Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Final Rest
Under the wearisome pall of constraints in place due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Cyndie’s family orchestrated a laudable graveside service for a small number of family and friends to say final goodbyes to her dad, Fred Friswold, under a mostly cloudy but otherwise dry Saturday. Masks were required and reasonable social distancing requested for the limited 30-minute window of time allowed by Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.
We were instructed to arrive at a precise time and remain in our cars until ushered in a parade of vehicles to the gravesite.
The Friswolds have a family plot where Cyndie’s grandparents, her aunt, and her sister have now been joined by her father’s ashes.
In an unfortunate but inconsequential oversight, the canopy ordered to protect from possible rain was missing. The threat of precipitation waned as the appointed hour drew near and by the time we stood as a scattered group to hear various readings and prayers, there were a couple of brief openings in the clouds that revealed blue sky and bathed us in sunshine.
A flock of wild turkeys idly wandered past as if we weren’t there.
Masks served to catch many tears.
From the cemetery, we all drove to the University of Minnesota where the staff of the McNamara Alumni Center –the building Fred and two alumni buddies were instrumental in shepherding to existence– provided a pandemic-constrained space for a meal and program.
It was a day for which I’m confident Fred would approve, partially because only a fraction of the people who would have gushed over his greatness were able to be present so to do.
He touched a lot of people’s lives and impacted exponentially more who never knew him.
I appreciated hearing three different perspectives from people in his world of financial guidance to the YMCA and U of M, as they revealed to me how little first-hand exposure I had to anything but his home and family life.
Fred died in June from a cancer diagnosed the previous December which only compounded preexisting heart and lung ailments. He was clear-minded and fully aware right to the end. In the months since he died, the new reality of his being gone from us was settling in. Yesterday’s events have served to punctuate anew the depths of how much he is missed.
It’s a shame the end of life celebrations are so difficult to hold during a pandemic.
Cyndie’s family did a fine job of achieving all they possibly could under the circumstances.
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Last Cut
I know this cat named Pequenita who is highly skilled at showing up for scratches at the precise time that I want to use both of my hands to type on my laptop computer. She seems to know that I can’t resist her demands for attention.
Today, we head to Edina for the weekend to participate in Friswold family activities surrounding a graveside memorial service for Fred on Saturday. Please keep Cyndie and her family in your hearts and beam your love when you think of them.
In preparation for being away from home for the weekend, I jumped on the lawn tractor as soon as I got home from work yesterday afternoon to tackle the project of cutting the grass shorter than normal for the late-season mowing session. The short cut left a lot of grass clippings behind that I am going to need to sweep up.
In addition to the excessive clippings, the early cold snap and noticeably shorter daylight hours brought on dew that had me cutting some wet grass before I was through. The amount of grass stuck to the bottom of the mower deck was epic. I disconnected the mower from the tractor and struggled mightily to lift the deck for cleaning. It weighed a ton!
The whole project was a little too much for the short time I had available, so the finishing touches will come later. I still may end up needing to cut some areas another time before winter, but I’m hoping most of the mowing is now done for the season.
I’m at that point of wanting to use up the last of the gas in the mower before parking that tractor for the winter.
When I was cutting down by the labyrinth, I had to work around a couple of rocks that had tumbled from one of my recent precarious balance installations.
It’s all good fun until you neglect to pick up the fallen rocks. Those two have returned to ground level and interfered with grass cutting in the vicinity. Far be it from me to stop and get off the tractor to move them. I just forged ahead, cutting around the obstacles to keep going uninterrupted.
During our work down at the labyrinth last week, I took a picture of the center boulders and the miscellaneous additions scattered around them.
It wasn’t getting much attention during our sessions of adding rocks to the path borders, but it is the center point destination of the journey inward, after all.
The future star of the labyrinth garden, that maple tree we transplanted to the middle, will someday, long after I’m gone, tower over the paths.
Maybe by that time, the shade it will provide can dissuade the grass from growing so fast beneath its branches.
I will be happy if we’ve already made the last cut of labyrinth grass for the season. We will be making tracks in snow down there again before too long.
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Purple Sky
I’ve seen some amazing images of what the daylight looks like in Oregon and California this week with the smoke from all the fires. We don’t have anything like that here, but something gave our sunset some added color last night.
Was it the filter of light all the way from the west coast?
While heat and flames were raging across the states in the west, Minnesota set a record for the lowest maximum temperature on September 9 yesterday. We may have areas of frost by the time the day dawns this morning.
What a difference location makes.
Delilah Helping
While Cyndie and I were playing around with building more robust stone borders in the labyrinth over the weekend, we enjoyed some special company from Delilah. Even though she couldn’t pick up any of the rocks, she made a very notable point of being as present as possible in a clear gesture of moral support.
Normally, when we secure her leash somewhere while we are focused on a project, she sets off exploring every distance she can reach, seeking out any potential burrs she can collect in her thick coat or digging ferociously after some tunneling rodent in pursuit of entirely selfish entertainment.
On Labor Day Monday, she came over as close to “in my way” as possible, at the farthest reach of the leash that strained against her harness, and laid down to “supervise” my work. It was such uncharacteristic behavior, I paused to take a picture of her.
I didn’t realize at the time that I was also going to capture Cyndie in the background setting down a rock the size of the soccer ball with such little apparent effort that it looked to be as light as a soccer ball, too.
I assure you, none of the rocks that size were light. My back and legs second that assurance. We moved some heavy stones over the weekend.
We worked so hard, I think we tired out Delilah.
A short time later, I noticed she had laid her head down, using a rock for a pillow, and closed her eyes for a little nap, still at the far reach of her leash.
I think she was telling us the labyrinth is a very comfortable place to be.
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Balance Lost
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I arranged three stones as an example of how they can be stacked.
While taking a picture, I also captured an example of how they can fall.
It’s a temporary art form, after all.
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Second time’s the charm, though.
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Chick Socializing
Was hangin’ out with the chicks yesterday to further our ongoing exercises of socializing them to be friendly with people. I served up some extra treats in my palm that brought everyone up close for a piece of the action.
Those who didn’t want to fuss with the crowd wandered around behind me to peck the rivets on my pants.
All four breeds are developing nicely and everyone appears to be getting along reasonably well. We’ve reached a plateau of little change in our daily operating procedures for them that will likely last weeks. We are under the impression that they need to grow closer to the size of the adults before we take out the divider in the coop and merge young with old.
There are signs of a comb beginning to show above the beaks of all of the chicks, but one girl, in particular, is well ahead of the rest. One of the New Hampshires has me wondering if it’s possible she’s not actually a girl.
This one has always been bigger than all the others and already has both comb and wattles well developed. If we start hearing some crowing sounds one of these days, it will be a confirmation. Either that or we could be getting our first new eggs much sooner than anticipated.
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Heavy Lifting
For our Labor Day holiday three-day weekend during this pandemic, we have chosen to stay home but we wanted to spend some time together working on a project that was as much fun as it was a productive accomplishment. With no negotiation required, we both felt an equal desire to put some focus on collecting more rocks for our labyrinth.
There are several very old stockpiles of rocks in our woods from past farmers clearing their fields that we periodically mine for ideal specimens. It is difficult work because the adjacent wooded acres have expanded to swallow the piles and years of accumulating sediment have buried all but just the top portion of some wonderful rocks that need to be excavated.
Since the extra effort it takes to get rocks from these locations tends to limit progress at any given time, we expanded our range yesterday to piles on the edge of our neighbor’s property so we could make a bigger impact on the labyrinth enhancement. It paid off handsomely.
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It was quickly apparent how much the previous rocks defining the labyrinth path have settled into the earth, some almost disappearing from sight.
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I don’t know why I would choose to wear a white shirt to wrestle rocks all day long. That’s an image of a guy who hugs dirty rocks.
By the end of the day yesterday, we were physically exhausted but emotionally energized to see a least two rows improved one step closer to the vision we share of how we’d like the borders to look someday. It will continue to be an ongoing project that advances in fits and starts.
Like building a jigsaw puzzle, the urge to make progress arises in proportion to the progress recently made. This morning, all I want to do is go back down there and add more rocks.
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Old Friends
Yesterday, Cyndie was in the vicinity enabling her to pay a visit to our horses at their current home a couple hours west of us. I am living the experience vicariously, aided by pictures.
That’s Cayenne and Dezirea who were in a corral of their own for some respite from harassing suitors seeking to be primary keepers. These ladies can definitely fend for themselves, but a little break from others is something we could all use from time to time.
At the time, Cyndie didn’t spot Hunter, but learned later he was off in one of the much larger pastures.
They looked great. Cyndie was able to untangle Dezi’s perpetual snarl in her mane.
I can tell it was a little heartbreaking for Cyndie, but still energizing to be with them again. Coincidentally, I found myself pausing in a walk with Delilah at about the same time Cyndie was with the horses, stooping to pull thistles that were overgrowing an old pile of manure in the large paddock.
I must have been feeling the reconnect they were enjoying and was drawn to the place they formerly occupied here.
Love those horses.
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Five Seconds
From the looks of the scene by the barn where Cyndie has been leaving a feed pan for the three hens, wild critters around here appear to adhere to the ol’ five-second rule when it comes to food touching the ground. By that, I mean they are showing no interest whatsoever in the copious amount of spillage kicked out and lying on the ground everywhere around the vicinity.
All-day long there are a variety of squirrels and birds that stop by to feast from within the pan of chicken food beside the waterer. Not once have we found them picking up the stuff that has fallen on the ground.
There’s a big pigeon that comes from the barn and occasionally tries to bully the hens over access to the good stuff still in the pan.
I don’t know why the overnight raccoons are steering clear. I’m even surprised there isn’t a passing dog that has trespassed in the night. No signs of any coyotes, nor skunk or stray cat. Not even deer, who wander around in groups almost every night.
All of those are creatures we have seen visiting our land over the years. None of them seem to like eating chicken food that has been laying in the dirt for more than five seconds.
Who’d of guessed they would all have such highfalutin’ standards?
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Relative Something 
Trigger Words
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It’s so transparent, the malevolent words inserted as a preface to the targets of his greatest fear in any given moment. It’s a glaringly obvious tactic that is an essential weapon in every middle school bully’s arsenal.
“…radical Democrats!,” he emphasizes, striving to make them universally synonymous.
“…China virus,” he repeats in hope of deflecting blame as far away from his shoulders as possible.
He wants everyone to hear these trigger words, sympathizers, and nemeses alike.
He wants the descriptors to provoke. Who wouldn’t? I’d like to win the middle school war of words, too. Then you wouldn’t need to actually proceed to the playground fistfight that is the next result, if it came to that.
When I am tired, behind the wheel in the long commute at the end of a grueling day at work, and a soundbite plays on the radio before I can react to mute it, I am triggered to anger over the disingenuous conflations that sorrowfully smear the citizens of this democracy whose constitution he took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend.
“…anti-American protestors…” he rails while conspicuously and purposefully avoiding mention of the victims of the racially unbalanced excessive use of force by white police officers across the country that is sparking marches in the streets here and around the world by such wide cross-sections of populations as to be beyond grouping any more specific than “citizens.”
Imagine, if we could only see what his other hand is doing to the pocketbooks of the 99% while he keeps all eyes and ears on his latest tweetstorm or disinformationbook post.
I urge all voting citizens of the United States of America to look beyond the partisan rhetoric, be smarter than any social media misdirections, and give your attention to the question of where the money is going. What is the national deficit? How will you afford health care and housing and transportation when an unmanaged pandemic is raging? How will our government address the maintenance needs of our aging infrastructure in the face of a changing climate?
Vote sensibly. Don’t fall for the trigger words our middle-schooler-in-chief is trying to sell.
There are blue skies out there if we can find a way to all reach them together.
That’s the place our chickens want to go, I can tell by the way they all look at it when they settle down on the roost at dusk.
Well, that is, except for the ones that are determined to perch upon the highest possible spot they can fit on for now…
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Written by johnwhays
September 3, 2020 at 6:00 am
Posted in Chronicle
Tagged with bullying behavior, commentary, disinformation, histrionics, language, manipulation, opinion, rant, rhetoric, trigger words