress by the 45th President of the United States, I believe the facts presented and the behaviors of the accused in every moment since the issues of the July 25th phone call arose are obvious and self-evident by ordinary human reasoning.
The one glaring aspect that I fail to grasp is how, out of the 198 people in the House of Representatives and the 53 people in the Senate who align with the Republican party, none of them seem able to voice the slightest conviction toward holding the President accountable to any degree that comes close to matching the seriousness of his actions.
It doesn’t make sense to me.
I wish there was a more universal urgency by ALL elected officials to defend our democracy against any threat to the integrity of our elections.
It saddens me to see our national reputation being tarnished across the world. My intuition tells me that foreign nations most hostile to our country are giddy with delight over the instability being sewn into our political process by nefarious characters who seem to be getting away with things despite the world knowing full well something is going on.
What a shame that efforts to be positive and filled with hope are daily burdened by the negative weight of all this ugliness.
I look forward to the resolution of the current proceedings and cling to hope that intelligent, decent people will uphold their oaths to defend our constitution, regardless of their party affiliations.
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That Moment
That moment when you zip the bag closed and purposefully end the binge, leaving the bag in plain sight, well within reach but committed to only sucking on ice cubes for the rest of the evening.
Yeah. No, I got this.
Of course, that comes shortly after retrieving one that fell on the floor.
“Did you drop one?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to come get it?”
“No, I can reach it.”
Pause.
“I’m going to eat it anyway. I saw you wash this floor once.”
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Even Icier
If my experience yesterday on the south side of our house ends up being typical for any of you who happen to also be in the Twin Cities area that received rain over Thanksgiving weekend, I recommend that you check your roof for ice beneath the snow. There were areas where the frozen crust was two inches thick on our roof. That adds a lot of weight.
I knew there was an annoying frozen crust beneath the snow around here because it has made both plowing and shoveling a complex and frustrating endeavor, but I had no idea the result on the roof was so pronounced.
I struggled mightily to break through the thick frozen layer beneath the multiple inches of snow yesterday by turning the Avalanche Deluxe head on its side and chopping out small pieces at a time.
Using the head with the plastic film, I was only able to slide down the loose snow that was on top of the thick crust, but that still moved more snow, faster, with one stroke upwards than I ever did when trying to pull it all down with my old rake.
I’m just as pleased with my purchase today as I was after the first use on Saturday.
The only disadvantage of the ease of pulling the snow off the roof is the resulting large amount of densely packed snow on the deck, steps, and walkways that then needs to be shoveled away.
That project takes a lot longer than the time it took to bring it all down off the roof.
Shoveling it off the deck was made appropriately more laborious by the chunks of ice slabs mixed in with the snow.
I am very thankful for the forecast showing a few days with sun ahead and no days with precipitation in the next week to allow time for the raked roof to respond to the new exposure with some serious evaporation.
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Productive Avalanche
It occurs to me that a key reason I become excited enough about a product to proselytize to others about its features is when my initial disbelief is dashed by a performance that actually meets what was advertised. When I first saw roof rakes for removing snow by the use of a plastic sheet, I figured theory wouldn’t be able to live up to the challenges of reality.
I’ve raked a lot of snow off a fair number of roofs. Conditions are rarely ideal. I doubted the advertised ease of sliding the snow down on a plastic sheet. Oh my, it comes down so well I was almost knocked down by it.
When we were replacing boards on our deck a few months ago, I discovered a disconcerting amount of granules from our shingles on the ground below. It was enough to get me to take a chance on trying out this different technique.
Enter the Avalanche roof rake!
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From the clean and simple design, making it easy to assemble and use, to the speed and ease with which I brought down blocks of snow, the Avalanche roof rake has earned my highest praise. The only thing I can’t testify to after this first use is the longevity of that plastic sheet.
I abused it a fair amount in my attempts to navigate our angles and the existing icy edges. It folded and twisted multiple times, which experience tells me is potentially damaging.
Knowing our roof presented angles that would be problematic for the plastic sheet technique, I elected to order a second option, the Deluxe Rake head, which swaps out easily. This is basically the same as my old aluminum rake, but with the added feature of rollers that keep it from scraping directly on the granules of the asphalt shingles.
Yesterday’s first use proved to be an excellent test, as the condition of snow and ice on our roof was as bad as ever, due to the significant rainfall we suffered prior to an accumulation of snow at the end of November.
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If you look closely at the picture on the right above, it is possible to see there is a base layer of frozen snow beneath the deeper powder on top. It took the Deluxe head to break that up enough for me to pull it down. I also needed to use that head to drag the valleys between our two main roof surfaces.
The combination of the two options worked perfectly to accomplish the job well and did so with much less wear and tear on our shingles.
I got half of the roof done yesterday, and will be out today to finish the other side of the house. One thing I learned is that I should move the ladder farther back from the roof. While using the plastic sheet from where I was positioned yesterday, I got a face-full of snow shooting down at me in the worst way.
It’s a thrill to have so much snow coming down off the roof so quickly, but not all that great when it is hitting you right in the face.
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Sappy Mess
We are guessing there is a trick to making wreaths out of pine boughs that we don’t know about. If you have been following along, last month we lost a pine tree in a storm and Cyndie saved branches for holiday decorating.
When I came inside from plowing the driveway last night, the house was heavily pine-scented as production was in full swing.
What we don’t know is how others who work with pine boughs deal with the sap. Cyndie has resorted to wearing gloves, but has not mastered preventing the sap from getting everywhere.
She decided that she would include a pair of gloves with each wreath when she delivers these beauties to the intended recipients.
Don’t these look festive for the season?!
They sure smell good, too.
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Keen Sense
Lately –more frequently than I like to admit– my commuting hours have been littered with the U.S. political theater that is being broadcast over the airwaves. Every day can be a soap opera if you want it to be. I’m more inclined to avoid unnecessary dramatic escapades. It’s a function of purposeful intent, actually. But I do admit to wondering where reason and common sense have disappeared to, and why avoiding the actual issues and endlessly shouting obfuscations as loud as possible is accepted by otherwise intelligent people as a convincing argument.
At least it’s quiet on the ranch when no one else is around. Last night, Cyndie was away at a seasonal gathering of some of her friends and she left me in charge of entertaining Delilah. I took our pooch on a couple of long walks around the property where she repeatedly employed her very fox-like pounces into the snow, followed by adorably cocking her head to listen intently for any possible movements from below.
It’s cute as heck to watch from above, but probably hauntingly intimidating for any critters cowering underneath. She never did come up with anything, however, despite all her valiant efforts.
Watching Delilah navigate our surroundings by way of scent often leaves me feeling cheated out of a vast amount of information on our walks. Often, she will suddenly turn her head toward the middle of our forest and inhale with such incredible intensity that I’m certain she is aware of something in there that I’m not seeing.
By far, most of the tracks in the snow last night were from rabbits, but I rarely ever see them moving around. The most visible critters are the squirrels. They constantly antagonize Delilah when we are inside, then take to the trees when we come out.
Last weekend, Delilah seemed to know there was one in the branches overhead. She stared and stared for a long time. I decided to wait her out, even though I didn’t see a thing up there. Lo and behold, when Delilah finally gave up and looked back down at the ground, a squirrel bolted from the branches above us and scampered through the surrounding trees until out of view.
I had no idea it was up there, but Delilah knew. Poor girl failed to notice the subject of her attention when it finally made its perfectly timed getaway while she wasn’t looking.
It didn’t matter. She probably smelled that it was leaving and chose not to bother looking up at it again.
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Relative Something 