Archive for May 2021
Typical Exchange
This is a classic example of a typical exchange between Cyndie and me. To set the stage, it was business as usual around the house last night when I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth while Cyndie stepped into the garage, focused on a task of her own.
Through the white noise of my activity and whatever self-talk was flowing around in my head, I thought I heard a shrill little distant shout. I paused for a second and my creative mind raced through possible scenarios, including the concern Cyndie was shouting in distress about something. The most likely conclusion I came up with was that she had probably sneezed.
As I finished dabbing toothpaste on the bristles of the brush, I heard the door to the garage open.
I said, “Did you sneeze?”
Cyndie replied, “What?”
“Did you sneeze?” I repeated.
When I heard her say, “Yes” I turned on my electric toothbrush.
Over the hum of the motor and with the sound vibrations of the rotating agitator polishing my teeth and resonating through my skull to the bones in my ears, I detected additional distant mumbling that could only have been Cyndie still talking.
I kept brushing. But I thought about the fact that she most likely would assume I heard every word she had said. I wondered to myself whether it warranted stopping my toothbrush to ask for a do-over on that added detail I had missed. Honestly, it probably involved descriptions about her sneeze or what triggered it, both of which I suspected weren’t critical for me to know.
In contemplating all this, I realized this sort of thing happens all the time between us. I tend to hear the first part of an answer, but the colorful addendums tend to get drowned out by whatever else is going on at the time.
If I don’t point out the fact I haven’t clearly heard anything beyond the initial speaking, there arises a falsehood of a common shared reality. Cyndie will assume a point has been communicated and I won’t have any idea that I’ve missed something that might have been significant.
The thing is, nine times out of ten it turns out to be a spur-of-the-moment colloquial expression of silliness or pleasantries. Both welcome enhancements when palling around with a companion, but neither very costly if not fully deciphered. At that, I must admit to being guilty more often than not of letting my ignorance go unnoticed.
A nod and an auditory “Mmm-hmmm” augment the facade of my feigned grasp.
I’m afraid if I were given a test about each day’s conversations, I might score embarrassingly low.
When I told Cyndie this story about not hearing anything beyond the fact she had, indeed, sneezed, she said the added comment was, “…and it was a Lollapalooza!” or something to that effect.
Mmm-hmm. Yes, dear.
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Lucky Thirteen
The final tally from the hatch is thirteen chicks. It’s too early for us to discern the percentage of genders among them, but breeds appear to be spread across all the hens we had, which is very rewarding since the eggs selected were random and of unknown origin.
Just one black chick, which we believe to be from the Domestique. The others with coloring align with Barnevelders and the ones with feathery feet are easily pegged for Light Brahmas. There may be some New Hampshire or Wyandotte, too. In the image above, two chicks were messing around away from the group.
Combined with the twelve chicks Cyndie purchased, we are looking at housing twenty-five chickens in the coop in the weeks ahead. I’m going to need to add one more branch for roosting.
After the prolonged exposure to peeping chicks the last two days, I found my sleep disrupted in the middle of the night Tuesday by the frighteningly similar, though uncharacteristically loud, peeping of a frog or frogs outside our open bedroom window. From the edge of consciousness, I was forced to try to figure out why I was hearing the chicks for some strange reason.
Scary echoes of what it was like to be a new parent and have sleep interrupted by any sound that could mean a threat to a newborn.
I take some consolation in the fact these chicks take more naps than our kids ever did.
At the same time, I find myself wrestling with a concern that we are simply raising coyote food. I prefer not framing them as such, but part of me remains acutely aware that we have done nothing to eliminate that ongoing threat.
Could a poultry protection dog that doesn’t have any taste for eating chicken, nor an urge to play “chase” with them, be a possible option for us? It’s hard to say.
I know by now to never rule anything out.
There was a day when I couldn’t envision how we would ever accomplish having chickens to help control flies when we had no experience and no coop in which to house them.
Now we have twenty-five and a coop I built from scratch. What an amazing adventure it is that we are living.
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Spectacular Hatchapalooza!
I had no idea how this would all play out, but every last moment thus far has been just plain “Wow!” Witnessing eggs hatch is nothing short of hypnotizingly mesmerizing, and I do mean both.
The first beauty surprised us both by emerging just a couple of hours after Cyndie’s early morning audit revealed 9 out of 17 eggs had visible “pips” in the shells. That first chick was getting pretty lonely by 2:30 in the afternoon, which is when I arrived to witness chick number two emerge.
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It takes everything in our power to wrench ourselves away from the amazing nature show that causes time to evaporate but we did it a few times yesterday to eat some dinner, walk Delilah, feed the dog and cat, brush our teeth, and force ourselves to go to bed.
Every time we checked back, there were more chicks.
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One thing I didn’t expect was how synchronously they would behave with each other. Being well-familiar with days-old chicks from previous experience, we are used to seeing how they can instantaneously drop into nap mode. These hatchlings were putting in a Herculean effort of chipping out of the shell, which had them pausing for many naps.
After they are out of the shell, they continue to abruptly crash into instant sleep, and from what we saw, it is highly contagious. It is fascinating to watch. Suddenly all nine of the hatched chicks would lay down as if dead for maybe twenty seconds. When one pops up, all the others take the cue and a sort of cage match chaos resumes, right up until they all fall down again less than a minute later.
Put that on endless repeat, except that it never gets boring. Try falling asleep in your bed when you know there are eggshells being chipped open so that a prehistoric-dragon-looking baby chicken can see our world for the first time in the bathroom downstairs.
We noticed at least one chick with feathers on its feet, ala our Light Brahmas. There are others with hints of dark markings, but mostly, they all seem to have a coloring that reminds us of their dad, Rocky the rooster.
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Never Mind
You may disregard the rant I posted yesterday. The trimmer must have been flooded on Saturday when I couldn’t get it to fire. Yesterday morning, before driving to buy a sparkplug, I tried to start it one last time, just in case.
Sure enough, it sputtered on the third pull. There was a fair amount of hesitancy, but eventually, I got it up and running enough to go through a full tank of gas while trimming our trails. So, I didn’t need any professional help to get the engine started after all.
However, in an ironic twist, after refilling the tank with fuel and resuming my trimming task for about 5-minutes, the engine made an odd sound and instantly shut off. Something broke and now the pull cord won’t move at all.
All I can think is that the trimmer must really want to pay a visit to the service department of our hardware store. At least the blow to my confidence about dealing with small gas engines carries much less sting with this situation. It’s not that I just can’t start it, there is something noticeably wrong with the machine.
I can live with that, not counting the suspected higher expense likely indicated by needed repair. We are considering the possibility the cost of repair may exceed the value of the well-used (well-worn) trimmer as a whole.
A quick check of the replacement options reveals that the unit we bought roughly eight years ago is already obsolete. I would be glad to replace the gas-powered machine with an electric one, except for the fact we have so many uses that involve extended hours of operation, present battery capacity is insufficient.
One thing I remember being told by the salesman who helped match our needs with the most appropriate trimmer when I bought this one was that I could run this engine non-stop, all day long and it wouldn’t be a problem. At the time, I assumed that would be more use than we would likely ever approach.
We’ve yet to use it all day, but there are enough areas to be cut that we could. When I’ve been cutting for hours on end, I’ve found comfort in the salesman’s words assuring me that the machine is up to the task.
There are over a mile of fence lines where we use the trimmer to cut the growth beneath the wires and around the posts, also the many trails around the property, the circuitous path of the labyrinth, and the edges around obstacles in our mowed lawn.
We don’t cut these every day, but every day there are areas where the growth has gotten long enough, they deserve to be trimmed.
See why I feel a little apprehensive about not having a stronger grasp of the mastery of working with small gas engines?
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Engine Failure
When we first made our move from the tiny suburban lot to our acres of rural property, one of the concerns I had was the reality that I would need to deal with small gas engines. I’ve never had a knack for mastery over the secrets of gas-oil mixed fuel, filtered intake air, carburetors, and electric sparks. If an engine doesn’t start on command, I am basically stumped.
There’s always the old “It’s flooded” explanation. When and why that phenomenon occurs evades me, as does the trick of not simply flooding it again on subsequent tries. I can pull the spark plug and pretend I know what it tells me, but that didn’t produce any desired results yesterday.
For the first time since we started buying gas-powered equipment after moving here, one of the machines foiled my plan to trim the growth on our trails by not starting. My original concern was finally realized.
I’ll try a new spark plug, but if that doesn’t bring it to life, I will be paying real money to have a professional service the trimmer.
It is a special blessing every time one of our engines starts without hesitation in the moments we seek to use them.
This makes me long for the ability to use a manual push reel mower to cut our grass. That was a machine that I understood.
After I was well frustrated by being foiled in my attempts to get that dang engine to fire, I decided to go stand among the horses. That is a priceless antidote for what ailed me. Cleaning up manure and turning the compost pile aligns much better with my abilities.
The horses continue to seem increasingly comfortable with their accommodations. Even the skies appeared to reflect how idyllic it is around here lately.
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Survey Results
We walked around in search of trillium yesterday and found mixed results. I think in my next transplant effort I will keep them closer to each other upon replant. Here is a view of three I planted:
No flowers, but the two at the top each have new sets of three leaves appearing beneath them. Is this the expansion underway that I seek? Better than finding none at all. In other locations, we struggled to find all three points of a triangle where I would have planted them. Sometimes two, sometimes only one.
At the same time, we did find several isolated trilliums with flowers located in places where neither of us remembers having transplanted any.
New growth on the ground in the forest is rather sparse this spring, maybe in a reflection of the uncharacteristic dry conditions we are experiencing.
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The photo on the left above is an example of new shoots appearing beneath the one with the flower, which excites us with hope that more could result in the future. The image on the right is an example of a lone trillium with little else of any variety seeming to flourish much.
It just might be a slim year of growth. Yesterday’s passing clouds never spit enough sprinkles out to simply wet the ground surface. We are forced to try to do some watering outselves.
I turned on the water to the labyrinth and we transplanted one more vine from where it was trying to strangle a tree to one of the legs of the gazebo. This will be the first year of an attempt to grow a canopy of leaves as the cover of the gazebo instead of the old canvas that was getting threadbare.
Nothing like trying to inspire new growth during a time of drought.
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New Trillium
This time of year the ground in our forests comes alive in response to the sunlight available before the leaves open fully to block much of it out. We have tried transplanting Trillium from the lake place in Hayward with hopes of establishing a thicket of self-expanding sprouts in the groves of trees closer to the house.
In the eight years we have dabbled with the project, the results have been a little anemic. Some seasons there have been encouraging numbers of flowers blossoming on the plants we relocated, but other years there haven’t been very many. During the first few years after transplanting, I was satisfied just to see the leaves show up in proof the plants were still alive.
Now I am more interested in finding some natural expansion of plants to offer some promise of achieving our goals. Just yesterday, Cyndie made an exciting find. Can you see it?
The interesting fact about that single flowering plant is that it showed up somewhere that we didn’t plant a batch.
Today we plan to audit the areas where we planted sets of three individual plants in little triangles to see how those are coming along. If they are flowering, it is easy to spot them. If not, the leaves can be easily overlooked among the variety of other ground cover thriving under all the sunshine temporarily available.
In a surprisingly short span of time, the forest floor will be predominantly shaded under the canopy of tree leaves that will be fluttering overhead.
Speaking of shade from trees, Cyndie also recently captured this image of a great shadow pattern of leafless branches from this young maple tree by the barn.
That view will be morphing very soon to a much less defined depiction of the branches.
The springing of spring is well underway. It makes the brief appearance of trillium blossoms all the more precious. Once the heat of summer arrives, the trillium tends to disappear from sight. At that point, hopefully, the colonies of rhizomes will be busy at work expanding under the leaf cover of the forest floor.
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Remembering Jim Klobuchar
Among the most influential people in my life, Jim Klobuchar holds one of the top spots. When I learned last night of the news of his passing, my memories instantly jumped to the two treasured connections I enjoyed with Jim: annually participating in his June “Jaunt with Jim” biking and camping adventures around Minnesota for years, and participating in one of his guided treks in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal.
However, the more profound impact Jim had on me was probably his influence as a writer. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. I read his columns and sports reporting in the Minneapolis Star Tribune for most of my life. My style of wordsmithing is a reflection of how his writing made me feel as a reader. I wanted to write about people and places in the way Jim did. At the same time, it is very intimidating to compare my compositional aspirations with his professional accomplishments.
Reading Jim’s columns describing the bike and camping adventures he led inspired me to sign up the next year to try my first-ever long-distance cycling expedition. It was in 1994, the 20th year of his leading the June event, and I’ve been doing it ever since, minus a few scattered years when I was unable.
After one spectacular week, I wrote out some lyrics to memorialize the annual adventure. I expected it to be a song, but I couldn’t get all the words to fit a consistent rhythm, so I decided it was a poem, instead. I brought it along the next year to share with the group. On the first night, I told Jim about the poem and my desire to read it for everyone. He asked to see it and when I handed the paper over to him, he tucked it in a pocket, then moved on with first-night greetings and leadership duties.
I don’t remember if it was the next day, but some amount of time passed before he finally acknowledged the poem again. He said he liked it and wanted to read it to the group himself.
Here come those mixed feelings again. “Why you controlling SOB...” I thought. “Wait, Jim Klobuchar wants to read my words to a large group of people?” I was more honored than miffed. Of course, I wanted it read as soon as possible, but Jim had his own agenda. One day passed, then two, three, four… I eventually gave up thinking about it. Whatever.
Jim picked post-lunch on the second-to-last day and his timing was impeccable. He called me up to stand next to him while he more than admirably recited the lyrical lines. A couple years on and I was able to forge the poem into a song that tends to get new air-time each successive month of June. Ultimately, I recorded a version and combined it with images from a couple of year’s rides.
At the time, Jim was living close to where I worked, in Plymouth, MN. I burned a copy of the video onto an optical disk (remember those?) and dropped it off in a surprise morning visit. He met me at the door wearing a robe and somewhat dumbfoundedly accepted the mysterious media.
I received the best response in an email a short time later that morning. He implied he wouldn’t have let me leave without joining him in the viewing if he had known what was on that disc.
The year I flew to Nepal for the trek, Jim and I were lone travel companions with a day-long layover in LA. It was a rare treat to have so much uninterrupted attention from this man whom I considered a mentor. I remember thinking how much he and my dad would have enjoyed each other, especially when Jim regaled me with detailed memories of his days covering the Minnesota Vikings football team.
He was a consummate listener and allowed me to tell him more about myself than anyone needed to hear.
Jim turned 81 while we were in Nepal and he was one of only two trekkers who reached the highest elevation planned. Already showing signs of his fading mental acuity, but not a speck of giving in to it, there were some poignant moments on that trip. Our relationship was cemented forever after.
Here’s hoping Jim has already regained his full mental capacities for the remainder of eternity. Those of us he has left behind will cherish our memories of him at his very best.
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Late Frosts
I am not a fan of below-freezing temperatures in May. If all we had to fret over were a handful of landscape flowers near the house that we could cover with a blanket, maybe I would feel more accepting of this little quirk of nature. My problem is that we have acres of trees with fragile new leaf buds that far exceed our ability to cover.
The other morning I steered Delilah to the labyrinth so I could pay a visit to the transplanted maple tree that is in its third or fourth spring since being relocated. The leaves didn’t look overjoyed with the briskness of the morning air, but they appeared to have dodged the freeze point.
I stood beneath to radiate my body temperature and warm the air around the branches. I talked to the leaves and blew warm breath all around them.
Cyndie’s new plantings weren’t all so lucky. She had just planted in the inverted stump the day before. Didn’t last long.
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The hanging plants seem okay, though.
I don’t know how much stress our unusually dry conditions for this time of year might be adding, but I wouldn’t think it helps any.
We seem to swing all too quickly from too wet to too dry conditions. Much as I complain when it gets overly muddy, I would be greatly pleased to get a serious soaking right now.
As long as it doesn’t happen during the hours when the temperature is dipping below freezing in the mornings.
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Relative Something 