Archive for April 2020
Unforeseen Complications
Far be it from me to point out another problem during this pandemic shelter-in-place directive, but I can’t be the only one facing this new dilemma. While people are panicking over the possibility they don’t have three months’ worth of toilet paper stashed somewhere in their homes, a whole nother kitchen calamity is looming large on the horizon for those not cooking new meals every day.
The Tupperware storage cupboard.
With trips to the store now a risky health hazard, I have taken to mining the depths of our freezer for containers of home-cooked meals put up in the recent past for just such occasions. Although, I don’t think Cyndie ever expected I would be dipping into these delicacies every single night for 4-weeks in a row.
After a couple of weeks of finishing each meal and washing the containers, I became aware of a growing challenge. I was starting to run out of space where the plastic containers are stored.
There’s probably never been this long a period of time where we only emptied containers without also putting some back into service again, storing leftovers.
Luckily, I quickly figured out a temporary solution until Cyndie gets home.
I don’t drink coffee, so the cupboard directly to the right where she keeps coffee mugs isn’t getting much attention. There was plenty of open space up above the coffee cups.
Overflow!
This only needs to work for six more days. Soon after, with a real chef back in the kitchen, we’ll be putting many of those stashed containers back into service again.
Last night’s dinner: Parmesan Chicken with pea pods and long rice. It was as tasty as the original night Cyndie made it and packaged up the leftovers for later.
I have been surviving this shut-in period with no other people in my home but that hasn’t been all bad. In particular, it’s allowed me to develop a great new appreciation for our freezer.
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Now This
Last night, I received notification that the single organized group-bike-tour that I participate in every June has been canceled for 2020 due to some virus pandemic. The Tour of Minnesota will take this summer off. My intuition tells me there is a good chance my pedals and spokes won’t get much of a workout this year.
That tour was the incentive to get me spinning those wheels as early as possible every spring, oftentimes against my preference to rather not.
“I’m too tired today.”
“There are too many other chores I should be doing.”
“The weather isn’t ideal.”
“I don’t feel like riding right now.”
Despite those and other excuses, whenever I overcome the resistance and get myself out on the bike, I am always incredibly happy to be riding.
Without the incentive of the impending week-long trip of high daily mileage to drive my actions, I fear my endless collection of excuses will override my pleasure of gliding along country roads, especially during times of social distancing. Riding alone is nowhere near as fun as riding with a group.
On the bright side, now I won’t be thinking about a risk of becoming symptomatic with a virus that compromises lungs while needing to pedal for multiple 70-mile days and sleep overnights on the ground in a tent.
I picture myself choosing some less-taxing adventures close to home in the months ahead. For some reason, I keep seeing tree-shaded hammocks swinging in this vision.
That must mean Cyndie will be doing the lawn mowing.
“Don’t forget to wear a mask, hon!”
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Big Moon
Like my really big yawn at bedtime last night, the latest supermoon was a commanding presence in the evening sky.
That’s about all I saw of it, as my exhaustion knocked me out shortly thereafter for a precious night’s sleep.
Latest word from Cyndie in Florida is that plans are now in place for her return in one week. That might give me just enough time to get the house straightened up from all the wild partying that has been going on in her absence.
I checked with her last night to make sure she wasn’t missing out on the big moon. It was just as big and bright in Florida. Hope you got a chance to enjoy it wherever you are in the world.
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Incremental Change
Like a slow train crawling along a track, I am seeing multiple signs of the changing seasons unfolding with an unstoppable impetus. I wish it would all take a pause long enough to give us added time cleaning up fallen trees and branches that are clearly visible in our woods now that the snow is gone. The clock is ticking toward the explosion of green leaves that will quickly obscure the views on either side of our trails.
What looks like a relatively simple effort now will soon become too thick with growth to effectively navigate for cutting and hauling.
On the drive home yesterday I noticed many of the farm fields are already being prepped with applications of manure fertilizer. One neighbor was out on his lawn tractor dragging something across the yard that looked like a way to break up the gopher mounds and molehills to smooth things out for that first mow of the season.
New shoots of green groundcover leaves are making an appearance all over the floor of our forest. It won’t be long and we will get a chance to see how many of our transplanted trillium plants are still surviving.
Even though there are still many places along our trails where there is standing water from the complete saturation of the soil, there are areas where some quick-growing grasses are sprouting taller than what my mower would cut off if I was able to be out mowing already.
The changes in the natural world are ongoing, day and night. Every walk around the property reveals something new that is growing or drying out. The trees are beginning to form the early hint of leaf buds that will soon create a fresh tint of yellowish-green crowns that are the precursor to the burst of actual leaves.
Many years of commuting have provided repeated evidence of how that new green glow shows up across the treetops in a matter of a day. One day, nothing. The next day, visible buds everywhere!
Every day the natural world is evolving, but I sense the locomotive of change from winter to spring is gathering much more spring-like momentum at our latitude this week.
Maybe we should start getting ready for summer while there’s still time.
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Gettin’ Out
It is very easy to be out and about on 20 acres while maintaining appropriate social distance from other people, especially when our property is surrounded by fields and forest. Yesterday afternoon when the sun warmed things up a bit, I took a crack at a few chores in the great outdoors.
My first order of business was to do something about the increasingly dilapidated ramp to the chicken door. I don’t know whether the main culprit is the hens or some other critter, but somebody doesn’t like my weaving of willow branches.
I tried monitoring the ramp with the trail cam, but there is so much chicken activity that I get a couple of hundred photos during the day while capturing nothing after dark. I haven’t had the patience to keep trying long enough to see what animals are nosing around during the nighttime.
I think part of me doesn’t want to know and part of me doesn’t really care. My fix will be the same, regardless of whoever is messing with it.
I had collected a bag full of downed branches beneath the willow tree with a plan to redo the bad parts of the ramp but ended up having a change of heart. I decided to try cutting some finger-sized trees from our forest to weave bigger green wood through the existing frame.
A lot of the willow branches I originally used were dead, so they just dried out more and got brittle, making them easy to break. I think the thicker and greener sticks will stand up much better to abuse.
Around the shop garage, I chopped down the dried shoots of tall ornamental grass, pulled out the failed sheet of plastic water barrier that was supposed to redirect drainage, and then detangled the broken cedar post and bird feeder from the cage of vines that covered it.
It felt a lot like warm weather yard work, which was strange just a day and a half after the blast of snow we had received. At the same time, it was a glorious distraction from the mindset of sheltering in place and the unending gloom and doom news that is the other hard to avoid attention-getter of the moment.
My health is still good, my hands are washed, and I’m physically isolated all weekend at home. Today, I return to the day-job and will strive to avoid infectious invisible droplets.
I hope you all find an opportunity to get out wherever you are to spend some time beneath the open sky. It’s good medicine for long-term in-place sheltering.
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Special Report
How many times do we have to hear the “special” announcements before we grow numb? I can’t answer that because I wasn’t counting last week when the numbness began to set in. During these “uncertain times” affecting everyone in the world, businesses that are scrambling to adjust are all issuing announcements of what they are doing to be safe, stay safe, help you, help others, unfortunately, to the point of becoming downright annoying.
It is my civic duty to assure all readers that Relative Something is striving to do everything possible to assure that all posts are maintaining a proper social distance and avoiding going to restaurants or concerts until this crisis is over. Epidemiologists are confident that reading blog posts is unlikely to pose unreasonable risks of transfer of the coronavirus, so feel free to spend extra time during your sheltering at home to visit the “Previous Somethings” archive to rediscover what the world was like before 2020.
Yesterday, in effort to clean up some of the mud-saster around here, Delilah and I –well, mostly me, she just sat nearby and stared toward the chickens in the woods– dismantled six pallets to reclaim enough lumber for extending the boardwalk on one of our trails by about seven rows.
You can see a difference one day makes when it comes to spring snow. The white stuff has melted, but that leaves behind a wet, muddy mess for trail conditions.
Actually, it was frozen this morning due to low overnight temperatures, so we hauled a wheelbarrow full of the blocks down into the woods before breakfast. The reward for that effort resulted in a special condition on Delilah’s hairy legs that I call “mudcicles.”
The doggie towels we keep at the front door for drying her feet when we come in from a walk aren’t able to wipe off all the frozen mud stuck in the long hairs on the back of her legs. That tends to slowly melt off around the house over the following hour after we come in.
Luckily, since I am home alone and am not able to host any guests during the pandemic crisis, I simply pretend not to notice how gross the house is becoming. When I try communicating with others in the world via Zoom or FaceTime, I just make sure to keep the camera pointing well above the floor.
Rest assured, despite the thin coating of silt covering every flat surface of the house, the risk of transmission of the coronavirus continues to remain unlikely.
Stay safe while washing your hands everyone!
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Wintry Spring
The weather prank that would have fit nicely on April Fools’ Day happened two days late for that honor. Yesterday afternoon the flakes started flying and, beautiful as they can be, didn’t stop until there was an ugly couple of inches covering everything.
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Overnight last night, the temperature dropped to 22°(F) making it not only look like winter but feel like it, too.
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers. Well, April snow just might be an improvement on that because the snow tends to stay in place and soak the ground as it melts. If the forecasts are correct, this snow will disappear quickly.
The temperature shows signs of reaching 70 by Tuesday they are saying.
Growing things should find that enticing.
My reaction is to give the lawn tractor attention in preparation for the season ahead.
It is always startling when the number of days between putting away the snow shovel and getting out the lawnmower can be counted on the fingers of my two hands.
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Egg Bonanza
One of the best things about April 2nd is that there are 364 days before needing to survive April Fools’ Day again. The one silly bit of mischief I tried to pull off yesterday didn’t work as hoped, but still provided some laughter when I demonstrated later how I had intended it to play out.
Well-timed revenge was enacted and I came back from my lunch break to a malfunctioning mouse for my computer. I found a slip of post-it paper stuck to the underside covering the laser. “April Fools!” was written on the paper. Nicely executed.
One thing that was no prank yesterday was the home-laid egg performance by our eight hens. Yesterday was our first 100% production day for this year.
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That’s one less trip to the grocery store in search of essentials for me.
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Wayward Wire
Our fence is pulling an April Fools’ prank on me. One of the plastic pin-lock wire insulators has given up the ghost at a high-stress corner post. That location sees intense UV abuse from the sun and the insulators are going on six-plus years duty. Actually, there are two insulators mounted there, so maybe the one that just failed hasn’t been in use for all six years.
It will be easy to fix by simply swapping the busted one out with an insulator from another post in a position that sees no off-line pressure. The biggest complication is that the insulators are mounted with two different screw heads, so I need to show up with a drill driver and multiple tips to get the job done, as opposed to discovering it unprepared while on a walk with Delilah.
I don’t know why the fence installers didn’t run the wires on the outside of that corner post like they did most everywhere else. Maybe it wouldn’t look perfect because the post wasn’t installed in a precise position to allow the wire to run straight and true. As long as I’m working on it, I should just release one of the ends of all four wires and move the insulators to the outside of the post.
Of course, it’s right by the road so that passers-by get a good view of what looks like a severely neglected fence. A fence in disrepair speaks volumes about a property.
Mine won’t have much time to diss me. The repair is high on today’s list of things that will be receiving attention. Most likely I will go with the quick fix for now. It may not be ideal to make those insulators hold all that tension, but they’ve lasted this long …for the most part. They can survive like that until I become motivated to reroute them for a more permanent solution.
Regardless of whether or not the wires will travel in a perfectly straight line.
Happy April First, 2020!
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Relative Something 