Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Feeling Lousy
Not feeling much like writing today. Had a high fever Thursday night at the lake. Drove home yesterday morning and took a COVID test. I registered positive. This is the first time I have tested positive. Wish I could have been one of those who never experienced any symptoms.
I’m feeling pretty lousy. Cyndie doesn’t have any symptoms and tested negative so we are desperately trying to keep it that way. Suddenly, any plans we had before are now being thoroughly disrupted.
It’s a whole lotta yuck.
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More Prep
I suffered a rough night’s sleep, ruminating about the difficulties we experienced in getting stones to remain attached to the wall with the miracle substance, “StickyStone.” Cyndie and I decided to add a step to our preparation, hoping to finish the project with a higher rate of success by the end of the day yesterday.
I found some moderately rough sandpaper that we used to flatten high points on the underside of the manufactured stones.
On Wednesday, several of the stones would teeter a little after we pressed them into place and I expect that directly worked against a secure bond between the two surfaces. The rough, uneven texture on the back is probably a plus when using masonry mud on a scratch coat to get things to hold firm. We had chosen a method that allowed me to avoid slapping mud around due to my lack of know-how. (Regardless of how many instructional YouTube videos might exist.)
That last added step of preparation seemed to do the trick. Initially, I expected to have more than enough adhesive, but after making so many second and third attempts on Wednesday, the dwindling supply, identifiable by the ever-shortening rod of the plunger in the gun, had me wishing I’d bought a second tube.
I pushed my luck and doled out the adhesive in increasingly smaller doses as we worked our way around the last corner. We finished with almost nothing left in the tube.
For a before and after comparison, this is what one corner looked like before the log home builders trimmed off the bottom portions that were rotting:
They cut them pretty high and framed up the exposed area with treated lumber. By yesterday afternoon, this shows the change:
I will not attempt to remedy the heaving pavers on the ground that have become more problematic every year. We talked to a professional landscaper yesterday who stopped by for a consultation on dealing with the many interrelated issues contributing to the problems.
It leaves me wanting to go home and deal with problems more within my reach, like trying to knock down lush green grass that gets almost too tall for my mower in just a few days after a previous cut.
The added preparation step for mowing the ridiculously tall grass involves a first pass with the string trimmer in the areas of most difficulty. Somehow, that needs to be achieved without too much delay in getting back to mow areas that haven’t gotten out of control yet.
We definitely need the added hours of daylight we’ve been gaining as the planet hurtles toward the summer solstice next month. It’s getting hard for me to remember those wonderful days of winter when so little demand on my time and attention was a dominating theme.
Ah, those were the days.
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Rock Fitting
On the way to the lake yesterday, we dropped Asher off for his in-residence training and he accepted the unfamiliar surroundings without complaint.
Asher is barely visible in the far pen beyond the front area occupied by a dog he didn’t yet know. He passed by this front dog with a brief check, and receiving no response, he decided to ignore it and move on to sniffing every surface in his pen.
We felt it was a great start. Satisfied Asher was in good hands, we hopped in our car and drove the rest of the way to the lake without him.
While we are up here, we are planning to add a finishing touch to the old cabin where the log guys cut off the bottom of rotting logs in March. Having a large stash of faux rocks at home, we brought some up for the job.
These rocks had spent some time as markers in our labyrinth and as a result, developed a layer of dirt that needed to be removed.
That’s fine. We had some time to spare.
After cleaning them up and spreading the rocks out so we could see them, we tried mocking up the layouts for each space.
It seemed like a good plan to me. We felt encouraged by the process and figured the hard work was all behind us. The next phase involved a new adhesive from Techniseal called Stickystone. It is a fast-setting vertical hardscape adhesive.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go as well as my test case back at home. A few rocks had fallen off the foundation of the house in Beldenville so I tested the Stickystone to reattach them and it worked with ease.
For some reason that I haven’t figured out, getting the adhesive to hold the rocks in place up here is only successful about half the time. After completing two of the five surfaces, we were using up the limited supply of adhesive too fast and my patience was dwindling.
We had spent so much time cleaning and prepping that the mounting and remounting had pushed us past the dinner hour. We were tired and hungry and I was very frustrated. Our remedy was a trip to Coop’s Pizza for dinner.
If it’s not too rainy this morning, we’ll try hanging more rocks until the adhesive runs out. I will be looking to focus on the outlook that partial progress is better than no progress at all.
Come to think of it, that’s also one way we will be considering Asher’s training while he is away.
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Busy Image
Cyndie is a frequent contributor of images for my use, to which I am forever grateful. Most of the time, she offers them without my asking. I’m probably too quick to turn down as many as I do but it feels a bit like cheating sometimes to rely on her efforts too often in place of my own.
I’ve gladly accepted this crazy image she captured of a wolf spider in a bucket of water.
There is so much going on here that catches my eye. The spider is the least mysterious, except for the three bubbles on the feet, however that is happening. Light does interesting things.
The alien-looking creature at the bottom is wonderful. I wouldn’t think to draw that if I needed to come up with a strange-looking alien, but that hint of a face and the outstretched arm are perfect.
It’s hard to tell what is providing the shadows that are the darker blue shapes. I believe the lighter blue is a reflection of the sky.
The hairy-looking sock puppet of a rat’s face on the right appears to be looking at the ripples in the shadow above it. What is making those ripples, anyway?
Cyndie suggested I create a “Words on Images” feature from the picture but there is already so much going on in that photo that I think words would do it a disservice.
The best thing about this picture for me is that I wish I had taken it. That is often what crosses my mind when I see a photo that I thoroughly admire. I wish I had been there to see that.
I’m glad Cyndie captured it and has shared it for all to see. I think it’s a fabulous photo.
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Diet Transition
Imagine if people had to be as careful about changing their regular diet as the animals in our care. Full disclosure: this line of thought is coming from someone who doesn’t have any food allergies.
For two completely different reasons, we are currently in the process of changing the foods of both our dog and the horses. It is a long period of gradual transition from the old food to the new, serving a portion of each at a sliding percentage.
The horses don’t appear to care much about the introduction of something different thus far. I haven’t seen any indication of change in preference for the mixture we’ve been serving them.
Asher may be happy with his changing mixture because it was starting to look like he didn’t care for the food he’s been served since we adopted him. He’s shown no hesitation with the new brand.
I feel very lucky that the food I can choose to eat isn’t dictated by someone else. Unfortunately, that leaves it up to me to make smart choices. I was thinking the other day that it takes constant mental energy for me to avoid succumbing to my cravings for carbs or sugar foods.
It’s always great when you are granted a free pass to have as much as you want of a healthy food. Why doesn’t spinach taste more like chocolate? I love the feeling when I am thirsty and my body seems like it can’t get enough of a tall glass of ice water. Guilt-free reward.
Oxygen is something else I can consume as much as I want with no limitation. When my mind yearns for something my body doesn’t need, I can think about the total free pass I have to inhale as many huge breaths of air as possible.
Yeah, I’m weird like that.
This time of year there is a lot of tractor time when thoughts can meander. Yesterday afternoon, I was finally able to drive on and mow some of the areas that were saturated two days ago.
It amazes me how fast conditions change. The high ground around here is getting bone-dry. After I finished mowing the backyard, spotty thundering rain clouds rolled past. I put away the tractor and prepared for a downpour.
All we got was a spattering of drops.
I’m guessing all that ground moisture is getting sucked up by plants and trees making leaves. There is now a fresh new batch of phytoncides to absorb while bathing in the atmosphere of our glorious forest.
I’m going to count that as part of my spring diet transition.
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Native Trillium
For years, we have longed to establish a colony of trillium in the woods closest to our house by transplanting them from the forest on the land of Cyndie’s lake place up in Hayward, WI. The very satisfying success we have achieved up to this point has been limited to the plants surviving the stress of getting dug up and driven hours away. Some, but not all, have even produced the ultimate reward of the classic blossom.
What has yet to transpire is the natural propagation of new plants in the surrounding vicinity. When we start seeing that, the rewards of our efforts will have us over the moon with joy.
In the meantime, we have been noticing other rewarding blooms in the farther reaches of our forest.
There are a small number of native trillium plants that appear during the relatively short flowering weeks in a handful of spots in our woods. Still, they have yet to offer a hint of becoming the striking carpet of coverage like we see up at the lake.
Now in our twelfth year on this land, we can begin to measure how things change in a decade. Of course, the natural evolution of our surroundings is hard to predict given the rapidly warming climate underway. Will that make a teeming blanket of flowering trillium a more or less likely possibility in our woods?
Either way, it appears we will need to be patient and set our sights on long-range changes. Thankfully, we experience a wonderful thrill even when coming upon just a single flower of our much-loved wild forest trillium.
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Serene Green
This time of year, every morning the landscape looks different than the day before. The increase in the number and size of leaves on branches and blades of grasses that happen in a day is astonishing. Our morning walk with Asher through the woods and around the pasture offers one marvel after another.
“Look at this!”
“I can’t see you through the trees anymore.”
The horses have quickly gotten over the excitement of being allowed on the grass now that we’ve reached the point of leaving gates open all the time. They get to come and go as they please so there is no anxiety about confinement.
They are wonderfully calm in the morning and impressively patient about waiting for the delivery of their feed. I will soon be able to refer to “grain” in their buckets as we are gradually transitioning from manufactured pellets to a mixture of actual grains. This was a business decision by This Old Horse but it seems like an improvement to me, changing to a less processed food.
The chestnuts, Mia and Light, took a break from grazing to have a little nap in the lush grass. That incredible serenity is precious, especially since the horses are also experiencing seasonal hormones that have them coping with some unfulfilled urges that sometimes stir things up in the herd.
Yesterday afternoon, Light was like a little puppy trying to get Mia to snuggle necks but Mia wasn’t interested and moved away carefully to avoid causing a ruckus. Mix actually greeted Light nose-to-nose without being aggressive about it. That almost never happens.
Maybe Mix is showing some empathy toward Light.
That kind of behavior contributes significantly to the serene scenes we’ve been enjoying between rain showers. I’m all for more of that.
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Heirloom Rehomed
After consulting with Julian W. Hays, I decided to check with the Pierce County Historical Association about their interest in having my great-grandfather’s Oshkosh steamer trunk. John Waters Hays (1860-1931) was eleven when his father, Stephen W. moved the family to Pierce County.
By the 1880 Census, John is listed in the Village of Morris in Stearns County, MN, as a boarder with the occupation of Painter at the age of 20. John most likely spent his teen years in Pierce County, so I think the PCHA collection of historic artifacts is a fitting place for the trunk to land once and for all.
John ultimately became Secretary-Treasurer of the International Typographical Union working out of the Indianapolis office. I assume this would have been his one piece of luggage for traveling during the years in that position.
After I used the trunk to store my clothes and valuables for decades, I passed it down to Julian. He used it for a while but then asked us to store it in our basement for him. I think the Historical Association is a better long-term place for the trunk to be kept.
I asked the Vice-President if she thought the PCHA would be interested in the precious family heirloom. She asked for photos and said she would share them with other officers and get back to me. The response came back a day later and the reaction was a unanimous “Yes!”
I drove it down to their office in Bay City on Tuesday afternoon. While I was filling out a donation form, one of the staff printed copies of articles about the school where John might have attended, based on the area where it appears they were living.
I have a good batch of reading to do. It’s not clear that I will find precise details about John during those years, but I can at least get a sense of what life might have been like for him.
Unfortunately, this will steal time away from my exploration of the spat between Joseph Sleeper and his wife, Abagail that led to dates in court.
So many ancestor stories to investigate, so little time.
Of course, the ultimate bonus for me out of this donation is the decluttering I accomplished in our basement. It provides a “win-win” and warms my heart that much more.
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