Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Odd Behavior
After setting out a pan of feed for each horse after work yesterday, I walked down to close the gate to the hayfield, passing by the raised circle I had covered with lime screenings just over two weeks before. It’s a little surprising to me that the horses had, for the most part, stayed off the new covering. There were just a couple of light hoof prints from one horse where it had tested a small portion that had been tamped down by my feet.
The majority of the circle had been left to cure naturally in the rain and sun, because I didn’t have the time to press the rest of the area out, one little boot print at a time. Suddenly, I felt moved to spontaneously pick up where I had left off.
While they munched on their feed under the overhang, I meticulously began a ridiculous dance of baby steps across the circle. Occasionally, I would resort to hopping up and down in order to put increased pressure on spots that seemed to need it.
Always curious about every project we get involved in, the three chickens quickly arrived to investigate the scene. The flat lime screenings didn’t appear to harbor any crawling creatures, so they busied themselves with the dirt around the perimeter.
A few blinks later, I gained an audience of horses, apparently just as curious with my mysterious project. Luckily, they also maintained a cautious step away from interfering with my gyrations. At about ten times my weight, they would easily cause more disruption than compaction to the relatively new surface.
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If they can stay off of it until the freshly pressed screenings have another chance to bake in the sun for a few days, there is a chance it will support them without getting all pockmarked. Actually, what would be really nice is, if they would lay down and roll around on it.
That’s not too far-fetched a possibility. I’m guessing it will look like an attractive option, once they are convinced it’s safe to walk on.
Eventually, the horses and chickens left me to my odd behavior. I hopped and baby-stepped until the entire circle had been compressed by what little force I could generate from my small frame.
A little victory in the grand scheme of things deserving attention.
Add to that, getting the windows re-installed on the chicken coop, and taking down the tarp that covered the gazebo, and we are starting to round the final turn in the slow race of preparation for winter.
For those keeping score, we are expecting some snow will be mixed in with rain that is due to visit us tomorrow and the next day.
Now that I think of it, I guess that circle won’t really be getting baked hard as cement any time soon.
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First Version
Over the weekend, I completed a first version of the stick-fence backdrop for Cyndie’s perennial garden. The most significant accomplishment was that the thing didn’t completely collapse while I was working on it. It feels as if the whole construct is like a layout of dominoes that will fail in a spectacular cascade when any particular weak point happens to give out.
That leaves me a little timid about going back and trying to remedy some of the hollow spots that were a result of my trying to utilize existing trees for support every few yards. They complicated the simple weave I was otherwise employing.
Part if me wants the random imperfections, and part of me wants to see more consistent lines. I think the imperfections will win out, because that will allow me to do nothing more with it, accepting it as is.
Sounds like it will get a workout in the wind today, with gusts possible in the 40mph range. That should be a worthy test of the weak points.
With this phase done, Cyndie was able to begin redistributing the plants that have been smooshed up against each other all summer after the big mudslide from the neighbor’s cornfield last spring.
She made me laugh yesterday when she dug up a huge mass of something that looked like a tall grass and then wondered aloud about whether it was a “weed” or something she intentionally planted a couple of years ago.
We are into the second version of the garden now, while I am hoping a second version of the backdrop fence won’t be required for a very long time.
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More Pics
Our Saturday afternoon with Mike and Barb’s grandkids was so much fun, Cyndie and I keep finding ourselves bringing up memories of the day. There were so many wonderful moments, the photos spill over from yesterday’s post to today.
Thank you to Mike for sending us these precious images to share!
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Small Happenings
There are days when the projects at Wintervale are a little less spectacular than others. On Friday, our order for a truck-load of gravel was delivered and I used the blade behind the tractor to spread it out. The results are subtle, but to my eye, it is a major improvement.
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It doesn’t make a huge functional change to life around here, but it bolsters the foundation of the rest of our operation. Infrastructure, baby!
The pile visible in the photo on the right isn’t more gravel. It’s the lime screenings that we distribute in the paddocks to improve the footing for the horses by reducing areas of mud. After heavy downpours, we use screenings from the pile to fill in the rills that may have formed.
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We had some other small happenings around here yesterday, and it made for a spectacular occasion. Our dear friends, Mike and Barb were able to bring their grandchildren, Jackson and Allie for a visit. It was a last-minute addition, and when the “surprise” opportunity was suggested to the kids, Jack’s response was, “Is it about a horse?”
By coincidence, young Jackson has a thing for horses. He also seems to have a strong intuitive sense, as well.
When they all arrived, the first order of business was to head straight to the barn from the car, instead of stopping inside the house. After a brief initial, and very cute, attention to the chickens, the horses pretty much ruled the day.
The kids took turns grooming and riding on Legacy, fed all the horses apple slices for a treat, helped with chores and feeding, and ultimately settled on reading some of the driest academic books from Cyndie’s library.
Despite Cyndie offering other options of kid books from the shelves, Jackson honed in on that section of horse books. When Cyndie was guiding them through one of the books, scanning the pictures and skimming the words, Jack wanted to know if she was “really” reading it, and where she was in the text about anatomy and physiology.
I’m not sure who had the better time, the kids, or the adults getting to witness their thrills.
Oh, there was also a dinner of some world-class grilled steaks. Thank you, for that, Mike!
No small happening, there.
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Rusty Hue
The changing season has taken a very noticeable shift in a short span of days, from brilliant to subdued, in terms of color palette. Last week, the color was electric, but yesterday the landscape looked like someone had unplugged the power and all the trees have begun to rust.
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Those pictures were taken just four days apart. Our forest is quickly becoming transparent, as you can see.
It kinda gives the impression that winter is on the way, which is mind-bending because yesterday the temperature was so summer-like. How it looked, and how it felt were not quite in alignment.
Naturally, I base my perception of what kind of weather to expect, on what I’ve experienced in the past, but the planet hasn’t been itself lately. With all that humans have done to muck up the natural order, we’ve made the art of prediction less predictable.
It has me trying to reclaim the naiveté of my youth, when I didn’t have a clue about weather and seasons. Each day was just something to be explored. I’m sure it was magical. I don’t actually recall. Though, of course, I didn’t need to plan and prepare for what would come next.
This has me longing for the benefits of childhood freedom from needing to be concerned about preparing property for the freeze and clearing snow, having enough fuel, getting vehicles winterized.
Oh, to just wake up one morning and exclaim, “Snow!” with pure joy about going outside to play in it.
That is, if it still gets cold enough for snow in coming days.
It’s getting hard to predict.
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Five Years
Happy Anniversary, Wintervale!
This week, five years ago, is when we made the big leap from the suburbs in Minnesota to the rolling countryside of west-central Wisconsin. We only moved about an hour east, but in many ways, we are a world away from our previous life.
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There is so much that I didn’t have a clue about in October of 2012 when we committed to this new adventure. Actually, that is one thing I was very certain about, …that I didn’t have any idea what would happen next.
In the five years since, we accomplished a remarkable number of things, most of them made up as we went along. There was no grand five-year plan, just a vague idea of what we thought we could do. It has really been more of a case of multiple one-year plans, each one blossoming into the next.
Honestly, we’ve had a remarkable number of successes that have fueled inspirations to take on whatever next possibility showed up in the light of each additional day.
The idea that we could even end up here in the first place was born even further back than five years ago, in September of 2010 when we traveled to Portugal to meet Ian Rowcliffe. Ian’s insights, wisdom, and initiative to nurture his Forest Garden Estate planted a seed in us that has blossomed into what Wintervale Ranch is today.
We also give a lot of credit to Tom and Sue Sherry, who helped design our layout and fencing, doing the work under their company, Best Built Fence, but becoming friends, as well. They deftly interpreted our dreams to devise a real world layout that suited us perfectly.
Honorable mention goes to nature, itself. The four seasons, the extremes of weather, and the march of time have done the most to shape this land since we arrived. From the onslaught of 18 inches of heavy, wet spring snow in the first days of May, 2013, to the flash-flooding rains of 2017, many changes are forced upon us whether we want them, or not.
The simple growth of trees becomes a striking reference of change through a span of five years.
I didn’t find an exact matching shot, but this recent picture of the mailbox with the Wintervale flag and signs caught a corner of one tree by the road that has tripled in size.
Can you spot it in the picture on the left above, to the right of the moving van backing up the driveway?
We’ve come a long way in five years, baby. Now, without a break, we are jumping into our sixth and everything is just going to keep on growing.
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Unexpected Anxiety
Back on August 1st of this year, the Twin Cities marked the tenth anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse across the Mississippi River. On Tuesday, I unexpectedly found myself remembering it again, with an unnerving amount of anxiety.
On the way home from work, driving east, past downtown Minneapolis on I94, flashing lights of a state highway patrol car caught my attention as it made its way into the flow of traffic ahead of me. Never a good sign.
Brakelights were soon to follow, quickly filling all four lanes. Eventually, I could see an overhead sign in the distance with information. An accident east of the Huron exit had closed two of the left lanes.
Traffic crawled at a snail’s pace, bumper to bumper. It was a little claustrophobia-inducing, with plenty of large trucks mixed in among the autos.
Then, I and all the many vehicles around me reached the bridge crossing the Mississippi river, just south of the 35W bridge. There we sat.
Way too long, for my comfort.
And there was nothing I could do. It became nerve-wracking. Normally, we whiz over this bridge in an instant, but now the weight of these many vehicles was a static load. The west-bound lanes were freely flowing, and I could feel the bridge shake when that traffic passed across the deck.
We progressed not in feet, but inches. The slower the progress was, the tighter the congestion seemed to get. I allowed for greater space between my bumper and the car ahead of me. Images of what it would be like to suddenly be dropping appeared in my mind.
I did not want to be stopped on that bridge –especially when surrounded by the combined weight of all the other vehicles around me.
Talk about anxiety. Imagine what that would have been like for someone who actually was involved in the 35W collapse in 2007. No thank you.
With great relief, I reached the other side of the bridge without incident. I had successfully avoided a screaming and pounding meltdown, despite an urge that lurked surprisingly close. Conscious breathing does wonders in moments like this.
A short distance ahead, I reached sight of flashing emergency lights and the traffic in the left two lanes began forcing their way, two-at-a-time into my lane. Upon reaching the location of the incident, the scene was rather odd. It’s hard to know how many responders may have already departed, but there were only two patrol cars and officers, plus a highway helper truck managing traffic.
A dramatically squished car with fluids beneath it rested cockeyed in the second lane. That was it. No other debris, no people, no tow truck. I’m guessing there was a lot of activity there while I was stuck in line for the preceding 15 or 20 minutes.
From that point, it was instantly back to highway speeds and an uneventful commute the rest of the way home, during which, I had time to think more about what people experienced 10-years ago when the 35W bridge collapsed.
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Forest Find
While Cyndie and I were perusing our woods, collecting materials for the stick fence we are making, I came upon a very picturesque tree. Well, the remains of a tree.
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As much as we like to clean out downed branches in an effort to tidy up our woods, it’s nice to find occasional examples of nature’s course playing out without our, at times, overbearing intervention.
There is something very satisfying about seeing an old tree turning back into the dirt from which it grew.
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Autumn Sunshine
This week, the weather forecast is ideal for sun and color. We are reaching the point where the tree-scape offers hardly any remaining green foliage. With evening’s arrival rapidly moving to an ever-earlier hour, the late afternoon sunshine is now putting its low spotlight on the peaking red/yellow/orange hues of autumn, illuminating them with a wonderfully amplified brilliance.
The grass isn’t showing much regard for the change of season. It is still growing like it’s early summer. Last time we had opportunity to mow, Cyndie took a crack at it, but wasn’t able to finish because the belt slipped off the pulleys.
After work yesterday, I picked up where she left off, and found the challenge of extra-long grass compounded by standing water in many places. The soaking rain we received on Saturday has yet to soak in.
A week of drying will be a timely blessing. One that comes with a bonus of some prime autumn viewing.
And for the record, the two shots above are different angle views of the same tree.
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Finishing Something
Far be it for me to stay on one project all the way to fruition. Instead of finishing the fence we started on Friday, I let the weather move my focus to something else. Luckily, the change of direction let me toward the completion of wiring AC power to the chicken coop.
Like so many other occasions, after accomplishing the hardest part of the job – like getting the wire buried between the coop and barn– I have a tendency to lose momentum. That initial dose of job-satisfaction can be enough that my sense of urgency to complete tasks dissipates.
Just when the end of a tunnel is in sight, I discover a side route that hijacks my attention.
This day, I headed back down the primary path in the tunnel of electrifying the coop.
First, I removed the panel of the circuit breaker box and made connections to a GFI breaker.
Next, I set about getting the electrical box mounted in the coop. This only required two extra trips back to the shop for tools, hardware, and a modification to the box.
Things were progressing slower than I wanted, but without any insurmountable problems. The one big interruption I needed to work around was the unplanned arrival of a chicken.
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It was late enough in the day that I assumed I wouldn’t be a bother to the chickens while I worked, but our Buff Orpington proved me wrong. She puttered around in the nest box right beneath where I was working, so I just kept at it, hoping she wouldn’t be bothered by me.
After she started to stress out a bit, I took the hint and agreed to take a break, closing things up enough to give her all the privacy I thought she might need.
For whatever unknown reason, that wasn’t enough. After watching the last quarter of the Vikings game, I came back to take my project across the finish line, only to find the hen still in the nest box. Really.
Not to be deterred, I assembled a few objects into a barrier for her so I could forge ahead with my work. It is the first time I ever listened to a chicken lay an egg.
Before the day was over, the coop outlet was live, everything was buttoned up, and all tools were put away.
Yes, finished. That’s a special level of satisfaction.
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