Archive for July 2024
Surprise Addition
At the end of the day yesterday, I made a last-minute decision to mow the labyrinth. I had skipped it the week before so I didn’t want to miss it before heading out of town this weekend. The grass was thick and a bit intimidating. I put my head down and got to work pushing the mower, oblivious to the new feature someone had secretly added.
When I reached the Red Barberry shrub, I discovered a beautiful sculpture of a small momma deer with a fawn. I double-checked with Cyndie when I got back to the house and learned she hadn’t recently added any sculptures. I didn’t tell her what I’d found so she could experience a surprise similar to mine upon seeing it for the first time.
We both quickly suspected our friends, Pam and John who were staying at our house while we were out of town over the two previous weekends.
Pam said she didn’t know anything about it and would need to check with John when he got home. Sure enough, John had snuck it into that spot after a trip to an Ellsworth garage sale two weekends ago. None of us had noticed it until yesterday.
The little deer is a timely addition after a recent incident Cyndie survived on a walk with Asher. They had entered the tall growth in our North Loop field and Asher broke loose from her grip in pursuit of a young deer. Cyndie suddenly needed to leap out of the way of the sprinting deer that was racing right toward her.
There’s no telling when a deer might reverse direction when it’s employing evasive maneuvers during a chase, much to Cyndie’s surprise!
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Olympic Entertainment
Some people are faster than others. Some jump higher, shoot straighter, paddle harder, pedal stronger, and swim like fish. Some work better as a team, some as individuals. They are all impressive to watch. Their muscle is inspirational to see. I think the functional strength of gymnasts is the pinnacle of achievement.
There are so many more competitors than the few who earn medals and they’ve all trained to such a level worlds above and beyond the average person. It’s been suggested that the Olympics should include one average person in each individual event to provide a reference for the achievements of the elite performers. That would be something to see.
Too often, the difference between competitors who get medals and those who don’t is tenths or hundredths of seconds or points. That’s gotta be a mental challenge for those who’ve trained so hard and long yet missed out on a podium spot.
The collection of competitors from all over the world amp up the entertainment value of watching the Games in every way.
With these Games of 2024 in Paris, we’ve got the added treat of Snoop Dogg showing up on the NBC broadcasts as a super cheerleader at almost every event. Last night we caught a glimpse of him in the crowd during highlights of the Men’s Street skateboard competition.
These are no longer my father’s Olympics, that’s for sure.
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Brilliant Fun
Such great fun can’t last forever, so we are driving home to Wintervale today. We will be taking a lot of good energy with us from four days of lake fun with Barb and Mike. We boated through three channels and four lakes to visit the Joyce Estate on Trout Lake in the Chippewa National Forest. On the way home, we paused to swim for a bit in each lake.
We coped with some hot and muggy weather, including strong wind on most days and a little rain yesterday. We took advantage of the precipitation to complete some planning and make reservations for our coming visit to Iceland in September.
During a pause in the rain, we parked on the north shore of Wilkus’ lake and played along the shoreline.
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We have been eating fun treats (man, I love black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream) and scrumptious meals from the creative minds of Barb and Cyndie. Mike provided his mastery on their great propane cast iron griddle to make smash burgers for dinner.
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There was broccoli steaming beneath that cover.
Evenings allowed us to catch up on the day’s Olympic competitions and marvel over the high level of athletic ability and accomplishments. Cyndie and I slept soundly and enjoyed another break from daily animal duties.
The brilliant fun with friends is done for a while but we will replace it with brilliant fun with Asher and the horses and some normal fun mowing grass this week. I’m scheduled to head back to Hayward on Thursday for a weekend cycling during Cyndie’s brothers’ annual gathering of guys who golf.
I suspect that will be brilliant fun, too.
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Photo Moments
Another fine day in the woods of northern Minnesota. Strong winds, warm temperatures, smoky haze-filled sky, swimming, eating like royalty, and ending the day with the spectacle of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
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Made It
Thursday’s goals have been achieved. I finished trimming the edges of our north loop trail.
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We made it to Mike and Barb’s lake place in time for dinner.
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[mic drop]
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Hedge Wall
When we get home from the lake on a Monday and depart the following Thursday for our friends’ lake cabin, it doesn’t leave me much time in my role as Head Groundskeeper. Making things even more complicated, another rain shower cut into the limited hours available for mowing. The trail I’ve been wanting to trim has escaped attention for longer than I hoped so far this summer.
Yesterday, while waiting for the morning dew to dry so I could mow, I grabbed the hedge trimmer and tackled as much as I could before lunch.
It doesn’t stand out much in that photo, but I was working the right side of the path to achieve a clean hedge wall out of the wild growth along our property border with the neighboring farm field. It’ll look great once I finish the full length.
This is the second summer that I have been working to shape that tangle of scrub trees into a clean natural barrier. I thought it would be a little easier the second time around, but things have grown fast and thick with all the precipitation we’ve received this summer.
I hope to make enough progress this morning to finish the north loop trail all the way to the road before time runs out and we leave for Mike and Barb’s lake place which is a 4-hour drive away.
Squeezing in a few long days of landscape work is worth the extra effort to get the payoff of another weekend of lake fun, especially with friends we will be traveling with come fall. The four of us are planning a visit to Iceland in September.
For a guy who isn’t all that fond of travel, I sure have been spending a lot of time away from home lately. When we get home from the lake this weekend, I’ll only have a few days before heading up for a weekend of biking in Hayward.
Maybe I can spend a few extra days at home during August. One of my great pleasures in life is having nowhere I need to go. I am an exception to the norm of people retiring with hopes of traveling the world.
I much prefer being in my own home more often than not.
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Independent Streak
It would be fair to say that each of our four horses demonstrates a bit of an independent streak on occasion, but Mix often stands out from the others for more reasons than just her coloring. She doesn’t seem to need the others’ company as often as they choose to maintain a tight proximity. It came as no surprise to me yesterday when Mix came back to the overhang when the other three ventured out to graze in the hay field.
Since I was lingering to watch from the half-door of the barn, I surmised that Mix might be coming back to check on what I was up to. When she started trying to find a firm edge to rub her muzzle against, I stepped out to see if I could provide some hand scratching to soothe an itch.
She didn’t want my hands on her head but seemed to appreciate my robust scratching everywhere else on her body.
When she’d had enough, Mix moved slowly out of my reach and then moseyed down the slope toward the hay field gate. I continued to lean on the gate in front of me to observe.
At the exit of the paddock, Mix suddenly broke into a run toward the other horses with a dramatic pounding of hooves on the turf. None of the three even flinched.
Arriving with all that energy, Mix trotted around them some, shook her neck, and looked to see if she had inspired any of them to match her excitement.
They continued to basically ignore her.
Mix gave up and lowered her head to join in the grazing.
A short time later I noticed Mix rolling around on her back in the grass. I wasn’t around when they returned from the field but the next time I looked in on them, they were all standing around together in the small paddock.
When I showed up for their second feeding of the day, Mia was the one showing some independence from the herd. She was grazing grass along the outside of the paddock fence while the other three were under the overhang.
It’s never a concern if they are not in the immediate vicinity when we show up to feed them. I busy myself with housekeeping duties beneath the overhang, raking up spilled hay, scooping poop, and sweeping off their placemats. At some point, I turn to find (in this case) Mia standing right next to me. We are always amazed when these thousand-pound beasts demonstrate the ability to close distances swiftly, yet silently and suddenly startle us by showing up at our shoulder without warning.
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More Wet
This may be the legacy of our summer of 2024: wet and more wet. It probably will be overshadowed by Joe Biden’s announcement of bowing out of the 2024 campaign for President and Kamala Harris rising to take over the cause boosted by an impressive groundswell of support. Compared to that, our water-logged trails, sloppy paddocks, and fast-growing plant life will likely become barely a footnote.
It was mostly dry when we got home yesterday afternoon. The puddle that we like to call, “Paddock Lake” near the bottom of the larger of our two paddocks was just a little muddy in the middle and the drying edges were already cracking. The one-and-a-half inches of water in the rain gauge explains the standing water in the tractor tire tracks in the hay field where 14 large round bales were transferred out on Friday.
The fact that the excess water in the paddocks appeared to be quickly drying offered some hope that we may be reaching that point of the summer when the ground is able to absorb the rain as fast as it falls. That might work if the rain didn’t keep falling again and again as if it was still the month of April.
Shortly after dinner last night, our weather apps began to ping messages of impending rain and warnings about lightning.
We received a good soaking. Whatever had started to dry out yesterday was freshly wetted again.
I’ll be wearing my wet boots to walk Asher and tend to the horses this morning.
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Like Home
My project yesterday morning felt a little like being at home. We enjoyed a visit from Julian up here at the lake for a few days and he brought along a present that I’ve been looking forward to. He got us a new battery-powered string trimmer to add to our gas-powered Stihl model trimmer resources. I’m hoping this will give Cyndie a quick and easy option for certain jobs since she is beginning to find it difficult to pull-start the Stihl engine.
There was a perfect testing ground for the new trimmer in our mini-labyrinth in the woods up here at Wildwood.
I bundled up in long pants and a shirt with long sleeves to do battle in the mosquito’s territory. Knocking down flurries of leafy green ground cover and ferns along the pathway unleashed a crowd of mosquitos that quickly figured out my head was rather defenseless. I got a chance to practice using the trimmer one-handed while swatting away bugs with my other hand.
About three-quarters of the way to the center, the mosquitos started to figure out they could fit their proboscis through the fabric of my shirt. It got to the point that I didn’t know if the bites I was feeling were a residual itch or a new, active bite in progress. Flailing and swatting becomes a full-time effort whether or not bugs are present when it reaches a certain point.
I was close enough to finishing that I forged ahead regardless of the feasting insects so the labyrinth pathway could be re-established to completion. Now it is possible to travel the route without disturbing underbrush where mosquitos rest during the day.
As soon as I got out of the woods, I made a beeline for the lake to soak in the water and quell the sensory overload of real and phantom itchiness.
Up until that point, it was feeling a little like being home while working with the trimmer, but the one thing we definitely don’t have at home is the opportunity to jump into this refreshing lake after completing hot and sweaty projects.
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Relative Something 