Archive for January 2024
Conditions Soften
The winter months this season have been about as soft as I’ve experienced in this region compared to all the years my somewhat feeble memory has retained while living in what is described as the upper midwestern United States. The previous week has been the only period of dramatic cold temperatures and that bone-chilling Arctic blast has already begun to release its stinging grip.
The relaxing of the horses’ energy is palpable. They are stoic beasts in the face of the worst weather that nature manages to conjure up. They may display a bit of shortened patience while we stumble around to complete our tasks in minus thirty-degree (F) wind chill, but they stand firm and resolute against the oppressive pressures of extreme cold.
When the temperature climbs back to positive numbers, we can feel the release of tension their bodies have been holding in defense against the elements. That’s when I noticed the same thing was happening to me this morning.
I can breathe without frost forming on my whiskers, bolstered by the knowledge a January thaw is on tap in the days ahead. The only catch with the arrival of above-freezing temps is that any precipitation that might show up at the same time could fall as rain, my absolute least favorite winter condition.
Winter rain just leads to winter ice. Yuck. And the horses agree with me on that assessment.
I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying fancy winter lighting in the sky recently.
Always remember to look straight up in the sky to capture some great views.
I don’t know how to find a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, but it was a treat watching the light play in the wisps of clouds in the sky.
A day or two later, an unexplained streak of cloud (remains of a contrail?) caught my eye because of the fiery refraction of sunlight at the end.
Something tells me the warmer air moving in won’t offer daytime light shows like the icy skies just did.
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Impressive Recovery
It’s hard to know for sure how long ago the top of this tree snapped off. One possibility that I find believable is a reported tornado that occurred in 2010, two years before we moved here. We could see plenty of evidence of severe chaotic tree damage when we arrived. In fact, there were so many large trees in various stages of fracture that their shattered remains grabbed attention much more than the wild sprouts of new growth that began to emerge in the aftermath.
The other day, while trying to keep up with Asher as he bushwhacked through our woods in pursuit of whatever critter scent he was detecting, one of those [no longer] new sprouts caught my attention.
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How did this growth succeed in getting that large at that remarkable dangling U-turn off the side of the original trunk? It has me wondering how much bigger it will be able to become.
There is a large opening at the bottom of the main trunk that reveals the center has been hollowed out by homesteading wildlife in the intervening years, as well as decay and fungal growth up above where the storm damage first occurred.
The odds of a long future for this tree don’t look all that promising, but the significance of that limb soaring straight up sure says something about resilience.
I love being able to witness this kind of resilience every time we wander through the woods. Now that I’ve spotted this tree clearly, I’ll be checking on it regularly through the seasons to keep track of its progress. Who knows which of us will outlast the other?
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Learning How
Every day I am learning how to do something. Some days it’s as simple as figuring out how to identify what I want to do next. Sorting out wants from needs and determining priorities. We do that our entire lives but I feel like I am still learning how to do it with each new day’s parameters.
None of us have been to January 19, 2024, until now, under today’s circumstances. It wouldn’t hurt to take a humble and inquisitive view of whatever tasks we face each day, whether they are familiar or not. We might learn something. For one example, we all need to learn to adapt to the ongoing changes of our warming planet.
Lately, I find a lot of my learning has to do with our dog, Asher. My life would be a heck of a lot easier if he spoke words in my language.
“Just tell me what you want!”
That usually gets me the tilted-head blank stare or just continued whining.
One thing that he seems very happy with is heavy physical play from me. I’m not always in the mood, but when I am, I try to give him a strong dose of roughhousing.
His foster mom told us he liked to play rough with their other dogs so I use my hands like a dog’s mouth and grab at his neck and ears when we do battle. Sometimes I push him away (he charges right back at me) and sometimes I pull him in to keep him guessing.
You can see in the pictures that Asher has a ball in his mouth. That is the object we are battling over for possession. If there is no toy to occupy his teeth, my head and hands become the next target for a grasp by his jaw.
The matches are no-holds-barred and I need to be sure to remove my glasses because I get punched a lot when he is trying to reach out and get a leg up on me.
The struggle I have with this game is that he never seems to get tired of it. I need to learn how to nurture a transition to a cool-down activity when I’m ready for a break in the action.
There is no tapping out, although he is sensitive enough to back off and check on me if he notices I got hurt.
The easiest way to switch his focus is to produce a dog treat for him to eat. Asher has learned an impressive level of command compliance indoors with training drills. I wish the offering of treats carried the same power in the great outdoors.
We both are learning more about each other every day.
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Big Effort
On a walk through the woods yesterday afternoon we came upon evidence of an industrious effort scattered beneath one of our large trees.
Little pieces of the tree had fallen in a wide array around the tree, leaving the snow peppered with holes. The first reaction was to look up to see where this was all coming from.
The gaping hole high up in the trunk of the tree was easy to spot. We didn’t know the project was still ongoing until Cyndie saw new pieces of wood falling near us.
There was so much wood shrapnel scattered on the ground, our assumption immediately leapt to visions of a large woodpecker, but that wasn’t the case.
There was a little chickadee busily hopping around and tossing down pieces of the tree. I have no idea why it would want to have such a large opening. The tree probably wasn’t very happy about the size of the wound. This has me wondering about the longevity of this tree. I’m not very skilled at deducing the well-being of trees when they have no leaves.
I’ll need to keep an eye on it next spring and summer to see if the end is near. It won’t surprise me much if turns out to be in the process of slowly dying as trees tend to do. We already have a rather significant number of old trees with the largest diameter trunks that are showing evidence of decline.
It’s giving me more incentive to nurture as many of the trees as possible with the next-largest trunks to give them the best chances for prolonging their years of continued growth. Ours is definitely not an “old-growth” forest, but it has a decent number of trees that are old enough to be mother trees.
We want to help allow our trees to be able to help one another as much as possible.
I should probably give them more hugs.
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What Responsibility?
Sometimes I question what my responsibility is to direct Asher’s activity on walks. I understand there are times when training a dog to heel –as in, to walk obediently by my side– I would completely be directing his behavior. That is not what is happening when I take him out to burn off some of his energy on a walk around our property.
These are times when I am granting him the freedom to be on a sniff-fari and to explore to his heart’s content within the confines of our property borders. Here are a few things that happen when allowing him to determine our agenda:
- Asher picks up a fresh scent on the trail and immediately decides he must follow it at the highest speed he can muster, regardless of whether it exceeds my top speed or not.
- Asher freezes and stares to find a squirrel that may be prancing around, oblivious to his presence. Then he dashes off after it, again, at the highest speed he can muster.
- Asher smells the hint of a rodent’s presence and turns into a crazily obsessed predator that must destroy the log or brush pile to get after the prey with the passion of a stray dog that might not find another meal for days or weeks if he fails.
More than once I have stood by and watched as mice bail out in an emergency evacuation as Asher attacks the far side of their quarters. It has yet to quell his impassioned battle against the wooden fortresses. One was an 18-inch log with a diameter of about 12 inches with mouse-sized holes in each end. He chewed on both ends of that log until his saliva was starting to soften the hardwood but he never came close to making any functional progress toward reaching a reward that might still be stuck inside.
Is it my responsibility to interrupt his useless battles? Am I being negligent in allowing him to obsess to such an intense degree? From my perspective, he’s getting time to chew, which he LOVES to do and which we encourage in the house with an endless array of chew toys. He’s getting his mind occupied and exercised as he tries to figure out what angle to bite from since the previous attempt didn’t work. If I wasn’t allowing him the opportunity, he would be in the house whining for something to do, so I figured I might as well let him have at it.
It gives me a chance to practice being patient while standing in the fresh air of the great outdoors, forest bathing, and listening to bird calls in the wind.
Yesterday, Asher went to work, not on a log, but on an entire downed tree trunk.
The snow below was all white when we showed up. The wood dust and shrapnel are what Asher has clawed, bitten, and spit out in his lust to reach some reward his nose seemed to promise.
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I felt a little guilty at times during the 30 minutes he toiled away since he was working so fervently at a lost cause. Although, it’s kind of cute to watch his belief in himself as he thrashes against this ancient tree-trunk beast as if he actually stood a chance.
Honestly, whether or not it should be my responsibility to talk him out of these epic potential conquests of mouse houses, I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt because attempting to tear him away always creates a battle of wills that I’m barely capable of winning.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d be more responsible being a cat guy.
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4th Down
The NFL Wildcard Playoff Weekend is not over yet (2 games left today), but I am already a little woozy after two days of elimination desperation decision-making about going for it on 4th down. They weren’t all close games but they all contained the drama of getting knocked out of the playoffs in the first week if you lose.
Watching football several days in a row is a lot easier to do when the weather outside is frightful. It’s also a little less stressful for me this year because my team isn’t a contender. My allegiance leans toward teams representing the same division and conference as my Minnesota Vikings, but it’s not unlike me to change my mind in the middle of a game and root for their competition if circumstance dictates.
Color me fickle when it comes to other franchises and their fans. I had to pull for the Detroit Lions last night because I wasn’t up to seeing fans’ disappointment if they’d lost.
As the series, “Ted Lasso” reiterated, “It’s the hope that kills you.” In an earlier game, it was Dallas fans who had their hopes crash and burn in dramatic fashion. I felt sorry for them but it was offset by how thrilled the fans of Green Bay were.
Asher was a little disappointed we didn’t spend as much time outdoors as usual. He wasn’t interested in any of the NFL games. We pretty much exhausted all of his favorite indoor games. We’ve converted his outdoor “indestructible” throw ring into an indoor chew toy that occupies him for large chunks of time when he gets in that groove.
His bin of indoor toys becomes a wonderful time sink when a handful of his dry food is tossed in and around the objects so he has to nose stuff out of the way to find the precious morsels.
When that game is over there are usually more toys scattered around on the floor than remain in the bin. We can tell the exercise is completed when the sound of crunching kibble stops occurring. He might move around a few more toys, but when the munching is over, he’ll soon be looking for a new distraction.
I count myself lucky when he decides the next activity can be a nap instead of incessant whining to go outside.
It’s funny, I’m just the opposite. I start whining when I want to take a nap. When I’m successful and permission to sleep is granted, it’s a bit like getting a first down on that dramatic 4th down try.
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Cold Outside
Much of the U.S. is experiencing dramatic levels of cold outside so I don’t feel alone in my experience tending to the horses this morning. There is an interesting sort of pressure pushing on you when trying to do everyday tasks at extremely cold temperatures.
The horses handle it as stoically as they always do against weather extremes. They were pretty much all business this morning as they consumed their feed pellets while I was cleaning up the incredibly hard frozen rubble of manure from around their feet.
The fresh snow cover offered clear evidence of unseen goings on overnight. Plenty of hoof prints and turned up leaves exposed deer activity in our woods that intrigued Asher greatly. The horses appear to have been active in both the hay field and the back pasture. The connecting gates between those two fields are not currently open so the horses must choose a single opening from each of the two paddocks to get out.
In the past, they have been slower to cover so much ground after a snowfall. One side or the other of the paddocks will show little to no tracks for days. This morning their tracks reveal they had been moving around more than usual in the last 14 hours.
Back inside, I had a warm couch partner keeping me company after breakfast.
I was thinking about preparing this blog post but Asher seemed to prefer I focus on him instead. He rearranged himself when I brought my computer to my lap and Cyndie took a picture.
He looks so cute it’s hard to feel frustrated with his escape yesterday morning that led to our neighbor from the south phoning to alert us to the unsanctioned whereabouts. I was plowing at the end of the driveway and hadn’t heard my phone ring. The neighbor was out plowing, too, and pulled up to share the news in person.
While we were talking, Asher came trotting back. I didn’t have a leash with me so I hopped on the Grizzly and enticed Asher to race me back to the house. He happily took up the challenge but I don’t think he liked that I decided to drive so fast he could barely keep up.
I figured it would be to our advantage to make sure he was exhausted. Taking him out for extra exercise in these temperatures is contra-indicated.
Thank goodness it is warm inside.
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Just Enough
We got just enough snow overnight to justify using the Grizzly to plow. It’s hard to tell how much snow fell out of the sky because it was/is windy and some areas are blown free of snow (like the deck railing which is usually a good gauge) and some drifted deeper than what truly fell.
Horses have blankets on in advance of the polar plunge as temperatures are predicted to plummet for the next few days.
This feels a little more like winter for our region. Almost the middle of January and the first driveway plowing of the season. Can’t complain about not being ready, I guess.
Bring on the NFL playoff games and a warm fire in the fireplace. (Glad I’m not playing football outside tonight in these conditions.)
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Neighborly Advice
In our ongoing consultation with experts about the possible source of water on the basement floor, I reached out to the realtor who found this property for us. She consulted with her cousin who lives in this area and came up with the name of a home inspector for us.
I recognized the name as a neighbor who lives around the corner. He and his wife and one of their sons are the only people who have stopped by our place (1 time) on Halloween night since we moved here in 2012. He recently made a transition from Realtor to Inspector and after a brief phone conversation offered to come look at our place at no charge.
Cyndie quickly baked a batch of small hand pies to share as a thank-you. Turns out his wife is an avid baker. We have invited them to dinner to get to know both of them and visit without the agenda of formally inspecting our house. Informally, who doesn’t “inspect” a home they visit for the first time?
The general consensus about water issues around our house is that the landscaping should be updated to compensate for the settling that has occurred. We came up with nothing definitive to explain why our basement floor got so wet a week or so ago.
I have a new theory regarding the area around the geothermal lines that come up through the concrete floor. Those were added since we moved in and they cut through the slab. I don’t know how tightly that opening was sealed when all their work was done. It’s the first place I’ll check next time it rains.
There’s no rain in the immediate forecast for us. Snow is expected this afternoon, followed by days of Arctic cold temperatures.
A while back I think I mentioned we were going to meet a new volunteer for This Old Horse who wants to connect with horses closer to where she lives. In addition to loving horses, she happens to be a big fan of labyrinths and has a deep passion for trees. She told us her husband was home prepping logs for a house they plan to build on their land.
We intend to invite them for dinner soon, too. Their last name is Asher.
Really.
We are looking forward to making some new connections with folks living on this side of the St. Croix River. That hasn’t happened as often as we’ve hoped it might over the years.
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Relative Something 