Archive for September 2021
Fateful Ignorance
Twenty years ago today we didn’t conceive how everything would change on the following day. Nineteen hijackers knew what they were going to do the next day. The first had arrived in the United States almost two years earlier and the others gradually showed up throughout the following months.
They lived among us. Some underwent flight training in Florida. We didn’t have a clue.
Brings to mind my similar naiveté on January 5th this year. I didn’t conceive that the fanatics who believed the lies they were being fed about a stolen election would attack police and storm our nation’s capital in an attempted insurrection. They all knew what was going to happen the next day. Pipe bombs were planted, equipment gathered, transportation arranged.
For the last twenty years, we have been hearing threats of other possible attacks from foreign terrorists. In the months since the January 6th uprising, we have heard warnings about more attacks on our democracy that continue to loom.
After a while, we tend to grow numb to the alerts. I’d like to hope the FBI and CIA are on top of all the pertinent details so I don’t need to live on permanent alert, but history reveals that didn’t work for 9/11 or 1/6.
If I let myself think too much about it, my mind questions whether some group with ill intentions is busy today making their preparations unnoticed while we go about our daily business in cluelessness.
One way to offset that horror is to focus on what happened 50-years ago yesterday. John Lennon’s “Imagine” was released on September 9, 1971. Yesterday, the lyrics to the song were projected onto iconic buildings and landmarks around the world.
NPR included a segment about the song in their Morning Edition. I urge you to listen: NPR: John Lennon released ‘Imagine.’
It provides priceless context and analysis.
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Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
No religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
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Wild Sky
The sky was alive with energy last night when I took Delilah out for her evening walk.
It feels like that energy is going every which way.
Delilah’s energy was a little off-kilter when I decided to take her out. Cyndie left yesterday for a trip with her mother to visit Barry and Carlos in Boston and Maine for a week. Cyndie had been gone for under a couple of hours when Delilah started waiting at the door to the garage for her return.
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It’s going to be a long week if she keeps up with this perseveration.
Of course, after about six days, I will be joining her at the door, similarly pining for Cyndie’s eventual return.
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Mighty Oaks
Today I am celebrating the mighty oak trees outside our door with a brief photo montage of three particular aspects that appeal to me: acorns, leaves, and the canopy of leaves.
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They fall to the foot of the tree and, with the help of squirrels, find their way far and wide, sprouting in so many unexpected locations.
Leaves also fall to the foot of the tree with surprising regularity throughout the summer. I’ve come to the realization that trees shed little branches like humans shed strands of hair.
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I love looking up at the canopy of leaves overhead. We have learned from our local DNR Forester that oak trees will sacrifice their lower branches when other trees grow up from below and begin to crowd the space and make contact with the oak branches. We are slowly working on an ongoing process of freeing our prized oak trees of competition from below.
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Local Drama
While I was mowing down by the road yesterday, an Ellsworth police vehicle pulled over to speak with me. He got out of his SUV and walked toward me, so I shut off the lawn tractor engine. He asked me to assist in watching for a missing 16-year-old girl walking on the road. After he provided a description of what she might be wearing, I asked if she wanted to be found.
He said, “No, she doesn’t want to be found.”
If I spotted her, he just wanted me to call the non-emergency number to report it and hopefully keep an eye on where she goes.
The next few times I was in a position to view the road from my seat on the lawn tractor, I saw no walkers, but I did notice several vehicles moving very slowly along the road and the police SUV making a return pass from the opposite direction.
While I was showering before dinner, Cyndie reported there was a man in our yard asking if we’d seen his daughter. Cyndie said he had come out of our neighbor’s woods and was disoriented. He didn’t add much detail to indulge our curiosity except for the fact she had been missing for three days, plus the interesting morsel that there were about 30 volunteers currently searching the woods who may also pop out onto our property.
A short time later, a couple who live up the road showed up at our house with a little more detail. The girl had been reported in a camping trailer on the property of the neighbor whose woods border our land on two sides.
The police showed up and saw her run off into the woods.
That is why all the attention is in the woods around us.
The neighbor couple urged us to secure our outbuildings. Cyndie locked our shop but not the barn.
I don’t know what to think. I feel for both the girl and her family, but not knowing anything about the circumstances, it’s difficult to frame how I want to respond if she turned up on our property.
We now have both the father’s contact information as well as the police.
If this girl decides to hide somewhere on our property, I’m pretty sure Delilah will sniff her out long before we would notice. We will be paying more attention than usual for a while to all the times Delilah starts barking for reasons that evade our perceptions.
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Unexpected Shower
Since the threat of rain had passed yesterday afternoon, Cyndie and her mom invited all the Wildwood members up to our place for a little cocktail hour gettogether on the deck. Before company showed up, Cyndie and I enjoyed a swim in the lake that felt a bit like it might be our last soak of the summer.
Soon after, chips, dips, veggies, and heated appetizers were set out along with plates, napkins, chairs, and seat cushions for the ultimate social gathering. Everyone arrived and conversation flowed delightfully for over half the anticipated duration of the visit.
Then, the sky darkened considerably and a sprinkle of drops fell from the cloud. Plenty of comments were made about the unanticipated probability of precipitation. This wasn’t what we expected for the evening.
Maybe it would pass without significance.
Nope. Suddenly the shower nozzle opened up and watered everything in an instant. Everyone grabbed something in each hand and scampered back and forth to the protection of the porch until all the food and gear were brought inside.
Like any good social gathering, conversations picked up right where they left off. Of course, then the sunshine reappeared and, though wet, the great outdoors was simply gorgeous once again.
Mid-sentence of someone’s interesting story, there was an interruption with the alert: “Rainbow!”
Yes. Yes, there was a rainbow out there now. The widest and most brilliantly vivid rainbow I had ever witnessed.
Most everyone dashed out for a view beyond the trees and phone cameras came out en masse. Cyndie provided this shot for my use.
I stayed on the deck to watch with confidence there were enough cameras capturing the spectacle that I would be able to borrow a shot from someone. Thank you, Cyndie.
After most folks decided the rainbow excitement created a convenient opportunity to head back to all of their respective evening meal plans, we started putting things away. I went down the deck stairs to return a table and chairs to storage and discovered the rainbow was still visible.
Now it was reflecting off the water, too. I took some pictures of my own. A different version of a “double rainbow.”
So, our little party got washed out early, but at least the woodshed shingles project was completed well in advance of the surprise rain shower and no firewood was dampened by the minor deluge.
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Barely Damp
To call the precipitation we received “rain” would be disrespectful to raindrops. Misty would be a better description. Just enough to make portions of exposed surfaces damp. It’s not that I’m complaining about it, but the only reason we rushed to get the shingles on the new woodshed was due to the expected rain.
What we did receive all day long was gale force wind out of the south. There were white-capped waves rolling across the lake throughout the afternoon. It would blow and blow and then suddenly it would gust even harder for a spell.
This morning the contrast couldn’t be greater, revealed in the glassy surface of the water and the absolute stillness of the tree leaves.
Both days share the trait of being particularly gray which combined with the dampness is creating a chill that seems to shout, summer is over! All that excessive heat and prolonged drought are becoming a memory from a previous time.
Labor Day weekend at the lake is traditionally the time we bring the floating rafts in and begin the steps of preparation for less in-the-water activities. We had a fire in the fireplace yesterday to ward off the chill and counterbalance the grayness. I found time to read my adventure book and experience visions of whitewater canoeing, camping, and fishing in the remote north of Canada.
All while being warm and dry in the comfort of an indoor couch.
Elysa and her dogs, Diesel, and Edison have joined us for the weekend, so we left Delilah at home to be cared for by our animal sitter. There’s only so much room for dog energy up here.
Now I’m ready for the addition of a little sunshine. Otherwise, the way it’s going I’m feeling my energy dampened enough to do little but lay around and read for hours on end.
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Reclaimed Materials
After leaving work early yesterday in order to ride up to the lake with Cyndie’s mom, we made quick work of slapping some shingles on the woodshed before the impending rain arrived. While still in the car, I watched a refresher video about shingling a roof. Then, I immediately disregarded the details about properly staggering the rows and made it up randomly as I went along.
It’s a shed for firewood, after all. Plus, the slant of the roof and the trees behind the shed make the rooftop hardly visible.
We were racing darkness, the dusk-related onslaught of mosquitos, and the dinner bell to achieve, at the very least, the top row before the evening rain started to fall.
I love that I was able to make use of old spare shingles from both our home and up here at the lake –two different colors. I think it contributes nicely to the rustic “at-the-lake” appearance of the structure.
The only materials I needed to purchase for this shed were the screws, the four concrete footing blocks, and a roll of roofing felt underlayment. All the lumber and shingles were reclaimed material retrieved from storage.
I still want to put the finishing touches on the peak and trim some edges to feel my work is complete. I can accomplish those after the rain stops.
All that needs to happen after that is to fill the shed with split firewood and it will look just perfect.
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Sun Spot
While walking through the woods late yesterday, Cyndie and Delilah came upon one specific spot that was lit up by a ray of sunshine breaking through the otherwise thick and hazy overcast.
Is that cool, or what?
Our trees have been shedding more branches lately than humans shed hair.
It’s as if there was a time-delayed reaction to the thunderstorm last week. I had to pick up a lot of tree branch shrapnel before mowing on Monday. Two days later, we have been finding additional branches on the ground almost every time we go out.
Some of them are much larger than the usual little ones frequently shed.
There is one other phenomenon occurring across our trails lately. Spiderwebs! And not just the usual single invisible strand that we normally encounter when walking Delilah. These have been full-on webs. One even made a sound when Cyndie walked into it. Must have been strung tight like a guitar string.
The thing is, we have been encountering these after having already walked the same path earlier in the day. These spiders are industrious.
We tend to react with the typical flinching and flailing to free our bodies of the remnants and possible attached arachnids.
I suffered one entanglement last week that occurred when I had both hands full of tools, as well as Delilah’s leash. I felt the single strand impact right below my nose, across my mustache.
What the heck. I decided to forge ahead so I wouldn’t have to set down everything I was carrying and pretended I was ignoring the strand while thinking about it the entire way back to the house.
Oh, and also, stepping over all the branches littering the trail.
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Outdoor Adventures
I started reading a book about an outdoor adventure last night and as the narration described packing a small plane and the flight they took into a remote wilderness, I was transported to memories of my experience flying to Lukla in the Himalayan mountains. That trip I took to Nepal was over 12-years ago now, enough time that I don’t think about it nearly as often as I used to.
I don’t want the ever-increasing span of time to erase the brilliance of my experience. At the same time, I don’t want to endlessly repeat the stories from that trip just to keep them alive.
Maybe just fragments of the stories.
The drama of navigating our way through the gauntlet of locals around the airport in Katmandu, twice, to wait for our flight to Lukla.
Seeing the mountains from the air for the first time.
Realizing that everywhere we would go beyond the airport at Lukla would be on foot.
Walking the same path as so many others who climbed to the summit of Everest.
Experiencing the gift of being guided by the Sherpa people.
Exchanging Namaste greetings with locals and other foreign trekkers as we pass on the narrow trail.
Crossing the deep river gorges on swinging suspension bridges.
Seeing eagles soaring in rising circles on a thermal column of air, while standing above them at a higher elevation.
The mantra om mani padme hum.
The incredible views of Everest, Ama Dablam, Nuptse, Lhotse.
Overnight snow that covered our tents in Namche Bazaar.
Taking a side trail to avoid congestion because our guide was from the region and knew the “backroads.”
The sound of an evacuation helicopter climbing the thin air up the valley between high peaks.
Laughing with fellow trekkers in our group and our Sherpa guides and porters.
Hauling school supplies in our backpacks to donate to small schools along the way.
Finding a property with electricity and paying a modest fee to charge my camera batteries.
Warm milk tea.
The variety of locals, yaks (dzo), and travelers who shared the main trails.
Mani stones with carved prayer inscriptions along the trail.
Witnessing a day of activity when I stayed put on an off-day in Monju.
Prayer flags flapping in the wind.
It all made for a mighty good dose of outdoor adventures that I really enjoy remembering.
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Relative Something 