Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Bang. Ouch!
This morning, the horses grazing in the arena space to the choral serenade of innumerable songbirds was right up there on a list of top idyllic moments we enjoy at our Wintervale paradise.
That is in stark contrast to the anxious drama that played out yesterday.
It started normal enough, but quickly shifted when a startling accident drew blood. For me, it was the sound that was most unsettling. The cries and curses, and then the flowing blood were all more of a given, considering the indescribable sound of impact and the reaction it unleashed.
I rushed over to Cyndie’s aid and worked to calm her while I recovered her glasses and guided her out from under the willow tree and up the driveway to the house. I had immediately placed my hand over her bloody forehead and then told her to use her own hand to keep pressure on the wound while we walked.
Not having taken time to immediately inspect the source of all the blood, I imagined a series of possibilities while we walked. I was also factoring in a potential trip to an emergency room to get her stitched up. Luckily, that turned out to be unnecessary.
Today is Cyndie’s birthday. She has given herself a hell of a black eye for the occasion. That, and a story to tell.
I’m not sure it is my place to reveal the full detail of her foible, but let’s just say you have probably witnessed the scenario play out on a few cartoons or slapstick episodes of Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges.
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Wish her a happy birthday. 🙂
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Feeling Summer
I like the simple designation of meteorological seasons by month, over the astrological solstice and equinox markers. My brain senses the longest day should mark the middle of summer and the shortest day, the middle of winter. By meteorological reference, summer happens in June, July, and August.
It sure felt like summer on the second day of June this year. Last night, as we tried to cool the house by opening windows to the evening air, the enticing sounds of heavy, distant rumbling thunder rolled slowly closer and closer. Eventually, we enjoyed an almost gentle thunderstorm that this morning has left barely a trace of its visit.
Except for the amazing response of growing things. Our landscape is under siege.
Just beyond our deck, the previous prominent low spruce is getting swallowed by ferns from behind and volunteer cedar trees from the front. The clematis on our trellis is being crowded out by a volunteer maple that decided to make itself at home there.
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I don’t understand why the scotch pine to the left of the trellis is so anemic. Everything around it is growing fast and furious. It is possibly being hindered by the same affliction taking down so many of our long needle pines.
The ornamental reeds in our little garden pond are spreading themselves well beyond the edges, giving the impression they will soon fill the space if left unhampered.
Meanwhile, the climbing vines are voraciously trying to blanket all of our trees, the unwanted grasses taking over our pastures, and poison ivy is thriving like you wouldn’t believe.
What’s a gardener to do? I tend to prefer a hands-off approach to the nature-scape, but we are finding the land inundated with invasives and trouble-makers that require decisive action. Desirables like maple trees are sprouting in places where they don’t belong, and though prized, will become problems if neglected.
I must overcome my reluctance and sharpen my skills of seek and destroy, or at least aggressively prune, prune, prune.
In the same way we wish broccoli tasted like chocolate, Cyndie and I are wishing the desired plants would simply crowd out weeds to the point all we needed to do would be a little cutting of the grass and lounging in the garden.
All you folks wanting to suggest we get some goats… it is increasingly weighing on my mind. Maybe I will try renting some for a trial run.
There just aren’t enough hours in a day for us to manage the explosion of growth summer brings.
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Candle, Burning
Ends, both.
I’m gaining some sense of what life is like for a lot of the farmers around here. Most of them whom we have come to know have non-farming jobs in addition to the crop and livestock work they do.
My day-job has gotten so intense, I’m puttin’ in hours today, even though it’s Friday, a day I don’t usually go in. At the same time, our ranch work is peaking, with the unbelievable spring growth about doubling the size of green things every two days.
The second I got home on Wednesday, I hopped on the borrowed John Deere lawn tractor and struggled till dusk to knock down the too long and too thick grass that hadn’t been cut since the old Craftsman engine popped a gasket two weeks ago.
Yesterday, same routine, different tractor. I walked in the door from work, stripped off the clean clothes and donned the grubs to crank up the brush cutter on the diesel. It was dry enough to cut the hay-field. Not for hay, but for the sake of mowing down weeds before they can mature.
We plan to mow that field short all summer long, hoping to give the grass a better chance at beating out the weeds. It’s a simple method that we have chosen in place of applying chemical weed killers. Just requires a little more patience, and an alternate source of hay bales for a year. We think we have both.
What I don’t have is, enough sleep.
Luckily, I’ve got incredible support from Cyndie, the energizer bunny. She is doubling her efforts to tend to the trimming up and down fence lines, while caring for all the animals, maintaining the labyrinth, buying supplies, Avenging poison ivy, watering and feeding our transplanted maple tree, and keeping me indescribably well fed.
Speaking of caring for our animals, I caught a picture of her the other day, giving Legacy a massage. That was about the same time I spotted the chickens hanging out on the bottom board of the paddock fence.
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That’s all I have time for. There’s work to be done!
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Couldn’t Resist
Obsessive? Perfectionist? Linear? I just can’t help myself.
Last night I was preparing the post for today (June 1st!), giving a shout out to the PBS program, “Food – Delicious Science,” and in my over-tired stupor, inadvertently clicked the “Publish” button a day early.
So what? Who would even notice?
I would.
It messes with my order. I figure the mistake was a good indication of how excited I was about sharing the word on the incredibly informative program. It may also be a way to nudge me toward observing and contemplating my incessant drive to maintain a regular order of one-post-per-day. Or, it could simply be a result of not getting enough sleep at a time when my poor little brain is under a lot of stress.
Regardless, without this silly little addition to fill in the gap, June 1, 2017 would have looked as though there was no post on Relative Something. An aberration! Now, you and I understand that wasn’t the case, but what about others who stumble upon this place? I have to consider them.
So, instead of letting it go and getting on with important things, I gave in to the urge to right the wrong. Think about that.
Happy (extra post) June first!
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That John W. Hays.
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Buying Time
By the grace of a friendly and helpful next door neighbor, we have bought some time to find out whether the engine in our lawn tractor is worth repairing or not. If not, we need to buy a replacement mower. In the mean time, we have been granted the use of an old John Deere 318 that burns a little oil to cut our grass while awaiting the ultimate solution.
I was getting desperate. Some of the areas that hadn’t been cut at all when our engine failed back on May 19th were getting so tall I was worried the borrowed mower wouldn’t be enough for the job. Alas, my fretting was unwarranted.
This Deere was up to the task. The weak link in the system was the novice operator. I struggled to get used to the biggest difference between this one and ours: a lever on the console for forward and reverse control, versus simple foot pedals.
I breathed a sigh of relief when, having mowed until light faded, I ended without incident.
Exciting as it was to be able to cut the grass again, it paled in comparison to the thrill over reports from visiting Elysa and Ande about their surprising interaction with the chickens. Well, one of the Barred Plymouth Rock chickens, in particular.
As they explained it to me, Elysa crouched down among the chickens and the friendly bird hopped up on her knee. Then it kept going and hopped up on her shoulder.
When the rest of the chicks wandered away, Elysa tried walking –bent over for her passenger– to keep the loner from getting left behind. Much squawking ensued.
I guess we’ve done something right in the realm of socializing our birds to interaction with humans. I sure hope they are adept at figuring out the difference between friend and foe when it comes to non-humans.
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Resume Ranching
It was a pleasing relief to return home to find our ranch-sitter, McKenna, hadn’t needed to deal with any missing chickens over the holiday weekend. Delilah needed a prompt from her to get up and greet us, but Pequenita practically molested me with affection when I walked in the bedroom.
Cyndie gave the horses a few moments of massage and in a flash we were back in Wintervale Ranch mode.
Once again, before departing for home, we dug up a few trillium plants to be transplanted into our woods.
In the past, we spread them out to several different areas, planting in groups of three. Most of those seem to be surviving, but not necessarily thriving. Yesterday, Cyndie agreed with my idea to put all nine of this year’s selection in one area, with the hope of establishing a little community of transplants.
In the two-and-a-half hour drive home, the plants took on a rather droopy appearance, but after getting them in the ground and adding a little water, they showed signs of perking up a bit.
After work today, I’m hoping to connect with a neighbor who might be able to provide a loaner lawn tractor so I can get grass cut at least one time while awaiting news on the status of our machine.
I stopped by the shop where we took the mower last week, hoping to find out if they had looked at it yet. They hadn’t. I pleaded with the man behind to counter to sneak in a preliminary analysis for me, so I could know as soon as possible whether I needed to be ordering a new replacement, or not.
On Friday, upon arriving in Hayward on the way to the lake, we stopped at Coop’s Pizza for lunch. I told Cyndie that a guy who looked like the man I talked to at the repair shop had just walked in with a family group. As we were driving out of the parking lot, Cyndie read the name of the repair shop out loud.
My initial reaction was to think, “They have a shop up here, too?!”
No, she was reading the information off the door of the guy’s company SUV in the parking lot. That was all the evidence I needed to tell me my sense of recognition was right on.
I sure hope he and their crew will resume repairing today, and that I might get a call with an estimate. It would help me greatly as I resume ranching duties, joining Cyndie when I get home from work.
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Other Views
There used to be two pine trees above the pond fountain, but they were outgrowing the space available and not really thriving, so Cyndie’s parents had them cut down. In a moment of inspiration that is very familiar to me, they chose to leave a few feet of the stumps as pedestals. It’s a perfect spot for a couple of flowering plants.
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With the trees gone, I was able to capture a rare view of the “cabin” from the back side.
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I arrived to the house from that direction because I had been walking through some of the trillium carpeted woods that surround us. This forest is one that feels so perfect for me. There are other natural landscapes over the world that are spectacular, but these trees and all that comes with them resonate the most profoundly with my soul.
I must have spent a few past lives in places just like this. I know the smells and the sounds, the colors, the critters, and the majority of growing plants somewhere deep in the cells of my body.
There are many a days when I dream of what this area was really like when the first tribes of people were able to call this home, long before the time when logging on an epic scale ravaged the growth.
I’m particularly pleased with the “Wildwood” name this property holds. It couldn’t feel more appropriate.
The stroll that brought me through these trees had started down at the beach, below the front side of the house. Camera in hand, I walked onto the footbridge that crosses our little boat lagoon and looked out at the lake and up toward the lodge.
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These are both views I don’t usually capture. As leaves open, the sight lines will become more obscured. The views are no less spectacular, but the camera doesn’t come close to what the eyes perceive.
I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be able to visit this space in person, where I can see, smell, hear, and touch a natural environment to which my soul feels so emotionally attached.
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Precious Getaway
We are so lucky to have people who are willing and able to take care of our animals for enough time to allow us to get away to the lake place every so often. It is our Memorial holiday weekend in the U.S. and for the second time in three weeks, we are again up at the lake place.
This time, we are without Delilah. She stayed home to be with our very capable recent college graduate, McKenna. Two of Cyndie’s brothers are up here with kids, and her parents as well. We got the weekend off to a very festive start by venturing out to the Lost Land Lake Lodge for the Friday night fish fry.
The place was hopping and our server was a real charm. Food was perfect in every way and the family banter was wonderfully entertaining. It was almost enough to entirely purge the lingering mental distractions of the day-job, where business has gotten so good (busy) it’s getting annoying.
Before the night was over, I had already lost two completely different card games. It didn’t bother me one bit. The precious ambiance was all the victory I needed for putting me in my happiest of places.
A precious getaway is an amazingly priceless luxury. This one is certainly more than I deserve.
As it fills my cup to overflowing, I will send the extra love out to you and the world to distribute and amplify all that is good.
It’s the least one can do for a world that too often seems out of our reach to help.
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Coming Together
I was keeping Delilah tied close to me while cleaning up around the paddock, partly to keep her out of trouble with the horses, but also because I don’t want her venturing to the full reach of the leash, scouting chickens. She seems to understand the drill.
After retrieving her from the kennel located behind the house, we walked along the back pasture fence line toward the chicken coop. I had already checked on the chicks earlier, so knew where to expect them. Keeping myself between the chicks and Delilah, we strode parallel to the coop where I stopped to put the memory card in the trail cam for the night.
She was appropriately curious, but not frantic over the presence of the birds. I doubt she will ever reach a point where she would let one of the birds walk into her space without attempting to grab it, but it feels nice to have her practicing a respectable level of calmness with them in view.
In the paddock, I had my attention on the task at hand, letting Delilah explore the immediate vicinity around me. When she stopped and stared, I looked up to find the chicks making their way over from the coop to join the horses for some short grass grazing.
Although separated by safe distances with Delilah restrained on the leash, it felt good to have us all coming together in the paddock. It was a hint of the ideal we wish could somehow come to be.
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Joking’s Over
Last weekend, while spending extended time with friends in our home, I came to realize from some comments that I tend to paint an unbalanced portrait of Delilah, which leans toward the harsh. As recently as two days ago I posted a picture that I intended as humorous, giving her a thought bubble that played on my tendency to trumpet her carnivorous nature.
By frequently referring to how ferocious she can be, I have been neglectful of her gentle side. Our little pooch presents with a happy-go-lucky gentleness more often than not. In fact, it is probably why I don’t tend to write much about it. Her good behavior is so common as to become overlooked. We take it for granted.
It’s the exceptional moments of craziness that grab all the headlines.
Well, it’s hard not to write about the exceptional moments.
Today, I am feeling some regret about my attempt at humor over Delilah’s interest in our chickens.
Yesterday morning, while Cyndie was cleaning up under the overhang of the barn, Delilah could hold back no longer. She lunged hard enough against her leash anchor to break the handle and bend the hook it was hanging on. The handle banged against the siding of the barn and caused the horses to jump, alerting Cyndie to go check on what happened.
In that flash of seconds, we lost our first chicken to a predator. A domestic predator.
We knew all along that having free-ranging chickens around Delilah was high risk, but we simply hoped for the best. It seemed that our gradual controlled exposure to their presence was being accepted with surprising calmness, between bouts of excessive interest.
We knew she wasn’t to be trusted yet, but there were enough moments when she was demonstrating appropriate acceptance of the chickens that we felt hopeful about the chances of further improvement.
We don’t fault her for acting on her natural instinct. Delilah has given us a chance to more closely consider the delicate balance of predator/prey relationships. She is also forcing us to renew our attention to directing her exactly in the manner we need her to behave.
It’s not the dog that needs the most training. It’s her handlers.
To her credit, Delilah’s choice of victim turned out to be the extra Rhode Island Red from the batch of 10 we received for our purchase of 9 chicks. We are now down to three each of the 3 breeds we ordered.
Maybe yesterday’s incident will help me to think twice about joking over Delilah’s carnivorous ways in the future, but I’m guessing my writing will still highlight more of her wild behaviors than her quiet moments. It’s the nature of this beast.
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