Archive for December 2022
Other Ventures
Yesterday I wrote about the horses venturing out but they aren’t the only ones around here who’ve been on excursions. To make December a little more festive, Monday night Cyndie and I took a little drive to Minneapolis and picked up our daughter to meet Cyndie’s brother and mom for dinner at Giulia restaurant followed by a George Winston concert at Orchestra Hall.
The food was delightful (I ordered salmon) and the concert was… interesting. I’m embarrassed to admit that I never considered that George would have aged since the last time I paid any attention to him, which was so long ago I don’t actually remember. I think it was when we lived in the rented double bungalow on Cedar Avenue which would make it over 40 years ago. His command of the keys was still remarkable. He played a few Vince Guaraldi tunes that are always a treat to hear among selections of his other compositions.
The evening was only slightly more challenging an outing due to accumulating snowfall and Cyndie being confined to crutches.
The week before, I was on my own excursion, driving out to Eden Prairie for an annual December gathering of old high school buddies. In a wonderful serendipity of experience, I ended up finding more than twice the number of friendly old faces than I was expecting.
Much to my surprise, at the same restaurant, there was a gathering of folks from Physical Electronics, many of whom I haven’t seen since I left that company in 1999, after 18 years of employment. I was torn between socializing with the roughly 30 former coworkers and my group of about 15 former classmates.
As tough as it was to cut the coworker greetings short, I was there for the EP guys, so I returned to mingle with them, but it was a thrilling surprise to have stumbled unexpectedly upon a reunion of friendly faces from the best years of my working life.
We don’t expect to be doing any venturing out for the next few days. Snowfall is due to begin this afternoon and then tomorrow and Friday the snow will be blowing around in winds that could hit 50 mph. Wind chill temperatures will be extreme.
I took a picture of our horses modeling their blankets in advance of the wild weather. Yesterday was very much the calm before a storm. They soaked up the sunshine and napped most of the day.
I’m guessing they will see little reason to venture from the protection of that overhang when those high winds kick up. I wonder if I should tie a guide rope from the house to the barn to help me find my way in a whiteout blizzard.
There is always a possibility it won’t be as bad as the warnings are preparing us to expect. Our fingers are crossed.
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Ventured Out
Apparently, the horses were just waiting for nightfall to venture out into the deep snow covering the hay field. Their meandering trails made for an interesting pattern beneath the colorful dawn sky yesterday morning.
It was around -5°(F) but the horses appeared unperturbed by the cold, even though there was frost on some of their whiskers and eyelashes. By noon, it had warmed to the mid-teens and their attitude had noticeably changed.
They showed a much greater interest in stuffing themselves with hay at noon. That preoccupation was a helpful distraction, allowing me to put blankets on all of them in advance of extreme weather coming in the days ahead. I think they were wise to the threat and were stoking their furnaces in advance.
Probably why they were so accepting of my fumbling around to get the blankets on them. They seem to sense what lies ahead in the weather department.
I got the barn and hay shed loop plowed yesterday and it was just as tricky as I suspected because of the depth of the snow. By taking it slow and moving half-plow-blade amounts of snow at a time, I accomplished my goal. After parking the ATV back in the shop garage, I headed down to clean up the edges with a shovel and was surprised to find the feed delivery van parked at the barn, unloading bags.
They showed up a day early to avoid making deliveries in wild weather.
It’s a good thing I ventured out to plow when I did. This incident encourages me to not let things wait until the last minute. If I had waited any longer to get that part of the drive plowed, those 50 lb. bags of feed would be piled in the snow at the edge of the driveway and I would have been carrying them down to the barn by myself.
Sounds like winter is going to come in like a lion this year. There’ll be no worrying about whether or not it will be a white Christmas around these parts.
Ho, ho, ho.
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Like Winter
Even though it’s not officially winter yet, it feels a LOT like winter out there. The days are short; there is a lot of snow and freezing cold. The winter solstice occurs on Wednesday this week. It seems to me that the shortest day of the year should be the middle of winter.
I was so entertained by the sun dogs yesterday morning that I took a lot of pictures.
Beyond the awesome spectacle of the mystical rainbow circle around the sun, my eyes are drawn to the wonderful contrasting snowscape out in the hay field compared to inside the paddock.
I like being able to see evidence of where the horses are spending their time. The gates to both the hay field and the back pasture are open for them to wander out whenever they choose. Once the snow gets deep, they are more inclined to stay close to their hay, the waterer, and the shelter of the overhang.
I can’t say I blame them. I’d love to take a day off after wrestling for hours yesterday with the long handle of the snow rake to clear snow off the roof on the back side of our house. The extended length of the handle catches on deck railings and tree branches behind me while my attention is focused on moving the business end of the rake up on the roof. It’s a lot of work for my arm muscles, mostly reaching over my head.
There will be no rest for the weary today. I have yet to plow the area in front of the barn and around the hay shed. It won’t be simple because the depth of snow, including a significant drift, is approaching the limitations of the ATV and its plow blade. Since I prefer to not rely on the diesel tractor, for a variety of reasons, I will work slowly and methodically on the Yamaha Grizzly to at least get a lane open to the barn for the delivery of horse feed tomorrow.
Of course, more snow is expected to fall this week so a new round of plowing and shoveling will continue to dictate my activities in the foreseeable future.
It’s a good thing I like winter so much. No mosquitos and no snakes. However, sometimes there can be a lot of snow.
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Improbable Happens
On the morning of the title game of the 2022 FIFA World Cup between France and Argentina, my mind is clouded by the unlikely outcome of yesterday’s NFL game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Indianapolis Colts. You’d think I’d be used to it from this year’s Vikings team, having squeaked out so many other wins by one score in the final moments, but this one was a record-breaking epic.
I had given up hope for the Minnesota team early in the first half of the game, not just because of the lopsided score but because of the humiliating way it was playing out. An NFL record-breaking come-from-behind victory seemed more than improbable.
Final score: 39-36 OT, Vikings win.
It was a game that had recently been moved up to Saturday from the typical NFL Sunday fare in what is basically a marketing move. Unfortunately, not everyone tracks each decision sports leagues make. Imagine you are a music student showing up at your downtown Minneapolis music school for your usual Saturday lesson and discovering the cost of all the reasonable parking options has mushroomed to a $30 event fee.
I bet that felt improbable.
This morning, I really didn’t want to climb out of my warm bed to go out in the single-digit cold air to feed and clean up after the horses. Maybe it wasn’t all that improbable, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be rewarded with some cherishing views of nature’s glory.
The gorgeous sunshine was made possible by a cloudless sky that allows the temperature to drop to bitterly cold levels, but the sunlight still makes it seem warmer, even if it’s not.
Improbable?
It happens.
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Frustrating Amount
If a little is good, more must be better, right? Certainly not. Not lately, anyway. I could sure use a break from plowing and shoveling.
Of course, getting the ATV stuck at the end of the driveway didn’t do much for my cheerful outlook. When I came over the hill to see the state of things at the end of the driveway, I wasn’t surprised that our trash and recycle bins were knocked over by the snowy blast off the blade of the township snowplow.
The surprise was that our mailbox was still securely attached to its post. I think it was saved by the trash bin.
I plowed just enough of the snow at the end of the driveway to restore order with the bins but I got carried away thinking I could push the massive amount of snow well off the driveway. Suddenly I couldn’t back up. The front wheels had gotten beyond the pavement and the blade was stuck in the accumulated pile of new and old snow.
A long walk back to the barn for shovels was required. As long as I had the shovels, I decided to work by hand to clean up the area around the mailbox and the heavy wash of snow that came off the big snowplow. It’s easier to find the edge of the pavement using shovels.
After digging out the snow beneath the ATV and around the plow blade, it backed right out of the predicament with ease. On my way back up the driveway (after two successful passes plowing) I ventured too far to the right and dropped two wheels over the steep bank. You know, the banks where I wanted to add enough fill to create a more functional shoulder beyond the pavement.
Yeah, we didn’t get that fill added to the lower half of the driveway before serious amounts of snow arrived. I’m now dealing with the very scenario I dreaded. I can’t plow wide enough to protect the driveway from getting narrower and narrower with each successive snowstorm.
That interesting-looking snow sculpture above is actually a spruce tree. Of all the years to start off the snow season with epic accumulations.
What could be a fun feature of winter is mostly a frustration for me this year. It’s not being made any easier by Cyndie’s inability to walk and help out with horse care and snow clearing. It’s a one-man operation this year.
Yesterday, I made it halfway around the house pulling snow off the roof eaves with our Avalanche roof rake. Still to go, the other side of the house, and then I need to shovel off the deck and plow around the barn and hay shed.
If it is still snowing, I then need to start the whole cycle all over again. Rinse and repeat.
I miss having time to read the daily newspaper in the morning before starting my day.
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Not Waiting
Woke up yesterday morning to a winter wonderland.
It was sticky snow and continued to fall pretty much non-stop all day long.
The stickiness was creating some interesting viewing. One little branch could hold a surprising amount of snow.
The same thing was happening to the cable I strung between two trees to create a leash run for Delilah on the slope of our backyard.
She never liked it when we connected her retractable leash to the pulley over her head on the cable. I think it scared her. Now that she’s no longer with us, I suppose I should take the thing down. I’m sure the tree trunks would appreciate not having that constant pressure on them.
As soon as I finished feeding the horses in the morning, I decided to plow the snow off the driveway in hopes of taking advantage of the daytime warmth to melt new snow that was falling. For the most part, the plan worked as I’d hoped. At least the bottom layer hadn’t frozen solid yet, so that was a plus.
There was so much snow stuck in tree branches that warming daytime temperatures caused large amounts to fall out of the trees and mess up the freshly cleaned pavement.
Because the snow was sticky, I resorted to a fair amount of hand shoveling in areas where I couldn’t run the ATV at a good speed to get the snow to slide off the angled blade. That made for some heavy shovel strokes where the plow had rolled up big blocks of plowed snow.
Based on the weather forecast and the radar images of the precipitation spinning around the low-pressure center of the storm, I will get to do this all over again today! That’s okay. I was well aware of that likelihood as I toiled away yesterday. Everything I accomplished yesterday will be that much less snow I will have to deal with today.
I learned long ago –the hard way– that it doesn’t pay to wait until the very end of multiple-day snowfalls to start clearing snow.
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Sloppy Snow
After reading in yesterday’s paper that the warming of the Earth is bringing rain to the Arctic regions, I feel a little sheepish about my whining over getting rain in December at our latitude. Honestly, I could adjust my thinking to accept the rain if that’s all it was but the reality is that we get rain mixed with sleet which then turns to snow. Usually, heavy, wet snow.
My work area just beyond the overhang in the paddocks has turned into a muddy mess again. The horses take it in stride but the sloppy footing makes my maneuvering much less pleasant.
Cleaning off the driveway is a whole other battle in these conditions. When a small amount of snow falls, it isn’t worth bothering to plow, however, shoveling the area in front of the house keeps it from becoming messy.
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Trying to plow the water-logged slop may have cleaned the pavement nicely, but by the time I was able to consider it, the slushy snow was starting to refreeze. The duration of this precipitation is predicted to last a couple more days so I expect I will need to plow at some point. Too bad it will be a frozen mess underneath any real snow that eventually accumulates.
I tell ya, it’s the in-between conditions of mixed winter precipitation that are the most frustrating to deal with. That is until we receive massive amounts of snow in one dump. Then that is the most frustrating to deal with.
Today, it is the rain mixed with sleet that eventually turns to snow that is crimping my style. It’s getting to be almost as bad as the Arctic around here. Not that I would whine about such a thing as crummy weather.
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Grim Grip
With temperatures hovering just above the freezing point, snow is slowly sliding off our slanted rooftops. As I was returning to the house from the barn, I spotted what looked like the large bony fingers of the Grim Reaper about to grasp the edge of the short roof over the entryway of the shop.
The rest of that section had broken off and dropped to the concrete surface below.
I would like to have recorded a time-lapse video of the slow melting as the snow slid off the roof. It is fascinating that it created that bony-looking curl.
Speaking of bones, I’m driving Cyndie to an appointment this morning to have her bone density analyzed. The trauma surgeon who repaired her ankle put in the order to have her bone density checked in light of the way her broken bones splintered into fragments.
Yesterday, Cyndie’s physical therapist massaged some of the excess fluid out of her foot and gave her a few more non-weight-bearing exercises to try. The options are pretty limited until she gets permission to put weight on that foot. The exercises are rather simplistic and uninspiring otherwise, at this point.
It’s pretty tricky crutching weather out there while this wet weather system is spinning over us. We have been getting mostly spotty light rain since yesterday late afternoon, but with the temperature lingering so close to the freezing point it is hard to know when the footing is merely wet or has become dangerously slippery.
There is something about going in for a bone density test that begs for a person to not fall and break anything on the way in. The Grim Reaper doesn’t get into the business of influencing us before the final calling does he/she/it?
Some days I feel like I should wear a couple of protective boots similar to the one Cyndie has, as a proactive prevention of possible foot/ankle injuries. Or I could keep eating a healthy diet that maintains a strong body. Are Christmas cookies good for our bones?
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Winter Coat
We might be receiving a coating of ice, sleet, and/or snow this week. The large winter storm impacting much of our country may or may not reach us. We are located in a county on the edge of all the areas lit up with alerts and warnings. Among the many uncertainties in predicting the exact path of winter storms, I am well aware of the possibility we will not escape some level of winter weather hassle.
I wasn’t aware of having thoughts about the coming weather when I paused with the horses yesterday to admire their winter coats. Swings can look so regal at times.
She is the eldest of the herd, turning 28 in January. I’ve been told we increment the ages of the horses on January first, regardless of when they were foaled. At 28 in horse-years, her age compares to an 80-year-old human. I often view her as being the eldest mare of the bunch but there are plenty of times when she seems surprisingly youthful.
I took a close-up photo of Light’s winter coat. If it starts raining today they will appear much less fluffy. When they are dry like that, there is an urge to just bury your face against them and breath in their scent. The urge is not always acted upon since they are 1200+ pounds and might make unexpected quick maneuvers that don’t take into account the location of a person.
We are expected to move out of the way of our own accord as quickly as they do.
Funny how calming it is to stand among them even though the opportunity for instant chaos is always present. Yesterday, Mia startled me by doing a full-body flinch in response to the sudden appearance of a loudly flapping barn pigeon. One second later, complete calm returns.
These four still show minimal tolerance for hands-on affection. There have been rare instances where they linger and appear to be enjoying a brush or hand scratches but it is much more common for them to step away as soon as we show signs of being too “handy.”
I keep hoping that will continue to slowly change. When it comes time to shed those winter coats, we’d love to help them all out with some thorough brushing. That’s getting ahead of things, however. Today, we will all need some winter coats that shed moisture if the incoming precipitation slides just a little farther east than predicted.
If things become too unruly around here, I may need to consider putting horses inside the barn in the stalls. That is NOT something that will be easy to do by myself, so I’m hoping the horses will simply take advantage of the overhang and avoid getting too wet and cold.
Wish us luck.
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Blind Spot
In my opinion, eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as it is generally made out to be. After a recent incident of missing puzzle pieces, I have lost all confidence in my own ability to see what’s right in front of my face.
Upon completing the first of the latest puzzles my sister shared with us, there were two missing pieces. Having knocked plenty off the table while assembly was in progress, my initial response was to search the rug below. I laid down to scan the surface but found nothing.
A day later, we spread out the 2000 pieces of the next puzzle. I assembled all but one piece of the border and started wondering if that last piece might have fallen to the floor. By merely bending over to scan the floor, I instantly caught sight of one of the missing pieces from the previous puzzle.
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Where the heck was that piece when I looked for it the day before? More importantly, how did my eyes fail to see what was laying out in plain sight?
A short while later, between drying baking bowls and utensils, I spotted the last border piece that had been evading my eyes up to that point. I had abandoned the Vikings game after it became an obvious losing effort to join the party going on in the kitchen. Since my skills aren’t in the preparation of food, I make my contribution by cleaning up afterward.
Our friend, Melissa and our daughter, Elysa came for the day to help Cyndie in a second round of Christmas Cookie baking.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t seem to have any difficulty seeing the expanse of cookie options covering our countertops. My A1C levels might not be at their preferred number for a while.
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Relative Something 