Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Serene Green
This time of year, every morning the landscape looks different than the day before. The increase in the number and size of leaves on branches and blades of grasses that happen in a day is astonishing. Our morning walk with Asher through the woods and around the pasture offers one marvel after another.
“Look at this!”
“I can’t see you through the trees anymore.”
The horses have quickly gotten over the excitement of being allowed on the grass now that we’ve reached the point of leaving gates open all the time. They get to come and go as they please so there is no anxiety about confinement.
They are wonderfully calm in the morning and impressively patient about waiting for the delivery of their feed. I will soon be able to refer to “grain” in their buckets as we are gradually transitioning from manufactured pellets to a mixture of actual grains. This was a business decision by This Old Horse but it seems like an improvement to me, changing to a less processed food.
The chestnuts, Mia and Light, took a break from grazing to have a little nap in the lush grass. That incredible serenity is precious, especially since the horses are also experiencing seasonal hormones that have them coping with some unfulfilled urges that sometimes stir things up in the herd.
Yesterday afternoon, Light was like a little puppy trying to get Mia to snuggle necks but Mia wasn’t interested and moved away carefully to avoid causing a ruckus. Mix actually greeted Light nose-to-nose without being aggressive about it. That almost never happens.
Maybe Mix is showing some empathy toward Light.
That kind of behavior contributes significantly to the serene scenes we’ve been enjoying between rain showers. I’m all for more of that.
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Heirloom Rehomed
After consulting with Julian W. Hays, I decided to check with the Pierce County Historical Association about their interest in having my great-grandfather’s Oshkosh steamer trunk. John Waters Hays (1860-1931) was eleven when his father, Stephen W. moved the family to Pierce County.
By the 1880 Census, John is listed in the Village of Morris in Stearns County, MN, as a boarder with the occupation of Painter at the age of 20. John most likely spent his teen years in Pierce County, so I think the PCHA collection of historic artifacts is a fitting place for the trunk to land once and for all.
John ultimately became Secretary-Treasurer of the International Typographical Union working out of the Indianapolis office. I assume this would have been his one piece of luggage for traveling during the years in that position.
After I used the trunk to store my clothes and valuables for decades, I passed it down to Julian. He used it for a while but then asked us to store it in our basement for him. I think the Historical Association is a better long-term place for the trunk to be kept.
I asked the Vice-President if she thought the PCHA would be interested in the precious family heirloom. She asked for photos and said she would share them with other officers and get back to me. The response came back a day later and the reaction was a unanimous “Yes!”
I drove it down to their office in Bay City on Tuesday afternoon. While I was filling out a donation form, one of the staff printed copies of articles about the school where John might have attended, based on the area where it appears they were living.
I have a good batch of reading to do. It’s not clear that I will find precise details about John during those years, but I can at least get a sense of what life might have been like for him.
Unfortunately, this will steal time away from my exploration of the spat between Joseph Sleeper and his wife, Abagail that led to dates in court.
So many ancestor stories to investigate, so little time.
Of course, the ultimate bonus for me out of this donation is the decluttering I accomplished in our basement. It provides a “win-win” and warms my heart that much more.
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Growth Control
Between the days when it has been raining lately, the mowing hasn’t been simple. The saturated ground makes navigating the heavy riding mower on the many slopes around our property a rather inelegant science. The hardest part is not knowing I’ve driven myself into trouble until I’m already in it.
A glance behind me reveals muddy tracks and then forward momentum slows as the tires start to spin. Even though there are areas where I know there is standing water to be avoided, it’s not always obvious how much of a buffer around them I need to maintain.
The bottom line becomes getting the tall grass knocked down as a priority and accepting there will be a few sacrifices made to the turf in the process. The final result is a much less satisfying mowing experience than the days later in summer when the ground isn’t so wet.
Yesterday, I decided to use the string trimmer to clean up some areas where the tractor didn’t dare go. Then I trimmed around culverts, under fence lines, around downspouts, and along walls. Having those areas cleaned up provided a visual reward that compensated for the ugly skid marks and muddy tire tracks that resulted from needing to control the growth happening at its fastest while the ground was still extremely wet.
I’m coming to terms with the reality that early-season mowing often won’t look pretty around here but the fast-growing grass will be knocked down often enough that it never gets completely out of control.
Heck, even the horses can’t keep up with grazing their pastures this time of year.
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Time Travel
By simply driving south on the gravel road winding along Isabelle Creek, I felt transported to the time my ancestors lived there in the second half of the 19th century. We were on our way to the Pierce County Historical Association.
Our visit to their office in Bay City was a treasure. The old log cabin they have preserved is from near the community of Esdaile where the Sleeper mill was located. Standing in that structure made it even easier to imagine we were no longer in the year 2024.
Our conversations with volunteers covered multiple subjects, including how quickly things changed when the railroad arrived. I learned how to interpret the symbols for structures on old property maps: round = log; square = frame; triangle = brick.
Something I didn’t anticipate was a tip that old newspaper information is available from the Library of Congress online through their Chronicling America site where it is possible to search historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963.
I took a stab at “S. W. Hays” in Wisconsin between 1855-1895 and found this morsel in The River Falls Journal:
Now, this is particularly cool because, in addition to my ancestor Stephen Hays, it includes mention of my 2nd-great grandfather Charles Church and refers to “C. Betcher” who owned the lumber business Stephen (S.W. Hays) worked for. The only family missing is someone from the Sleeper clan. That’s okay though because when I searched for Joseph Sleeper there are a large number of pertinent results.
In fact, I discovered there was a summons published in the Prescott Journal about a complaint between Joseph and his wife, Abagail:
Spring is the wrong time of year for me to be discovering a new resource for losing hours on end searching old newspapers for the names of my ancestors. There are acres of grass that need mowing outside!
I hope today will be a little dryer out there than it was yesterday.
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History Open
Today is the first Sunday in May. I can’t count how many first Sundays of the month have passed without me taking advantage of the regularly scheduled open house at my county’s History Society. Today will be different.
On a day when the sun is shining bright in a clear blue sky, we are going to depart from our little sanctuary and drive past the little village of Esdaile (where my Great-Great-Great Grandfather Joseph Sleeper owned a sawmill) beside Isabelle Creek, on our way to the Pierce County Historical Association in Bay City.
It will be my second visit to the main office of the PCHA. When I first discovered that my Great-Great Grandfather Stephen Hays once owned land in Pierce County, I made my way to Bay City to learn more about him.
I discovered so much more than I bargained for that day. Suddenly, it was revealed that three of my ancestral families were living in the area in the 1860s.
Recently, the PCHA announced that local Historian, Mary Beeler had published (at the age of 92) a book about logging and log buildings in early Pierce County. I want to see if there might be more information about Joseph’s mill or Stephen’s wagon-making.
The rain has ended for a day, but the over-saturated ground remains too wet to do much work of substance. A small group of hearty souls stopped by yesterday to walk the labyrinth and enjoy Cyndie’s baked treats in the lingering mist following another half-inch of accumulation.
No other visitors are expected for a while, so I can let the grass grow crazy while waiting for the ground to dry up a little.
I suppose I could pull more weeds out of the gravel loop around the hay shed today, but that’s not as enticing as exploring more local history.
Maybe, in the end, I’ll do a little of both.
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Peace Meditations
’Twas the first Saturday in May
And all through the labyrinth
Plenty of creatures were stirring
Especially the burrowing pests
Today is World Labyrinth Day. Despite the first Saturday of May always arriving too soon for our beautiful growing perennials in the labyrinth garden and the trees surrounding it to have fully blossomed, we still try to tidy it up as much as possible for the annual peace walk at one o’clock.
I had the electric riding mower out and about again yesterday in an attempt to knock down the outrageously tall and thick areas of overgrown grass in multiple places, despite several of them holding puddles of water and most of the soil being too saturated to support the tire traffic.
I had to swallow my pride a couple of times when the spinning wheels turned what had been nice grass turf into wide smears of muddy skid marks. I deemed it tolerable damage in this case, given the difficult situation we were in to get ready on the only day left when it wasn’t raining.
It’s too bad the prediction for this morning is at an 80% chance of more rain. Even if precipitation pauses around the middle of the day, we will likely be walking on the equivalence of wet sponges while meditating for peace on Earth.
The concept of creating a rolling wave of energy around the world by having people participate at 1:00 p.m. in each of their local time zones is an inspired one, in my opinion. I suggest that the practice needn’t be limited to people walking labyrinths. You can do this wherever you are.
At one o’clock [your time] this afternoon, pause for a time and rally your mental energies toward a focus on the possibilities of peace in every form imaginable. Heck, if you are reading this after the appointed hour, go ahead and do the mental exercise anyway. What have we got to lose?
Give Peace a chance.
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Gardening Again
The starters have had a few weeks to sprout and grow so it is time to get the garden planted for the season. I gave Cyndie a hand turning soil and hauling compost, she has done all the rest.
There were a few hours when it wasn’t raining on Wednesday, so we did as much as possible in the time allowed.
Cyndie accomplished pretty much everything except moving the starters outside into the dirt. When we woke up yesterday morning, steady rain was falling and our drainage ditches were flowing near their maximum rate. It was too wet to do anything outside.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t still need to tend to the horses and walk the dog. Manure management is barely discernible from mud management. Walking reached the difficulty where an attempt to pick up one foot might leave behind your boot if you do it wrong.
You can’t try to lift your foot straight up or the suction holds the boot. You need to roll your step, heel to toe.
Our land is as wet as ever which I didn’t anticipate would happen coming out of a winter with almost no snow. That’s not all bad when it comes to growing a garden. Plants are much happier growing in wet soil compared to parched dry dirt.
I read somewhere that the British documentary series, “Clarkson’s Farm” about Jeremy Clarkson and his farm in the Cotswolds was releasing a 3rd season this month. Last week, I discovered Cyndie and I had only watched the first season. To prep for watching the new release, we binge-watched all the episodes of the Season 2 on Prime.
Even though it is very different from the experiences Cyndie and I have had for the last 11 years in our move from suburban life to 20 acres in the country, there are enough parallels to make the events of the show feel very familiar to us.
Since we haven’t had a professional television production crew following along every moment, my narration by blog posts will have to suffice for our “reality show” presentation. In my estimation, the stories of Wintervale Ranch and Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm would likely appeal to a similar audience.
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Splish Splashing
After a lot of rain, a large puddle forms in the larger of our two paddocks. While I was turning one of the compost piles, I heard splashing and looked up to find Swings stomping away in the water. It looked like she was either trying to make the puddle deeper or she was splashing to wash off her legs.
This got Light’s attention, who then walked over and started stomping her hoof on the ground at the puddle’s edge. Since she never joined in the water splashing, her behavior gave the impression she was doing it in encouragement to Swings.
“Do it some more! Yeah! Go for it! Do it again!”
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When Swings decided she had had enough of the escapade, she turned and walked out of the puddle. Light seemed to completely understand the task was complete and moved away with Swings, as if they were tethered together.
As soon as I stopped recording and walked back to what I was doing, Mia went over to the puddle and immediately lay down in it. I barely got my phone out in time to capture her getting back onto her feet. Then she walked over near the others and they all acted as if nothing had just happened.
Mix grazed in the foreground without paying them any attention.
Horses are so much fun to have around.
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Rolling Again
The ground hadn’t dried out all that much but the grass was growing so thick and tall along the driveway, with more rain due to arrive soon, I decided to take a chance with the heavy zero-turn riding mower yesterday afternoon. The experience I gained driving the machine throughout last year’s mowing season appears to have carried over nicely. I successfully avoided getting stuck or making muddy skid marks despite needing to drive over slippery grassless spots and navigate the challenging slope along the road.
To warm up my skills, I started with the area behind the barn where it is drier, the grass is well-established, and closer to flat than most of the rest of our grass areas.
From there, I set off for the muddy slopes along the driveway. The thick, wet grass presented the perfect conditions for sticking to the mower deck and plugging things up. I was already prepared to deal with that situation because I made ramps last year that hook on the loader bucket of the diesel tractor. It was a sturdy surface that provided just the right height.
A clean mower deck makes for a happy mowing guy. The unfortunate thing about the task is that I get to see how abused the blades are. Okay, that is a good thing. I just don’t like seeing it.
At about the same time that darkness arrived at the end of the day, it began to rain hard enough and long enough that I felt really happy to have gotten out to mow when I did. Based on the seven-day forecast, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna get any drier around here anytime soon.
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Successful Test
We didn’t get the downpour I was expecting would show me the improvement achieved by my rerouted gutter downspout, but the daylong drizzle yesterday produced results.
A puddle was almost forming in the grass beyond the outlet of the last stretch of the downspout. That is water that would have been soaking into the dirt along the foundation from the ineffective (broken) plastic solution that had previously been in place for years.
It must have been more than a drizzle at some point in the last 36 hours because Cyndie reported over an inch of water in the rain gauge last night.
Knowing that this kind of rain was on its way, we jumped to accomplish as much as possible on Saturday afternoon during a dry spell. I pulled out the diesel tractor, rearranged equipment, and retrieved the wood chipper from the back of the garage.
Using knowledge gained from previous failures, I detached the loader bucket to reduce weight and picked a strategic route to reach the wood chip “station” by the labyrinth without a problem.
A few years ago, I got stuck and created a muddy disaster trying to drive that tractor along the fence line of the back pasture. Saturday, the tractor tires did nothing more than leave a reasonable impression on the soft earth.
There is so much I don’t know about using heavy equipment, but in the eleven years I’ve been playing the role of Wintervale’s property manager, I have figured out how to get along at a level that serves our needs. When the shear bolt broke during the session of chipping a big pile of oak branches, I wasn’t the least bit fazed.
We used that excuse to decide we had done enough chipping for the day and I simply wrenched in a new bolt when I got back to the garage. No big deal.
Before gaining these years of experience, I would have perceived a broken bolt as a sign I had done something wrong. I saw it as a failure. Something to be avoided. Now I keep stock of spare bolts and suffer no unnecessary concern when they are needed.
A successful day of using our equipment to accomplish tasks is a good test of the knowledge I’ve gained from the school of hard knocks.
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Relative Something 