Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
No Snow
No snow here.
We hear that’s not the case back home.
Our return flight leaves tonight. We expect to be back to the Edina house late, where we will spend the night before facing our Monday responsibilities and then each driving home at separate times to witness the final weekend accumulation first hand.
I’ll remember this Gulf view while I’m plowing.
Truth be told, I’m actually looking forward to the task. You can take the fool away from the cold and snow, but you can’t change his love of returning to it.
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Making Do
It’s a struggle down here in Florida, coping with all this convenient weather for strolls in the sun and nights out on the town, but we are making do.
Cyndie was behind the wheel with Mike holding on for dear life. It looks like they were coming in hot and she stopped just in time, but she was actually about to back out for an excursion down to the bocce courts.
Cyndie’s mom added a little adventure to that outing by taking a tumble, and somehow, which even she can’t explain, cut her leg severely on a metal rake used to maintain the courts. Expert response by bystanders, including some nurses, offered immediate treatment and Cyndie, Fred, and Marie got to spend the afternoon at the clinic where a doctor stitched the deep gash.
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Walking the grounds we saw some remaining toppled tree stumps from hurricane Irma last summer.
Fred and Marie took us out for a night of music and food, keeping the genre a secret to surprise us with the perfectly suited personifications of Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, and CSN&Y.
The fact that there are snowstorms battering the ranch at home while we are gone is making this all the sweeter, and only slightly causing me to fret over how things are going for Mckenna.
I didn’t leave instructions on how to start the Grizzly to plow. It’s not in her job description.
She’ll just have to make do.
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Different View
Things have changed. Here are two different views.
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We arrived without any problems and are having a wonderful time with Cyndie’s parents in Florida. What a difference in atmosphere. Humidity! Warm gentle breeze! No snow!
I guess I can see the attraction.
We walked outside without putting on boots, snow pants, scarves. We just walked out the door.
It’s amazing!
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Brief Getaway
See ya! We’re outta here!
Who needs a reason? We are leaving this morning for a weekend in Florida, traveling with our precious partners in adventure, Mike and Barb Wilkus to visit Cyndie’s parents.
I expect my posts will be rather brief for the next four days, while I focus the majority of my attention on people, food, sun, surf, games, and whatever else spontaneously grabs our fancy.
Just in case, I have a series of snapshots queued up from the house and grounds in Beldenville to provide you with a daily distraction. Time will tell whether I end up inserting a few tropical surprises, too, from our weekend escapades.
A great big “thank you” shout out to McKenna for taking care of things at home for us while we are away. We couldn’t do it without you!
Bon voyage!
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Planning Ahead
I’m happy to report that yesterday’s commute went without a hitch, despite completing the last few miles home in the afternoon in an ever-increasing snowfall.
It was a busy night for me last night. After putting Delilah through a long workout with some off-trail deep snow, I needed to plow the driveway and do some shoveling, before heading inside to pack for a weekend out of town. Not just out of town, but out of state. We are flying to spend the weekend with Cyndie’s parents in Florida, traveling with our friends, Barb and Mike Wilkus.
Our trusty home and animal sitter, McKenna, has offered to cover the necessary days that will allow us to spend a night before and after Florida at Cyndie’s parent’s Edina home to maximize efficiency and minimize driving between home, work, and the airport.
That meant I needed to think about getting ready for work this morning, as well as packing for four days in Florida, and then making sure I will have everything I need for going to work the following Monday. After work today, I will drive to Edina. Cyndie will meet me there to spend the night before we head to the airport with Barb and Mike early in the morning.
We get back to the Cities late on Sunday, and will be able to avoid the long drive back to Beldenville by returning to the Edina home for the night. Monday morning, I head directly to work from there.
That’s thinking a lot of days ahead for me. So much for living in the moment.
On the walk with Delilah, we found some good evidence of the icing that was occurring on Monday. It looked like someone had painted our fence posts gray, which, humorously, was my first thought when I spotted the odd sight.
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Oh, yeah. It was just ice.
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Commuting Roulette
The latest weather adventure to appear in our region involves a mixture of freezing mist and blowing snow. I left for work early yesterday morning, reaching my destination in good time, before the precipitation started. I decided working a short day was an option if the predicted glazing played out and threatened to turn roads into skating rinks.
About three hours into my shift, speckles of moisture started coating the window to the parking lot. Balancing the radar views with an attempt to get as much done as possible, I held out until about ten o’clock. The extra minutes I needed to spend chipping the frozen glaze off my car windows helped to assure me that my decision to leave early was justified.
If I needed any more proof of that, the two separate incidents of cars having spun out ahead of me to end up on the left shoulder, facing my approaching car head on, served as adequate confirmation.
Those were the scariest, but not the last problems to be dealt with. The next challenge came with a warning, as one of the overhead signs flashed notice of an accident ahead, with an alert to prepare to stop. To my relief, the problem was in the Westbound lanes, and I was headed east.
That one was a mess that involved a jack-knifed tractor-trailer, a lot of shredded metal, and a fleet of flashing emergency vehicles.
Surprisingly, despite all these incidents, my forward progress was barely hindered most of the way home. I drove as fast as I felt comfortable and reached our driveway in an hour and a half, as compared to the usual 60 minute drive.
Just to keep me from getting too cocky, as I braked for the turn into our welcoming driveway, my car kept right on going, sliding straight past the entrance.
I backed up, made the turn, and proceeded carefully up to the house, giving heartfelt thanks to my lucky stars.
Home, safe home, where the snow fell beautifully for a while, then turned back to that freezing slurry of icy pellets alternating with an almost invisible mist.
Cyndie recorded the sound it made to walk on the crunchy surface, because it was so uncharacteristic of the normal winter snow squeaks. She described it as walking on cardboard on top of marshmallow.
I hope my car tires are up to handling that on this morning’s drive.
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Hangry Horses
Cyndie had me laughing on Friday with a message that Hunter and Cayenne had busted one of the 2×8 boards on the shared wall of their stalls.
We have had pretty good luck with minimizing the gnawing of boards on our fences and the stalls in the barn over the first four years with our horses, but in this latest stint of their being forced indoors day after day, while also getting precisely measured reduced rations of hay, the wood is finally taking quite a (b)eating.
Although it has seemed like Hunter was doing the most damage in recent days, Cayenne is not an innocent bystander. She has some history from a couple of years ago, when that board came off when Legacy was in the stall next to her. There wasn’t a lot of chewing going on, so we surmised she had simply pushed it off into Legacy’s stall.
Back then, I was able to reuse the board and put it back up, securing it with longer screws.
This time, they had done enough damage that I needed to get a whole new board.
We decided to add a metal edge to discourage a repeat performance.
The tightly controlled diet they’re on is probably going to last for a long time, if not forever, so “hangry” is something we will need to help them resolve.
It’s been a blissful treat watching them graze our pastures in years past, but the accumulating results of that luxury has not been healthy for them. Wild horses that need to cover a lot of ground to search out food and water while also moving around to manage herd safety, expend a lot more energy than our fenced herd.
Our three don’t get enough exercise to offset the abundant and lush grass that grows in our fields. They are going to need to get used to living on much smaller portions from here on out.
More immediately, I’m just looking forward to Hunter getting free of the hoof pain and being able to stay out of the barn for everything but the worst weather.
From the “hangry” wood chewing we are seeing, I’m confident in saying he is looking forward to it even more than me.
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Little Details
In the slogging day to day of experiences that are hardly noteworthy, little details can become a surprise of noteworthiness. You can’t plan it. Things just happen. The greatest value is in simply noticing when happenings happen.
Yesterday, I was walking Delilah along one of our oft treaded trails when I suddenly felt this child-like urge to toy with her as obsessively fixated on some scent. I dropped to my knees in the snow and put my head next to her, excitedly asking her what she was smelling.
She seemed a little taken aback by my odd behavior, but carried on sniffing when she saw I was just joining her in the action. I zeroed in and put my nose right at the slightly discolored spot she had been checking.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, OH MY!
Skunk!
I smelled a faint, but very identifiable scent of a skunk.
Maybe if I would put my nose to the ground in the same manner that dogs do, I would gain a much greater understanding of why she reacts the way she does on our daily treks around our land.
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Wednesday’s Sun
It was warm yesterday, but cloudy. Nothing like Wednesday’s sun.
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A Pause
Winter took a little pause yesterday and gave us a break from cold temperatures. After I got home from work, Cyndie invited me outside for a walk with Delilah.
You know those trails I packed with snowshoes last weekend? The warmth made them pretty mushy. It took a lot of slogging along to make our way around the perimeter of the pastures.
It won’t last long, but every little pause in the harsh cold deserves our full attention, especially because we know it will be short-lived. By absorbing the energy of a momentary thaw, we bolster our endurance for the rest of what winter will throw our way.
Sounds like we won’t have to wait long for the next dose of snowflakes.
Can you say, “Messy Monday?”
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