Archive for the ‘Images Captured’ Category
Can You?
If you look closely, can you see how much growth has occurred on the spindly little fingerling of the volunteer oak tree to the right of my balancing stone since that first picture on the left was taken back in May? I’d love it if we could get that same amount of new growth every year. We’d have shade on that side of the house in a couple of years.
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Road Shots
I may be home and back to the old grind (have I mentioned that I returned to the old day-job a while back?), but my mind is still lingering on the bike trip. Here are some images from this year’s trip that keep going through my head…
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Sky Show
Cyndie and Delilah were down in the paddock with the horses last night and the sun was getting close to our horizon. I finished what I was doing and headed out to find them. It didn’t surprise me to find the sky taking on a strange hue, because the night before, our sunset was quite a sight through the plume of smoke passing over us from Canadian forest fires. I figured it was happening again.
Then I saw a streak of lightning in the distance. There was a bit of a straight-line rain”bow” appearing on the far side of some rain clouds stretched to the ground by the precipitation in the distance. We stood among the horses and watched nature’s grandeur for a good half-hour.
I did my best to capture a panoramic view with my phone. In truth, you really had to be there to experience how impressive it was, but this will give you a rough idea. Imagine the rest if you can.
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How To
This is how you take advantage of the day after workday on the opening weekend of the summer vacation season up at the lake.
Rain started slowly and gently mid-to-late afternoon and turned the rest of the day wet, but in the hours prior, there was some basketball played, a group of very motivated and brave young adventurers went tubing behind the speedboat (that lake is still very cold), and some people took a nap.
I went for a stroll, did some observing, and visited with a few people I don’t get to see as often as I’d like anymore. I had to try several different times to stop thinking about the projects I should be working on at home, in order to pay proper attention to the here and now.
It was good to be up at my favorite getaway with Cyndie’s family again. We received messages that all is well at home. Horses, dog, and cat are getting along well with our guest caretakers. That goes a long way toward helping me relax and enjoy our time here.
Today is Memorial Day holiday in the US, when we pause to remember and honor those who have died in active military service. It appears as though I may be spending a few hours of the day in a line of cars returning to their homes, since the soaking rain continues to fall and will likely inspire folks to hit the road earlier than they otherwise might on the last day of a 3-day weekend.
If I could, I’d prefer to be spending that time curled up under a comforter in a hammock on a hill above the lake.
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Greener Side
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It is quite possible that sometimes the reason it seems greener on the other side of the fence is because, it is.
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Creatively Repurposed
We lost 8 long-needle pines in the last couple of years due to a combination of dry summers that sandwiched one long and very harsh winter. It was pretty obvious last fall that they were beyond recovery, but I just didn’t have the heart to take them down until this spring.
When the time came to finally face that chore, I decided to see if I couldn’t find some creative way to honor the memory of the pines. It just didn’t feel right to cut them all off at the ground. Of course, I have some history with this ploy of not cutting a tree to the ground and then using the remaining stump for something new.
At our home in Eden Prairie, I saved the 2-3 inch diameter trunks of a cluster of 3 choke cherry trees that had sprouted in an unwelcome spot of our yard, and then balanced rocks on them to create an interesting visual display. I liked the results enough to resurrect the concept again. In this instance, however, I have one item that will be more functional than a rock. It’s a birdhouse (Thank you, Mel & Greg!).
We have some really nice rocks here, so putting a few up on tree stumps is irresistible to me. While I was cutting down this tree which was leaning significantly, I discovered a twiggy young oak tree growing beside it. If that oak survives the abuse that some critter has enacted on the bark of its skinny little trunk, someday it may tower over the end of our house beside our bedroom in the spot where this pine was unable to survive.
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Green Grass
Our grass is growing in leaps and bounds now, which is the time when we need to limit the hours of access for our horses. That accelerated growing is a too-high-sugar fuel for our Arabians, per the doctor’s orders. I had asked how I would know when we needed to pull the horses off the pasture, and our vet said that she uses how quickly the lawn needs mowing as a reference.
I mowed on Sunday, and there are places where it already looks like I didn’t even cut it. I don’t like to mow more than one time in a week, but when it is growing this fast, it needs mowing in 4 or 5 days. I think that using this as a reference for when to limit the horse’s pasture time will work pretty well.
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Relative Something 