Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Night Sky
Last week, Cyndie and I wandered down the driveway to the high spot beside the hayfield about a half-hour after the sunset to watch the stars come out. We were seeking to view the comet, Neowise as it appeared to our northwest. It was the time of night when the mosquitos were thrilled to welcome our presence.
For that reason alone, I chose to remain standing (and walking back and forth) on the pavement instead of stirring up any additional flying terrorists from the fields on either side.
As the duskiness progressed, I struggled to perceive stars that Cyndie was noticing. The first spot of light I picked out was the planet Jupiter according to the night sky app on my phone. I was surprised about how long it seemed to take for the stars to appear even though we enjoy a luxury of having very little in the way of local nighttime light pollution.
It quickly became apparent to me that my peripheral vision was picking up more specific starlight than my direct gaze. That became my trick to spot Neowise before Cyndie did, just about a full hour after sunset.
It was the tail of the comet that my off-center vision detected. It stood out uniquely compared to the individual dots of light from stars. Once we knew exactly where to look, our binoculars provided valuable magnification to fully appreciate the view of Neowise.
By the time it showed up, we’d been staring at the sky so long my neck was tired, my back and ears were over-stimulated by mosquito irritations, and my eyes wanted to be asleep, so we didn’t linger long enough for the view to glow with adequate visibility for a photograph.
The reward of having looked directly at something passing through our inner solar system which wouldn’t return for many lifetimes (estimated 6,766 years from now) was plenty.
I was ready for bed.
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Eight Days
Yesterday, our chicks reached the mighty age of eight days old. I recorded another video for Judy.
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I’m afraid there is one chick who has not kept up the pace of growth with the rest of the brood and that may spell doom for her, in terms of longevity. Otherwise, the rest are exercising their little wings and sprinting about, eating and drinking with gusto, and appear to be having a rollicking good time with their present confines.
We are not counting the eggs that they will eventually produce yet, but we are feeling hopeful for their chances of growing to the next level.
Oh, they grow up so fast.
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Star Baker
This week’s star baker on the Wintervale Baking Show is, Cyndie!
She nailed the technical challenge and remembered to proof the dough and chose a perfect combination of organic berry flavors for fillings.
The White Pine Berry Farm called again, this time with a request for full pies. Cyndie was more than happy to oblige and I was the beneficiary of testing tastes. Try as I might, I always fall ridiculously short of copying the expert critiquing commentary Paul Hollywood dishes out on The Great British Baking Show.
I think it’s my lack of that accent.
That, and I have a vested interest in preserving our marriage.
My beloved multitasked caring for her 13 [Hah! Baker’s dozen!] baby chicks in the brooder down at the barn throughout the day while also flinging flour, measuring butter, and exercising the oven door hinge back in the kitchen.
Oh, and throw in serving up parmesan chicken for dinner, during which we checked out the local PBS rebroadcast of the season 3 quarterfinals of the GBBS.
It sounds exhausting, but she is not the only one working hard around here. I had to drop everything I was doing after dinner last night just so I could join her in the kitchen to test samples of her lemon-blueberry, and the strawberry crumble pies.
“Take that!” mister precisely measured reduced-sugar diet guy.
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Wagon Wheels
All these years, I’ve been walking past them. Mounted as handrails on either side of the steps to our front door are two wagon wheels.
They don’t actually make for great handrails, so I’ve never been all that enamored with them. In fact, I suspected they were simply replicas. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve never really looked at these wheels closely, despite shoveling snow around them every winter.
Last week, when Matthew was here sealing the logs of our house, he pointed out that the wheels deserved some attention, too, and that they were simply screwed into the steps with three lag bolts each. He advised I remove them to sand each one down and put a couple coats of sealer on them myself.
So, I removed them.
It didn’t take long for me to discover these are REAL wagon wheels. Given the fantastic discoveries this past February that three families of my ancestors lived just about ten miles south of here in the 1860s-70s, and that my 2nd-great-grandfather, Stephen W. Hays was a wagon maker who managed a factory that manufactured wheels… having my hands on these beautiful relics is synchronous to an exponential degree for me.
I doubt it would be possible to verify the provenance of these wagon wheels, but I’m happy to just marvel over the weird coincidence of my working on these genuine wheels, given all I’ve learned about what was happening here 150-years ago that my ancestors’ hands were involved in creating.
I’ve got a second coat of sealer to apply and then I will remount these two to the front steps, and I will never walk past them again with the same cavalier regard as I had before.
Of all the features to find mounted on the front steps of a house we bought while entirely clueless about the history of the region and my ancestors’ contributions to it… It just boggles my mind.
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Insufferable Excess
I know that I’m not a big fan of seeing countless photos of other peoples’ pets/babies/hobbies day after day so I fully understand if you groan and skim the all-too-many shots of cute fluffy chicks that will likely show up for the next few days. After that time, the pictures will reveal feathered baby birds, so at least that will be a noticeable change.
Already, the wing feathers are developing and our feathery-footed Light Brahmas are showing the beginnings of their foot coverings.
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Not unexpectedly, the chick in the most precarious condition upon arrival ended up not surviving the first day, despite the special attention we gave her. By late Saturday afternoon, we found a second chick showing signs of trouble and began steps to nurse her along, including protecting her from abuse others were dishing out as she began to falter.
The best sign we were successful, beyond the fact she was still alive yesterday morning, was when she proved equal to all the others in terms of not playing a victim and confidently pushing others out of her way when she moved about.
It is comical to watch how consistently they do two things at this age:
- Fall asleep in a split second wherever they are, be it at the feeder, in the middle of the action, or all by themselves in the distance.
- Step on each other constantly, particularly when others are down for a nap.
This is probably the reason and the necessity of their gift of being able to “micro-nap” many times throughout a day. They won’t be down very long before another comes along and walks all over them.
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Our first reaction when checking on them is to fear one or more may have expired when we find them conked out in a variety of unlikely places. It’s a good thing these naps don’t last very long. Already, when they hear our voices, they perk up and start moving about with excited energy.
One endearing maneuver they employ at this age is a leg stretch where they stop and push one foot out behind them as far as it will go. It’s as if we can see them grow a fraction bigger every time they do it.
Makes me hope they are stretching each leg equally. It’s not always obvious that they do.
This is the third year we have purchased a batch of chicks, and due to the limited availability caused by demand during the pandemic, it is the latest in the year we have been trying to care for such young chicks. Keeping the temperature in the brood at the constant desired level has been a challenge.
In early spring, we just put the heat lamp on and the chicks huddle under it when they want more warmth or wander away to cool down. Now, with the barn heating up in the daytime sun, we have to be careful it doesn’t get too hot in there. It is a little too cool with the warming lamp off and gets too hot if we leave it on.
We have to check on them frequently and cycle the lamp accordingly.
So, you get excessive amounts of photos of our chicks for a few days and we have to deal with insufferable excesses of heat.
We all have our burdens, don’t we?
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Mixed Mind
It’s a battle to maintain a positive, hopeful outlook amid a pandemic that our government has failed to effectively manage, which has our economy teetering on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, Cyndie’s garden extravaganza can be described as nothing but a bountiful success and our new brood of rambunctious chicks inspire visions of a wonderful future. 
My mood of the moment has been swinging wildly between hope and despair.
Federal secret police snatching protesters in Portland? The White House disrupting coronavirus reporting to the CDC? What is our government up to and why does there seem to be no way to enact checks and balances that once protected our democracy? Why is it that the current President has been allowed to keep his financial interests secret all this time?
Last night we lucked out once again in the stormy weather lottery. We were spared even a hint of destructive wind in the moments after warnings and radar images indicated a tornado was headed in our direction. We have yet to hear any reports of whether the vicinity around us was impacted negatively.
I can report the lightning bolts flashing dramatically in the clouds overhead were more frequent and numerous than I have ever witnessed before in my life. The constant rumble of distant thunder never once appeared to match the immediate flashes occurring directly above our location which baffled my understanding of the way things work.
I cannot fathom what actual energy was at play to generate such a dazzling display of countless electrical arcing bolts without the usual accompanying impacts of typical thunder. Just one night prior, we suffered two BOOM!s of thunder that scared me into a clench of inadvertent reaction that lasted three times as long as the explosion of thunder itself. The worst of those incidents surely was one that struck somewhere close enough that light and sound were simultaneous.
I can’t say for sure because I was attempting to be asleep at the time.
The warming of our planet assuredly is unleashing greater intensity of local storms, but each time we escape unscathed I feel a moment of hope that our destruction is not imminent. Tornadoes can be devastating, but they can also be relatively precise as to the areas of impact.
That is a little like deciding to raise free-range chickens in an area that includes foxes, coyotes, possums, skunks, feral cats, occasional passing mountain lions, neighboring dogs, and marauding raccoons.
It mixes my mind.
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Close One
That was a close one. Yesterday afternoon, our crew of one, Matthew, who is brushing on a fresh coat of sealant on the logs of our house, was taking a break for lunch when he spotted what he calls our “yardbirds.” He was watching our three chickens moseying their way through the trees between the house and the barn.
Then, he caught sight of a fox!
The report I received was that he rushed toward it and started screaming like a madman. Cyndie said he came to the house to tell her there was a fox in our trees. When she arrived on the scene, all she found were the black feathers of our last Australorp. A LOT of black feathers, spread across a significant distance.
About that time, I received a text message indicating we had lost a hen to a fox.
A couple of hours later, my phone rang with a call from Cyndie with a correction to the previous message. The Black Australorp was still alive!
She had returned to the coop where Cyndie found her nestled into one of the nest boxes. Given the near-death experience, Cyndie granted the hen a free pass to stay in the box for as long as she wanted. There were no visible signs of trauma.
Much later, at dusk, I checked on the three chickens while closing the coop for the night. Much to our surprise, I found the Australorp perched on the roost beside her trusty companions, looking fit as a fiddle.
In addition, I found she had laid an egg while recovering her wits in the nest box.
That’s one tough hen.
Logic tells us that fox will return, so we may need to confine the birds to quarters for a while until we figure out some kind of plan.
We were already intending to install a fenced-in run area outside one of the coop doors in preparation for the new chicks. They are due to arrive today and will spend their first month or so in the brooder with supplemental heat, so we thought we had some time before needing to reconfigure the coop.
That schedule will change now that the fox is paying visits in broad daylight. Free-ranging may need to be curtailed for a while until we build a protected space where they can do some not-as-free-ranging.
Meanwhile, we have returned to arguing with ourselves over whether to get a rooster for protecting the hens, or not. That is an unlikely solution for us, but we occasionally revisit the idea to make sure we still feel the same way.
Our precious layers deserve some support in terms of protection, so if not from a rooster, we’d like to figure out a viable alternative.
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Several Routines
As I was going through my usual work-week routine last night, preparing my breakfast and lunch for today, this is what I observed: I have a tendency for routine. Every night before work, I take steps to support my quick departure the next morning at an early hour to beat traffic in my long commute to the far side of the Twin Cities.
In the morning, all I need to do is get dressed and go, after waking and going through my planking and stretching routine. My clothes were selected the night before and my breakfast and lunch foods prepared in advance.
My process for preparing my foods for the workday is equally routine.
I precisely measure my serving of cereal for the morning breakfast to stay below my threshold for added sugar. The amount of yogurt that I serve with my cereal is only a fraction of the amount in a typical “single serving” package. There is a perfect-sized spoon I like to use for this small serving of yogurt.
Since I do this routine repeatedly, I don’t simply put the spoon in with dirty dishes when I am done with it. I wash the spoon and place it back in the silverware drawer, but not just anywhere. I slip it beneath all the other various spoons of that style so I can be sure to find it the next day.
Some have a smaller scoop. Some have longer handles. Those aren’t the ones I want.
I do this because, if I leave it right on top, the odds are high that Cyndie will take it next time she is looking for a spoon.
Seems simple enough at this point, I hope. However, this plan doesn’t always produce the desired results.
Very often, when I reach in to grab “my spoon,” it’s not there on the bottom anymore.
Why not?
I’ve talked with Cyndie about it, and she has no clue.
In my head, I picture her reaching in and grabbing whatever spoon is on top at the time. This shouldn’t mix the order enough to dislodge my carefully stowed particular spoon.
Must be some other mysterious law of physics I know nothing about.
Now, by this point, you must be imagining any number of easy alternative solutions to avoiding this problem of keeping track of one specific spoon. I could tie a ribbon on the handle. I could place it in a different location away from the other spoons.
I know.
But, honestly, this situation doesn’t even deserve the number of words I’m wasting on it here. If I seriously fretted over this, I could easily come up with a more permanent solution. It’s become more of a game for me to see if the spoon will be there, or not.
I’m intrigued by the odd phenomenon.
And look, it provided fodder for another of my ROUTINEs: writing a daily blog post.
Obviously, I have a tendency for routine.
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Stinky Year
Look at it this way, today it is the fifteenth day of July, so we are halfway through the month that comes after the midpoint of the year 2020. All this whining about 2020 being so problematic will be over before you know it. We can stop wondering about what the next calamity could possibly be and start marveling over how we got this far without throwing in the towel.
Unless you happen to have school-age children, that is, and have no idea how to cope with more distance learning in the fall. Or if you got sick with the coronavirus. Or you are out of work due to the pandemic. Or lost your medical insurance because you no longer have a job. Or you can’t pay your bills because you didn’t qualify for financial assistance.
In the wee hours before waking yesterday, I experienced the most vivid dream where I found myself in the midst of my high school classmates in something of a reunion gathering. I am curious about what threw my mind into that reconnection with my school days. In classic dream fashion, by daylight, I lost the gist of what I was thinking and feeling about the situation while the dream was underway, but was left with the vague pleasure of having been among peers I haven’t seen lately.
Maybe it’s a mental defense mechanism for escaping the shelter-in-place mindset of the pandemic.
Cyndie has been up at the lake for the last two days and she took Delilah with her. It has been refreshingly calm at home on my own after the day-job. The cat and the chickens don’t ask for much from me, so it has felt like a little vacation.
Of course, the pesky wildlife hasn’t taken any time off. For two nights in a row, I found our kitchen compost bin had been abused and separate access panels forced open so they could ravage the rotting goods. Last night, I wrapped it with a ratcheted tie-down strap to secure the doors from opening.
Let’s see the little raccoon claws loosen a ratchet mechanism.
Yesterday morning on the drive to work, a young-looking fox trotted across the road just around the corner from our property. Luckily for us, that enemy-of-hens was headed in the direction of a neighboring property where egg-layers roam freely.
Later, as my car approached a fresh road-kill, I centered my tires to miss the mess and held my breath. Before I even started to resume breathing, I felt the acrid fumes in my nostrils. I was afraid to inhale, but I had to.
Fresh skunk. Reeeally fresh. Ow.
At least 2020 is over halfway to the history books. The whole year seems to have a general stink to it.
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