Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Early Start
Like a couple of young newlyweds, Cyndie and I got an early start to the holiday weekend and hustled north to the lake by ourselves a day before the massive crowds that will follow. A stop at Coop’s Pizza for our favorite choice in Hayward, then some authentic ice cream decadence at West’s Dairy for dessert, and we were in full lake-place weekend mode before ever reaching the “cabin.”
For the record, I splurged with one scoop each of Coconut Magic Bar and Chunky Musky.
There was some reminiscing about dining at Coop’s on our honeymoon almost 40-years ago, back when it was located in a former gas station on Highway 63. Cyndie burned her lip so bad when hot cheese pulled off the crust that she blistered.
After we unloaded the car, we topped off our night with access to satellite television Tour de France coverage rerunning the stage of day 6 and another Mark Cavendish sprint to the stage victory. We were happy as clams.
It has been longer than I can recall that we have been up at the lake two weekends in a row. This could get to be a habit. Thank goodness we have found a willing animal sitter in Anna, a student at UW River Falls.
It feels particularly summery, which is just as it should now that we are into July. Obviously, we don’t live in the southern hemisphere.
Watching the professional cyclists racing after having just spent some extended time on my bike tour along the Mississippi River in Minnesota provides a valuable perspective. Their accomplishments are so much more amazing than they make them appear.
I hope they get to have ice cream at the end of their daily races.
I visited a couple of Dairy Queens after my days of biking.
It was an early start to foiling my goals of eating less sugar than my addiction longs for. I can attest that doing so wreaks havoc on my attempts to control the brain’s tendency to crave sweetness full time.
Good thing my healthy routine will be able to resume as soon as this weekend is over. My summer brain is starting to think I should have ice cream every day.
I’m afraid the rest of my body takes exception to that kind of thinking.
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Really Dry
There are places suffering a lot worse drought consequences than we are, but the impact of our moderate drought conditions right now are noticeable all around our property. In the nine years that we have lived here, I have only seen it approach this level of dryness one other time.
It gets a little nerve-wracking owning large animals when grazing land begins to dry up. So far, I’d say we have been pretty lucky. Our hay shed is stacked high with bales and our fields have plenty of growth left from May that the horses have only lightly grazed.
We are still hoping the neighbor farmer who previously rented our fields to grow hay will cut and bale the hayfield soon. The horses barely put a dent in the growth out there and it’s long past ready for cutting. I assume it has increased value to him given conditions, but his delay tending to the task has us wondering. (We just learned his equipment broke down but he’s got it fixed and hopes to make it out later today.)
I feel really lucky that so much of our surroundings are staying as green as they are. Out of the roughly 4 acres of grass I mow, only two spots have dried up to a dead-brown-looking crisp.
We do not water the grass around the house and both front and back are faring really well considering.
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I think a lot of it has to do with the surrounding shade that keeps the ground from baking as severely as open areas.
Now if the trees can just hold out long enough to outlast the dryness, the rest of our land might get by just fine.
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Shelter Choices
Around dinner time yesterday, we experienced a brief but oh-so-welcome rain shower that provided a glimpse of the choices our horses make. I had finished my mowing and manure management chores and was headed back up to the house when it started to sprinkle. The two chestnuts, Mia and Light, were happily grazing in the middle of the big paddock.
Cyndie had left the two split pieces of poop board out on the grass to be cleaned now that we can resume using the one-piece board again after removing the divider in the coop. When I came upon her tending to the vegetable garden, I mentioned they aren’t waterproof. As the rain intensified, I decided to go back down right away and put them in the barn.
When I arrived, I noticed the chestnuts had disappeared. I looked toward the back pasture but didn’t see them. I was curious whether they would stand out in the rain or seek shelter.
From inside the barn, I looked out to find Swings and Mix under the overhang, but not Mia or Light. Where did they go?
I stepped out under the overhang and found my answer:
They’re not so dumb. Even in its gradually dying condition, the fading willow tree provides shelter from the rain.
In comparison, Mix was standing half under the overhang, leaving her butt out to get wet and Swings chose to stay completely dry, standing all the way under the roof while munching on some hay.
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For some unexpected reason, there was no raccoon activity evident overnight Monday. I’m wondering if they caught on that the traps lead to disappearances and are staying away for the time being, but that must take some strong willpower given the sweet marshmallow bait being offered up.
In their first night together in the undivided coop, the Rockettes and Buffalo birds appeared to get along just fine. Our timing to merge them seems good. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to tell the difference of who’s who between the two groups, as the difference in their sizes is much less obvious.
Here’s hoping their relationships continue to develop smoothly and they all get along as well as the horses have been, at least until the cockerels’ testosterone kicks into gear and the roosters all try to fulfill their desires of becoming the big man on campus.
At that point, Cyndie and I will likely be the ones choosing the best places to seek shelter.
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Several Things
First of all, while I was on the bike trip, Cyndie contacted pest removal professionals to get rid of the raccoons that have made themselves so at home around here lately. Thus far, three have been captured and two remain at large.
Traps are set and baited in hope of getting the last of them.
Yesterday morning, while Cyndie was tending to the chicks, one of the Rockettes got outside of the fencing. In its tizzy to get back on the safe side of the netting, it found an opening that the raccoons had made the night before. The thing was, though, the opening was to the Buffalo gals/guy side of our divider.
Cyndie decided that was enough excuse to open the barrier and merge the two broods a little sooner than we had planned.
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It ended up being a kerfuffle-free mixer-upper. The older Buffalo brood had already scoured their courtyard free of any green growth but the Rockettes hadn’t, so the big draw was grass. There were some occasional knowing rearrangements and relocations of proximity by each group that showed they are keenly aware of who is or isn’t a member of each brood, but just as many moments when they behaved with obliviousness about each other.
Later in the day, I was trying to get the grass cut before predicted afternoon rain showers showed up. Just as I was nearing the usual point where I stop and refuel, there was a new gust of wind that ushered in much cooler air. Dark clouds were rolling in and some sprinkles started to fall.
I needed to park the lawn tractor in the shop garage with haste so I could hustle over to the deck on the backside of the house to fetch my tent before it got soaked by real raindrops. I had set it up there to sweep it clean and let it dry in the sun.
This is what I found when I arrived:
Oops. That gust I felt had picked up the tent and tossed it over the grill and dropped it upside down into the landscape pond. So much for drying it out.
Now the tent is airing out in the garage at the house.
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Happy Animals
Our kitty, Pequenita, was oh so happy to have me back home again to scratch her neck and belly every which way to and fro. We arrived home mid-afternoon and took Delilah for a walk to survey our property and check on the chicks and horses.
The grasses on either side of our mowed trails have gotten almost as tall as we are. The chicks have gotten almost as tall as each other. There is one exception. One of the Buffalo gals is taller than all the others. We are growing increasingly confident that we received a surprise cockerel in the batch Cyndie purchased from the Buffalo Country Store.
It appears we may have a Buffalo “guy.” In the image above, the obvious contrast in color can be seen for two of the Barred Rock chicks we received. The darker coloring is indicative of hens and the lighter white-with-black feathering more an attribute of roosters. The more advanced growth of his comb and the noticeable size advantage add logical evidence to support our suspicion.
We may keep him to protect his brood of 11 siblings and then let one of the Rockette roosters stay around to watch over whatever hens remain from our hatched group after distributing some to my brother and giving away any extra roosters. We have yet to feel confident identifying how many cockerels are in that hatched batch of thirteen.
I expect that another two or three weeks will make things much more obvious, along the lines of how obvious it has become among the two-week-older batch from Buffalo.
Thankfully, at this point, they are all getting along fine and appear happy and healthy. The Rockettes have enough feathers now and have grown enough in size that we are hoping to experiment with merging the two groups this week. That should be entertaining.
The horses were perfectly calm and appeared entirely satisfied with our return appearance. Last week they received a long-awaited hoof trimming and it has them looking particularly well kept.
Our animals seem almost as happy as Cyndie was when she finally was in the right place at the right time to view the resident snapping turtle that has frequented the lagoon and boat launch area of the lake up in Hayward for probably the last 50 years.
I snapped that photo of the lagoon because the reflection of the tree trunks was providing a wonderful backward K that was particularly eye-catching. Cyndie said that sighting the turtle had been on her bucket list for quite some time, which made it a significant thrill for her that endured well beyond the minutes the old beast lingered in view.
All in all, we’ve got happiness bursting out all over the place.
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Tour Nightmare
During my final hour of slumber this morning, I was deeply occupied with a new version of a recurring nightmare about the bike tour. The usual scenario involves a classic concern of seeing everyone around me departing well before I am prepared. A common second version I experience has me searching for my shoes or a wheel or some item that I should have but inexplicably discover to be missing.
This morning, it was rather specifically related to my early departure from the ride. I found myself needing to ride my bike back to the original start by myself while the rest of the group was already showered and departing for their homes. I said goodbye to them and set off on my own, trying to figure out how to backtrack the route I had previously ridden at the start.
Multiple disruptions ensued and my slow progress was leading to the hours passing and daylight waning. I was so ensconced in the dream that I continued to work on the details as I awoke and wondered if I was trying to reach our home in Beldenville or the start of this year’s tour in Hastings.
Alas, I am in Hayward and slept late into the morning after a glorious day prior filled with special attention for the occasion of my birthday. The evening was topped with a fabulous outing to the Tally Ho restaurant where the service was superb, the food delicious, and the laughs plentiful.
That was no nightmare.
Now I’m watching television coverage of the second stage of the 2021 Tour de France and contemplating a return to Wintervale today. There are a few animals that I need to get reacquainted with and some chores awaiting that will mark the completion of my days of vacation.
In a lot of ways, I am looking forward to it, but that isn’t a reflection of how I feel about the past week. It’s been grand.
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Yep Indeed
Trying to capture the essence of my adventures of last week on my abbreviated version of the Tour of Minnesota has been difficult due to instantly being transported from one world into another. I am still immersed in the second phase of my vacation, the Friswold family gathering at their lake place, which keeps me distracted from pondering long enough to write about either experience.
I was born on this day back in 1959, and that fact, combined with the focus of this weekend –the one-year anniversary of Cyndie’s dad’s passing– is keeping things spinning faster than my writing brain processes.
And that’s okay. It’s just that I really want to tell my stories and exercise my writing muscles. A lot of life-affirming experiences have occurred for me of late. The occasion of my birthday is the least of them.
Julian has given me another wonderful present in the form of his coding expertise that astute readers may have already noticed this morning. The random wayback feature that I love so much is now a permanent option available on the margin, or trailing the initial posts on mobile devices.
Maybe if the dreary cloud cover that has arrived over Hayward this morning will lend itself toward my finding a quiet corner to collect some words to describe my adventures from the last week. Maybe not.
I’m going to go with the flow. Right now we are in the sunroom with windows all open and family stories and belly laughs are frequent. Breakfast is nigh. I’m sitting here trying to multitask between participating and typing.
Until now. If you want more, click the wayback machine for a random archived post.
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Goodbye Again
I’m back in reach of my computer again, but I am not at home yet. After saying goodbye to precious friends riding the Tour of Minnesota this week, I am up at the lake with Cyndie and our kids, and almost all of Cyndie’s family, for a few days of saying goodbye again to Cyndie’s dad. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of his death.
We are together telling stories, playing games, feasting on incredible meals, and swimming in the lake –all things Fred loved to do– to honor this incredible man, husband, father, patriarch.
As darkness descended on the day, we wrote messages for Fred on the paper petals of flower luminaries, lit candles, and floated the memorials out on the lake where he loved to swim laps.
It wasn’t the first time we’ve said our goodbyes and it won’t be the last, but on the day that marked the first anniversary of his passing, the family as a group lifted up several particularly significant salutations of parting.
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Mentally Preparing
Today is my last workday before I leave for my bike trip and it is obvious to me that I will not have all my work done before I go. When you can’t change something, acceptance becomes an attractive option. There will be plenty to do when I return.
Yesterday after work, I did some of the dustiest mowing in my life. The dryness resulted in clouds of soil dust covering me and the tractor. Much sneezing ensued, but I am very happy to have that task checked off my list.
I’m mentally preparing myself for being away from our animals in the coming days by thoroughly appreciating every moment with them before I go. As I mowed along the perimeter of the back pasture, the horses came over very intentionally to graze near the fence as I passed.
We are definitely developing a bond with them.
The area around the chicken coop has been receiving increasing pressure from the raccoons during the nights. We’ve reached the point where we might have to give up on this idea of coexisting with the masked bandits.
Both groups of chicks continue to grow so much every day it seems like the Rockettes will never catch up to the older Buffalo gals.
It’ll be Cyndie’s decision if she decides to try merging them while I am away, but I’m guessing that will be unlikely.
She may be too busy trying to keep up with the produce coming from the garden. Salads have been locally sourced lately.
Those peas are so prolific we almost have more than we know what to do with already.
The lettuce is superb. What a treat!
Meanwhile, my mind is trying to run through all the things I need to gather for successfully tent camping and biking for days in a row. It’s not like I haven’t done this trip before, but it has been an extra year since the last one.
The clock is ticking on my days of planning. Tomorrow, Cyndie will drive me to Hastings and drop me, my bike, and camping gear off and I’ll consider myself on vacation.
It’s a green vacation, too. All these people riding bikes for days instead of driving their cars.
We haven’t had any measurable rain for weeks. What are the odds that will change while we are on the road?
I need to mentally prepare for the possibility.
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