Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Slow Slide
Life for me on the ranch is slowly moving away from needing to be Cyndie’s primary caretaker toward our usual partnership in life’s adventures. Her recent advances in regaining independence, by way of driving again, allowed her to attend a gathering of some of her friends and to spend an overnight with another which granted me a little time on my own.
I found an entirely forgettable shoot-’em-up cowboy movie to watch last night that she wouldn’t have enjoyed.
It was the first time I have been truly alone in the house for over a decade because we no longer have any indoor pets. Of course, I miss Delilah and Pequenita but it would be misleading to imply I don’t love the freedom from the responsibilities of tending to them.
The warm February weather has restarted the snowpack’s slow slide from the shop/garage roof. In the shadow of late afternoon yesterday, I saw that a chunk had fallen to the concrete apron below.
This morning, the crust on the snow was frozen enough to support my weight as I pulled broken branches out of the pine tree that suffered the most damage from one of the heavy snowfalls. There were a LOT more branches than I realized.
The tree looks a little worse for the wear but not as bad as I feared. I plan to trim the remains of the broken limbs back to the main trunk. Don’t know if that will make it look any better, or not.
Yesterday afternoon there were hunting dogs roaming our woods and howling off and on between scrambling around with their noses to the ground. These are from the coyote hunters that patrol the area and as such, are always a welcome sight. From my vantage point, it looked like they were roughly following the usual traffic pattern of the elusive fox that roams this area. That doesn’t mean the coyotes don’t travel the same pathways, but I’ve yet to catch sight of those ghostly predators.
At least I’ve seen and have pictures of the fox.
Never did hear any gunshots so their level of success yesterday is unknown.
It feels like we are on a slow slide toward the end of winter. Knowing full well that doesn’t mean we won’t experience more winter weather in March or April, I am holding back on any wild plans for our landscape post-snow.
I’m just going to lean back and enjoy riding the slide.
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Survivor’s Guilt
Every time incredibly tragic situations are reported in the news for days on end I begin to question my luck. How is it that I was born into the comfort I enjoyed throughout my lifetime? Lately, it has been the crumbled concrete buildings in Turkey and Syria that are causing me to wonder about how my life experience compares to a baby found alive in the rubble, still attached to its dead mother by the umbilical cord.
How many challenges lie ahead for that child and the rest of the survivors in the damaged areas?
Secure in our warm house with a solid roof and sturdy walls, I tucked myself beneath comforting blankets in a wonderful bed and slept safely last night. How do I deserve such luxury?
Even while a large number of people were attacking my nation’s capital in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2021, I was safe at home experiencing no physical threat. I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment, but otherwise, the impact on me at home was imperceptible.
People around the world live in situations of war, droughts, famine, overcrowding, poverty, or crime that impact their daily existence. Why have I been able to live free of these challenges? Obviously, there is no guarantee that I won’t suffer this kind of fate in the future, but at my age, I will still feel lucky that I had so many good years if things all of a sudden turn bad now.
There but for the grace of God, go I.
I gained a new insight yesterday about how the hay boxes get pulled away from the back wall of the overhang. Don’t know why I never considered this before. I had set out the feed pans for the horses and while they were eating, I was scoopin’ poop and filling up my wheelbarrow. I didn’t see what provoked it but I looked up just as Light was lunging toward Swings.
In her moment of panicked reaction, Swings’ emergency evacuation from the vicinity cause her to knock the hay box almost 90°. The repositioned box had nothing to do with frivolity or overzealous efforts to consume hay. It was simply collateral damage from a dramatic escape.
I verbally shared my unhappiness about the incident with Light but she showed little interest in my opinion about the issue, whatever it was.
Ending on a positive note, I’m pleased to report that Cyndie has recovered enough to drive a car on her own again. It’s been 3-and-a-half months since she drove a vehicle. That’s a very large step in regaining her independence.
I can say that my survival of being her full-time chauffeur during that period has been entirely guilt-free.
However, there have been moments of wondering how I’ve been so lucky as to not be the one who broke an ankle last November.
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Fun Frolic
For those who don’t have concerns about melting temperatures during winter, yesterday was gorgeous on the ranch. After feeding two of the horses an extra portion at noon, I decided to walk out into the hay field to see if any of them might follow me out into the deeper snow.
Light and Mia took immediate notice of my unusual behavior, walking to the opening in the fence to think about their next move. Mia decided to approach me. Light turned around and took a few steps back toward the barn.
Mia made her way right up to me and stopped for an exchange of greetings, sniffing to make sure I was who she suspected me to be. Then she decided to just keep going and walked past me further up the hill.
When I turned back around toward the barn, I was shocked to see that Light had made it all the way up behind me without making a sound. I have no idea how horses are able to approach so quickly with such stealth.
I stayed put as the horses meandered off on their own, heading toward one of their favored corners of the field. Making their way toward the fence line, Light started to pick up the pace. A trot became a run and after making a turn, the two chestnuts broke out in a glorious top-speed sprint back to the paddock.
After navigating the sharp turn through the gate at high velocity, they vented all their amped-up energy by rearing on their hind legs and vigorously turning around in loops. It’s incredibly invigorating to witness up close, horses choosing to exert themselves to such extreme on their own terms.
I think I had as much fun watching the horses as they had frolicking in the uncharacteristic warmth of the beautiful afternoon.
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Winter Lull
We are enjoying a pause in the harsh, cold winter temperatures this week. It truly is a welcome relief for those of us who have to do things outdoors every day no matter what the weather is like. Hanging out with our horses, cleaning up around them, and feeding them, I get a very good sense of how much more at ease they are now that we’ve come out of the latest blast of extreme cold.
Those wicked cold mornings have the horses looking so stoic as they stiffly brace themselves against the stinging bite of the frigid air. They do very little moving to conserve what little warmth is lingering under their winter growth right up to the moment they prepare for the delivery of their feed pans by romping about, running, and kicking to jump-start their circulation.
In contrast, their lack of stiffness yesterday morning energized me. The horses radiated a feeling of ease and contentedness that stood out more than usual because of how different it was from just days before.
There has been a lull in snowfall for many more days than the cold temps, and the snow in the paddocks is getting thoroughly beaten down as a result. It remains deep enough in the fields that they have barely ventured beyond the fences but there are some tracks out there.
It’s unclear to me how many of those footprints are evidence of new activity or old tracks emerging as sunny afternoons have started to shrink back some of the coverage.
Yesterday afternoon, I lingered for a long time, leaning against a gate to watch their activity after they had all finished eating from the feed pans. They were just being horses with no urgent agenda.
It made me want to be a horse along with them —a horse during a warm spell on a February day.
When it’s cold again, I want to be a human living indoors.
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Just Like
The Grammy Award for Song of the Year went to Bonnie Raitt on Sunday night for the title song of her latest album, “Just Like That.” I’m willing to bet that most of you haven’t listened to the song. I hope you will use five minutes of your time to listen while following the lyrics. She has written a precious heartstring-puller.
Before you decide to focus on the song, watch this video of her reaction to the announcement of her win and hear her acceptance speech:
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You can read the lyrics while listening to the song here:
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You might want to have a tissue handy.
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Friendly Family
That was fun! Just hanging with my brothers and sisters for an afternoon after not being altogether for three years.
I feel so lucky to have siblings who all get along and seamlessly enjoy time together regardless of how many months might pass between visits. Yesterday included plenty of laughs over memories of our shared childhood experiences, including some details we don’t all agree on. Honestly, one thing that I’m becoming more certain about as I age is that I am not certain about any precise details conjured in my memories.
No matter how clear my memory of past events seems, it is only fair to qualify them as my vague recollections.
With some luck, the date we picked for a summer weekend gathering will work for all our extended families and we can have a larger span of time together for sharing stories. The hours we were together yesterday only scratched the surface of catching up with each person.
In the same way that time seems to fly by when you are having fun, it also can sail away from you when you aren’t paying attention. In a blink, years can pass between sibling get-togethers. Throw in a pandemic to wipe out another big chunk of time and it makes it hard to remember the last gathering.
That’s too long between visits for a family that is so much fun to be around. Here’s hoping we can work on improving that in the future.
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Siblings Again
Cyndie and I are driving up to North Branch, Minnesota, today for a planned gathering of my Hays siblings. There were a couple of farther-reaching Hays relation reunions that were canceled by the pandemic and I don’t believe the five of us have been in the same place at the same time since January 2020. Yesterday, I scoured the photo archives of my blog for a record of our gatherings throughout the last decade for comparison, and hopefully, to coerce us to get an up-to-date portrait while we are together today.
In my search, I came across some shots from when we were kids that I’ll insert to start this gallery.
abt. 1960: Judy holding me, Elliott, Mary, Linda (1952-1997)
abt 1961: Judy, Mary, John, Elliott, Linda (1952-1997) holding David
with Mom, abt. late 1990s – early 2000s in Eden Prairie
Brothers, maybe?
abt 2009: Wasn’t everybody, but close.
Winter 2014, Beldenville.
Summer 2017, Richfield.
Summer 2018, Richfield.
Winter 2020, North Branch
We don’t tend to choreograph our positioning with any regularity, do we? It will keep you guessing who each person is.
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Every Step
I spotted an impressive phenomenon of nature after heading down to the barn yesterday morning.
Each and every small animal footprint through the snow had captured a fallen oak leaf.
The latest air mass of bitterly cold temperatures has left us for the east coast. At noon today, I plan to give the horses a break from wearing blankets again. Other than the off-and-on annoying sounds of snowmobile engines passing by, it is calm and quiet under the hazy sunshine in our valley.
As the air warms it becomes obvious that the thick snowpack becomes its own refrigerant, radiating cold from below. Even though the daily high temperatures are forecast to rise above freezing, it doesn’t guarantee it will feel as warm as thermometers indicate.
However, with all things being relative, any above-zero temperatures offer welcome relief after extreme cold spells like we endured Thursday night/Friday morning. The horses seemed to begrudgingly tolerate the pain, gritting their teeth and standing still in a meditative state that hid any spark of life in their eyes.
This morning, they looked much more alive and were a smidge more active. I think they will be as happy as me to be granted several days of ease, free of the brutal grip of dramatically cold air masses.
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Walking Shoes
One of the things we did on our brief holiday away from the ranch was shop for walking shoes for Cyndie’s recuperation period. It’s hard to describe how weird it was to watch Cyndie trying to partially use her right foot and walk/crutch back and forth around the store. She’d only started using her right foot two days before and now she was trying on shoe after shoe and motoring around the place for what seemed like an endless parade of indecision.
Ultimately, decisions were made. Two new pairs of footwear –one for indoors and one for outside, and both on sale– were picked to help Cyndie step her way through regaining her stride.
She is making impressive progress already but with anticipated residual consequences that call for periods of rest after doing a lot of “walking.” She is still relying on two crutches but the transition to just one crutch may happen soon.
We are both very happy that she will now be supporting her ankle with new shoes that fit comfortably.
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Old Images
I was exploring old images and came upon these shots from 2013, our first spring on this property. We were in the process of installing new fencing to create the paddocks outside the barn and trying to build the hay shed.
That spring was so wet the main post holes that had been dug for the hay shed sat filled with water week after week. I remember thinking the pole shed might never happen.
It pains my brain to think about all that I DIDN’T know back then. Somehow we forged ahead to eventually get where we are today. It involved a lot of making things up as we went along. Looking back on it, I’m happy now for all the wild ideas we entertained back then.
Makes me wonder about what things I might not know today that in ten years could become our everyday.
Probably hovercrafts.
At the same time, it always feels presumptuous to assume I’ll be here in ten years.
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