Archive for April 2024
Asking Nicely
It’s hard to resist clear communication from animals when they ask nicely. This morning, while I was doing some “housekeeping” in the farther reaches of the paddocks, Mia walked up to me to check if I might be thinking about opening the gate to the field.
I wasn’t, but when Cyndie noticed (with a chuckle because of the way Mia was standing almost on top of me) she suggested I could accommodate the request. The last few days we have been giving them afternoon time on the grass and then coaxing them back in by serving their feed. In this case, they were just finishing their feed so there wouldn’t be the same incentive to come in on our schedule.
Before I caved to the request, I crossed between the two paddocks by ducking under the board over the waterer to pick up one last pile of manure. On that side, Light came down and picked up where Mia left off in pressing up against me in an attempt to persuade their desired outcome.
I couldn’t resist. They were granted 30 minutes on the grass. Coaxing them back in took a couple of tries, but they eventually complied. Maybe they know there will be another opportunity later in the day. It’s all an exercise in gradually pacing the change in diet to allow time for their gut biome to adjust.
Based on my work as an Equine Fecal Relocation Engineer, things appear to be progressing well thus far.
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Just Thursday
There wasn’t anything unusual about yesterday compared to any other Thursday. I got Wordle in 4. We did the morning horse chores after I walked Asher. Cyndie heated servings of an egg bake from the freezer for breakfast. Even though I was listening for the arrival of a truck to pick up the tractor, I never heard a thing.
When I stepped outside with Asher after breakfast, the tractor was gone. I think our house is soundproof.
Instead of getting one particular project started and finished, my methods of late tend to lean towards picking away a little bit at many tasks simultaneously. While walking Asher, I grabbed the hedge trimmer to cut down last year’s stalks of our tall Japanese Silver Grass at various locations around the property.
Later, I spent some time turning and reshaping old compost piles in hopes of reactivating the process that fell dormant over winter.
In a spontaneous decision, we suddenly decided to cut down an entire section of the lilac tree in our front yard.
The bark was peeling off the trunk. We tried wrapping it but that didn’t lead to the tree healing the wound. When the wrapping started falling off, we noticed a mushroom growing out of the side. Even though there were signs of new buds on the branches, we decided to cut the whole section off to avoid the tree wasting energy on the doomed portion.
That tree was there when we bought the place over 11 years ago and has continued to get taller and taller every year. I don’t know what to expect from it next. We’ll see what removing one of the five “trunks” does for the remaining portions.
While I had the chainsaw out, we headed into the woods to remove the latest tree that had fallen across one of our trails. I also brought down a medium-sized tree leaning against others at a 45-degree angle. We keep adding to the dead wood lying on the ground in our forest because trees fall more often than we can consume the wood.
One good outcome of the recent winds was that a previously snagged limb finally fell to the ground. It had been up there for years. It was just beyond the reach of my pole saw. I was able to cut down the rest of the tree, but this one section was hung up in the collar of another tree and we couldn’t shake it loose. Given enough time, it eventually came down without our help.
Toward the latter part of the afternoon, we gave the horses the next increment of time on the fresh pasture grass. Before our time limit was reached, Swings and Mix had come in of their own accord. I was doing some equine fecal relocation work in the paddock and Light came in to check on me. Mia stayed out gobbling grass.
When Cyndie presented their buckets of feed, I had to walk out and talk Mia into coming in.
It’s a special treat when a horse follows your lead without requiring a lot of coercion. My charm can be irresistible.
Just another Thursday in our little paradise.
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Tractor Ready
Today the diesel tractor is to be picked up for a hot date at the service department of a nearby implement dealer. I hadn’t fired it up all winter, so yesterday, I figured a pre-check was in order before sending it off to the mechanics.
To my surprise, there was enough life in the battery to turn the engine over. It started without a problem. After wiping away cobwebs, I took a little time to remove all the acorn fragments piled up in the fuzzy grass seed debris trapped against the radiator screen.
Looked like a cozy spot for a rodent to hang out.
I’m sure tractor mechanics have seen that kind of thing before but I would rather not have our machine appear entirely neglected when they start digging into the working parts to do what they do. There are fluids to be flushed, fittings to be greased, and thingamajigs to be ameliorated.
Maybe they hydrogenate the hydraulics. I don’t know.
What I do know is that the grass on the sunny side of the barn is already in need of a trim. The mowing season ended late last fall and is starting early this spring. Color me not surprised about that new reality.
The labyrinth will need a visit from the lawn mower soon, too. In two weeks and two days, it will be World Labyrinth Day. It is always held on the first Saturday of May. We are on the verge of preparations for hosting an open house type of event that day. More of an “open labyrinth,” really.
If you are looking for an excuse to visit Wintervale, mark May 4th on your calendar.
Sprucing the place up in preparation for visitors is something I know how to do. The freshly maintained diesel tractor will be used to create a new batch of wood chips out of some of the endless piles of tree limbs stacked throughout our woods.
I won’t have any trouble trying to find something to do around here for the next couple of weeks, that’s for sure.
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Weather Pummeling
Our region took a pummeling from Momma Nature yesterday with high winds pushing some heavy rain sideways. I was on an errand to Baldwin to seek advice from my tractor dealership and pulled over to capture some photos of the wild sky.
With winds gusting into the 40s (mph), the bottom of the cloud cover was getting whipped into undulating waves.
Knowing it was past due time to change the engine oil of the New Holland diesel tractor, I pulled the manual to check other recommended periodic maintenance. I quickly felt overwhelmed by the list of tasks I had no knowledge or experience doing.
It didn’t take long for the Service Manager to convince me to spend some of my savings and have them do the dirty work. He had me at, “We have time to start on it early next week.”
On the way home, I stopped off to take advantage of ‘Discount Tuesday’ at the movie theater to see the four military-embedded journalists race against time to reach DC in the 2024 film, “Civil War.” I sure hope that version of a possible future for the country remains a fabrication for film and has no relationship with an eventual reality.
I returned home in the nick of time to help Cyndie tend to the horses amid the rain and wicked gales. Being immersed in the fictional world for a couple of hours had me rather disoriented in coping with the wild conditions that were turning feeding time into something of a circus that seemed to fit well with the on-screen chaos I’d just consumed.
Cyndie reported some new chaos across one of our trails through the woods.
If that is the only tree that topples under these conditions, I will be surprised. By dinner time last night, we had received over an inch of rain as measured in the gauges Cyndie remembered to put out earlier in the day.
Our soils are saturated and that makes high-wind days that much more effective at tipping tall trees.
One blessing we thoroughly appreciate is that Asher demonstrates zero stress over lightning and thunder. That’s not something I taught him. He showed up with that trait. I need to remember that gift alone should earn him a pass on other behaviors of his I find myself regretting.
Our dog staying calm during a pummeling storm contributes greatly to our quality of life.
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Helping Family
When we got the message from Elysa that she could use some help with several home maintenance projects, Cyndie and I agreed to show up without hesitation. We packed up some tools and supplies and headed to the Cities.
I’m no carpenter but I have learned how to screw boards on a deck.
We decided to pull some boards off and flip them over as a temporary fix until a more permanent solution is figured out. The original screws were rusted almost to dust which made some easy to remove and others a real battle after the heads broke off.
While I finished putting in new screws to re-secure the boards, Cyndie helped with the removal of an unwanted bush.
Now you see it.
Now you don’t.
Next, I mounted new latch hardware on the back gate to the alley that will keep their dog from muscling his way out when the urge strikes.
Mission accomplished. Temporary fixes R us.
Somehow, I solved all the challenges of the various repairs without once resorting to using duct tape. Hopefully, the new screws hold.
It is an honor to be able to lend a hand when family is in need. Especially when I was just the beneficiary of help from Julian the day before, pounding down fence posts.
Doesn’t seem that long ago that I was shoulder to shoulder with them as little kids, looking out our master bedroom window in EP at a thunderstorm and striving to dispel anxieties over the flashing and booming. We made up a rating system to judge the impressiveness of the brilliant zig-zagging bolts and loudest booms of thunder.
Now we all face home-owner ‘adulting’ type problems. It’s nice to know we’ll never stop helping each other.
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Underwhelming Opening
It was what one local meteorologist called a “San Diego weather” day for our region yesterday. Blue sky, light breeze, gentle warmth, comfortable humidity, few in the way of pestering insects. Julian graciously agreed to help me pound fence posts that our freeze/thaw cycle pushes up. 
It’s very rewarding to experience easy success when a post drops a half-inch with each strike, especially because plenty of others barely move an eighth of an inch at a time. Our main goal is to get the bottom wire of the fence back down to less than 18” from the ground, per a guideline I read for horses. Mission accomplished.
In the middle of the afternoon, Cyndie agreed to open the gates to the hay field for the horses to start adjusting their digestive systems to fresh grass again. I took a position to record their reaction to renewed access to their fields.
They didn’t even notice. Maybe they were purposely ignoring us. My video was pretty underwhelming. With a little coaxing from Cyndie, Mia and Mix started an approach. As they picked up some momentum down the slope from the barn, Light and Swings took notice and soon followed.
They barely walked beyond the wood fence to begin feasting on fresh chomps of grass. Nothing wrong with that, but we always compare it to the time they took off running like the racehorses they once were upon that first opportunity on the field in spring.
We only gave them a short first shift before bringing them back in. Interestingly, that got them running more than going out did.
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New Sound
Like a new squeak appearing on my bike, standing out like a crying baby on an airplane, a ratchety trill erupting from the vicinity of our landscape pond heralds the next phase of spring. Fresh green sprouts are bursting from dirt and branches at a dramatic pace each day. The sounds of migrating flocks of birds echo above the usual calls from resident pheasants and turkeys. Passing pairs of sandhill cranes offer a distinctly loud, rattling bugle call. But all those signs of the seasonal progress get overshadowed by a frog in the pond.
Yesterday, we pulled back the winter netting that collected fallen leaves over the last six months.
Before we even started to move the rocks holding the net, there was a very noticeable grunting chirp emanating from the immediate surroundings.
He kept it up after the net came off, as if thanking us for our service. Much of the time he was near impossible to spot but eventually, he swam out into the open and floated for a while. As Cyndie worked a net and rake to clean out old reeds and residual floating debris while I wrestled to position and hide the pump, filter, and tubing among the rocks.
The whole time, we were hearing from the frog. It began to feel like he was going to become a fixture there. I asked Cyndie if we should name him, offering “Oscar” in tribute to the famous croaker who lived up at the lake place when Cyndie and her siblings were spending childhood summers there.
She said it would need to be “Oscar Jr.” because the size of the sound he was making fell far short of fair comparison.
If he continues to hang around, I suspect I will refer to him as “Junior.”
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Future History
Our favorite network, PBS, has offered up a gem of a new series that Cyndie and I are really appreciating. “A Brief History of the Future” hosted by renowned futurist Ari Wallach, presented me with a wonderful opportunity for reframing right from the very start.
What kind of world is presented in the majority of movies about the future? If it’s not entirely apocalyptic, it tends to be overcrowded, polluted, and generally scary. If that is the only way we envision the future, we are likely to doom ourselves to achieve it.
What kind of future world would we like to live in? That is the one we should be envisioning.
“This series challenges the dystopian framework embraced by popular culture by offering a refreshing take on the future. The docuseries asks us all: how can we become the great ancestors the future needs us to be? “A Brief History of the Future” weaves together history, science, and unexpected ideas to expand our understanding about the impact that the choices we make today will have on our tomorrows.
Each episode follows those who are working to solve our greatest challenges. The series also features valuable insights from a wide range of thinkers, scientists, developers and storytellers including French President Emmanuel Macron, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur, musician Grimes, architect Bjarke Ingels, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, legendary soccer player Kylian Mbappé, and more.”
Even though we are currently living in a climate crisis –admittedly the primary doom I allow to color my impressions of what humankind will be coping with from now until forever– some ideas for possible constructive solutions provide hope that a worst-case scenario is not a guaranteed outcome.
I’ve already taken steps to create the possibility of a giant maple tree someday standing as a stoic natural canopy over our 70-foot diameter labyrinth. I like to imagine what it might look like in a hundred years if the tree we transplanted to the center of the labyrinth survives to a healthy old age.
The increased diameter of the trunk will have forced some adjustments to the path and rocks at that point, I presume. By the time that begins to become an issue, it will be someone else’s challenge to address. I will be long gone. Unless the antidote to aging has been invented before I pass, that is.
Take a look at the preview below for a taste of what the episodes explore. I hope you will feel inspired…
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Impact Crater
Just a few days after someone alerted me to a local site of an impact crater, I got out for my first bike ride of this year and explored a route that traveled nearly through the center according to the maps.
I was exploring roads that I was unfamiliar with and ended up riding on an unpaved road for a while. It meandered through a beautiful forested area that felt far removed from the many open farm fields that dominated much of my views.
There were so many undulations on almost every road, I never got any sense of the actual geological structure of the crater that was created by the hypervelocity impact some 450-433 million years ago.
It being my inaugural ride of the season, I relied on the electric assist almost the entire time. Without the marvel of the heavy battery and motor, I would never have been able to complete over 37 miles of such hilly terrain. And at just under three hours, my butt was wishing I’d have chosen a much less arduous distance and route.
The motor was particularly appreciated when I turned into the west wind which seemed to keep increasing with the climbing afternoon temperatures. When I got home, our thermometer indicated 74°F.
It didn’t feel that warm to me, but I blame the wind. By bedtime last night, my face felt windburn and my arms and legs felt like they had been taxed to their limits. Excellent indications I had enjoyed a great adventure.
So great, I’m going to give myself a day off today from taxing my muscles any more than what it takes to accomplish some dog walking and manure management. Maybe I’ll read more about the Rock Elm Disturbance.
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Relative Something 