Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Horses Good
It’s been a while since the horses got any airtime on the blog and I’m happy to report they are living large with us as retired thoroughbreds who once raced and then spent time as broodmares. They suffered varying levels of neglect before being rescued and arriving to reside with us in 2021.
Three and a half years later, it looks like they’ve figured out that the routines of their retired lives have become rather predictable and comfortable.
I spotted them napping beneath the dying willow tree in the small paddock a few days ago. This is such a beautiful thing to witness.
When they rest their snout on the ground like Mia can be seen doing in the photo at right, it occasionally results in a snore, which is chuckle-inducing.
I wasn’t hearing anything from them when I approached to take a picture, but I noticed Mix was kicking in her sleep so I switched to recording a video, hoping to catch it.
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Maybe she was dreaming. Eventually, Mix and Mia got up, which provided a good chance for viewers to see what that process looks like.
After that short mid-morning rest, they moseyed out into the hay field to get back to work munching on grass.
It’s a tough life, but they seem to have the hang of it and I’d say they are living a life of retirement luxury these days.
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Found Them
Before we left for Iceland, I was lamenting my inability to locate the buried AC power wires running from the shop to the barn. I gave it a couple of new somewhat half-hearted tries since we’ve been home, digging as time allowed without success.
As a reminder, this is the photo I’ve been using for reference from 2013 when the wires were accidentally cut by a skid steer making a driveable roadway behind the barn.
I must admit, I assumed I was searching for a single bundle of the three large wires but reality proved different.
Trenching my way deeper and deeper along the slope of the small hill finally revealed the yellow line on the cable for the ground wire.
Despite my confusion about how far to one side or the other I needed to be searching, the find finally came at the most likely spot.
With the wires uncovered, I’m a little surprised about the angled direction they are routed at this spot. Now I have plenty of methodical hand digging to do to reach the location of the patch that was made when they were cut. That is the most likely spot that would cause the loss of continuity in one of the power lines.
I’ll be calling the electricians tomorrow to schedule their services and find out how soon I need to finish the rest of the digging. At least I know where to work and won’t be wasting any time on fruitless searching.
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Reality Returns
We now return you to regularly scheduled programming. While reliving the wonders of our time in Iceland and recovering from post-travel illnesses, real life has resumed with a landscape update project around the front of our house.
We had to wait all summer for my favorite concrete lifting company to fit us into their schedule, which put our re-landscaping of the front walkway on hold. As soon as they finished their work, Cyndie and I dug into finishing what we could of the project while coughing our lungs out.
With the concrete slabs returned to their original level with a positive slope away from the foundation, we added some gravel and set about replacing the stone slabs of the rustic entry walkway that won us over when we bought the place.
The finishing touch of a fresh fill of new river rock is awaiting another contractor who happily promises but fails to act in a timely fashion. We are relying on our patience to maintain that relationship with a guy who has helped us many times over the years. He eventually gets around to showing up.
I am feeling back to my old self and am surprised that my lungs seem back to usual (which has never been that great) faster than expected after pneumonia.
This weekend, I am home alone with the animals while Cyndie is with friends up at the lake. The horses are doing great. Asher is whining at me incessantly.
Yes, reality has returned in all its glory.
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Feeling Feverish
I’m a hot mess. Right in the middle of sharing descriptions of our adventures in Iceland, I find myself in a foggy fever-induced sleep for hours on end, with no appetite and my lungs congested in the worst way. Is this a souvenir I picked up during our trip?
After starting as a nuisance cold, my symptoms settled into my lungs, which is typical for me. For days, I bounced between seeming better and then feeling worse. Yesterday morning, I woke up with a fever and made an appointment to be seen by a doctor.
Her diagnosis was that it had become pneumonia.
Let’s review:
- Lingering shoulder pain has led to an MRI and diagnosis of a small tear in my rotator cuff.
- Pain down my left leg was attributed to pressure on the nerve in my lower back.
- Tuesday morning, my right hand and wrist are punctured by thorns bad enough I consult with a nurse at our clinic.
- Thursday morning, I am diagnosed with pneumonia.
I have an appointment on Monday for a consultation with an orthopedist regarding the information in the MRI of my shoulder. I’ve had two sessions of physical therapy to learn new exercises I can do for my shoulder and back. The puncture wounds on my wrist haven’t shown any symptoms of infection, and the pain is subsiding, so the threat from those wounds is waning. I have started antibiotics to treat my pneumonia and the incessant coughing has calmed considerably.
But, really, I’m starting to feel like I’ve suddenly been jinxed by some gremlin that has a grudge against my good health.
Pardon the interruption in my descriptions of our Icelandic adventures. I was just getting to one of the big highlights that happened on our second day. Here’s a hint:
I’ll tell you all about it if my health continues to improve and I can get myself up out of bed.
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Prime Condition
This is departure day for our Iceland adventure. After we take care of walking and feeding animals this morning, we are off duty for a couple of weeks. When all the work of preparing the property for our extended absence was completed yesterday, I experienced a profound sense of appreciation for this place we are able to call home.
September is the best month of the fall season and the weather the last few days has been glorious. With the property freshly mowed and fence lines trimmed, it looks like a picture postcard around here.
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I am grateful for all the trees. In all the photos I’ve seen of Iceland lately, I don’t recall seeing trees. That will be part of the adventure for me. I am going to a place that is dramatically unlike the forests of my favorite places in the world.
While we are away on vacation, I’ve scheduled a celebration of the big trees I logged (get it?) a couple of weeks ago with a daily salute to each one. A forest with 200-year-old trees is practically the opposite of being in Iceland. For some reason, I like the contradiction of that.
Take care of yourselves while I’m gone. I’ll tell ya all about it when we get back.
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Final Details
We are at that point in the story where the main characters are working multiple lists simultaneously in preparation for their adventure vacation as tourists visiting Iceland. Test packing happened Monday night. All systems are a go.
Now I am in the second-guessing mode. I packed once, but now I’ve been into the bag a few times to get toiletries or grab something out of my carry-on bag. I also thought of a couple of things to add. Will I remember to put everything back? Will I remember where I packed everything? No. No, I won’t. Based on past experience, I have a terrible time recalling what nifty little pocket I’ve stashed certain things, thinking it’s such a clever location.
Meanwhile, I’m ticking away at the property work I want to finish before we go.
One valuable task that is less visible than others is the management of manure composting. It has been so wet this year, I’ve had a tough time keeping the piles active. As a result, I can’t move them out as often as I’d like to make room to create a new pile for the never-ending supply of fresh manure. Since we are going to be gone for almost two weeks, I wanted to provide ample space for our horse sitters to dump the manure they will be cleaning up every day.
Yesterday, I crossed that goal off my list. New space is achieved.
That was much more rewarding than my fruitless attempt to dig again in search of the buried power cable. That project will be waiting for me when we return.
I did successfully complete the trimming of grass beneath the back pasture fence line with enough gas left over to also clean up a portion of our trails. Then I mowed the front and backyard around the house.
This morning, I need to drive to Hudson for a windshield replacement before returning home to finish off the last of the grass cutting. If there is something unfinished after that, it will need to wait until we return stateside.
For the record, last night Cyndie was very busy finding new things to bring and rethinking what was going into her suitcase. It served to heighten my second-guessing about what I “test packed” the other night.
In my opinion, managing the manure composting area is a lot easier than packing for a trip to visit Iceland.
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Thrice Foiled
I’m not afraid to admit when my methods fall short of success. I’m feeling a little sheepish that three different attempts have failed to locate the buried power line between the barn and the shop. My low-cost DIY method is lacking the technology of underground cable locators.
I have an eleven-year-old photo of the power cables coming out of the ground when they were accidentally cut. I know where the cables come out of the barn. What I am unsure of is how deep they are buried. I would be a lot more zealous about digging deeper if I was more confident I was in the right location.
My assumption that the cables –there are three– aren’t buried too deep is based on where they were cut in 2013. However, I didn’t witness the repair and reburying that occurred afterward.
First, I started a trench across the direction of the cables. The soil is heavy clay which makes the going difficult. Cyndie came to help and we discovered the ground on the slope above where I was digging was more forgiving dirt. We switched to probing the hill, meeting with several false alarms in the form of rocks.
After spending too much time getting nowhere, I gave in and decided to dig down at the spot where the cables come out of the barn so I could then trench along the cables to the location of the failed repair. I had hoped to avoid trenching across the lane behind the barn until we find out when an electrician can do a professional repair.
Doesn’t matter now because yesterday my digging beside the barn also proved futile. I got as deep as my arm could reach, which is the depth I know it should be from digging on the inside, but didn’t find the cables.
At this point, I’m thinking I should have spent money to rent a cable locator long ago because that’s probably what I’m going to end up doing if I can’t find those dang wires after one last try later this morning.
I can’t spend much time on it because we have two days left before our Iceland adventure vacation and there is grass to be mowed and compost piles to be moved among other miscellaneous things deserving my attention.
On the bright side, the weather for such projects has been glorious of late!
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Wild Plums
We hadn’t put much focus on the wild plum trees growing on our property until last year when the yield of fruit was so high we couldn’t help but gather bowls full for making jam. This year the yield looks as good or better. Maybe that’s because we are more focused on it now.
It seems like the plums turned red really fast and the trees near our trails started dropping fruit over a week ago.
Cyndie has demonstrated great interest in gathering this year’s crop so we have been making frequent visits to shake trees and bag what comes loose.
Some of the plums look pretty big but after biting into one, I quickly discovered the pit takes up about half the size.
When making jam out of wild plums, removing pits ends up being the majority of the work.
The few that I ate while collecting the best-looking specimens weren’t as sweet as what I remember from last year, but they weren’t sour or bitter either, so they should still make for good jam.
Collecting plums provided a nice diversion from another project I was toiling away at for a second day in a row. In addition to spending an hour a day trimming portions of fence line, I started digging a trench in search of the AC power lines feeding the barn.
We still need to fix the break in one phase line that was discovered last winter. I suspect there is a failure at the point where the wires were reattached back in 2013 after they were accidentally cut by a skid-steer tractor. We have been reviewing photos from that time to determine roughly where the broken cable is routed but it is still a bit of a guessing game. We don’t have the luxury of a device to precisely locate buried cable.
I’m also not sure about how deeply the cable is buried. I wish I had paid more attention to what was going on when they fixed it over ten years ago.
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Webs Spectacle
On our walk Friday morning, emerging from the woods with Asher on our way to feed the horses, we witnessed a spectacle I don’t remember ever seeing before. Spider webs. Lots of them. Admittedly, spider webs in the morning are not that special. I posted a picture of a dewy web just a few days ago.
Two things made this display of webs stand out more than ever: the location and the incredible number of them.
Like so many times before, I immediately decided that the glorious display couldn’t be adequately captured in a photo. Thankfully, Cyndie does not share my perception and fearlessly points her phone camera at any and all attractions that catch her eye.
She graciously shared them with me.
I tried zooming in on one of the images to provide a better view.
We have often been greeted by a vast number of funnel webs in the grass on our morning walks but these webs were completely different. These were the classic orb webs standing vertically above the grass in the back pasture.
They show up as white-ish smudges in the image and there are at least 14 visible in that shot. It really was a spectacle to see with our eyes. The low angle of the morning sunshine illuminated the webs so that they stood out dramatically as we stepped into the open from the woods.
It’s nice to see webs in the grass instead of strung invisibly across the trails in the woods. It is a regular occurrence that whoever is leading on our morning walks will offer many utterances of “you’re welcome” when breaking imperceptible strands of webs across our faces, saving the other person from such a fate.
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Missed Spot
I did a lot of mowing yesterday and took the batteries of the riding mower right down to the limit. Like so many gas tanks and their gauges, the second half-tank of fuel seems to run out a lot faster than the first. I run for a surprising amount of time before the indicator on the e-mower changes from 100% to 99. When I hit the 40s, I might miss glancing to find a number in the 30s. Suddenly it’s 20-something and then I can almost watch it tick down one percentage after another.
I was hoping to finish one particular section before pausing to charge the batteries so I started accelerating my maneuvers to get to the end. By skipping two finishing passes that I could do later, I cut the essential area and limped the tractor back to the garage on battery fumes.
By switching to the push mower and its fully charged batteries, I mowed the labyrinth while the riding mower’s batteries charged. Just over an hour later, I was back on the riding mower and cutting down by the road. As the shadows were getting longer, I finished along the driveway and was ready to call it done. I don’t know how I suddenly remembered those two passes I’d skipped earlier but I realized it just in time to wheel over to the back of the barn and reach the completion of a big day of mowing.
While at the barn, I hopped off to bring in empty feed buckets and tend to some manure clean-up. I spotted something as I pushed the wheelbarrow out the back door.
There was a sprout of uncut grass a little bigger than my footprint that I had missed. It brought a laugh because this was in a spot I had been mowing well before I had hastened my progress due to low batteries.
Describing to Cyndie what I found humorous about the oddity, I told her, “It looked like the way Cyndie mows!”
For those unfamiliar with our myriad differences of thought and behavior, I am very methodical about my mowing routine, whereas Cyndie is inclined to employ a much more creative way of getting the job done.
Vive la différence.
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Relative Something 