Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
My Battle
It’s Saturday. It’s the first day of July. It’s a holiday weekend in the U.S. and Cyndie and I are up at the lake. We brought Delilah with us, our trusty canine who has gotten car sick on the last two drives to Hayward. I negotiated a delayed departure from home to give me time to mow the hay-field a second time with the brush cutter before we high-tailed it for the lake.
The horses are being well cared for by Shelby, a local college student who has been helping Cyndie since the shoulder surgery. As we drove past the arena on our way out, Dezirea was gorgeously trotting laps around Shelby on the lunge line. I tend to perceive Dez as the least athletic of our herd, but she was showing no sign of any physical limitations yesterday.
After my vacation week of cycling and this long weekend away at the lake, I’m discovering an ongoing battle simmers in my mind over work to be done on our property and my precious few hours away from the day-job. As I pedaled through the countryside a couple of weeks ago, some of the prominent scenes that repeatedly caught my eye were the lawns and farm fields being mowed.
“I should be doing that,” was my first impression.
Yesterday, after extended hours of bouncing on the tractor seat over the rolling hill of our hay-field, the accomplishment was satisfying, but only served to reveal the remaining acres still needing attention. Yet, here I am at the lake while the grass at home continues to grow.
While I was on the hay-field, Cyndie worked –one-armed– to remove the webbing from fence posts around the north pasture. We are going to pull the posts, since we aren’t grazing the horses up there anymore, as this will simplify the maneuvering necessary when mowing the area. The grass there is so tall right now that it is hard to see where the posts are with the webbing removed.
My negotiations with Cyndie will resume after the 4th of July games and community dinner are over up here, to see if I can get home with hours to spare for mowing the lawn before the short work week lays claim on my time again.
I’m here, but my mind is mulling the chores needing attention at home. Nature doesn’t take a break when we decide to go on vacation.
It’s a battle.
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No Damage
There was a close call with violent weather near our property yesterday afternoon, but we squeaked by with no obvious damage. We haven’t walked through all our woods yet, but the openly visible spaces look unharmed. The worst inconvenience we faced was flashing digital clocks that were the result of a brief power outage at the height of the storm.
I was in Hudson at an annual eye appointment when the sky darkened and windblown rain pummeled the building. By the time I was ready to drive home, the sun was coming out. I had no idea a tornado had formed just a few miles northeast of our home.
Pierce County Herald: Tornado Strikes Rural Pierce County
I heard mention on the radio of severe weather nearby during my drive. That didn’t surprise me, based on the ominous looking sky I was driving toward. Luckily, the threat was moving away from me the whole time.
Tornado Touches Down in Wisconsin’s Pierce County
I want to go out and hug my trees.
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Still There
I’ve made it through two days back at work, but like many years before, my mind is still back on the week of biking and camping with friends. Those days are a powerful elixir that takes a while to wear off.
The Tour of Minnesota is holding a photo contest which provides me an opportunity to revisit the trip, with an expanded view from my own, by perusing the 200-plus submissions from fellow riders.
Here are a couple of my own shots that I liked well enough to toss into the fray…
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Lonely Three
We are really missing our lost chickens. The three that remain are doing a good job of carrying on, but we get a sense that they are still feeling ill at ease over the disruption and fatalities that befell the flock a week ago Friday. On the most recent Saturday and Sunday nights, when we arrived to close the door on the coop, they weren’t all inside.
Of course, that quickly brought on fears of another predator, but we found a favored tree branch over the compost piles has become a new alternative go-to spot.
Last night we saved ourselves the extra step of plucking them from the branch at bedtime by heading down a little early and serenading them toward the coop. A sprinkled treat of cracked corn, grains, and meal worms won their favor and lured them into the safety of their shelter.
We are contemplating a few options to fill the void and get the numbers back up. If we are lucky, the killer(s) that visited was/were not local and simply took advantage of the birds while passing through. The more ominous alternative is that it was a local predator that will return as long as we keep buying more chicks.
I need to refine my trail cam setup to improve my results of capturing uninvited intruders in the act.
Oh how I like to dream of being able to use Delilah to protect the chickens from all threats. In reality, she will never master the nuance of first protecting them from herself.
It sure is a treat to watch them pecking away at the compost pile. I like to think that each hit is one less fly tomorrow. Their efficiency may not be that high, but I’m happy to just go on thinking it is.
How would we ever know the difference?
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New Doors
Progress on the hay shed doors is coming along nicely. One of the guys installing them hollered to me while I was tending to the horses, reporting that the hay inside was looking better already.
Seriously, protecting the bales from the continued harsh exposure to the sun will go a long way to improve the nutritional quality from what we’ve been left with in the past.
These doors certainly weren’t the cheapest option, but having professionals do the work is worth every penny to me. Watching them figure out the nitty-gritty details for just a few minutes was enough to assure me I wouldn’t have come close to achieving the quality of work they are performing.
All that’s left now is to buy more hay.
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Catching Up
I’m in ‘catch-up’ mode this weekend, trying to do a week’s worth of chores around the property after my bicycling vacation. Tomorrow, it’s back to the grind of the day-job. Meanwhile, Cyndie remains tethered to one-arm limitations while her shoulder heals from the surgery.
I finished mowing and trimming the lawn grass areas yesterday, but that leaves quite a few acres of fields yet to be mowed with the big tractor and the brush cutter. It’s a jungle out there!
The horses happily volunteered to work on keeping the arena space short.
We enjoyed a pleasant surprise yesterday when a contractor knocked on our door to announce he was ready to start work on building doors for our hay shed. After a few years of watching the outside bales baked to a nutrition-less crisp of dried straw, we have settled on solid doors for a long-term solution.
The prospect of a curtain or hanging shade cloth would be a challenge to secure against the abuse of wind and sun. Rolling metal doors is our choice.
Speaking of wind, we lost two large tree branches to a gust yesterday after I mowed. I didn’t even notice the wind blowing, but the evidence is impossible to ignore in two completely different ends of our property.
Even after having the tree service trim out the risky dead wood from our large trees, there is always a threat of falling branches. Maybe we need to provide hard hats on windy days around here. Geesh.
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Tragedy Visited
I’m home again and Cyndie has everything under control, despite trying to do everything with one arm. The only difference I notice between now and a week ago when I left is the grass is long again. No surprise there. My thanks go out to all the people who helped out around here while I was off biking and camping.
The news that I shared with my fellow riders all week long was about a tragedy that happened on the Friday night that was supposed to be my first night of camping. An as-of-yet unidentified intruder decimated our chicken flock.
These three are all that we have left.
I hadn’t planned on being home at the time, but I was. With the bike tour starting less than a half-hour away from our home this year, I was able to use most of the day to finish chores, but I didn’t plan on running out of gas. The amount of time I spent getting to town and back was enough to throw my grand plan all out of whack.
Plan B involved driving to the school where the Tour started so I could get registered, then continuing on to the next exit off the interstate, where I picked up a prescription for Cyndie. With that in hand, I needed to drive back home to deliver it to her, so I decided to just sleep there and return to the school in the morning.
My sister, Mary, was over for the weekend to assist Cyndie. As I focused on packing for my trip, they headed out to close the door on the chicken coop for the night. Uncharacteristically, they found one chicken was up on our driveway by the house.
Eventually, they discovered two lifeless bodies, one inside the paddock and one just outside that same fence. Cyndie found one of the Barred Plymouth Rocks walking near the coop and got it to go inside. The one up near the driveway, the surviving Buff Orpington, was hiding in the woods and and wouldn’t come out until the next day.
I had gone out to bury the two fatalities in a compost pile and discovered the other Barred Plymouth Rock up in a tree. I was able to grab her and return her to the coop to keep the other one company for the night.
Final tally of the nine we had: two confirmed dead, three survived, and four missing in action.
Cyndie and Mary scoured the property for signs, but found no evidence to clue us in to what might have become of the others. We lost all of the Rhode Island Reds, two Buff Orpingtons, and one Barred Plymouth Rock to an unknown predator or predators.
Never saw or heard a thing, before or since. Could have been a neighboring dog or cat, or any number of wild threats. It’s possible that the some of the four missing chickens just ran away and never made it back home. I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.
It’s a risk we take to have free ranging chickens.
This morning when I wheeled a load of manure out to dump on the pile, the three surviving chickens were doing their best to dig through the compost and eat as many bugs as they could.
We’re gonna need more chickens.
I need to go mow the lawn.
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Meeting Judy
Shortly after the first time I signed up to do this epic adventure of biking and camping for a week, I learned that a cherished coworker’s sister always did the Klobuchar ride. I’d never met any of my coworker’s family, but if they were anything like Bob, I couldn’t wait to meet them.
He was more excited than me about the potential connection, and spent a fair amount of energy drilling me on details of her name so that I would remember who I needed to seek out.
Of course, her name. Then, her husband’s name. Their last name, because it was her married name and different than his. He told me I could remember the last name because it was like a Minnesota Twins ball player’s name, only with an ‘S.’
He was seriously excited over the prospect of my meeting his sister on this trip. It was infectious enough that I became just as excited over the possibility.
However, there were a lot of other details I needed to think about. I had never done this kind of thing before. I was traveling with a teen neighbor whom I didn’t really know more than passing from his role as a part-time sitter for our kids. I was also perseverating over having the right gear and packing the right clothes, not to mention where to put everything.
Honestly, Judy’s name was not on my mind as Brian and I made our final visit to the car that first Saturday morning, prior to departing with our bikes. It’s a critical moment of the trip, because it’s the last time you will be anywhere near your vehicle for the rest of the week.
Take what you need, leave the rest. Ideally, stepping away fully prepared for what lies ahead.
As we walked our bikes between parked cars toward the swelling collection of other camping cyclists –all strangers, who would soon become friends– we came upon a couple going through their similar critical last moments with their vehicle.
In a flash of inspiration, upon noticing the man was using a 12V compressor to top off the air in his bike tires, I overcame my normal reticence to bother a stranger. I figured, we didn’t know anyone on this trip, so what better time to break the ice and get over the hump than to ask if we could use his electric pump for our tires, too.
Before I got to the end of my request, I saw that he was actually winding up the power cord to put it away. He was done using it. My brain quickly chastised me with evidence that my bad timing was the very reason not to bother someone you don’t know, blah, blah, blah.
I quickly apologized for inconveniencing him, but he just as quickly talked over my hesitancy and insisted it was no trouble. The awkward start had stumbled all over the more traditional polite practice of introducing oneself, so as we crouched over bike wheels and the buzzing pump, I thought to identify myself.
He responded, “I’m Ed Beckers.”
My eyes got big. I think he wondered what he’d said. My eyes got really big.
Knowing I had the upper hand, I played it for all it was worth. What were the odds?
“THE Ed Beckers!?” with increasing animated excitement.
Confused stare.
“Ed and Judy Beckers!!?”
A woman’s face peers around the car door at this maniacal stranger exclaiming her name.
My coworker’s sister and husband were the very first people we met.
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Touring Today
Image of the author captured during the annual June ride in 2009.
This morning, specifically, at the hour this is published today, I will be packing up my tent and preparing my bag for the luggage trailer. Our gear gets transported to tonight’s campsite by truck, allowing us to enjoy the luxury of riding with minimal added weight for the entire day.
It is the start of the 2017 Tour of Minnesota bike ride.
Since this is a vacation for me, I will be extending the break from my routine to include a pause in my daily blogging habit, but don’t for a minute think I would neglect to prepare in advance for posts to show up while I am away.
Similar to years past, when I have reposted a week of revisited “Words on Images” creations, or last year’s portraits of biking jerseys, I have created pre-scheduled posts to entertain you while I’m gone.
This year, as much for my sake as yours, I am going to revisit some of my history with this annual June ride.
Since today is the start of this year’s ride, I will go back to my start as a participant in what was then commonly referred to as the “Jaunt with Jim.”
The “Jim” was Jim Klobuchar, who at the time was a columnist with the StarTribune newspaper. I had been a fan of his writing for years, as well as a long-time cyclist with a curiosity about days-long riding and camping. 1994 happened to be the 20th year he was conducting these rides, which he convinced the StarTribune to sponsor.
Their promotion of the event caught my eye at a time I was ready to give it a try. With little needed effort, I talked a neighboring 16-year-0ld to accompany me for this maiden voyage.
We made a good travel pair, despite our age difference, which freed most of my attention for discovery of the new people and experiences on the ride. One of the main things I remember about that first ride was what glorious weather we enjoyed.
It being the 20th year of this event, the majority of participants seemed to be long-time veterans, which led to a wealth of stories from their archives about the trials and tribulations of carrying all their camping gear on the bikes in most of the earlier years, as well as the varieties of difficult weather they endured on multiple occasions.
In 1994 we had it easy. It was dry, with pleasant temperatures, and on the few days with wind, it was at our backs.
That helped to plant the seed of inspiration that led to our eventual return. However, the real kicker that sealed my fate of riding again with Jim’s group was the fabulous people we’d met that first year and the amount of fun they had together as a riding and camping community.
This amazing collection of people have become extended family for me. In the middle of June, I do everything I can to be among them again, no matter what the weather dishes out.
Tomorrow… Who is the very first couple we meet?
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Perfect Weather
I am visualizing perfect weather for a week of bicycling and tent camping. It could happen.
This morning I will hope to get the property mowed at the last minute so the grass shouldn’t be too long when I return to cut it again next Friday. This afternoon I will load up my bike and gear in the car and depart for a week of vacation.
This trip may not offer much chance to catch up on sleep, but I will have ample opportunity to take a mental break from the daily grind, and I will eat and laugh heartily with some very special like-minded cycling friends. This trip is a wonderful mental vacation because I don’t need to make any major decisions. The daily meals, the route, and the camping locations are all predetermined.
I just show up and ride. Oh, maybe I will waffle over what jersey to put on each day, but that’s about as complicated as it will get. Last night, I laid out gear and clothes while trying to imagine the usual routines of the week, in attempt to prepare for everything.
I would do myself a favor to now review the choices I made and divide it in half. I don’t think there has been a year where I ever needed everything I usually pack. Last year, I tried traveling lighter than my usual. This year, I would like to improve on that.
Just hoping the days near Lake Superior won’t complicate things. That massive body of water is a very effective air conditioner and can drop the temperature dramatically if the breeze flows from the direction of the lake. Warm clothes and packing light conflict a little when it comes to my wardrobe.
Over the years, I’ve heard tales of a wide range of essential items being forgotten by participants. I would like to avoid making an unplanned purchase of a critical item, so I will be working off a cheat sheet. Oddly, it seems I have filed away my master list from the many prior years I’ve done this trip.
Making a new list. I can remember to bring everything on my list, but did I remember to put everything I want on the list? Yeah, that’s the trick.
As long as I have my bike, both wheels, my cycling shoes and helmet, tent, sleeping bag, and pad, I’m good. Other than some clothes, the rest is all non-essential. I will bring my guitar this year, though, since the weather is going to be perfect.
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