Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Still Blooming
Nearing the end of the second week of October in my part of the world didn’t used to involve rose blossoms. These days, this kind of outdoor plant behavior is not all that surprising.
Asher and I were visiting the labyrinth to top off the water bag around the maple tree when I noticed the flowers. They stood out against the drought-influenced fading life and fallen leaves all around them. I was struck by the fact the rose bush was able to do so much with so little moisture available in the ground.
I must admit, it feels somewhat futile to try giving one tree a tiny bit of extra water while the rest of the growth in the surrounding woods is left wanting.
The fall colors have been less spectacular than some other years but it is changing.
As dusk settled in and the half-moon stood out brightly in the sky, the uncharacteristic warmth of a summer evening on this October night was simply the new normal.
While other parts of the world are coping with floods, our little nook in Wisconsin, USA, is warm and dry.
With rose blossoms.
No Fix
It’s official. The splice in the power wire to the barn was not the point of failure. Where does that leave things? Right where I didn’t want them. The electricians were unable to tell me where the break in the buried wire might be occurring.
For the time being, I have chosen to continue to rely on one “hot” line providing 120VAC to all the circuits in the barn. That is the way we have been operating since the problem initially occurred in January, and it has proved to be sufficient.
Since we haven’t been able to come up with an explanation for the failure of the one line, I’m concerned about the potential risk of the other line suffering the same fate, which would leave us with no power at all in the barn. The guys said they see this kind of thing with a surprising regularity.
Apparently, there is a lot more going on underground than I realized. The causes they’ve seen include tree roots, burrowing critters, and rocks pushing their way into the wires.
My plan, at this point, is to live with the risk. If the remaining power line suddenly fails, we will run an above-ground extension cord until we can get scheduled to have new wires bored beneath the driveway. I asked for a quote for the expense of this work and learned that although it wouldn’t be cheap, it would be less than I anticipated.
We will be saving up for that eventuality. Hopefully, we’ll have years to tuck away the funds.
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Authorized Destruction
Elysa gave Asher a new toy a while back that quickly became his absolute favorite. It was an interactive “Tearrible” stuffed creature with limbs attached by Velcro strips.
He starts right away with the frantic “kill shake” that often immediately dismembers one or more of the Velcroed appendages. Then he stomps a paw on the body and emphatically rips the remaining arm/leg/tail/ears loose and spits them out to the side. This is all perfectly by design and is as rewarding for him to do as it is for us to observe.
Once he gets down to just the body, Asher runs around with it like a prize, usually pushing it up against one of us in hopes of instigating a tug-of-war game over the now-damp stuffed toy.
It is at this point that he begins to take the dissecting a little too far. If we don’t take it away, his next favorite thing to do is chew vigorously at the edges of the Velcro strips and eventually shred the fabric enough to start pulling the stuffing out of it.
Cyndie has sewn up the wounds countless times and worked hard to salvage the body despite the dwindling functionality of attaching limbs after the shape has become distorted and the Velcro less functional. Since Asher loves the toy so much, Cyndie has replaced worn-out ones with brand-new purchases several times.
A little while ago, she decided to write to the company and share her experiences with trying to keep the toy functional. Cyndie offered a suggestion they try making the body out of a tougher fabric for dogs like ours that like to play extra rough.
She received a wonderful response thanking her for the information and was invited to sign up for announcements of their occasional fire hose version that always sells out right away. The company also asked about the size versions we have and offered to replace the bodies at no charge, after confirming that all the detachable pieces are still good.
Boy, did that make Asher happy! And a happy dog makes for happy owners.
It’s hard to describe how much fun it is to watch Asher having such a good time getting the Velcro to come apart with that rewarding riiiiipping sound and the way he loses no time in tossing the freed piece to the side and instantly chomping down on the next rippable limb.
He definitely has the predator gene driving his instincts when it comes to plush toy play. Is it weird that he seems to develop a smile whenever we give him a chance to “kill” his toy?
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More Digging
What’d you do yesterday? I dug through dry, packed gravel that was as hard as concrete to uncover even more of the AC power wires to the barn. With Cyndie’s participation, we worked together from two ends and met in the middle.
The owner of the Electric/Plumbing company we use for service stopped by in the morning to assess the situation. He was concerned there could be an additional splice and convinced me to dig up the rest of the lines all the way to the barn.
That was easy for him to say and a heck of a lot of work for us to do. At least we now know there are no other splices, at least not in that direction. I have very high confidence the patchwork that was done over ten years ago did not involve any more than the bare minimum repair to solve (and bury) the problem they had created.
What still remains unanswered for now is whether or not the splice is where power is actually being lost. I have notified the company that the cables are exposed all the way to the barn, allowing them to schedule an electrician to (hopefully) verify the splice is the problem and then redo all three splices with a much higher-quality up-to-date process.
I’m looking forward to that work being done so we can put all that class 5 gravel and thick clay soil back where it came from.
I don’t know what today’s projects at Wintervale will be for us, but I’m going to make every effort to avoid anything that involves digging.
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Water Woes
I’m beginning to feel that water is the real “can’t live with it; can’t live without it” element in our world. It’s obvious that we need water to survive. It’s a little odd that I’m choosing to dis water during a phenomenally dry period of more than a month. This current stretch of dry weather has taken us from an unusually wet spring and summer into problematic drought conditions.
Cyndie added a water bag around the trunk of the young maple tree in the center of the labyrinth yesterday to help it cope with the water shortage.
One of the pesky water issues that triggered me yesterday has to do with the inspection of our chimney. I learned different ways water is the culprit we need to fend off constantly. The 34-year-old “crown” at the top of our chimney is flatter than it is crowned and the masonry is cracking. The rain and snow that lands on those cracks can seep in and become problematic in various ways.
One thing I didn’t consider is how condensation inside the chimney can contribute to the degradation of masonry or corrosion of the metal of the damper or firebox components.
Looking closely at the masonry around the stones on the outside of our chimney reveals a few cracks forming and has me resigned to adding a sealer to extend the life of the structure.
We just finished re-sloping the landscape around the garage foundation, and I’ve rerouted gutter downspouts, all to protect our house from water. The logs and deck have been sealed to protect them from the abuses of water. The integrity of our roof shingles is a constant concern to protect the house from water damage.
Cyndie just got home from the lake, where she spent the weekend dealing with a water leak in the basement laundry room, where signs of mold along the baseboard are already evident.
I’m anxious to find out if the potential failure of an electrical splice is somehow water-related. I uncovered the three splices yesterday and didn’t see anything obvious. I chose not to mess with it so the electrician could observe the condition they were in when uncovered.
I truly hope this old repair proves to be the problem. If not, the alternative may require burying a whole new run of wires the full distance from the circuit breaker box on the shop wall down to the barn.
That would involve a long pathway beneath the large expanse of asphalt in front of the shop garage.
Please let the fix be in the splice I’ve dug up.
Back to water problems, my brain is hurting from the ongoing news reports about the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, and now Hurricane Milton is winding up with a scary level of intensity bearing toward Florida’s Gulf coast.
Water, water everywhere. It gives us life and it can be the bane of our existence.
For the sake of all our growing things, I sure hope it rains here pretty soon. And when it does, I also wish the water would stay out of all the places we don’t want it to go.
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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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Relative Something 