Archive for January 2023
Winter
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winter
dawn
snow
flakes
falling
piling
deep
everywhere
white
frost
ice
crystals
growing
blowing
melting
freezing
silence
squeaky
cold
bitter
biting
tracks
footprints
drifts
breath
clouds
dusk
gray
monochrome
darkness
stars
stillness
winter
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Beating Expectation
With 6″ of heavy new snow on the driveway and more falling yesterday morning, I figured I better plow before it got to be more snow than the ATV could push. While shoveling the front steps and walkway I discovered the snow was stickier than I’d expected, which threatened to make the plowing job too much for the Yamaha Grizzly.
Just as I suspected, the snow wasn’t rolling off the blade as fast as it was piling up in front of it. On the uphill climbs, it became too much to push and I had to back up to make a fresh start around the piles. The driveway was becoming a mess that I feared I wouldn’t be able to clear over the tall banks. I bought some time by focusing on clearing around our mailbox and at the start of the driveway. Then it was time to try making my way up the full length again.
The third time was the charm. I made incremental progress with each pass and was able to maintain a high enough speed that the sticky snow was finally flying off the plow blade by the end. I was surprised that I had been able to clear so much heavy snow as well as I ultimately did.
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The plowed portion continues to narrow compared to the full width of the pavement but it is wide enough for a vehicle. The old Grizzly deserves more respect than I was giving it.
I’ll give myself a little credit for being able to maintain forward progress as the ATV slid sideways against the weight of snow on the blade.
Around the middle of the day, we caught a break in precipitation that showed up on the radar as an isolated pocket surrounded by snow all around us.
As the hours wore on we received more snow but it was warm enough that most of it seemed to be melting on contact. Much of the driveway remained snow-free and very wet. Where it wasn’t clear to the pavement, another inch or two were getting added.
There remains plenty to clean up today and temperatures are expected to remain below freezing for a while so it will be a challenge shoveling what was soft yesterday but frozen solid now.
I’m feeling renewed sympathy for the people of Buffalo, NY, who had to dig out from under multiple feet of snow. It is getting hard for me to throw the shovels full over the growing piles along the edges. I don’t know how they have dealt with shoveling three or four times the amount I’m facing.
Maybe I’ll get lucky today and the level of difficulty shoveling will beat my expectations like the plowing did yesterday.
Wish I was feeling luckier than I actually do this morning.
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No Break
Even on a day when no snow fell from the sky, snow fell and I needed to shovel. I can’t catch a break.
The roof of the shop garage is not a concern for ice dams so I don’t pull snow off with a roof rake. However, it is a metal roof and the snow eventually slides off on its own. After the rain and warm temperatures of the past few days, the thick blanket of snow began moving enough that a large amount broke off and covered the cement apron in front of the garage door.
Since we are under a storm warning for a possible 5-9 inches of new snow today, I felt it prudent to shovel the mound in front of the garage before it got buried with even more snow. I need to be able to get the ATV out to plow.
I enjoyed a wonderful surprise yesterday morning after I got in from feeding horses and doing some of that shoveling. Cyndie tried out a recipe for Welsh cakes after seeing them made on one of the episodes of “Welcome to Wrexham.”
They were fabulous! The recipe called for currants, but she made additional batches with dried cranberries and some with golden raisins. It took me extra effort to stop eating them before I overdid it. What a treat!
I’m a lucky guy that Cyndie is so adventurous when it comes to food prep.
Maybe today I will eat leftover Welsh cakes while watching our next episode-binge of the documentary series, between the hours I’m outside shoveling away the new snow accumulation. For a guy who hasn’t been able to catch a break lately, that would be a welcome break from working outside while the winter storm is delivering its punches.
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Warmed Winter
So, this is what it’s going to be like on a warmer planet then. January at latitude 44°47’04.1″N will offer periods of rain that will convert any snowpack previously existing into a slushy mash that resembles wet cement in many ways. It’s ugly, annoying, problematic, and just plain no fun to deal with.
For all the times I have grumbled about it being too cold or having too much snow fall all at once, I offer my apologies. The wet slop that has become our current reality is what I really mean to be grumbling about. I am NOT looking forward to the possibility of 5-8″ of heavy, wet snow falling on top of the existing mess tonight and tomorrow, which is what the current National Weather Service “weather watch” alert is threatening.
In protest of the lousy “winter” conditions outside yesterday, I decided to spend the afternoon indoors on a frivolous pursuit that celebrates the freedom of retirement by binging a docu-series in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
Cyndie and I finally started watching “Welcome to Wrexham” and have quickly learned more about the country of Wales than I’ve ever known before. Despite this show being a confusing echo to the fictional series, “Ted Lasso,” which we enjoy so much, we are finding it fascinating in a different way because it is a real story.
There are many fans represented thus far in the series who describe how much the football club means to them and to the surrounding community as a whole. Descriptions of being born into a world immersed in the Wrexham football club trigger my memories of the influence on my early life of my parent’s passion for the NFL Minnesota Vikings football team.
The Vikings just lost a game that knocked them out of this season’s playoffs (like so many times before) and local media is already going on about what needs to happen over the off-season to bring success next year. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I, as a fan, had to face the stress of possible relegation out of the NFL if the team finished at the bottom of the standings.
Watching the quality of the documentary “Welcome to Wrexham” has me feeling swiftly connected to the fans, players, and club staff presented on screen. I feel invested in their concerns, making it hard to interrupt the binge-watching for our own lives.
One reason that is quite all right with me is: It had me forgetting about the rotten weather outside for a few hours in the afternoon.
I hope the warming planet is providing Wrexham with pleasant weather for watching football matches at the world’s oldest international football stadium, The Racecourse Ground.
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Coffee Carafe
It appears that the “answer” image to yesterday’s guessing game was not as revealing as I suspected. The pictures are of a thermal coffee carafe.
One thing you can be sure of, I didn’t recently become a coffee drinker. Why was I carrying the carafe with me on my walk through the woods the other day? The simple answer is that it was holding warm water for soaking Mia’s serving of cereal, but I have an insatiable urge to make short stories long.
Travel back in time with me to the bitter cold days in December when Mia experienced an episode of choking on her feed pellets. It was recommended that I soak her feed in water to soften it for her. With below-zero temperatures quickly freezing everything, I put hot tap water in the thermal carafe and brought it with me to the barn.
I’ve asked a couple of times about how long I need to continue doing this for Mia and without telling me explicitly to do it forever, the consistent advice has been to continue soaking Mia’s feed indefinitely.
To me, that seems a little like doing it forever.
I haven’t decided if I believe Mia needs her food softened from now on, but at this point, who am I to make that decision? So, thus far, I have continued to bring warm water with me when feeding the horses. On the day I decided to walk through the woods on my way to the barn, I carried the carafe with me. I set it down in the snow to take a picture of the trail where one measly branch lay across it in the snow.
When I looked down to pick up the carafe, I saw the fish-eye reflection of the trees above and experimented with a few iPhone camera pictures.
I figured a thermal coffee carafe would not be the first guess that occurred in people’s minds.
Thanks to all of you who played along on yesterday’s edition of my image-guessing challenge!
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Try Guessing
It’s back! Everyone’s favorite image-guessing game is once again resurrected. It’s simple to play. All you need to do is guess what is depicted in the image below.
Do you trust your first impression, or ponder the possibilities? Can you hold off long enough to wait for the answer to come to you, or will you look for the solution right away?
You are in charge, but it is strongly recommended you come up with some kind of guess before clicking on the image to find out what this could possibly be. Guess your best, and enjoy the mental exercise! What do you see?
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Lonely Walk
I took a walk on the perimeter trail through our woods yesterday for the first time since Delilah died. That path was getting footsteps (boot steps) up to three times a day with Delilah to give her exercise that would expend her high energy. Sometimes I wasn’t all that interested in making the trek for a third time in a day, but I never regretted the opportunity once I was out there getting my own exercise and experiencing our precious wooded acres.
Without Delilah needing to be walked, I have been avoiding wandering our trails, partly out of respect that it was her thing and she isn’t with us anymore, but also because it would poke at my grief over her passing. Yesterday, I decided to trek through the crusty snow for the first time in almost three months to see if any trees have fallen or what wild animal tracks might be visible now that there isn’t a dog living here.
There were a few branches down and several spots where limbs burdened by snow had tipped over, now frozen in place. No large trees have come down in all the winter weather we’ve received thus far.
It was a lonely walk and it did poke my grief.
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Trickster Fox
We are now in our 11th year living on this rural property and yesterday was the first time I finally saw the local fox with my own two eyes. The first year, contractors were showing up regularly to work on fencing and building the hay shed. One of the guys would tell me he saw a fox on our driveway every morning as he arrived.
Two years ago, the guy we hired to seal the logs of our house caught the fox trying to take one of our chickens and chased it off, screaming and hollering like a wild man.
I captured the fox on our trail cam back in 2018.
Delilah and I tried to track that fox through the snow into our neighbor’s woods that time but the trail led to a junction that looked like Grand Central Station and the multitude of alternative routes was more than we could follow.
Until yesterday morning, I had never set eyes upon the cunning critter. There I was, standing in our sunroom, stepping into my treasured Carhartt insulated bib overalls when I noticed something moving in the neighbor’s field, coming our way. As soon as I recognized it to be the fox, I pulled out my phone to take a picture.
The camera wouldn’t focus. It kept oscillating in and out of focus. The fox was coming right into the yard. I switched to video in an attempt to at least record some blurry movement as the fox walked past the windows of the sunroom. When I looked at the screen while the phone was supposed to be recording, the fox wasn’t showing up at all in the oscillating focus. I wondered if it was because I was trying to shoot through the window.
There is no recording for proof of what I saw. This fox must have magical powers that messed up the camera app on my phone. Now with no fox around, the camera works just fine.
I’m under the impression that the absence of our dog, Delilah, has given the fox confidence to walk right in front of me as if I wasn’t there. That’s okay. I don’t mind seeing him or her now that I know there will be no chickens harmed on our property.
I’ll even celebrate the visits if the little trickster will do something to reduce the number of gopher and mole tunnels that are taking over our turf.
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Hay There
We woke up to an icy coating yesterday that ranked in the top 4 slipperiest conditions we’ve dealt with since moving here. The saving grace was how quickly the temperature warmed to a level where everything softened and footing was a little less treacherous. I needed to transfer some hay from the hay shed to the barn but decided it could wait until it wasn’t so slippery.
Our hay stores are down to a little under half the total amount delivered last year.
I’m hoping we won’t need another delivery until after the snow melts because the plowed mountains around the turns won’t accommodate the poor turning radius of our hay guy’s lengthy truck and goose-neck trailer.
In the early afternoon, I moved three bales per trip from the shed to the barn under the watchful eyes of the horses. Mix seemed to be counting the bales as I rolled back and forth. Maybe they were just looking to see if I’d slip.
Twelve bales in the barn is a number that works to keep me from feeling like I’m constantly making this transfer. Any more and the stack would be over my head.
While filling hay nets a few days ago, I felt a wave of summer memories as I pulled flakes off a bale. I pondered about what the field was like where this grass had grown and how hot it was when they were raking and baling this hay.
I wonder if the horses can tell the difference between bales from different parts of the hay field as they chomp bite-fulls through the nets or from the hay boxes. They certainly know when a bite is good to eat or deserves to be dropped to the ground.
Hopefully, they are sensing the solar energy stored in the dried blades of grass. Maybe that contributes to how horses eating hay helps keep them warm when the weather is cold. They are eating that echo of warmth from back in the hot summer days when the hay was baled.
There must be something to it. I tend to get warmer when I’m breaking open bales and stuffing flakes into net bags, one after another.
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Relative Something 