Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
More Cuttin’
I stepped out with the chainsaws yesterday and continued crafting a new pathway along our north property line. First, I worked the pole saw to bring down branches that crossed the fence line from our neighbor’s trees. This is a task that, like so many others, seems to grow as you work.
For each branch that comes down, multiple previously unnoticed smaller branches suddenly appear.
I don’t know, maybe that’s part of the appeal. The simple task becomes a drawn out project requiring an athletic endurance to complete, and offers a visual reward that can be enjoyed for months.
With the overhead branches removed, the big remaining obstacle drew my total focus: that massive downed oak, frozen in the ground and blocking passage. I’d been slowly picking away at the bark and digging away the leaves around it for days. I found there was a portion where I could saw a section that was suspended above the ground.
It was irresistible to the point I extended my work day to continue progress. I’ve now got the main section across the trail cut into pieces that will be much easier to manage, once the ground releases them from winter’s grip.
I was able to roll one piece out and tip it up on end. That inspired a couple of additional cuts on what remained, even though there wasn’t clearance from the ground. I succeeded at the cost of a sharp blade. The end of the blind cutting put my saw in contact with blade-dulling dirt.
I will spend this morning practicing the art of sharpening my chainsaw blade while the sun climbs high and warms the soil around the dwindling limbs still seized in the frozen ground. Before I do any more cutting, I plan to use shovels and pry bars in hopes of finally eliminating the last barrier across our new route behind the wood shed.
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Tree Down
Sometimes a simple walking of the dog through the woods feels more like a reconnaissance mission of surveying the ever-changing status of our property. Certainly, after a few days of strong winds there are changes to be expected, but I’ve been surprised more than once about how easy it is to miss what eventually seems to be obvious.
Did this tree make a sound when it toppled?
We didn’t hear a thing. I expect I may have walked past it one or two times in the days since the gale force gusts blasted us for hours on end last week, but yesterday as I joined Cyndie and Delilah for morning chores, I spotted it immediately as we approached.
It fell in a perfect direction to avoid getting hung up in any other trees and pointed away from the trail. With all the other downed wood from our days of tree trimming awaiting attention, it’s possible this old poplar will be left where it lays for nature to process.
If we were intent on cleaning up downed trees and branches throughout the full extent of our meager stretch of forested acres, it would be more than a full-time job for us.
In the last couple of years we have focused our attention on the patch of trees closest to the house by the barn and back pasture, picking up dead wood that has made its way to the ground.
This is the time of year, before green leaves obscure the view entirely, when the extent of branches brought down over winter is so easy to spot that it intimidates. There is so much to be picked up. It doesn’t give any impression of our having done so last year. That is, until one strolls through the forest at the west end of our land to see how much is on the ground where nothing has ever been picked up.
I wonder what a year-long time-lapse recording of the trees and ground in our woods would look like. Timed right, I bet it would appear to be raining limbs and branches.
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Stepping Out
It it possible to pull into our driveway and roll past the barn and horses with hardly a notice when they have tucked themselves under the overhang. You can make your way to the house and get inside where a comfy chair awaits, plop your butt down and prop your feet up for the rest of the night, never having any sense of what is going on outside.
I know this, because I’ve done it.
With Cyndie able-bodied again, it is possible for me to come in the house after work and crash on the recliner while she takes Delilah out for a walk and tends to the evening horse chores. When I am over-tired, it is a real blessing, but it comes with a cost.
Just a day or two away from a walk in our woods and visiting with the horses creates a surprising disconnect from the healthy flow of energy each provides.
Like so many things, I became aware of this yesterday when I needed to cover for Cyndie’s absence when I got home from work. It’s not hard to do, once you get the body in motion. After a quick change of clothes, I was out the door to retrieve Delilah from her kennel in the back yard and off we went, exploring the trails that are a strange mix this time of year. They are snowy, though melting, getting muddy around the edges, yet still frozen just below the surface.
It was a function of being out of the house again that made me realize how insulating it can be when I remain inside.
After a tour of a few trails, Delilah and I made our way to the barn. The herd was wonderfully calm and serene. I did my best to match their energy and control my excitement to walk among them again.
After I had cleaned up the area and served their afternoon feed, I paused to capture a snapshot of the landscape showing the mixture of turf and melting snow cover. Dezirea must have sensed I was standing there and poked her head out from beneath the overhang to check on me.
I was happy to include her in the shot.
You can see she is sporting a fashionable facial mud mask that she applied all by herself.
I returned to the seclusion of indoors with a renewed energy of having paid a precious visit to the paradise that is always ready and waiting. All we need to do is step into it.
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One Hour
I don’t recall whether I have officially gone on record with my thorough disliking of the practice of changing the clock one hour twice a year. Regardless whichever lame and outdated excuse is used to justify the idea, I am not the least bit convinced it has merit.
Maybe it’s the ridiculous name. There is absolutely no daylight saved by humans readjusting their clocks used to measure the hours. And I don’t like to admit how picky I can be, but the all too common habit of pluralizing the word “Saving” in the title has become like fingers on a blackboard to my ears ever since I learned about it and stopped doing so myself.
It’s only one hour, but it messes with my body clock and my feeble mind for days after the change. I should probably be more curious about why that would be, the science of it, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to interest me. I just know it does and I don’t care for it.
Leave the hours alone. Let the planet spin while it orbits the sun and keep the clocks adjusted to one reference. I don’t care whether it’s Standard or “Saving.” Just leave it the same all year round.
Please.
There. It’s on record.
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Deer Down
My suspicions about the well-being of the wind vane on our roof proved to be warranted. From the ground, before the worst winds arrived last week, I’d thought the leaping deer looked a bit tilted. Not wanting to get up on the roof to check while weather was bad, I postponed inspection and then quickly forgot about it.
Yesterday, I was strolling back toward the house from the shop and spotted something strange laying on the roof. It was our wind vane deer!
Oops.
I find it interesting that, while subject to some amazing winds, the vane failed by simply tipping over and laying right beside the base.
Why didn’t it blow far away?
Maybe it came loose after the winds subsided, but then, what made it ultimately break off?
Based on the direction from which the wind was pummeling our house, it is possible that spot on the roof was shielded from direct pressure, but that seems intriguingly unlikely.
It’s a mystery to me.
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Alternate Path
For a very long time, I’ve wanted to clean up branches and trees that have fallen on the old rusty barbed wire fence along our north property line. Doing so could provide an alternate, straighter route for our perimeter trail. Instead of passing in front of the woodshed to get to a trail head that leads down the hill away from the yard, the new path would follow the fence line behind the woodshed, and be a continuation of a trail that currently runs behind the shop garage.
We’ll need to take out a nice thicket of raspberry bushes and ultimately move sections of a downed tree that is so large, previous owners cut it up, but left the pieces in place. The sections were too large to move.
Beyond those two issues, there were only a small number of saplings to be snipped, which is probably one big reason I felt inspired to open up this pathway in the first place. It was already almost there.
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Yesterday, I started the effort, thinking it might be quick and easy, once I got out the chainsaw. It was, and it wasn’t. There were a few branches that moved easily after being cut, but there remained a surprising number of the larger limbs that were held firmly in the frozen ground.
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Since we have a wealth of branches to be run through the chipper in that area, I’m planning to bring the tractor back there anyway, so I figure the hydraulic power of the loader might be the solution to moving the heavy sections of that tree trunk.
The question I haven’t answered is whether I will have better luck while the ground is still frozen, or should wait until after the thaw.
Today may involve a test of the frozen option.
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Powerful Thoughts
Remembering things that have long ago faded from view is an art to be cherished. It does many things for us, but most significantly, it keeps alive those who are no longer physically here. Our mental processing happens the same for information arriving through our open eyes as it does for conjured memories. When we think about those who are not with us, it turns out that they actually are.
Arriving yesterday afternoon for a funeral service, Cyndie and I could feel the love and the grief before we saw it on the faces and in the hugs. Love and emotion radiates from the intensity of powerful thoughts.
Last night my dreams were as real as ever and traveled to one of my childhood homes, accompanied by faces and personalities of my present day. This morning the aroma of wood smoke from the warm flames in our fireplace reaches deep into my being and magically mixes the present moment with hundreds of equally pleasant fires of my past.
Most powerful of all, I get to choose where I will direct my thoughts to go. Shall I nurture the angst I feel over disturbing news reports and harrowing unethical prospects of late, or will I focus the power of my imagination on virtually hugging the globe and all its inhabitants in an embrace of love and compassion?
Yesterday, while editing an article Cyndie wrote, I was reminded of how much impact our mental energies have on outcomes. She described her journey of transformation in defiance of a particular diagnosis of permanent disability, choosing to purposefully embrace the power of possibility, in lieu of passively accepting untested limitations.
My mind would be far less able and aware if it wasn’t for Cyndie’s influence. I’m embarrassed for the number of years I dragged my less-enlightened self, kicking and screaming in resistance, behind her bold explorations of potential for better possibilities.
“I dwell in possibility,” she would always tell me.
“Yeah, it’s possible this could all go wrong,” would be my natural reaction.
Proof lies in the pudding, and I’ve seen enough results now to recognize the beauty of her powerful thinking.
I’m going to send my love today to those who just lost a precious relation, while also renewing the lives of members of my own family by fondly remembering them in the same way my mind did when they were here.
An amazing power, thought.
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Wicked Winds
Despite the fact we have returned to cold temperatures again, there is no snow left on the ground around here. I think the severe thunderstorm we endured in the middle of the week took care of anything that hadn’t melted in the previous two warm days.
What we do have now is a lot of added branches on the ground. If there were any dead branches missed by the tree trimmers last month, we won’t need to worry about them, because it’s likely they all blew down.
After the storm moved past, we endured two days of vicious wind. I think we experienced the highest wind gusts since we moved here. I seriously worried the roof might get ripped off the house in the middle of the night, based on the creaking and flexing noises occurring when the most ferocious sounding gusts raged.
The big victory I can report is that the woodshed stood firm under the tight grip of the anchors installed when the structure was rebuilt after the time it blew over in a storm.
With the temperatures back down below freezing, our leaking maple trees are growing sweet sap-sicles again. That’s not just because it got cold, but also because the wind stopped blowing the drips away before they could freeze.
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Precious Protector
Conditions weren’t ideal to assess Cayenne’s status yesterday, because the first days of March this year brought us a classic spring thunderstorm that showed up under a very-early-in-the-year Tornado Watch. It unfolded with uncharacteristically warm temps, high winds, LOTS of lightning, plenty of thunder, and finally, some pea-sized hail.
Cyndie moved the horses into the barn before the wild weather ultimately let loose, but she did have one interesting anecdote to share from a little earlier.
Whenever the wind is blowing, it puts the horses on edge, so they were already a little skittish when Cyndie was moving among the herd brushing out their shedding winter coats. As she was working with Hunter, a tractor in our neighbor’s field roared to life and startled the younger gelding into a little emergency evacuation drill.
Dezirea happened to be blocking his first escape route, so he faltered in his anxious reaction and suddenly appeared as though he wanted to go through Cyndie to get away.
Cyndie explains it all as happening in a split second, but she had time to have her own thoughts of panic and admonished Hunter not to run her over.
In that same instant, our somewhat hobbled patient in the new shoes overcame her tentative maneuvering and rushed to the scene, placing her body between Cyndie and Hunter, forcing him to make one last adjustment and exit, stage opposite.
Cayenne is obviously doing well enough to think fast and move even faster.
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Appliance Surgery
We’re not sure whether the kitchen appliances have been updated in the 27-years since this house was built, but we do know they have a fair amount of mileage on their components. Last week, Cyndie opened the dishwasher door to a shockingly loud CLANK!, crash.
I thought she had yanked it open past a plate or utensil that was somehow snagged. I was wrong.
A few pulls of the door revealed it wasn’t something inside the dishwasher that broke. Root cause diagnosis was made easy by the added evidence of a stray string suddenly appearing from the bottom right corner of the door. I figured a spring had broken, but research revealed the door “cable” that attaches the spring is a common weak link.
I did call local retailers for parts, but unsurprisingly found none in stock. Without having positively confirmed with a service person that I had correctly identified the part needed, I took the risk of ordering the replacement kit online. The site I landed on offered a video demonstration of the process that lie ahead for me.
It gave me confidence it would be something well within my ability.
Now all I needed was the parts.
Through the miracle of tracking, I could watch as my package reached Wisconsin, but failed to be delivered. A day went by. Then another. Finally, the tracking information updated. Even though it was still showing it would be delivered that day, it was now listed as being in Fargo, ND.
Oops.
Fargo must be where they figured out the error of their ways. It was rescheduled for delivery the next day, thank you very much.
While I was outside monkeying around with my chainsaw-on-a-pole to clear low-hanging branches, the delivery truck snuck up the driveway and left my parts on the doorstep. In no time, I was on the floor in the kitchen, re-enacting the video I had watched on replacing the door spring cables.
Put another feather in my cap, and add a little more time on the life of our old KitchenAid.
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