Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Too Funny
My weather app didn’t get the memo. Look at the warning they sent me last night…
Nope. Other than the fact it is Christmas Eve and none of my former coworkers will be driving in this morning because the place is closed for the holiday, or the fact it is Friday and I haven’t worked on-site on Fridays for years, I’m not going to be doing that commute anymore.
They can adjust that warning for me to: Watch out for wet conditions in the paddocks and stay alert when moving around the horses.
Oh, what a relief it is to be done with navigating highway traffic during the twice-a-day commutes.
This feels like retirement already.
.
.
Final Commute
I am one to never say never but in the case of commuting to the day-job that I have allowed to occupy my time for longer than I ever imagined since moving to the countryside of Wisconsin, today is my final time. Starting tomorrow, my ability to give my full attention to managing our Wintervale property will become my new primary occupation.
Another way to put it is, I am retiring. I am choosing to end a career that began in 1981 as a graduate of a technical education in electronics from an institution known for educating radio and television personality-hopefuls. Their electronic technology degree served me well and provided opportunities to work with some brilliant people on some breakout technologies over the years.
At that first job at a manufacturer of vacuum technologies for the surface analysis sciences, I was introduced to the nuances of manufacturing. During my 18-years with that company, I met and worked with Gary Engelhart, an electrical engineer who became the person I would follow to several different versions of system engineering and electronics manufacturing jobs for the rest of my days working in the field.
I tried to quit several times over the years, but Gary always made it clear I was welcome to return when my circumstances warranted. I am forever indebted to his confidence in my abilities. There is sadness in ending my time of working with all the staff at Gary’s electronics manufacturing company, but it is definitely offset by the thrill of claiming the rest of my days as my own.
I will not miss the stress of the day-job responsibilities.
.
Starting tomorrow, here’s to leaving my car in the garage more often than not.
.
.
Small Stones
In the realm of balancing stones, oftentimes, smaller ones are more challenging. While the balance might be less robust, frequent collapses are generally harmless and the re-balancing can be accomplished with minor effort. I had stones on my desk at work and would frequently close a drawer too hard and dislodge the top one in a stack of three.
There is a nurturing profundity in the exercise of repeatedly returning the stone to its previous balance.
Of course, in that instance, it was always just the top one that rolled away. A stack like the one pictured above would more likely involve them all tumbling down.
I am often intrigued by the mean time between toppling. It is a frequent surprise that a balance lasts much longer than I expect would be likely.
Small stone stacks as workspace trinkets are pretty much contradictory choices unless the desk is solid and the work is sedate. In more precarious environs, I see the small three-stone setup as available for temporary balancing diversions that can otherwise be allowed to lay around unstacked.
Three stones set in single-plane arrangements are no less enticing to a discerning eye. The energy of elements is still present.
Next time you see some eye-catching stones lying about, pick them up and experiment with balancing them, one on top of the next.
You just might find yourself keeping a stack as ornamentation on your desk.
They are pieces of our planet that provide a pleasant rock-solid reminder of our natural world for times we are stuck indoors.
And couldn’t we all do with a little more balance in our lives?
.
.
Snowy Footsteps
Today is the start of winter. It feels closer to the middle of winter. Although, we did just have strangely warm temperatures and a weird December thunderstorm. Still, cold temperatures have become the norm and we have a slim inch of flakes dominating most surfaces.
The labyrinth hasn’t had more than a few stray animal footprints disturbing its blanket of white.
Delilah and I have been methodically distributing our footprints along most of our trails. I have a tendency to neglect seeing the depth of our woods when I am busy plotting my footsteps to widen the traveled snow path. I catch myself staring exclusively at the ground right in front of me.
I rely on Delilah’s nose to alert me that we might have some company nearby. On Sunday afternoon, Delilah was intently focused on something in the interior of our woods. As we approached an intersection of trails, I knew she wanted to go left based on the direction her nose had been pointing.
It took me a while, but eventually I decoded the camouflaged young doe’s big eyes and ears, frozen in a stare directly at us from around the large trunk of a tree. The longer I looked back at her, the more I was able to discern the rest of her body visible on the other side of the tree, too.
If Delilah hadn’t signaled someone was there, I would have been oblivious.
I would have noticed deer hoof prints in the area, though.
.
.
Single Week
Less than a week, actually. The holiday season is long but the actual day of Christmas is just a single day and it is now six days away. I am also down to a single week left commuting to the day-job. Three days, actually. It feels like a lot is happening that will hopefully lead up to a period when not much needs to happen, for the rest of my life.
For the last six months, I have only been commuting to the far side of the Twin Cities three days a week. I am already aware of the complexity of noticing what day it is when Saturdays and Sundays become blurred with Fridays and Mondays. When seven days a week all require the same attention from me, I will join the throngs of others who are in the phase of life when every day is simply “today” and not so distinguishable from all the others.
Yesterday was Cyndie’s Christmas Cookie baking day. I failed to provide much warning but the post I created in 2017 is still very applicable. Check out: Advance Warning.
Cyndie invited helpers to contribute to the extravaganza. They captured and shared some images of the frivolity…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Cookies galore are being shared far and wide. For reference, if you ever have a chance to help Cyndie in the kitchen, you will be stocked with plenty of goodies upon your departure.
Despite this being the second Christmas season under the pandemic, glad tidings and good cheer still shine through.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Enjoy this last week.
I know that I will.
.
.
Seem Settled
The most recent batch of wild weather is now history. Yesterday, I cranked up the chainsaw and cut apart sections of the downed trees that obstructed our trails. All of them were already dead and have inspired me to consider being more proactive about tending to the potential hazards to our fences.
Speaking of our fences, I am surprised at the resilience of our high tensile wire fence. Despite the heavy pressure on the top wire of a section where one of the larger trees landed, no damage resulted. After I cut the tree into pieces, the wire returned to its original appearance. At our cold temperatures, I expected the stretch would have remained and required re-tensioning of the top wire.
Our horses seem settled into a winter routine. Their overnight inside the barn stalls protected them from the rain that dripped off fence boards, freezing into little icicles as the warmth transformed into more normal December temperatures.
We had a dusting of snow overnight last night that revealed the horses stayed out in the open while flakes fell. They had little white blankets on their backs when we showed up to serve their morning feed.
There was just enough early sunshine to trigger their habit of standing sideways to soak up the rays. I noticed steam rising off their bodies as the snow blankets began to melt.
In the time since I returned to the house and finished my own breakfast, the sky has become overcast. At this point, the horses are more inclined to lay down and roll around to knock the melting snow blankets off their backs.
They’ve now seen a full gamut of winter conditions interspersed with an uncharacteristic warm spell and spring-like thunderstorm and appear to be handling it with minimal stress. That goes a long way to relieve us from fretting over how to provide them the best care.
It is helping us to feel settled with our late decision to keep the horses here full-time. If they are happy, we are happy.
.
.
Not Unscathed
We did not get through the rest of the overnight Thursday without suffering wind damage. Cyndie counted at least 9 trees that toppled across our trails, a couple of which put serious pressure on fences.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
As I rolled my car to the end of our driveway in the early morning darkness, I spotted something out in the middle of the road that at first had me thinking it was a raccoon. Closer inspection revealed it to be our mailbox. The wind had pushed it right off the sliding guides of the base.
I picked up the mailbox and slid it back into position, wondering if it would just slip off again in the next powerful gust. (It didn’t.)
A mile or two down the road, I came to a giant tangle of tree branches completely covering both lanes. I was able to steer around it by driving off the pavement and rolling over a few small branches. The rest of the commute was free of any disruptions.
When Cyndie completed her survey of the corners of our property, she returned to find the tragic scene near the front door of the house.
Brings to mind the meme that circulated for a while after some big storms were ravaging the country: “We will rebuild.”
That’s humorous in this case because neither of us has made an effort to even tip it back up on its’ feet yet. Apparently, our rebuilding doesn’t start right away.
.
.
Just East
The most severe portions of the storm front slid past just east of us last night. I can’t wrap my mind around how much snow I needed to move last weekend. Yesterday, when I got home from work, there was almost none left. The outrageously warm temperatures throughout the day and the first half of the evening were worlds away from the experience I was having just days before.
In the face of the many advanced warnings of a severe thunderstorm with extreme winds and possible tornadoes targeting our region, Cyndie decided to bring the horses inside the barn so they wouldn’t get soaked.
I arrived with two horses in their stalls and two nervously pacing around in the barn, unconvinced they should enter the confined space. In the face of their large nervous energy, Cyndie looked really small and at the mercy of their willingness to cooperate.
The longer it took Light and Mia to enter their stalls, the more upset Mix became. She worked herself into a tizzy that included a lot of kicking and flailing about. Unfortunately, although we were hoping to keep them dry by bringing them inside, Mix worked up a lather of sweat in her little tantrum.
Eventually, the two chestnuts stepped into stalls but it took a bit longer for all four of them to settle down. Swings started to demonstrate some anxiety that echoed the pacing behavior she enacted shortly after first arriving here with us.
I got the sense there was a lot of post-traumatic stress triggered by the unexpected confinement.
We lingered in the barn for longer than we wanted to, hoping our calm presence would help them to settle enough to take advantage of the generous servings of feed and hay awaiting their attention. When the time seemed right, we slipped out to feed the dog and cat up at the house.
Before the storm front arrived, we did a follow-up check on the horses and found them all calm and collected, so we turned out the lights and left them in place for the rest of the night.
When the lightning became visible and the thunder triggered Delilah into a barking fit, we invited our pets to join us in the basement to await our fate. A short while later, the first intimidating gust of wind stressed the house and whistled above the chimney. A few blinks after that, the worst was over.
We took a short walk outside to check for results near the house and found nothing out of order.
Happy is having a threatening weather forecast not come to be.
Crazy is having over a foot of snow disappear in a couple of days in December along with summer-like severe weather outbreaks.
We didn’t even lose power.
Counting our lucky stars, and thinking of those who suffered damage just to our east.
.
.
Battening Hatches
In the shadow of the storm that ravaged the middle of the U.S. last week, the prediction for our area this evening is a little intimidating. High winds and December thunderstorms after record warmth in the afternoon have us more on edge than usual.
Any time it rains here in the winter I wince. Everything about it is wrong. It will likely be a night to bring the horses inside the barn to protect them from getting soaking wet ahead of the drop in temperatures to below freezing.
The insolating properties of their winter coats don’t work so well when wet.
How come penguins don’t have that problem? Polar bears? Whatever.
If we had hatches, we would be battening them down today.
Last night’s sky at sunset was just dramatic enough to feel like a hint of what lies ahead. I will be very happy to find out our concerns were unnecessary if nothing significant materializes.
.
.
Relative Something 