Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Canine Companion
Life on the ranch with our adopted rescue, Asher, is becoming downright charming in the way he now calmly hangs around areas where we are working. Case in point:
He decided to test out the slope Cyndie had just raked.
I have taken to entertaining Asher with thrown balls for him to chase while I am working which burns enough of his energy off that he gladly lays down near me to rest for a spell.
All the while keeping a vigilant watch on the horizon for anything that moves.
He is becoming much more of a buddy with both of us and loves physical contact. I think he is figuring out the latest situation he has found himself in has the makings of becoming his permanent home.
That’s just the canine companion we were hoping for.
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Plum Jam
The volunteer wild American Plum trees growing in a bramble along our property line and along the edge of the compost area have been showing good fruit this year but have been ripening at different rates. Yesterday, we decided to take the plunge and collect a batch for making plum jam.
I suggested we bring out a sheet to capture fruit that falls when shaking the tree. Cyndie handed me the sheet and sent me into the bramble to spread it beneath the branches. Easier said than done.
One reason we didn’t want the plums to fall to the ground is that Asher has shown an interest in eating them and can get to the fruit faster than we are able to pick them up.
The sheet worked well enough, despite the plums falling from a wider area than it covered. That was probably a good thing that kept us from trying to process more than what we had time to deal with yesterday.
Cyndie spotted a lone plum that had landed in the crook of a bare branch.
I got my hands messy helping to pit the plums and did my best to support Cyndie during the cooking and pouring into jars.
The plums aren’t overly sweet but Cyndie succeeded in mixing in less sugar than the recipe called for and taste tests had us both agreeing the flavor was good; not too tart.
The telltale “ping” of lids popping during dinner indicated the cooling jars of jam were sealing as hoped.
Since our harvest of wild black raspberries was lighter than usual this summer, it feels good to be able to take advantage of a different free crop that nature has provided. We ended up filling 18 jars of varying sizes with homemade plum jam.
The flavor stands no chance of competing with my passion for Cyndie’s wild blackcap raspberry jam, but I intend to enjoy the plum jam plenty since the fruit is from our property and was canned with the same loving care as all the goodies prepared in Cyndie’s kitchen.
Also, because we spread it on toast, and toast is just about one of my favorite morning treats. Toasted bagels, brown bread, honey wheat, or the all-time greatest, toasted homemade bread of any type (including Gramma Betty buns).
Guess what I want for breakfast this morning.
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Beauty Sacrificed
I was clearing growth from one of our trails and came upon this wonderful sight:
Then I cut it down. [sad face] I sure love the look of those leaves.
There was a time when Cyndie and I were so invested in having as many trees as possible that we couldn’t push ourselves to cut any of the volunteer growth that sprouted. We tried hard to transplant the little oaks and maples that showed up in locations where they shouldn’t be.
Those efforts were rarely rewarded. We saw so many transplants die and so many new sprouts return every year that we finally came to our senses and allowed ourselves to cut growth that popped up where we didn’t want it. These days, I’ve become much more ruthless than I ever imagined when it comes to culling new sprouts.
Yesterday, I found myself working in the vicinity of Cyndie’s perennial garden to cut back overgrowth. There is a point in the summer when unwatched growth goes nuts all of a sudden. Junk trees must gain a foot every day or two. Weeds jump to heights taller than the trees.
Along the trail behind her garden where I had weed-whacked early in the summer, there were little explosions of growth rising out of previously cut stumps. (We don’t apply any chemicals to the stumps after cutting.) When I cut down medium-to-small diameter tree trunks to clear a trail, stumps sprout countless new replacement shoots. If I don’t return in a timely fashion to eliminate the new sprouts, what was once a single tree becomes a monstrous shrub.
If I am tenacious enough to do frequent battles against the stumps’ attempts to reclaim their former glory, follow-up pruning isn’t that big of a deal. But if I wait a little too long, it requires a lot more effort. Luckily, it only takes two or three growing seasons before the stumps finally give up and I ultimately get my way. At that point, my well-groomed trails become as visually pleasing as the beautiful surrounding trees that we didn’t need to sacrifice.
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September Morning
It was a classic September morning yesterday and a rather photogenic one, I must say. How about a wispy fog in the valley around sunrise?
Around the corner, near the barn, we just couldn’t stop gazing at the scenic landscape.
Then Cyndie remembered she was going to pick more wild American plums from a tree beside the compost area. It is entangled with a vine that has sprouted some fruit of its own. We have some grapes!
Not much for size compared to cultivated varieties but great fun to see them appear on our totally wild vines. Maybe the growth in this spot is happy to be in close proximity to whatever leaches from the piles of composting horse manure.
Before we know it, these mornings will start to get frosty and the growing season will come to an end. As the planet warms, that’s been happening later and later every year, so it’s a guess as to how soon. The shorter hours of daylight make it seem like the change to frosty temperatures is just around the corner.
I’m mentally prepared but won’t be holding my breath in anticipation. I love September mornings no matter how they come.
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No Plan
Sometimes I don’t have a plan for my day beyond the endless list of possibilities awaiting attention around our property. There are always plenty of things to do around here but my motivation doesn’t always rise to the occasion. Add in weather complications or limits of daylight and plans are often subject to change.
When I don’t have a plan then there is nothing to change. I did successfully accomplish a combination of driveway raking and grass mowing yesterday, so that felt like a win. I pushed the ol’ Greenworks lawn tractor to the single digits of battery percentage, making it back to the garage without needing to go get a spare battery.
While raking dirt near the road I was interrupted by the daily mail carrier delivery, a special US Postal package delivery, and a visit with our neighbor to the south. I think he is happy to see our property being well-tended. He always expresses a belief that we should be riding our horses and then regales an oft-repeated tale of the retired racehorses his friend had that were sway-backed beyond belief. They both lived into their 40s he tells us, I think as a way of suggesting ours may enjoy similar longevity.
Yesterday, Cyndie noticed that Swings has a “chunk” of her hoof broken in a way neither of us have seen before. She checked with This Old Horse and learned it wasn’t a cause for major concern. Other than that, I think the herd is showing signs of enjoying the gentle transition toward fall as our temperatures have started to moderate and the hours of daylight are shrinking.
I asked my neighbor if he expected good fall colors this year since we are seeing fewer hints of change than in previous seasons. He said the dryness we are suffering will likely bring good colors and the lack of change so far is just because it’s early yet.
It feels to me like the dry spell is shriveling leaves to brown more than triggering a color change thus far. Time will tell.
I won’t plan for spectacular fall colors and see if that helps. A failure to plan is a plan to fail, no?
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Days Long
Once again, we find ourselves engaged in a project that is much larger than two people can complete in a short amount of time. Cyndie and I could work on the newly graded dirt along our driveway from sun up to sun down if our sore feet and blistering hands were equal to the task and it would still take many days.
Since the project isn’t truly completed until there is grass growing in all this new clay/dirt combination, it will be months if not a year to reach the ultimate goal. Luckily, getting beyond this first raking and grading effort will be a welcome milestone. We’ll no longer feel driven to work intensively at every possible moment.
As always, it is a labor of love. It looks so much better already and will be a great improvement for mowing and plowing along the driveway. I’m looking forward to doing both on the improved slopes.
To accommodate allowing Asher to loiter off-leash, Cyndie and I split up and she stayed with him to work out-of-sight from the road and I took a second wheelbarrow down to the road to rake, shovel, and scrape.
Removing the large chunks of clay and the occasional big rocks leaves the task of heavy raking to pull dirt up from the bottom and smooth out the slope as evenly as possible. I find the result highly visually rewarding.
It actually inspires me to want to get right back out there to pick up where I left off except for the one-sided toll it takes on my body. I can’t master the art of raking left-handed. Hours of pulling only one way creates a stress on my body that is decidedly lopsided.
Maybe I’ll do some mowing today on the zero-turn mower. I need to steer that with both hands equally.
It’s another labor of love, don’t you know.
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Clay Chunks
For a change of pace after breakfast yesterday, I went for a bike ride to check the status of a route I’ve invited friends to join me on in a couple of weeks. The roads are all still there. Crops in the fields are starting to yellow but very few trees were sporting the colors of fall.
I am curious what the scenery will look like in two weeks.
After lunch, it was back to landscaping and increasing the calluses on my hands. The dirt the contractor hauled in for the job matches our soil pretty well for the percentage of clay it contains. With the bucket and tracks of the skid steer, the guy could press that dirt to a cement-like density.
In one area where we want water to flow to a culvert, he filled it too much and I needed to dig some out.
That proved to be a lot harder to accomplish than I expected. Asher volunteered to help and for once he was digging exactly where I wanted him to.
I found a good use for the large chunks of clay that didn’t get broken up by the skid steer. I’m dumping them on the slope beyond the shop garage to create a base where I want to reclaim it as easily driveable off the edge of the pavement.
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After the driveway was repaved, that slope had become too steep, just like the edges along the rest of the length. Here, I want to add enough fill to make that spot easy to drive over with the mower of ATV. By busting up the chunks of clay I will get a solid base to cover with composted manure and old hay before finishing it with some of our remaining lime screenings.
Since we only had the contractor work up to the barn area, any improvements between there and the house are up to us. I will be improving this area simultaneously with the rest of the length where we are finishing the work the contractor did.
This includes shopping for a water tank and sprayer we can pull behind the lawn tractor or ATV to water grass seed.
Gives us something to do around here.
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Sculpting Soil
The main order of business for the foreseeable future involves rakes, rocks, and lots of black dirt for us. On Tuesday, we raked out the drainage swale in the back pasture to pick up rocks and debris from the dirt dumped in the field. I think the load they brought for the field was deemed undeserving of the good-quality dirt.
In addition to the many rocks, we came upon trash that included a piece of wide ribbon with the words “buried cable.” Not far from that, I raked up a damaged short length of electrical cable.
We filled a wheelbarrow with the rocks and dumped them where the ground has been washing away beneath the footbridge I built.
I pulled out a select few that will make nice additions to our labyrinth and set them on the bridge.
Yesterday, we spent our time on the new slopes of the driveway, starting with the portion behind the hay shed. It looks great after giving it a thorough raking and final shaping. As rewarding as it is to see the long-awaited improvement, getting that short length done provided a reference for how much work lies ahead to give the rest of the driveway the same degree of attention.
Thankfully, it’s a labor of love.
We rewarded ourselves last night with a showing of the two latest episodes of “Reservation Dogs” season 3, followed by (for me) more hours of US Open tennis matches. Cyndie prefers a book over spectator sports.
Watching more matches in a row than ever before has taught me the importance of capitalizing on break opportunities and avoiding hitting the ball into the net. Finding a way to shift momentum in one’s favor goes a long way toward helping, too.
I think I’ll stick to landscaping and keep tennis as a spectator sport.
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Noticing More
Look around and see what is there in plain sight. The more you look, the more you will notice. It wasn’t hard to see the difference four days can make when it comes to the first trees changing over to fall-colored leaves. When Cyndie and I pulled out of the driveway at the lake we were surprised at the difference from when we arrived.
Along the county road, it was all green leaves when we approached the driveway last Thursday. By the following Monday, this is what we saw:
At home, it is the Japanese Silver Grass that has changed right before our eyes. The fireworks of seed sprouts are bursting forth regally.
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The last day of 90°F weather from this latest heat wave led us to choose activities that were mostly indoors yesterday. Asher was not bashful about asking for some attention from me as I lounged in the recliner watching coverage of the US Open tennis tourney.
It was nice to finally receive some rain last night, but it will take a lot more than a passing shower to make progress against the drought that is beginning to stress growing things. There was little growth from the grass I mowed before we left for Labor Day weekend. In fact, there is little green now compared to a week ago.
The grass is turning brown. Noticeably brown.
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Anniversary Heart
We received an invitation to a 25th wedding anniversary party for our friends, Joyce & Doobie Kurus, which inspired me to start a new heart sculpture before I finished the one already in progress. A little interlude for a change of pace.
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I chose a piece of American Hornbeam that I have been looking forward to working with for a long time. When we cut up this downed tree I saved much of it in the barn and shop for future use because the shape and grain were so enticing.
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Like so many times before, I was drawn to retain some of the raw bark to provide contrast to the other highly finished surface area.
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The wood was great to work with and has me very excited for the next opportunity when I will be able to sculpt another piece of the American Hornbeam I have stashed away.
I appreciated having Joyce and Doobie’s special occasion to think about while I worked on this heart. Somehow, I let myself start on another inspiration before getting back to my melting heart out of a piece of maple, so I currently have two in process at the same time, neither of them out of American Hornbeam. I’m experimenting with creating a shape that reflects a twisted heart.
If I like what comes of this first attempt, I hope to try a larger version from Hornbeam. All while simultaneously seeking to make progress on the tricky part of my melting heart.
Making all these hearts has got to be adding to the love that exists in the world. I don’t really need any more inspiration than that.
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Relative Something 