Archive for March 2022
Words Emerge
Spring has arrived on the calendar. Maybe that explains all this spring-like evidence unfolding before our eyes. Mud, primarily. Yesterday, I opened some gates for the horses that we have historically held open using step-in posts. Without thinking, I attempted to step them in and quickly met the resistance of frozen ground an inch or two below the surface.
It’s only spring on the surface thus far.
There is still snow in the woods, but it is shrinking by the minute.
The wooden blocks of the “boardwalk” we installed on a section of trail that gets the muddiest are beginning to reappear.
Cyndie has painted words of inspiration on some of them and it looks like those messages have survived the winter just fine.
Out on the open road I didn’t find any traces of snow while spending time on my new bicycle in the afternoon. I’m pretty confident I will never regret purchasing an e-bike. Having that motor assist took much of the stress out of my first real ride of the season.
Like the emerging words say, LOVE always. I expect I will be loving this bike for the rest of my life.
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Horses Shedding
It’s that time of year when horsehair starts showing up everywhere. When you touch them, their hair gets on your gloves. When you rub them, the shedding hair gets in the air. With hair floating on the wind, it gets in your face. If you reach up to swipe the hair from your face, you get more hair than you bargained for.
Case in point:
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Cyndie’s brother, Steve, paid me a visit while his sister is in Florida. We stopped by a paddock gate to visit with the horses and found several of them showing interest in allowing us to give them scratches. Swings stopped by first. She stood for a bit with her nose just at the gate, breathing in our scent. I turned away for a moment and when I looked back, she had stepped forward and was reaching her head completely over the gate.
Steve and I both happily obliged her willingness and rubbed our gloved hands on her head and neck where she seemed to want some scratching action.
Upon receiving her fill, Swings stepped away and Mix moved in for her own dose of similar attention. Mix has a bit of a runny nostril and appeared to think Steve’s jacket served as a fine “tissue” for wiping her nose. Undaunted, Steve served her up a good massage around her head, coming away with two hands full of Mix’s hair.
Steve was playing in a hockey tournament in River Falls this weekend.
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I was able to show up and watch their first game on Friday night and then Steve and I visited a sports bar with live music on Main Street for a late dinner. He came back to our house to spend the night before heading back to River Falls for his second game, after a leisurely morning that included a walk with Delilah and the time with our horses.
Hopefully, Steve wasn’t still finding horsehair clinging to him while he was trying to chase the puck around in game two. I stayed home to enjoy all the shedded hair showing up in our house, and on my clothes, stuck to my boots, on our furniture, getting in my mouth, blowing like tumbleweed across the paddocks…
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Ground Visible
The change of seasons is marching full ahead with great results. I appreciate that our snowpack’s meltdown has been happening at a perfectly gradual pace. It’s been cool enough during the overnights that melting pauses so the runoff has been controlled, for the most part.
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Delilah and I found the fields entirely bare when we emerged from the woods where there was still snow covering the ground on our morning stroll.
By afternoon, water was flowing as the melting of remaining snow picked up again. It is very rewarding to witness the unimpeded drainage flowing where Cyndie and I worked hard to correct the grade in front of her perennial garden last year.
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My “swale” in the paddock hadn’t maintained its shape nearly as well and the water was draining randomly across the main travel path of two gateways where hoof prints in the soft earth disrupt any coordinated drainage. While cleaning up manure yesterday afternoon, I did a rudimentary job of stemming the flow as best I could, using the flimsy plastic tines of my fork scoop tool.
I want the water to flow out of the paddock to the left of the gate opening to the hayfield, not across the primary travel pattern of the horses. Any attempts I make toward achieving this goal end up getting stomped on by horses who don’t seem to notice what my efforts are intended to accomplish for them.
It’s almost like they have no idea how much they weigh and the amount of disruption in soft, wet soil they create.
One other creature who has no idea how much of a disaster she creates is Delilah. She prances around everywhere she pleases in the snow and mud and then assumes a little toweling off when we come inside the house and she’s good to go.
Sweeping the floor is an adventure after practically every outing.
Yeah, the ground is visible alright.
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The Birds
While walking with Delilah yesterday afternoon, I think we gained an appreciation for what might have inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
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It’s not about the video image. You gotta have the sound on to get the gist of what we experienced.
When we got close and stopped to check out the chaos, we experienced a wonder of nature when the birds all suddenly fell silent. It’s just fascinating to witness the cooperation of that many birds that have just been shouting up a storm of noise to all understand when it becomes time to get quiet.
Lasted barely a second and the cacophony resumed at full force.
A brilliant spectacle.
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River Running
Winter has loosed its grip. When we walked the perimeter yesterday morning while the temperature was below freezing, there was little evidence of a meltdown unleashing the spring runoff. By mid-afternoon, the drainage ditches were alive with running water.
The air temperature probably hit 50°F for a bit, resulting in water flowing as if there was an actual river along our southern property border, not just a swale that sits dry most of the time.
The bridge I built along the back pasture fence line was doing its job to perfection as the flow of water across our land poured beneath it into the main ditch just beyond.
If I didn’t know better, I’d be looking to see if I could spot any brook trout flitting around in the current.
From the looks of the extended forecast, we should have a nicely controlled meltdown in the days ahead, with overnight temperatures slowing the thaw for a few hours and daytime warmth climbing well into fast-melting territory.
Manure droppings in the paddock are no longer able to hide beneath snow cover. I’m actually looking forward to getting the place cleaned up again to our usual high standards. The only complication with that plan is that I don’t have a lot of open composting space to dump the couple of wheelbarrows-full it will require. The winters-worth of accumulation doesn’t break down so we’ve already got quite a few stacks that will need to be tended once they thaw. I need to stir the piles up and reshape them to get the composting action heating up so they will break down and shrink enough to begin merging piles together.
The fertilizer factory will be back in full swing before the trees leaf out.
Walking around with no coat on yesterday had me wondering if now would be a good time to take the plow blade off the Grizzly ATV. I don’t like to tempt fate. My mind quickly flashes memories of our first spring here when it snowed 18″ in the first few days of May.
A lot could happen weather-wise in the next month or so. I know from experience not to put away shovels just because the winter snow has all melted away. The plow isn’t hurting anything right where it is for now.
In the meantime, the new road bike I bought over the winter is about to get multiple outings to test how well we get along with each other.
When rivers start flowing through the snow, my bicycling season is nigh.
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Complex Threads
When headspace is getting cluttered by whatever the catastrophe of the day is, it becomes a struggle to maintain a healthy effort toward cultivating daily awareness of the goodness that surrounds me. The innocent joy visible in Delilah’s eyes reveals she isn’t thinking about the ills of war currently happening in Ukraine. I’m not so lucky.
I wish I didn’t have to know about the complexities of what Russia’s Putin will do if he doesn’t get what he wants.
My present concerns about the challenges faced by the people of Ukraine bring up complicated questions I find myself asking about why this deserves any more attention than similar traumas in all the other regions of the world where large populations of civilians have been displaced by lethal conflicts.
Meanwhile, the calamities unfolding every day from the impact of human-driven climate change rage undiminished by any other distractions that succeed in grabbing my attention. How many billion dollars of damage occurred somewhere in the world from flooding rains, wildfires, or wind storms this week?
That doesn’t take anything away from a blissful moment of interaction I was able to experience with Mia yesterday. While a very spring-like snow shower made it look like we were in a snow-globe scene, I wandered up to one of the paddock gates to visit the horses. Mia came up to meet me.
In a rare instance where she didn’t choose to make it a short visit, I found myself looking for ways to give her whatever attention she might desire. After she satisfied herself with facing me and breathing in my smell, she turned around and very obviously waited to see if I would scratch her butt.
How could I resist? While it is true that presenting their butt can be a way a horse shows disrespect or harmful intent, given the circumstances, I read Mia’s behavior as totally benign.
It was snowing and she was wet, plus my reach was limited through the gate, so she received a rather rudimentary scratching. Regardless, she definitely seemed receptive to the attention and followed it up by turning around again to present her mane, which I spotted had quite a dreadlocked snarl.
To my great surprise, she stood patiently while I feebly struggled to make meaningful progress toward detangling the incredibly tight twists of several sections of hair. I did what I could, trying to take advantage of her willingness, but this was a project that needed more than I could provide through a gate amid wet, falling snowflakes.
She decided to present her butt for more attention one last time before I departed from my little impromptu visit.
Before bedtime last night, as I stood at the mirror in the luxury of my bathroom to brush my teeth, I thought about the complexity of my joys and comforts as they contrast with the simultaneous hostility others are suffering.
Somehow, it seems I shouldn’t allow the ills of the world to squelch the goodness I enjoy, but it would be easier to reconcile the dichotomy of the two if my happiness had influence toward easing the difficulties others are forced to endure.
Complex threads, indeed.
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Loft Makeover
Yesterday was a day of furniture upheaval in our house, demonstrated first thing in the morning by the sight of the overstuffed chair that used to be in the loft suddenly occupying the floor of our kitchen.
Cyndie and I made the drive to Edina and met two of her brothers, Steve and Ben, who made this one-day project possible for us. The primary goal was to move the big sectional corner sofa from their mom’s basement back to our house. As long as we were there and Steve had made a truck and trailer available, other large items were included. We also moved a recliner, twin beds, a beautiful old glass-doored bookshelf cabinet, lamps, and several bags of linens.
In order to accommodate the furniture that is coming our way, we are passing some of our old things on to others who have expressed interest and/or are donating pieces to local organizations in need.
The challenge that loomed largest appeared to be how we would get the bigger items moved up our spiral staircase to the loft. It actually turned out to be rather straightforward and involved taking advantage of the railing to support and slide the couch sections on the way up.
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Honestly, the biggest complication of the day was caused by the icy driveway hindering Steve’s ability to move the truck and trailer as easily as we would have liked.
Once we had everything in place and the guys had headed back to the cities, I tested the new seating by checking out Iowa vs. Purdue in the men’s Big Ten Championship basketball game and promptly fell into a wonderful slumbering nap.
The new setup passed with my full and highest approval, although laced with an underlying feeling of disorientation over sitting in Marie’s basement furniture while now in my loft at home.
I blame the hour clock change yesterday of Daylight Saving Time. Makes everything seem out of whack for a few days until I get used to it.
A couple more naps on the couch while pretending to watch television will go a long way toward mentally adjusting to the changes accomplished yesterday.
Many thanks to Ben and Steve for coming all the way to our place and helping with the heavy lifting to make it all possible!
I’m now very ready for NCAA March Madness…
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Hockey Hangover
Of all the days to stay up later than normal, last night was one that compounds the cost because clocks moved one hour ahead last night. Color me sleep-deprived.
I blame hockey. Not just any hockey, though. The Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament hooked me this year for no specific reason. I had no connection to any of the school teams involved but I was entranced by the excitement and competitiveness on display. Last night’s championship game went to a second overtime period that kept me glued until the winning goal was scored.
The entire tournament offered a refreshing dose of pure hockey with minimal distractions of post-whistle shenanigans and remarkably few penalties.
I saw a player get knocked completely off his skates and he simply got back up and kept playing as if checking is no big deal. How can a high school kid play with more maturity than NHL professionals that retaliate like it’s obligatory?
Four days in a row of high-intensity competitive games was downright intoxicating.
I’d like to say I could just sleep it off but no such luck today. It’s moving day! We are getting rid of some of our old furnishings and two of Cyndie’s brothers are helping us to bring back a couch and chairs and whatever else fits from Cyndie’s mom’s house. The Edina home has been sold and needs to be cleaned out.
We are happy to do our part.
The couch will go up in our loft where I can settle in to watch the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament games until I’ve had my fill.
Replacing one vice with another? Yes, that’s my plan.
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Satisfying Breakage
You know that almost uncontrollable and usually insatiable urge to pop bubble wrap? I suggest that whatever drives that urge also drives our compulsion to break overnight ice this time of year. The fact that the action can often sound like breaking glass, but happens without the pesky need to meticulously clean up every last shard, probably contributes to the attraction.
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With childlike glee we stomp our way along the driveway, unleashing faux carnage against the aging ice that shatters with each strike.
We can thank the wild swings of temperature for the excellent ice-breaking conditions we have been enjoying lately. This morning it was a mere 1°F outside and felt every bit as bone-chilling cold as below-zero days can feel. I suspect our bodies are already down the path of adjusting to springtime weather. Certainly, our minds have already made that leap.
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In the fields, the snowpack is morphing into an artistic archipelago of grass and snow. The firmly frozen surface now frees us to wander away from the usual paths so we can explore the surroundings at will.
But really, as fun as that is to be able to do, it doesn’t hold a candle to the unmitigated glee of smashing old ice to bits.
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Relative Something 