Archive for October 2022
And Again
She did it again. Cyndie took another captivating cell phone picture of the moon rising. It’s my lead story this morning.
It’s my only story this morning.
We are enjoying gorgeous days (July weather in October) and fabulous nights (September weather in October). Maybe it will rain tonight.
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Autumn Views
Picking up where I left off yesterday, here are four more wonderful photographs Cyndie captured revealing the colorful autumn views we have been enjoying this year.
Standing in the labyrinth, first, the view looking out…
Then, she turned around to capture the view looking toward the woods…
The one thing we didn’t take a picture of was the crime scene in our kitchen when we got back from feeding the horses in the afternoon. I saw it first and put up a gate to keep Delilah from going in. Cyndie was outside tending to our landscape pond and without blurting my shock over the scene, I hinted that something happened in the kitchen.
I asked her if there was a cover on the wine bottle. She didn’t take the bait and simply said, “Yes.”
I told her I thought Pequenita had been up on one of the kitchen counters.
It was the short counter between the stove and refrigerator where some onions and potatoes are stored. Obviously, an opened bottle of wine with a stopper in it was also there.
The basket of onions had fallen off the backsplash and probably tipped the bottle over. The stopper was on the floor by the center island and red wine was splattered all over the tile floor. I asked if it would stain the tiles.
It didn’t. Cyndie said it didn’t look like the cat had lapped up anything spilled on the floor. She must have leaped and run away in a panic. There were no visible paw prints in the mess. I found Pequenita curled up on a blanket on the couch up in the loft, acting as if nothing had happened.
As we were falling asleep last night, I asked Cyndie if there was any way that basket could have fallen on its own and knocked over the bottle.
Without hesitation, she convicted ‘Nita, despite the lack of incontrovertible proof. Yeah, I’m okay with that. That was my first impression, after all, upon discovering the unexpected autumn color splashed all over our kitchen floor.
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Cyndie’s Handiwork
She enriches my life immeasurably in countless ways and today I would like to share a few morsels of her splendor. The produce garden Cyndie hastily planted last spring during the distracting interruption of a knee replacement surgery has now run its course. Last of all the plants to be pulled from the dirt was a stalk of Brussels sprouts that offered edible buds roughly the size of peas.
They were delicious, but at that size, and based on my gut’s eventual reaction, I fear I may have eaten too many in one serving.
Something interesting showed up on our counter and I had to ask what it was.
“A pumpkin!” she says.
In trying to figure out how to describe the size from memory, I decided it could compare to a tennis ball. Looking at the photo again this morning, it reminded me more of a clementine orange. Cyndie disagreed and pulled out a clementine to show me them side by side as proof. The little orange was definitely bigger.
She felt it was more like a lime and pulled one from the fridge to compare. Nope. Even the lime was bigger.
We’ve concluded the little pumpkin compares closer to a ping-pong ball.
Apparently, the dry year we’ve had has squelched the size of some of the garden produce.
One of the best contributions Cyndie provides in support of my blog (beyond the endless fodder for entertaining stories) is the great images she captures on her phone.
The other night as the moon was climbing through clouds while she was walking Delilah, she snapped this gem:
It’s like a painting.
I am a really lucky guy to have this artist’s handiwork in my life.
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Added Steps
This morning’s frost was cold enough to create a cover of ice over the horse’s waterer, affirming our suspicion the automatic heaters are no longer up to the task they performed so well in the early years. We have hopes of remedying that before the daytime temperatures no longer climb above freezing this fall.
There was enough frost on the grass this morning that I “skated” along after we popped out of the woods on our way to feed the horses.
At first, we worried that Mix might be suffering some medical issue because her behavior of pawing the ground, snorting, rising up, chasing after others, and kicking seemed to indicate she was in pain. When she settled down enough for feed pans to be served, calm chewing replaced the wild behavior.
I suggested to Cyndie that Mix might have just been trying to rev up her engine in response to the cold morning. While they were all eating, the sun cleared the horizon and instantly began to warm surfaces. The horses all stand sideways to the warming beam, soaking it up as they gobble up their feed.
My projects yesterday included the addition of steps on a path from the driveway that had gotten even steeper than it already was before the resurfacing increased the height of the pavement. Over the last week, we’ve collected a spare wood beam and some rocks for the task.
There weren’t a lot of fill options handy so I attempted to sculpt something minimal and then scrounged the surrounding area for shovel-able dirt.
What I found was so fine it couldn’t be called sand. It was more like dust. On the edge of the woods, a tree had tipped years ago and this was the “soil” around the root bundle that looked solid enough until I dug into it with a shovel.
After that proved marginal for my purposes, I gave up on finding something close and headed down to the small paddock where I needed to re-dig a drainage channel that hoof traffic had obliterated over time. That was a long way to push a heavy wheelbarrow so I chose to finish with a lighter (and closer) load of composted manure.
I’ve got two rocks yet to place but the new steps leading past Cyndie’s strawberry patch have met with her approval thus far. We’ve walked that slope for years without steps so having just a few added breaks to the slant seems like a significant improvement.
We’ll have to see what a few freeze/thaw cycles, some heavy rain, and just passing time will do to the stability of the improvised effort.
I hope it holds because we are both pleased with the rustic look that my crude attempt has produced.
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Pretty Peak
We are witnessing pretty close to peak colors around here now. It’s hard to tell if the next day will become even more brilliant or if leaves will have abruptly dropped to the ground en masse.
There are a few straggling trees still holding green leaves but the ones that blaze the best colors are maxing out. We are doing our best to soak up the scenery with full in-the-moment appreciation, never knowing when the polychromatic party might end. The critical ingredient for maximum spectacle is direct sunlight, so the degree of cloudy skies in the next few days will play a significant part in prolonging the autumnal glory we have been blessed with this year.
Complicating the situation is the extreme degree of parched soil we have been dealt, so we are also longing for an extended soaking rain. I guess one way to look at it is that either way, we win.
If it gets rainy, we will rejoice over the moisture. If it stays sunny, we continue to enjoy the wonderful fall colors.
(For the purposes of this positive-thinking exercise, I will be ignoring the possibility of the skies clouding over without ever providing a measurable amount of rain.)
As of yesterday afternoon, we were peaking out and loving it!
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Something’s Different
Is there such a thing as “almost sick?” Over the last two days, I’ve been experiencing sensations that are atypical for me. An astute observer can sense you have a fever before actually measuring your temperature. Maybe I’m just hypersensitive in this regard but I tend to notice even a tiny rise in my normal body temperature. It doesn’t measure high enough to justify claiming it as a “fever,” but I feel all the associated body aches.
At the same time, I have none of the usual symptoms that I always get. No sore throat. No airway issues. No stomach or digestive issues.
I have felt a bit unsteady on my feet, but I don’t feel sick. I just don’t feel like my normal self.
Cyndie’s homemade chicken & wild rice soup and extra rest have been our treatment for my altered reality. It has come at the expense of being outside on two more of our glorious climate-warmed autumn days. It has been “July in October” here in west-central Wisconsin.
The other day when I was out harvesting rocks, I stopped to soak up the beautiful spectacle of some of the successfully transplanted ornamental Japanese Silver Grass we replanted near the labyrinth.
Had I known it would do as well as it has I would have had us take a bigger portion. The home plant we were trying to thin doesn’t look any different at this point. We could have taken twice what we did. This is what it looked like back in August:
It’s funny what a little success will do for my confidence. I’m feeling inspired to do even more land-sculpting next spring to continue our latest trend of finding and nurturing volunteer oak trees to thrive, as well as moving around perennials to enhance our paths and trails across the various mini-environments of our twenty acres.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of our arrival to this paradise we call Wintervale. With only a minor bit of wavering in the ten years we’ve been here, I’d say our little experiment in the adventure of transitioning from suburbanites to rural property owners can be deemed a success.
I don’t want to be any place else at this point in my life. Here’s hoping for another decade to come.
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Harvesting Rocks
Since it is harvest season, we decided to grab a couple of shovels and head into our woods to harvest rocks for use in the labyrinth. The back half of the circling pathway needs additional rocks to fully complete the borders. This time of year it is easier to see where old rock piles have been swallowed by the woods. From now until the ground freezes becomes prime rock harvesting time.
It might look a little like the photo above when we arrive at first but prying loose just one of the rocks can start a chain reaction of adjacent rocks coming free, one after another.
We were quickly reminded that prop shovels made for the classic “breaking ground” ceremonies where executives and politicians all toss a scoopful of sand are not hardy enough for real work.
Cyndie claimed the shovel in the photo above from her mom’s garage last year as they cleared out possessions in advance of selling the property. Her dad had been involved in more than one of these ground breaking events over the years, keeping the shovels as mementos. This one is the second to have suffered this kind of fate when used in projects around our property.
I turned the previous one into an edger tool by grinding the what was left of the spade into a cutting blade.
After uncovering a reasonable number of healthy-sized rocks for our purposes, we used a wheelbarrow to move them from the woods to the periphery of the labyrinth.
The dusty clay soil gives them all the appearance of being one color at this point but a few rain showers will bring out more individual personalities over time.
Now comes the fun part, picking just the right rocks to fill in the gaps around the back half of the labyrinth pathway. My guess is we could probably use four times as many as we “harvested” today to achieve the full effect we are after, but this amount will occupy us for now.
I want to also get after staging more downed tree trunks and limbs for chipping. There are at least four different spots in our forest where the professional trimmers cut down trees late last winter, leaving the lumber for us to process.
Collecting rocks and trimming downed trees are the two ongoing projects that will never really have a completion point on our property.
They nicely compliment the other project that is always ongoing around here: composting manure.
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View Within
Living in farm country has exposed me to the life cycle of cultivated crops and I was just commenting to Cyndie the other day how entire fields of soybeans suddenly all turn from green to yellow-brown in about a day. I wondered what it is they trigger on. The hours of sunlight? The reduced angle of the sun? Some particular overnight low temperature?
Boom. All at once, the field is no longer green.
Walking through our woods yesterday, I realized some of the ground cover that grows beneath the canopy has abruptly traded its green color for yellow.
That is a blurry photo but I am using it anyway because it still shows exactly what I’m describing.
Driving through the countryside to see the fall colors won’t show you this version of autumn. The view from within the forests of the fading greenery provides a different perspective of transformation after summer is over.
I did succeed in capturing a couple of other views from yesterday that weren’t as blurry.
It won’t be long before our boardwalk will become entirely obscured by a thick blanket of leaves. You won’t see any of the wood blocks after the maple trees drop their leaves.
The views from within the forest of the changes from summer to fall are a wonderful compliment to the brightly colored tree tops available from a distance.
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Calming Nerves
We are witnessing good progress in helping the horses to accept the inside of the barn as a non-threatening environment by continuing to give them time to freely explore the stalls and open space. There was much less anxiety on display yesterday morning as the horses moved around to sniff and listen to the walled confines.
It was clear watching Mix’s ears that she was just listening to what it sounded like inside the barn as she stood stationary for a long span of time. It was a marked difference from the constant alerted movements all four horses demonstrated the first two times we invited them in last week.
Doesn’t look like weather will be forcing us to confine the horses indoors any time soon. The warm, dry month of September is carrying on into the first week of October for us with more of the same. Fall color is intensifying accordingly. Red has arrived!
Can that be both calming and invigorating at the same time? Yeah, it’s a little of both.
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Relative Something 