Archive for November 2021
Updating Benches
The old log benches around the firepit up at the lake have aged to the point of being overly mossy and crumbling from decomposition. Another perfect opportunity for making use of the store of old lumber we saved from the resurfacing of our deck at home.
Elysa is up at the lake this weekend so I asked her to send me a photo of the benches as they looked yesterday.
It’s fitting to use leftover lumber because that’s how the original benches were made when the log home was built at the lake. Twelve-inch cedar log pieces made for excellent firepit seating.
My idea for replacements won’t be made of logs but they will have some cedar boards and be custom made.
I mixed in some green-treated boards for the added strength and weight to bolster the finished benches. After measuring the old log benches, I designed one tall one and a pair of shorter versions to match.
The results are satisfying and I look forward to testing them out by the lake next time we get a chance to drive them up. The simulated firepit on my driveway didn’t quite match the desired ambiance.
Gives me extra incentive to make the trek up to our favorite place as soon as possible!
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Twenty Questions
I’m not going to number them, so you’ll have to count if you want to find out if there really are twenty. It’s just that a question came to mind during my morning commute yesterday and I found myself mentally careening down a rabbit hole of not-necessarily-related questions that went on for so long –pretty much the rest of the way to work– I figured it deserved to become a blog post.
Now, if I could only remember what it was I was pondering so deeply in that westbound commute at almost zero-dark-thirty. Oh, that sentence triggered a memory of feeling really grateful to have been able to drive west in the morning and east in the afternoon during most of my working life. I’ve avoided fighting the daily glare of sun in my eyes while driving.
Speaking of being triggered, a song lyric during the morning commute got me to wonder, do people know who it is that taught them how to love? Or how come some humans can play instruments faster than my ear is able to discern? Have you ever heard Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper play Tall Fiddler? Wow. Seems pretty fast, until they suddenly go even faster.
How come I’ve never been able to get my left and my right hand to work together at breakneck speed to hit the correct notes at the correct time on the strings of my guitar? That’s just black magic to play that unrealistically fast and actually produce recognizable melodies with every note presented, if only for a micro-fraction of a second each.
When it appears like our dog is trying to bite the cat, is it possible to know which of the two was the instigator? Does Delilah suddenly start barking at something outside our house because of a sound she hears or some canine sixth sense that tells her there is an invisible thing out there that needs to be barked at?
Actually, I think it’s become a learned behavior that she is unconscious about. There was once a squirrel up in the big tree towering above her kennel outside. She barked up at it, logically. Unfortunately, now she barks up at that tree every time we put her in the kennel, regardless of any squirrel sightings. Does she associate being in the kennel with needing to bark up at the tree? Apparently so.
Are digital HD subchannels radio’s best-kept secret? Is it weird that one radio or television station is actually multiple stations?
Is there a general age break where the reference of something being bigger than a bread box no longer makes any sense? Maybe it has been replaced with, “Is it bigger than a video game console?” Of course, I have no idea if game consoles have a general size at this point, but I have seen pictures of people opening wrapped packages of the latest impossible-to-get hot item that have me thinking there might be.
Have you noticed how Cyndie’s photos have been more interesting than mine for the last few years? I am very lucky that she shares them for use on my blog.
Does it matter if I don’t offer answers to all the questions I am bringing up? Can you tell when my posts run a little long? Who’s counting words, anyway? It’s all about how long it takes to read, not how many words there are. You just skim the sentences like a speed reader after all, don’t you? What words catch your eye enough to slow you down and really read a full paragraph?
Without knowing any of the answers, it still just boils down to the question that started it all, do you know who taught you how to love?
I heard the question in a song.
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Staying Put
Upon seeing Ward’s comment on yesterday’s post, I realized I haven’t written about our decision to keep our rescued Thoroughbreds through the winter. It’s actually been a gradual process for us to come to this conclusion. Recently, Cyndie affirmed our intentions with “This Old Horse” and this set in motion preparations for winter horse care.
They are fully supportive and provided contact information for some volunteer caretakers living near us who we didn’t previously know about. If we find ourselves needing coverage during a time we will be away, “This Old Horse” volunteers can step in.
We might update the horses’ feed rations or nutrition for the winter. “This Old Horse” will bring us heated water buckets for in the barn stalls. We will be contacting their hay supplier to coordinate a plan for when we will be needing more bales.
It is a wonderful partnership that serves the horses’ best interests and gives us the support that enables us to provide them a long-term retirement home.
We are very happy to report the horses are staying put for the indefinite future.
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Gentle Reminder
This year’s initiation to snow cover came gently and during the weekend, causing minimal impact to our routine. We aren’t sure about the history of our horses’ experience with snow but there was no indication they were the least bit disturbed by the arrival of whiteness.
Their greater concern of late is the frequent report of rifles reverberating in the valley. In the days leading up to the actual 9-day deer hunting season, there are a lot more gunshots heard than the few bursts at dusk and dawn when the season is underway. My guess is early gunshots are a result of shooters aligning their scopes and firing their weapons in rehearsal for the real thing, based on a comment I heard from someone years ago.
Not being a hunter myself, I just rely on what others have told me.
After a single day, the snow is rapidly disappearing.
I’ll take that as a reminder that the transition of seasons doesn’t always happen in an instant. This year we have been spared one of those sudden blast storms with deep snow that ends up lasting the entire winter. I’m lookin’ at you, 1991 Halloween Blizzard.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but I’m perfectly okay with a gentle reminder when season-long snowfall is nigh.
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Place
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standing in that place
of just taking up space
where feelings reside
buried inside
since the beginning of time
well past their prime
there is an urge just to breathe
without thinking
about what matters
in grand schemes
the things of our dreams
all the wealth of ideas
staring blankly between
hours of days
mischievous ways
then walking away
distracted
one more time
deciding to never stop
wanting to find
what resides in that place
taking up
precious space
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Compare Contrasts
I have mixed feelings about the comparison of our woods to our neighbor’s when it comes to the obviousness of difference in controlling the invasive Common Buckthorn. Do you notice the contrast in the images below?
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That line of green leaves on the low trees visible in the images on the right is increasingly dominating the understory beyond our fencelines.
It is pleasing to be able to clearly see the progress I have achieved in my vigilance to remove the buckthorn every year. At the same time, it is unsettling to watch the progress of the invasion playing out on the land surrounding ours.
Meanwhile, remember how happy I was to boast of stocking up on woodchips?
Cyndie has already succeeded in decimating the store of chips, distributing them far and wide for mulch around small trees and plants in the labyrinth and beyond.
We are on the brink of no longer being able to see most of the downed branches available for chipping with the arrival of snow season.
Yesterday, the driveway was still too warm to be covered by the first measurable amount to fall, but the leaves weren’t.
Our landscape turned white overnight last night. Animal tracks are clearly revealed this morning. I didn’t go out yet, but Cyndie said there were no bear footprints on the trails she and Delilah walked. Plenty of deer and an occasional bunny rabbit, though.
I’m going to be comparing our new surroundings today to the contrasting snowless world I walked less than 24 hours ago in my wanderings around the grounds.
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My City
I live in a city in the country. A place characterized by a specific attribute. My city is populated by leaves. Leaves and sticks. And mud, when the weather is wet. My city is constantly changing. There are animals and animal dung. There are births and deaths.
Is it murder when one animal kills another?
Not according to this definition:
“the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.”
Doesn’t apply to animals.
My city has common routes of travel shared by many. There are also back alley shortcuts to get from one place to another. There is traffic night and day.
Our house is the city center, the hub of all activity. From here, energy radiates in every direction. There are constant battles waged against unwelcome invading plants and critters.
The invasion of cold temperatures appears to have quashed the zeal of microorganisms living in the only remaining active pile of composting manure. I won’t fight the issue. The pile will be there when warmth returns next spring. I’ve witnessed piles that cook through the winter and seen many more that go dormant and freeze solid.
This year, we have noticed an atypical increase in the number of mice seeking to move into the city center now that the leaves have fallen to the ground. Do they know something we don’t about what kind of weather this winter will bring?
We are receiving news now that the whitetail deer population has contracted the coronavirus in substantial numbers. Since they lack the infrastructure for getting vaccinated, it gives us added incentive to get our booster shots. I’d rather not wear a mask when walking through the woods.
Imagine the opportunity for the virus to morph again while it is spreading uncontrolled through the deer population.
We can try to put our city on lock-down but policing the traffic that crosses our borders is beyond the reach of our security forces.
My city will take its chances.
We are more concerned about a threatened strike by the snowplow driver.
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Contrasting Visuals
I’m so happy that Cyndie carries her phone on walks and shares the views she captures. This first one has the cool effect of blurring around the center focal point that adds energy to the scene.
We have reached the time of year when there are a lot more hours of darkness than light but she didn’t let that stop her and I love the murky mysteriousness of this next one.
There is a lot of action in some of those tree trunks. I don’t quite understand the source of light behind those clouds. Was it really just the last traces of sunlight so many minutes past sunset? I cannot confirm.
A couple of other shots she showed me from the night walk revealed the snowflakes that were blowing around at the time.
It was brought to my attention that this happened seven years ago:
That was when Cyndie rolled the old farm pickup just a few days before she had hip replacement surgery. When responders fretted over her painful limping, she had to tell them that was how she walked even before the rollover.
In contrast, now I’m thinking about what we’ll be taking pictures of seven years from now and how different it might look.
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Just Go
Figuring out where to start when you have no idea where you are going shouldn’t really be a problem. Just go. From wherever you happen to be, just take off. Doesn’t really matter where you start once you are sailing along smoothly into the unknown.
Take my writing of this post… I have no idea where it’s going.
We had no idea our Wintervale had been added to the list of locations on the website of This Old Horse. Click to see.
Cyndie described quite a scene last night about her challenges to split the four horses into two pairs. With Mix’s pattern of sometimes being excessively “bossy” over the two chestnuts, Mia and Light, Cyndie likes to close gates to separate them during rainy weather so everyone has equal access to the space beneath the overhang.
Otherwise, we have noticed Mix posturing to leave Mia out in the cold rain because Mia is too timid to make her way to the other open side.
While Cyndie was working to isolate the chestnuts, Mix undid a chain and made her way into the barn uninvited. Inside, she found Delilah tethered and Delilah quickly shepherded the startled mare back to where she belonged. Or, at least, back in the direction from which she had come.
Mix came out and took a position on the wrong side from where Cyndie wanted her. No surprise there. Eventually, Cyndie succeeded in reaching the goal of having everyone where she wanted them.
The horses seem happier every day with their situation and surroundings, but they still have moments of dissatisfaction. Don’t we all?
Around dinnertime, the rain started to fall, just as predicted.
We settled inside and took in a couple episodes of “Longmire” to distract ourselves from reality for a little while. We are enamored with the modern-day (2012) western crime drama set in Wyoming, even after stumbling on the lead actor, Robert Taylor’s Australian accent when he spoke out of character for one of the “special features.”
He had us fooled. We had no clue the words he speaks as “Walt Longmire” were with an “acted” dialect. Bravo to his performance.
Too bad I’ve found myself hyper-critical of plot holes and incongruities in my movie and television viewing lately. It has me fully understanding why reading books is better than watching movie versions of stories.
When the storyline involves a ferocious winter storm, I can visualize that precisely in my mind, along with all it would entail, during, and after the weather passes. I would set a fantastic scene in my brain as I read.
When the video-recorded version is produced and doesn’t come close to depicting the visuals of the storm they meant to convey, my suspended disbelief collapses.
“Why is he wearing snowshoes when the snow isn’t deep enough there?”
“Why is there no snow clinging to the branches of those evergreen trees?”
“I thought they said this was the worst winter storm in years. Doesn’t look like one”
Brings to mind the epic Armistice Day blizzard of 1940. Just because it’s warm in the morning during November doesn’t mean it won’t be freezing by nightfall. That was what a winter storm looks like.
Sometimes, I just have to let things go.
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Relative Something 