Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Adding Oxygen
A sure sign of spring being in full swing is when we finally start dealing with the piles of manure that accumulate in the paddocks over winter. Yesterday, I dug into one of the two big ones.
We generally build up the piles in the paddock and then ignore them. As a result, they don’t make stellar progress in breaking down. However, over time they do settle noticeably. Seeing them get flat is usually a trigger for me to take action to turn the pile.
Since the pile yesterday had been left untended for weeks, it made for a vivid example of the transition possible when putting in the effort to turn it over, reshape it and add air.
The micro organisms that do the composting will use up all available water and oxygen in the pile. If it isn’t replenished, the process stalls. In the case of this pile, the neglect had foiled things before all the moisture was removed, so it was still wet enough, but it needed some air get the process going again.
In the image you can see the old, dry, flattened portion on the right, and the freshly turned, taller pile I was turning it into on the left.
While I was working, Hunter sauntered over to visit. I acknowledged him, but didn’t stop what I was doing. He didn’t move as I maneuvered the pitch fork to toss the pile without hitting him, but only narrowly missing him. He kept inhaling loudly, absorbing the earthy smells emanating from the newly oxygenated mass.
I breathed heavily, right along with him as I worked. Soon, I noticed his eyes were getting droopy. He was just chilling near me as I toiled away.
It reminded me of the time, years ago, when I was just getting to know the horses. Hunter approached me while I was raking up the winter’s-worth of accumulated manure, and he laid down next to me. I was so shocked by his action that I called Cyndie to check on the situation. She seemed thrilled by his behavior and assured me that it was an indication he was entirely comfortable with my presence and I could simply continue to rake while he rested beside me.
It’s precious knowing he still likes to hang with me like that as I work.
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Those Days
It’s been one of those days lately at the day job. Several of those days, actually. So, on my off-day of the week, I’m still grinding away on the work email to address issues. Issues that come in bunches. Bunches of issues that I prefer not occur.
But they do.
I looked out the bedroom window this morning and spotted a volunteer oak sapling that I staked up last year in hopes it would become well established and fill a void created by the loss of a pine. The new leaves are all wilted and sad.
It got me thinking that the same thing would likely have occurred to the new transplanted maple in the center of our labyrinth, had it actually sprouted new buds this spring.
So is it a good thing that it didn’t grow?
Maybe I’ll look at it that way. By not thriving after being transplanted, it avoided the fate of frozen new growth last weekend. Smart little tree.
It’s been one of those springs, thus far.
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Wilted Leaves
I heard on the radio yesterday that the local vintners suffered significant losses to their grape-vine crops because of the two nights of below freezing temperatures last weekend. Of all the plants on our property, the wild grape vines look the worst. Luckily, we don’t need to harvest any fruit from these vines. Ours are all volunteer plants spread most likely by the activity of birds.
Growing right beside the vine in that picture is a large poplar tree. It doesn’t look too good, either.
The first thing that stands out is simply the lack of healthy green color in the leaves. They all look too pale and are a little droopy, but a small portion are curling along the edges.
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I took a picture of a maple tree across the driveway from it for comparison. Does the difference in coloring show? Maybe not as obviously as the difference in number of leaves on each. The maple is way ahead of the poplar, and maybe that contributed to it surviving the freeze so much better than the other. New growth seems particularly fragile in the presence of freezing temperatures.
It’s sad to see how harsh this can be on growing plants, and frustrating to be so powerless to protect them all.
It has me feeling a little wilted, right along with the leaves.
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Direct Hit
Haven’t swept up the cuttings yet.
What I did do was show Cyndie how I reach the input screen on the pond pump to clean it. It has needed attention about every other day, and I think I know why. A couple weeks ago I finally cut down a dead pine tree over the pond and suddenly there is a lot more sunlight inspiring green growth in the water.
My method of stretching into the water to reach the pump filter is a far cry from graceful or efficient, but it works for me. It involves some precarious balancing while reaching to my limit, so it makes more sense to me to just do it and not bother Cyndie with finding a way she would be able to take care of the chore.
Still, she asked to see my method and tagged along behind me out the deck door last night. I pulled up my sleeve, got down on my knees and placed my right hand on a distant rock at the far limit of my reach. Leaning precariously away from dry surfaces, I stretch to get a finger on the plastic media that surrounds the pump inlet. When I get it slid off, I toss it behind me onto the rocks as quick as I can, in order to restore enough balance to avoid an unwanted bath.
I was so focused on what I was doing that I had neglected to notice that Cyndie had positioned herself directly in the spot where I always fling the slimy filter. It is heavy, soaking wet, green, stinky, and entirely nasty. I nailed her with it, right on the shoe, soaking her pants, and sock with green stink.
Oops.
Not quite the way to treat a spouse who is making an effort to find out if there is a way she can help.
If you need me for anything and can’t reach me, it’s probably because I’m off searching of my dunce cap. I must have several stashed around here somewhere.
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Yard Hay
I mowed the back yard yesterday afternoon and ended up with windrows that look like I should be borrowing George’s baler to pick it all up. I feel like I have mowed when it has needed it worse, but not ended up with so much in the way of cuttings as I did this time.
That must be a good sign that the lawn is thick and healthy. I hope the same holds true for our hay-field out front in a few weeks!
The weather hasn’t been so kind to a lot of other growing plants. Over the weekend we had two nights of below freezing temperatures. Cyndie was proactive about protecting her newly planted wild flower garden both nights, covering them with blankets. She also brought all potted plants into the garage.
Unfortunately, we have too many growing things to protect them all. Several trees with new leaves look to have suffered to the point of drooping wilted leaves.
In the autumn, by the time we get freezing temperatures, the leaves are on their way to the ground, if not already there.
It’s not obvious yet if anything was damaged beyond recovery, but we will be watching the labyrinth with hope that plants there didn’t experience the couple of freezes as fatal. Cyndie’s initial survey brought hope that some may not have suffered at all.
That offers promise to which we intend to cling.
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Four Horses
With Cyndie home full-time this year and me working 4-days a week, I spend dramatically less time with the horses than I did last year. On Thursday, Cyndie asked me to feed the horses when I got home from work, because she wasn’t going to be home, and I found myself lingering with them afterward.
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The young ones, Cayenne and Hunter, cooperated in some mutual grooming.
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Legacy was test tasting a sample of the new hay Cyndie had brought home.
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Dezirea appeared to be standing watch. She is a very good lookout.
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Yesterday, while I was working on distributing piles of compost to trees around the property, I looked up and spotted Dezirea laying down in the pasture. It was late in the afternoon, about the time they would be coming up to the barn for their evening feed, and it alarmed me to see her down at that hour of the day.
I hustled that direction and hollered to Cyndie, who had walked past the horses minutes earlier. I was curious how long Dezirea had been down. At the same time that I got Cyndie’s attention across the field, our hollering rousted Dezirea from her brief slumber. She stood up right away and quickly rendered my query to Cyndie, moot, although I still learned she hadn’t been down when Cyndie walked by earlier.
So, that was a really short nap.
Sorry, Dez, for so loudly disrupting your rest.
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More Hay
Honestly, I think we pretty much nailed it on the quantity of our hay supply over the winter. The new growing season is now upon us and farmers are talking about cutting their first crop of the year, as soon as next week if the weather is dry enough. We are down to our last rows of the bales harvested from our field last year. There are still a fair number remaining from the batch we purchased 2-years ago from a local farmer, but many are showing some mold and our horses have pretty much refused to eat them.
Given all that, Cyndie still prefers to have a larger backup supply than we ended up with, so we have been in the market for a small batch of insurance hay. We did drive up to check on offerings available from our previous source, but the bales he had left from last year looked too similar to those we already have that our horses don’t eat.
He suggested we consider some second-cut bales he will have later this summer. Second-cut hay doesn’t tend to have as many stemmy grasses, and probably has a few less weeds.
For now, Cyndie kept looking, and on Thursday she drove to investigate some hay advertised in the free Shopper publication that is distributed locally. She said it looked good, and more importantly, it smelled good, so she brought home a small load of bales. Yesterday, since I was home from work, we went together to bring back a larger load.
We had to wait until the rain stopped before venturing out, because wet hay becomes moldy hay. After lunch, she provided directions while I drove. We were given free rein to pick our choice from the barn loft, so Cyndie tossed bales down and I organized them in the truck bed. Using the skills I honed in 13-loads two years ago, I stacked the hay so we wouldn’t need to tie it down. The bales above, hold the ones below in place.
We made it home just as a new wave of precipitation threatened, forcing us to hastily unload the bales into the hay shed.
The task served as a gentle reminder of the work that lies ahead of us soon. Hay season is not far off. It’s a time of anxious weather-watching and intense effort over several long days that are both thrilling and exhausting at the same time.
At least now I feel comfortable knowing how many bales we want to put up to last a whole winter —plus some insurance— after several years of varying results. Simply having that one concern removed from the process makes it all a little less daunting.
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Dream World
Last night, I dreamed about discovering a submarine that demanded investigation. I and two unidentified persons ran a camera-like device around the perimeter in search of information. We pushed it as far as possible around one direction, and then switched around from the other direction.
There we found a window port, and I thought to grab a flashlight that Cyndie and I keep on the end of one counter in our kitchen. Dreams can be so convenient that way.
I shined the light into the submarine, and though seeing only emptiness similar to a sea bottom, which coincidentally looked a lot like the bottom of our landscape pond where I was mucking about last night to clean the input filter on the pump —no fish remains detected— my light beam got the attention of an occupant. A man approached the window.
He said his name was Bob. I identified myself and our party. For the life of me, I can’t recall the names I gave him for the two unidentified characters with me. I feel like one of them was Cyndie, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t name her as such.
I told Bob that it was 2016 and he said he was from 2066.
Later in the dream, because I have already lost some of the detail in my awakened state, this most memorable situation occurred. Bob taught me how to move through matter. We were against a solid wall, kneeling, I believe. He was describing how it wasn’t actually solid and there is space between atoms, as he moved his hands and head through the wall.
I held up my hands with fingers outstretched and moved them toward the wall. They broke the surface like it was water, with only a slightly increased resistance. As they moved into it, I pressed my head through, where I could then see Bob’s hands and head protruding beside me.
I remember feeling a wave of sensation washing through my whole body as I breached the wall.
This morning, I’m more inclined to feel the “wall” was the barrier between awake and asleep. I love that I was able to reach into my awake reality of our kitchen to get the flashlight to help in my asleep world beside a submarine deep under water.
Feel free to psycho-analyze this, but realize that I am the only one who can understand what this means to me. Right now, I am enjoying how easily I was accepting the possibility that a person from 50 years in the future was talking with me and teaching me how to do something supernatural.
And that I was a successful student.
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No Fish
One of the things that seems so sad about the failure of our 3rd transplanted maple tree in the labyrinth is how many hundreds of volunteer maples are sprouting in unwanted locations around our house and yard. A less stubborn (and probably smarter) person would likely make the obvious choice of moving one of these hearty little yearlings to the center of the garden, but not me.
I have been bound and determined to get a head start on a future giant center piece for our labyrinth by planting a tree taller than me with an already good-looking crown of leaves. When Cyndie suggested buying a tree with an established root-ball, I countered that I preferred one from our property, and each time my attempt fails, I am going to pick an even taller one next, to make up for lost progress.
If necessary, in a few years I will hire a truck with a giant conical tree spade to dig up a 10-year-old beauty, I’ll dismantle rock paths to make room for it to back into the center of the garden, and they can plop down a transplant that won’t dare fail.
I’m finding that it might be easier to replace rocks for the labyrinth path than get a tree to survive being transplanted to the middle.
A few days ago, a person who shall remain nameless, to protect their anonymity, dropped off a small fish for our landscape pond. Cyndie learned about it after dark, and went out with a flashlight to check. Yep, she confirmed, there was a fish swimming in our pond.
That’s the last time the fish was seen. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it didn’t adjust to the move, if we had found it floating days later. I never suspected it wouldn’t survive the first night and would disappear without a trace. Did a predator —probably raccoon— really find and dispatch it that swiftly?
Maybe it is just hiding really well, like the hidden growth of roots on the transplanted tree. Maybe the tree isn’t actually dead. It might just be taking a year off to develop roots, instead of sprouting leaves.
On Monday, I went to see a home game of the MLB Twins at Target Field with Rich, Jill, and Bob. It’s not a good sign that my only photo taken that night was of the giant display screen blazing the weather radar as the PA voice announced the game was being postponed.
I’m experiencing a trend. No tree, no fish, no baseball.
One of these tomorrows, I sure hope that sun comes out, and soon!
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Makin’ Chips
One chore I did make good progress on over the weekend was grinding piles of branches into wood chips for our trails and garden.
I had hoped to have Cyndie around to help, but she was tied up with a project in the house while I was at this, so I was on my own. Turned out, she had already done such a great job of preparing the pile of branches, it was easy-peasy feeding the chipper.
It was as if she was helping, just from a different time. We have gotten good at selecting the maximum sized branches, and she did a masterful job of snapping limbs to eliminate wide “Y”s that won’t fit through the feeder.
This chipper was the best decision for us. It is an efficient way to dispose of the endless supply of branches that litter the woods and it produces a product that we have unending use for as a covering for the trails.
I love the results!
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