Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Snag Down
The inevitable has occurred and the snag we left standing inside the small paddock after cutting back the dead limbs almost five years ago has now fallen to the ground.
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It had a good run as a scratching post. After the recent discovery that it had been pushed into a noticeable lean by horses rubbing against it, I did some pushing of my own to assess the status of its integrity. It was still too solid for me to be able to push the rest of the way over, but it did move back into a fully upright position, so I left it.
Yesterday morning, Cyndie found it looking like this:
Over text messages, we discussed what to do with it. She said it is too heavy to move without dragging with the tractor or sawing into pieces. I suggested we could leave it in place for a while to provide a little intrigue for the horses to investigate.
We don’t know which horse might have been responsible for knocking it over or whether others were in the vicinity at the time. None of them showed any signs of having suffered a close encounter with falling tree trunks. I’m wondering if they might enjoy gnawing on it a little bit.
It looks kinda cool lying there. I like the thought of the horses adapting to something new happening in their midst, adjusting to the change, and hopefully exploring the interesting shaped object now on the ground.
Cyndie spotted Swings and Mix doing just that later in the day.
I did a visual scan for future comparison to observe whether they take an interest in chewing on it. If they soon appear to be ignoring it, we will likely cut it up and split the logs for firewood before the whole thing rots.
As my good friend, Steve Reynolds has been know to declare, standing dead trees are just verticle firewood storage. Now that it’s no longer standing, I best not neglect it for too long.
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One Less
Back in July, I reduced commuting to the day-job from four days a week down to three. I now drive into the Cities on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. That one small change is providing a large improvement to my quality of life. Just one less day on the road is saving me expenses and reducing stress. I also moved some documents online in order to allow more productive use of my remote days, a step that probably should have happened a year ago when COVID moved much of the world’s workforce out of offices and into homes.
When the pandemic first materialized, our customers quickly assured us we were “essential” as manufacturers of high-tech industrial products, so we maintained our normal schedule without interruption. I just kept doing things the same as always.
Now the increased productivity during my two remote days is freeing me up on the other three days to give more attention to on-site issues that arise. Now if I could just control things so that issues only arise when I am on-site, everything would be perfect.
Being available at home an additional day per week is providing rewarding benefits, too. Yesterday afternoon I was able to double-team two small projects with Cyndie that most likely wouldn’t have happened in the few hours after I normally get home on commuting days.
All that is needed now to recover some normalcy in our workplace is two or three skilled high-tech assemblers to walk in our doors and fill openings that have existed since before the pandemic even became a thing.
While I’m dreaming, I’d also like my government to never again invade another country with the idea of overthrowing a less equipped but incredibly patient group of local fighters. Fool us once, fool us twice…
Might as well keep going with dreams of solving world problems. What if we found ways to move impoverished peoples off of islands where earthquakes or hurricanes, and sometimes both in rapid succession, repeatedly occur?
The people of Haiti could do with one less disaster right now.
The people of Afghanistan could do with one less day of everything that is out of control there.
The people in the western states of the U.S. could do with one less drought and raging wildfire combination.
The doctors and nurses treating unvaccinated COVID sufferers in over-crowded ICUs could do with one less highly contagious coronavirus variant.
I could do with one less global catastrophe, but for now, I will settle for driving my fossil-fuel-burning vehicle one less day every week.
Small changes can sometimes lead to proportionally bigger rewards.
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Rewarding Accomplishments
On a weekend when we squeezed in two evening trips to the Cities for wonderful social occasions and a surprise visit from sister, Judy, and husband, Scott, Cyndie and I also knocked off mowing and trimming the entire labyrinth of some tall growth. Our growing ground cover has made efficient use of the rain we received last week. The lawn grass is so long already, I need to mow again less than a week after I just finished the whole property.
I took a panoramic photo into the sun to show the freshly coifed labyrinth with the adjacent gazebo and its barely alive vines for a roof cover.
We also made short work yesterday of an inspiration I had to open up a new footpath through an untraveled section of our woods. Untraveled by us, that is. We chose to route it primarily along an obvious path traversed by deer often enough that our eyes were able to discern where they have been walking.
Of course, being deer, they seem to magically navigate through downed or low-hanging branches that entangle us. A bit of pruning and sawing provided quick reward and suddenly we had a whole new shortcut between two existing trails.
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We were so pleased with it, we sauntered back and forth along the new route multiple times, just to enjoy the experience.
It was very rewarding to get two projects off the to-do list, even though one of them had just been spontaneously added the day before. Accomplished, nonetheless.
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Night Sounds
With the present summer weather about as perfect as could be, we had our windows open the last few nights while we slept. Or, tried to sleep. Our resident owls have been wonderfully vocal with each other lately, opening with a long, classically owl sounding, “Whooooo,” but quickly followed with a repeating variation of short shout-like hoots.
At least two of them have been calling back and forth at noticeably different distances from our house. Last night, that seemed to trigger one of our neighbor’s dogs to do some shouting of its own.
The next time I unintentionally surfaced from the depths of precious slumber, the lovely sound of a songbird was resonating strongly through the forest. In the predawn darkness, it revealed morning light would be appearing soon.
Underlying it all, the continuous drone of crickets, tree frogs, or both paved the foundation for a comforting summer night soundtrack.
What we haven’t heard recently is the howling and yipping of coyote packs, so maybe they have figured out there are no chickens left to steal here and moved on to harass some other property.
Cyndie spotted another young family traipsing across our backyard early one morning last week.
Wild turkey parents were parading a brood of young ones along the edge of the woods.
I guess coyotes must not like turkey as much as they do chicken.
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Mental Break
Last night, Cyndie and I watched the movie, “A Private War,” about journalist Marie Colvin who died in 2012 while covering the siege of Homs in Syria. It was some heavy, intense subject matter of the awful horrors civilians suffer in war zones. As soon as it was over, Cyndie said she needed a mental palate cleanser.
She took Delilah for a little walk in the direction of the horses. I chose to catch up and meet her out in the hayfield.
On the way, something grabbed my attention at the gate from the paddock to the back pasture.
The horses have worn a very specific path they trod when wandering into the field. For some reason, instead of meandering randomly out of the paddock to graze in the pasture, they regularly walk a precise route quite a way out before dispersing.
Inside the small paddock, the snag we left standing for their use as a scratching post had been pushed askew. The bottom is rotting enough that stability is almost gone.
Both Cyndie and I walked out into the hayfield and the horses happily followed. Then they kept going past us, climbing the rise and continuing over it to the far side facing the road.
The sounds of their contented chewing and ripping bites of grass have a soothing quality to them. The evening air was cooling nicely and the endearing sounds of nature surrounding us, combined with the munching horses as daylight faded, provided everything we wished for in terms of clearing our minds.
It is such a truly divine privilege to have horses living with us again.
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Exercising Memory
My memories are fading, but as I revisit many of them, the details I review slowly grow more memorable and probably less accurate with each iteration.
I remember what my life was like before my eyesight declined to the point of needing glasses to see with functional clarity. Those memories often arise in response to needing to clean my glasses in the present day.
I remember how free life was before the coronavirus pandemic.
I remember when there were no personal computers.
I remember getting my first mobile phone when my workplace at the time made them available to all employees for personal use.
I remember how awkward it always felt to walk alone in front of the entire length of the high school bleachers on the way to get a bag of popcorn from the concession counter.
I remember how much I liked the popcorn purchased at those basketball games in the high school.
I remember using our basement for a kitchen in our Eden Prairie house while we were having the upstairs remodeled.
I remember putting a vinyl Crosby, Stills, & Nash record on the old hi-fi phonograph with the sliding glass woodgrain top panels when it was in the closet of my boyhood bedroom and then laying on my bed to listen until I fell asleep.
I remember when the impacts of the greenhouse effect on our planet were hardly noticeable and mainly the subject of scientific predictions.
I remember when we first set foot on the property we eventually purchased in Beldenville, Wisconsin. I will always remember walking one of the trails near the house and coming upon the gnarly oak tree that remains the most prominent.
I remember when the sky turned a deeper blue during the two times when air traffic was greatly reduced: After the September 11 attacks and when the pandemic lockdowns stopped almost all travel around the globe.
I remember the morning I called our health clinic to ask to be seen in my first step of treating my depression.
I remember how moved I felt after learning about the extent of hidden added sugars in processed foods that occurred with increasing frequency throughout my lifetime.
I remember tying one of my deceased mother’s handkerchiefs to a branch as a prayer flag in the Himalayan mountains around the highest elevation I achieved during the trek I did in 2009.
I remember my son inspiring me to start a blog to chronicle the trek I would be doing.
I remember learning I was an asthma sufferer during my physical that was required by the adventure travel company before the trip began.
I remember waking up stressed from breathing the smoke that had leaked from the woodstove all night when we slept in the lodge of the Sherpa sirdar guiding our trek.
What I can’t remember is any reason I started this exercise and whether or not I had a point in mind. Having a point would have come in handy when it came to reaching a conclusion.
This reminds me of how often I find myself laboring to come up with a closing line for daily blog posts.
Sometimes, I just want to “Say goodnight, Gracie.”
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Fawns Visit
Yesterday morning, first thing, Cyndie reported seeing a momma deer and two fawns out our bedroom window. I was just commenting the other day that there was no sign of any nibbling of our hostas back there this summer. I didn’t check yet to see if that still holds true.
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After work yesterday, I was busy mowing the opposite side of our property. After just one downpour of rain over the weekend, our grass responded with a burst of growth. There was nothing strategic about my mowing methods this time. I cut everything possible in the time before dinner was served.
I heard a meteorologist’s analysis that the one occasion of heavy rain on Saturday was not sufficient to break the overall drought our region is suffering. He said that would require getting rain in similar amounts at least once a week for multiple weeks. The long-range forecast doesn’t bode well for that happening.
I’m counting our blessings that we have so few areas where the stress of dryness is obvious. Most trees and shrubs are looking close to normal. Grassy areas that get some shade look downright healthy.
Maybe the deer don’t need the hostas if there are enough other choices for grazing. They were probably just visiting to be social.
Delilah failed to detect them, so they weren’t driven away by loud, ferocious barking. She is a little under the weather and threw up the full contents of her stomach yesterday. Cyndie said it appeared a couple of days-worth of food wasn’t getting processed and came back up.
When that happened other times, we immediately discarded the rest of whatever can of food she was being served and start a fresh one. Since it always did the trick the other times, we are returning to that solution for now.
Meanwhile, she is doing some grazing of her own, chomping on grass when she is out on a walk.
Good thing it got tall after the last blast of rain.
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Olympic Influence
The 2020 Olympic summer games are over but after having watched daily competitions for over two weeks, the residual influence is strong. Yesterday afternoon, I was cutting the grass beneath our fenceline using the power trimmer. Beneath ear-muff hearing protection that also has a metal mesh face shield, my world gets reduced to the ground immediately in front of me and little else.
While trimming away, there was a moment where I thought I might have heard an uncharacteristic sound. I took a quick glance over my shoulder to see if there was anyone in sight and was immediately reminded of Olympic marathoners doing the same turn of their heads as they tried to check the competition behind them.
In the split second of feeling a connection to the competing Olympic runners, I had a thought that power trimming could become one of the new sports they add in the future.
There could be categories separating light trimming around features in a front yard –similar to short distance races– and thick field grass trimming under a fence –similar to running a marathon.
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Performance can be timed or judged, or probably both.
Points taken off if you nick the fence post or leave uncut tufts around them. That would be like when divers make a splash as they enter the water.
Why stop with just power trimming? All the property management chores could become Olympic competitions. Kicking manure piles in the field can be rather sporting. Changing engine oil in a lawn tractor. Sharpening a chainsaw blade. Repairing a busted fence. Oh, pounding down frost-heaved fence posts would be a good one.
Might as well expand the focus to include a competition of commuting an hour to a day job. Fastest time without speeding more than 9MPH over posted speed limits takes the gold. Must be accident-free and can receive bonus points if no other drivers are made angry throughout the entire drive.
I’m sure televised broadcasts of the competitions would inspire kids to want to become farm chore professionals when they grow up.
I wish I could take this thought exercise of Olympic comparison all the way to the part where the hard work only lasts for two weeks and then there is a great big party with fireworks and drone-shaped patterns in the sky.
Lots of laughter and selfies, maybe a few hugs from strangers.
It’s a nice distraction from reality. My reality early yesterday morning involved a certain cat who apparently missed me over the weekend. Pequenita made a point of walking up my body to head-butt my face and knead my chest starting at 3:30 a.m. and repeated the exercise again at 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, & 6:00.
I foiled her annoying shenanigans this morning by getting out of bed at 4:30 to do my planking and stretching routine before work.
Come to think of it, maybe Pequenita just forgot that I now work from home on Mondays and she thought I needed to get up that early.
She probably thinks she’s in some cat Olympics, competing in the “Manage Your Human” event.
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Horse Time
We arrived home yesterday afternoon to many examples of evidence that Wintervale had received a significant dousing of rain while we were away. The actual amount is unclear because the rain gauge at the top of the hill had water in it from the sprinkler for the vegetable garden. It was filled to over 4.5 inches.
The other gauge at the bottom of the hill near the labyrinth had tipped off its screws and was leaning over sideways, although it had about an inch of water in it. It’s likely our total was somewhere between those two amounts.
The tall grass in the drainage swales was laid flat by the pressure of rainwater leaving an obvious depiction of the volume that flowed over it.
The paddock was a little messy but the horses didn’t show much concern about how wet it had been. There was evidence that a couple of them had rolled in the dirt recently to coat their hides with a natural protection from biting flies.
They were standing around in their usual space under the overhang when Cyndie and I wandered out into the hayfield while coaxing them to join us. Mia quickly made her way after us but paused at the gate.
Soon after, all three of the others made their way down as well, but none of them chose to join us beyond the paddock fence. Not needing to fret their decision, we easily made our way back to join them for some horse time that seemed as welcome to them as it was to us.
It’s always wonderful to get away to the lake for a weekend, but it’s really, really nice to return home, as well.
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Rain Coming
Looks like the morning will be a wet one for us. Weather radar indicates a decent-sized band of precipitation closing in on our location in Hayward, WI.
The blue marker that looks like it is pointing at Red Wing indicates our home, approximately between River Falls and Red Wing.
I’m ready to hunker down and be an indoor couch potato for a few hours. Cyndie wants to play the local version of Monopoly board game she found in town this week: Hayward-opoly. The properties are local businesses like our favorite Coop’s Pizza and West’s Dairy.
I’d rather find sports on the television. Aren’t there some Olympic games finishing up this weekend?
Before we know it, there will be a break in the clouds and everyone will hit the beach.
I will be plenty ready for that.
Did you notice there was a bird in that image above? I hadn’t noticed it when I was rushing to capture the sun rays as they changed by the second. After looking at it a few times on my computer screen, I wondered if it was actually an insect that was close to the phone instead of a magnificent high-soaring bird of prey up near the cloud.
Perception is everything.
Happy first Saturday in August everyone!
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Relative Something 