Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Long Trip
By the end of my third blissful day of isolation from any news, I was briefly thrown back into the repugnant reality of our election outcome by a video post someone shared with Cyndie. We watched it together. A man speaking directly to the camera, speaking to the majority who chose to elect a person who, in my opinion, is so unfit to lead this country that what just happened wouldn’t be believable as a plot in some fictional story.
The harsh reality of our situation –sane people, marginalized people, everyone in countries around the world who didn’t even have a vote– came rushing back to my consciousness in a flash.
I feel like I am living in the movie “The Sound of Music,” and a car of thugs from the new regime might be showing up any day to insist we fly their flag above our doorstep.
If I were to respond in the manner of my personal philosophy, I would conjure feelings of love for the people who have chosen the next President. I’m feeling rather hypocritical in my failure to achieve this for them as a group at the moment. Maybe on an individual basis, I could muster some meager successes. Love the person, not their intentions?
Stop the madness; I want to get off.
In an attempt to return to my happy place, my vacation from the daily news cycle, I recall camping trips where I was completely isolated. There would be no news if I were on an expedition to a remote place. I would be justified in a sole focus on watching my steps, guarding myself from the elements, eating for fuel, and absorbing the beauty and wonder of my surroundings.
I would like to get back to my odyssey of living free from depression on a small rectangle of forest and fields, caring for the land and a few rescued animals, and exploring ways to share love with family, friends, and strangers alike. I’m interested in returning to being able to sleep through the night.
I’m not confident I’ve amassed the necessary provisions. I’m not aware of having any trustworthy maps. I guess I haven’t really planned for this journey. It wasn’t my idea. I guess my expedition is more like being lost at sea.
Ah, but I’ve got my dignity. I’ve got my pride. I’ve got millions of like-minded people who know exactly how I’m feeling. I’m confident we can get through the challenges of the days ahead. But no one likes platitudes. We can’t phrase our way through this trip.
We need to feel our feelings and be honest with ourselves in our choices about what comes next. For my mental health, I intend to continue avoiding the site and sounds of one person in particular until such time I feel better able to cope.
I’m hoping the mountain I am about to climb will be for singing and not as an escape to a safer place.
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Appreciating Here
Day two of my intentional news avoidance exercise was a smashing success yesterday. The resulting calm was doubly rewarding when compared with the week before when junk mail and phone spam were at an all-time high. The morning began with a thick fog, which gave the early routine a wonderfully mysterious feel.
Sometimes, the fog puts the horses on edge because they rely on visibility to survey for potential threats. Yesterday, they weren’t showing heightened nerves and promptly buried their noses in their feed buckets, which puts them in an almost vegetative state after one mouthful.
Asher was incredibly patient with me as I traipsed around the paddocks, scooping manure into the wheelbarrow. I rewarded him with an extended walk in the north loop field before heading back to the house for his breakfast.
We revisited that field later in the afternoon, and he went wild following the scent of some creature. There were several circles where deer had laid down that interested him but it is known that bunnies live in that field, too.
Other visitors we’ve seen in that field include skunks, raccoons, foxes, pheasants, turkeys, and grouse. However, the culprit that probably most interests Asher is the neighbor’s cat that makes regular incursions into our territory.
Standing in the field while Asher rooted around, I felt a wave of renewed appreciation for this place we call home. We’ve had some rain to take the edge off the drought, and the sun was out all afternoon, warming things considerably.
We stopped for a pause in the rocking chair at the lookout knoll on the top of the first hill on the driveway. From that vantage point, we couldn’t see anything wrong with the world. We all know that isn’t true, but it makes the tranquility here all the more precious.
It practically obligates me to banish harsh news media from disturbing our peace.
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Utmost Avoidance
The extreme level of distress I’m feeling over witnessing the election of an authoritarian government led by such a jerk alerts me to my white male heterosexual privilege. I dared to hope. I assumed that an overwhelming majority of people in this country would choose the ethical leader and preservation of our democracy.
I am so aghast over the implications of having all the threats made by the Republican candidate for US President now able to be acted upon; it has me uncertain about how to cope.
That’s when it occurs to me that this is how it must always feel for the many oppressed people for whom this is just another Thursday. Generations of unjustly marginalized people have succeeded in carrying on in the face of enslavement, or their nation’s people being forced onto reservations or forced into internment camps, denied housing, denied jobs, and prohibited from loving whomever they choose.
At my first job after tech school, I discovered I had been lied to about a base salary. I quit on the spot. I knew I would find another job, a better job. I cold-called a company and was given an offer after one interview. No one ever hindered my ability to get a loan and buy any of the homes in the places I chose. No one follows me around a store, watching my every move. I’ve never been harassed or threatened on the street for the way I look, how I wear my pants or who I choose to love.
There is an SNL skit depicting the 2016 election night reactions of a group of white people in an apartment with Dave Chappelle (and eventually, Chris Rock) reacting; the majority being oblivious to their privilege, Dave and Chris commenting in ways that show the comparison of their perspectives and revealing the clueless viewpoints of the others.
I don’t mean to diminish the truly threatening prospects of allowing small-minded people to take control of our entire country. I don’t want my shock over the election results to dishonor others who have been living under unjust discrimination of any flavor throughout lifetimes.
It is what it is. I am resisting the urge to put up a billboard-sized sign on the back of a semi-trailer with a curse word in front of you-know-who’s name or “Not My President” like the ones that have soiled Wisconsin landscapes for the past four years, but I realize we need to be better than that.
I really do want to offer respect for those who have maintained their dignity throughout generations of oppression and rise above vindictive antagonisms at this point. As long as Cyndie and I are able, we will guard our precious property from rancor and resume cultivating peaceful and loving energy, which we will beam out into the world like a beacon of goodness for others to find and absorb.
If something happens in the news that we need to know about, we trust friends and family will let us know. Otherwise, we have decided to aim for the utmost avoidance of all news media. Luckily, we can still safely watch “Shrinking.”
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Needed Distraction
Today, we are granted a welcome distraction from election results in the form of chimney contractors reportedly planning to show up around 9:00 a.m. The crown of our chimney, which is currently more flat than crowned, is cracking to the degree that I have ordered it to be replaced.
This is an image taken by a drone, which, in addition to the cracking concrete, reveals the ceramic extension on the left is disintegrating. If the date on the side of the chimney by the floor inside the house is accurate, this masonry is 34 years old.
I’m almost twice that old, and I’ve only recently started to crack. I guess I find ways to shelter myself from extended exposure to extremes of hot and cold temperatures and prolonged abuse by ultraviolet radiation.
As long as they are climbing around up there, I’m having the entire height of stones and masonry freshly sealed against the elements in hopes of giving it another 34 years free from trouble.
Doing expensive maintenance projects in my mid-60s frequently brings me to the conclusion that I shouldn’t need to worry about it again in my lifetime. Our shingles are reaching the end of their life, so managing a re-roof will be another thing I can do for the last time in my life.
I need this distraction to keep me from perseverating on my chances of ever getting to vote for a woman for President again in my lifetime. Will I live long enough to see the Electoral College abolished? Will perception and reality ever become identical?
Never mind all that. I’m busy making sure contractors have everything they need to make quick work of this chimney job and get out of here without leaving a trace behind except for the smooth and shiny completion of their work.
Then, I’m going to hang out with our dog and the horses because they don’t know anything about an election or what difference the outcome will make. What kind of bliss that must be.
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Election Again
Every four years, whether people like it or not, our country holds an election for a President. Today, if you are a US citizen and haven’t already, VOTE!
Thinking about the last time the bum, whose name I don’t even like to mention, stumbled into an election win, I looked up my previous posts from November 2016 to see my reactions. I was too upset for words and simply posted an image two days in a row.
Reading old posts from 8 years ago, I was also reminded that that was when we transplanted the tree to the center of the labyrinth and finished building the chicken coop. At least I had good distractions back then.
Today, I am ready for a landslide victory for sanity and our democracy. Let the lying cease. Put an end to the political ambitions of the worst version of a candidate I’ve ever seen garner public support in my lifetime.
Cyndie and I plan to wait for the crowd of people voting before they go to work to thin out before we head to our polling place to join the crowd of retired folks showing up to beat the crowd that will show up over the lunch hour.
If the mean guy loses, he has prepared his followers for the old lie that the election was stolen from him. I’m busy trying to wrap my head around the inexplicability of him not being incarcerated for even one of his many crimes.
May today be the beginning of my phone no longer pinging relentlessly with desperate campaign pleas.
May the United States of America accomplish the milestone of electing the first woman President in our history.
May all the exaggerated fears of the cultish followers and spineless Republican politicians who have kowtowed to the mean guy for the last 8 years be swiftly proven unrealistic and overblown.
Most of all, may the outcome of the vote tally be so obvious that little delay is needed for the results to be made official.
Let’s do this thing.
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Perfectly Wet
Precipitation fell slow and steady all day yesterday, giving us the perfect moisture for growing roots to soak up before the ground has frozen solid for winter.
We didn’t let the shift of clocks back to standard time influence much of our normal routine, but our later morning arrival at the barn seemed to surprise a large rodent. We had entered through the back door, and as I was moving through the darkness toward the light switches, I heard a squeak and noticed Asher hop and twist.
A flip of the switches revealed a rat out in the middle of the floor. I suspect Asher had chomped the poor thing once as it was making no effort to dash for cover. I scooped it up with the manure rake and, after one last bonk to end any suffering, offered the barn pest a hot burial in a compost pile.
Based on the vast network of tunneling occurring in the sand floor, it is easy to assume that there is probably more than just that one culprit lurking about. It is really difficult to discourage unwelcome pests when feeding horses cracked grains that result in endless spillage.
The mares aren’t very fastidious about constraining the leakage from their mouths exclusively within the edges of the mats we put out for that purpose. There are cracked oats and corn scattered far and wide in the vicinity of the barn overhang.
The barn pigeons are in their glory, and the flock has grown to city park proportions with this abundance of food. The rats are probably getting their fair share.
We are employing a variety of attempts at eradication or, at the very least, discouragement to avoid the rats reaching a population approaching the pigeon flocks. Apparently, the neighbor’s cat that regularly prowls our grounds doesn’t put much pressure on rats residing in the barn.
Walking toward the house after chores, I noticed Cyndie chose the grass over the pavement. The wet conditions have left the paddocks muddy, so striding across the grass is a way to wash some of the grime off boots before entering the house.
The moisture was so needed, so perfect; I’m of no mind to complain about a little autumn mud.
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Random Distribution
Our wet driveway near the big willow tree served up an interesting display of randomly distributed fallen leaves yesterday morning. Nature providing opportunities for digital desktop wallpaper patterns or something along those lines.
By this morning, everything had dried up and most of those leaves had been scattered by the wind. What a difference a day can make.
Thursday, stepping outside was an exercise of stoicism in the face of 40 mph wind gusts blowing sleety rain and snow into our faces. Hunching against the onslaught, we wrestled our trash and recycling bins from the house to the end of the driveway.
The brain interprets the harsh conditions, triggering the autonomic response to put the body into survival mode despite the lack of that extreme level of threat. The difference this morning is striking.
Asher and I were on our own for morning chores and enjoyed calm and comfortable early November conditions. The horses were angelic and mostly calm. Mia was a little jumpy about approaching her feed bucket because it was hung under the overhang where we had moved her due to the rain and snow. The electric fence near there can be annoyingly snappy from moisture and she doesn’t like it when that happens.
I unplugged the power to appease her and allow feeding time to commence without further fussing.
On the way back to the house, as the sun’s rays were just beginning to appear through the thick pine grove that forms our eastern horizon, an almost perfect orange circle with a shadow in the middle lit up on the green shingles of our roof. It honestly looked like someone was shining the “bat-signal” distress alert on our house.
I wondered if someone had mistaken me for the caped crusader.
As I got closer and more sunlight was beginning to speckle other places along the peak of the roof, I could actually discern the outlines of the pine branch that was creating the bat-symbol-looking shadow across the curiously circular spray of sunlight.
Very unexpected from so far a distance to the trees.
A random distribution of a fascinating moment bestowed upon us to complement the wild weather conditions experienced just two days prior.
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Barely Noticed
We knew it was coming, so when snowflakes started to fly, we didn’t make much of a fuss over it. While Cyndie was in the middle of a phone conversation, I noticed her gesturing to direct my attention toward windows. The rain was changing over to sleety flakes.
Not a big deal, but it was enough that I decided to take a picture of the first snow of the season. Then, we got on with some rewarding indoor activities. I cleaned out some drawers of accumulated clothing and successfully took action on several things that have been stored for years and rarely worn anymore.
We were in the closet of winter gear, digging for coats to walk Asher and feed the horses in blowing rain and snow that was strikingly similar to Icelandic conditions. Cyndie decided to sort and give away worthy items discovered in there, and soon, we were on our way to earning a decluttering badge for the day.
The next time we looked out the window, we were surprised that we’d barely noticed how much the snow had intensified.
I thought it was still too warm for us to get any accumulation.
Alas, it was too warm for snow to last very long, and as fast as it arrived, it melted away again. It was a bit surprising to find we collected almost 2” of moisture in the rain gauge by the end of yesterday.
Like she often does, Cyndie found a way to squeeze in some baking between closet cleaning and crafting her latest secret art projects. She made a dozen small loaves of bread –six cranberry orange and six banana nut with chocolate bits.
The house smelled delicious when I woke up from an afternoon nap in the recliner.
Not a bad way to close out the month and usher in something that feels a bit more appropriate for November. Uncharacteristically, all my winter coat options are neatly organized and hanging in the freshly cleaned closet before I actually need to put them to use.
Mia got an early chance to wear her winter coat yesterday after Cyndie found her shivering excessively in the cold rain. Some days, I wish we could just bring Mia up to the house with Asher and us when the other horses are behaving like mean girls to her.
Swings stands under that overhang, warm and dry all day long, Light often by her side. Mix moves in and out a lot and rarely stays dry. Poor Mia barely sneaks her head under to eat bites of hay from a net bag, always ready to retreat if one of the other three decides to claim that space.
The precipitation moved away to the east last night, so all four horses probably headed out into the fields where Mia would be able to claim whatever space away from them she wanted.
We had the heat on and slept snuggly under warm blankets all night, barely noticing how far below freezing the temperature ultimately dropped.
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From Here
There are many days when life around here feels like we should be mentioned in a Prairie Home Companion Lake Wobegon monologue. Oftentimes, that is because nothing particularly noteworthy has transpired. I could start out with, “It’s been a quiet week at ranch Wintervale…”
The sun came up about when we expected. The unseasonably warm weather that is becoming more seasonable every year hung in there to the last minute before a front of clouds and cooler air showed up yesterday afternoon. Cold rain is expected this morning. Last I checked, the conditions didn’t look all that promising for comfortable trick-or-treating tonight.
I miss being able to say that our phones rang off the hook. They buzzed and pinged with dramatically increased frequency from messages related to the election campaigns. I have no idea what any of them were because I instantly report them as spam, block the number, and delete the calls and texts in every instance.
It brings me great pleasure to not look or listen to any of them.
There are a lot of things that I get pleasure out of not doing. Plenty of them would be obvious, like not falling off a cliff. I love it whenever I don’t do that.
I like not picking up after the horses in the fields.
We took some time on Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon to give the horses extra attention. We brought along some carrots, which they seem to like more than the dry processed treats we keep in a cupboard in the barn.
Cyndie believes Mix may be experiencing arthritic pains. The last time the farrier was here, she thought Mix was showing some muscle knots. The farrier doubles as an equine massage provider. A few brief moments of her technique produced a quick response of approving signals from Mix, such as a big release with an audible exhale and dropping her head down.
Mia continues to be the odd horse out. The other three horses are very consistent about keeping her aware she is at the bottom of the herd hierarchy. Her response over the years is to simply spend more time grazing in the fields while the others choose to stand around under the overhang.
Now that we have some chilly rain happening, our concern will be whether they allow her to get under the shelter or not.
If not, we will intervene on her behalf.
That’s the news from here on this final day of October. Happy Halloween to all the little costumed candy seekers and their parents! (I love not taking kids trick-or-treating.)
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Shared Fatigue
Take a deep breath and see if you can make it through this paragraph-long opening sentence:
I relish coming upon an online discussion thread shimmering with a shared public expression of fatigue over daily reports of insanity from the cultish acceptance of unhinged statements and behaviors of sycophants worshipping at the alter of one depraved and narcissistic old man campaigning for the Republican party.
Never forget, we are many. We may be exhausted, but we will still all make it to the polls to vote by next Tuesday in the USA.
How many people in the world have questioned over and over how such unsavory and historically abhorred ideas could be finding so much open acceptance in this day and age?
Buddy Hackett and Robert Preston, Warner Bros. Pictures
How is it that ethics guidelines have so easily become arrogantly discounted? Where is the “rule of law” when so many people simply ignore subpoenas, judgments of significant fines, or DOJ warnings of illegalities?
Seems like we should all re-listen to Harold Hill sing to the good folks of River City about “trouble with a capital T.”
What happened to common sense, neighborliness, and adherence to the Golden Rule? How did society allow “do as I say, not as I do” and religious hypocritical lifestyles become the dominant guiding themes?
Is it really that difficult to understand and respect the importance of the separation of church and state?
The majority of us are tired of false equivalency. We are tired of whataboutism. We are fed up with fear-mongering. We are jaded by endless pants-on-fire lies. We are worn to a frazzle by the perpetual whining about being the victim.
How much repeated grifty shenanigans can one country take?
We need a break. We deserve a break.
Hey, billionaires. Pay a fair share of taxes, would ya? You can still boast that you gave ten million dollars to a charity. You can do both!
I suspect that somewhere in all this, there is a lesson to be sussed out. I don’t know whether it will be a unique one for each group or individual or something grand for all the people of the world. (What do you bet it has something to do with love?)
On November 5th, we will cast votes that will determine whether things get worse before they get better or whether our democracy holds together on a course toward ideals envisioned by our best and brightest.
For the common folks of this nation, the decision should not be difficult. This ain’t rocket science.
We need to tune into that generational intelligence we all carry and open our eyes to the snake oil elixirs being pitched. Don’t buy a pig in a poke. Help bring an end to the constant ravings of a pathetic lunatic.
Let’s make the US of A better than it’s ever been.
All of us are looking forward to the possibilities. Vote to keep the outcome out of any courtrooms.
Amen.
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Relative Something 