Archive for the ‘Wintervale Ranch’ Category
Helping Hand
It’s hand specialist visit day! Wish me luck for a definitive diagnosis, and hopefully, a plan toward fixing whatever is going wrong in there.
I think my brace has been helping in the last few days. I’ve been wearing it selectively, and when it is not on, trying to do normal activity with that hand, as much as possible. I’m noticing just enough improvement that I worry it won’t present well for diagnosis this morning. I may have found a way to self-treat this recent flare-up, but I still am hoping to learn why the thumb joint has been a chronic nuisance for the two years prior, especially if it is determined not to be the arthritis that I assumed it to be.
When you are feeling kind of punky because you have an “owie” hand that makes it hard to do pretty much everything that you can think of to do, you just might find yourself crashed out on a bed for a sulking nap. Either that, or the napping cat just looked so irresistible that I succumbed to joining him. Cyndie found the visual irresistible, and grabbed my camera.
That’s about as close as we can get to Mozyr, before he takes his leave. There’s no snuggling with that cat, yet.
Pequenita is another story. There’s no not snuggling with her. She walks right up on top of us, steps between our face and anything we happen to be doing, and demands hands, pushing her nose under our fingers, while kneading our chest.
She will probably be as happy as me to have my left hand be freed from pain, and available for full strength use again.
Hurried Tidbits
I’m short of time, and seem to have just bits and pieces of news and thoughts, so I’ll take a shot at just tossing them out for today…
• Worked a 12-hour shift at the day-job yesterday, and thus had a chance to drive home after the daily rush-hour traffic jams. There was noticeably less traffic than I commonly face in the mid-afternoon time slot I usually target. That’s not a bad option.
• Minor, but exciting, progress on fencing yesterday. The area is too wet to work in, except up near the barn, so that is where they confined their efforts. They installed fences that create a channel out of the door, which will lead to gates at the entrance of the two paddocks.
• I got a call while I was at work, from the fence contractor checking if it was okay to put all their equipment in the barn, as more precipitation is predicted for the next few days. Rain and/or snow. There is a possibility for heavy rain. Due to that, and the snow that has yet to melt, our region has been put under a flood watch.
• After a brief period where our two cats seemed to be getting over their unexplained spat with each other, they resumed the hostile animosity a couple of days ago, and have us rather confused. Also, the wee one, female, Pequenita, seems like she doesn’t feel well. She doesn’t always keep her food down, and seems to have less of her usual energy. It may or may not be related to their relationship troubles. A check up with a vet is in the plans.
• My thumb pain continues to debilitate most of my actions. I bought a brace, which has helped to protect from exacerbating the problem, and I am eagerly awaiting an appointment to have a specialist look at it on Thursday morning.
• Thursday’s weather could make the driving to the appointment a little challenging. I’m going to do everything possible to get there. I sure hope the specialist has a similar level of determination.
• In light of the recent terror bombings in Boston, I want to echo something that I read, credited to actor, Patton Oswalt: (paraphrasing) “There are more good people than bad. We outnumber you, and we always will.” For every tragedy that bad people unleash, a much greater number of good people respond, giving care, soothing others, spreading love.
Those are my bits for today. Stay warm and dry, and do something good. Spread some love.
Plowed Slush
Every once in a while, I end up with a picture I really like, which I figure will probably work as a “Words on Images” piece, but later, when I get it opened up on my screen, I can’t bring myself to interrupt the image with text. This is one of those images.
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I think the close-up shot looks a bit like the super-magnified images created by electron microscopes.
Dangerous Beauty
The spring weather has been one storm after another this year. I think the last two have overlapped each other. Sunday turned into a day-long rainstorm, with temperatures hovering just below freezing. That meant ice buildup on tree branches and surfaces.
In the middle of the afternoon, I tried stepping out to see how our trees were holding up. Unfortunately, it was very windy, which had to have been putting extra strain on the branches that were getting heavy with ice. At the time, there were only small branches that had begun to accumulate on the ground, but the ones still in the air were definitely becoming shimmering beauties.
I almost didn’t get our front door to open against the ice that had formed along the bottom. The handle was covered, and dripping icicles. Luckily, though the rain seemed to be pouring down, the icing of limbs didn’t appear to growing at an equivalent rate. I can only hope that our luck endures through the end of this weather event.
Futile Search
I came up empty this morning. Not for lack of trying. I trudged our woods and beyond, into the neighbor’s section of forest adjacent to us. I found no obvious evidence that revealed what all the coyotes were howling about last night.
Just about the time we were turning in for the night, the racket of coyotes in a tizzy, which we are now familiar with, after our initial exposure last October, filled the darkness from down the hill below our house. I cracked the window to better hear the chorus, and Pequenita leaped to the window sill to join me, her interest piqued.
Grabbing the spotlight that we now keep handy in our bedroom, I scanned the distance. It didn’t do much. Since the land drops away so quickly, the only view I get is of the open space near the house, across the top of the hill. I am including a daytime shot of the area we are able to see from the bedroom window.
From the sound of things, and from the fact the howling continued on and off for some time, we expected the coyotes had captured a meal.
My search this morning was for tracks that might lead to the remains of their prize. Last fall I hadn’t put two and two together to realize that what we had heard might mean there would be a carcass. It was mere coincidence that I was exploring our woods, days later, bushwhacking off trail, and came upon the fresh skeleton of the 8-point buck.
That was before there was any snow cover, and the scene hardly stood out at all. This time, I figured such a kill would be much easier to spot, since there is still so much snow on the ground. What I discovered was that the woods still obscure the sight-lines quite a bit, and it wasn’t easy to positively identify which tracks were fresh from the night before.
The coyote tracks I did find seemed meandering, certainly not racing after prey. I was also looking for evidence of more than one set of paws, because we definitely heard more than one animal yipping. There are plenty of tracks from rabbits, squirrels, deer, and one very definite and obvious trail of a single turkey. None of them looked to be on the run. Eventually I did come upon a pair of coyote tracks, side by side.
Maybe there wasn’t a chase. It could have been a surprise attack from a stealthy hunter. Whatever it was, I didn’t find the results. They were heard and not seen.
There remains the outside chance that it wasn’t a new kill at all. During my trek, I wandered past the spot of that kill from last fall. Enough snow has receded to expose the old carcass, and the legs and hooves that were left as undesirable last fall, had been pulled up and freshly gnawed.
It is quite possible that the reason my search was futile is because there was no fresh kill. Maybe they were just excited to have found the remains of that old kill. But, I’ll be keeping an eye out for a new carcass, because I’m not quite convinced.
Seasonal Dyslexia
Yesterday’s unwelcome weather event did not turn out to be one of the ominous “top-10 historic April snowfalls” that was being touted as highly likely, but it still scared me away from trying to negotiate Thursday’s traffic. I didn’t go in to the day-job. Both Cyndie and I stayed safely off the roads and tucked in our home, protected from the elements.
Thus far, we have experienced heavy rain, then sleet, then sloppy wet snow, then falling temperatures, and then wind-blown snow, out of this winter storm. It is still going strong, continuing to ply its wrath over us this morning.
Winter storms that occur in the springtime can be rather exasperating, especially when they cause postponement of an already delayed fence installation project. Doesn’t do much to accommodate our brush-pile burning project, either.
We have an important meeting in the cities this afternoon, with our tax accountant, so must bite the bullet and get behind the wheel, regardless the conditions complicating the morning rush “hour.”
The things we do for love.
We are head-over-heels in love with this place we now call home. It easily makes our driving hassles worth the trouble. Even when it is covered with snow in the middle of April, it is a wonder to behold.
Uncertain Outcome
And then there is the plot twist where something is expected to happen, but nothing happens.
Now what? Carry on as usual? That feels like such an injustice to all the energy that was put into anticipating the future that didn’t quite materialize as planned. I resort to making a list.
the periodic ticking of the hot fireplace
pecking of a bird breaking open seeds outside on the ledge of one of our log wall ends
clacking of keys on her laptop keyboard
gusting wind against the house and through the pine tree branches
radio songs from 1983
furnace fan cycling on and off
crunching dry food that a cat is munching
iPhone text message received alarm
distant whine, felt more than heard, rising from the base of the neck to between two ears
What’s happenin’? The unexpected non-event, that’s what.
Extend hibernation for a little longer. The explosion of spring will not be denied, but it can be delayed.
We’ll be patient. What choice do we have?
Meditative Burning
It rained Sunday night, but that didn’t stop me from reigniting the brush pile yesterday afternoon. It is a fascinating exercise to witness the ebb and flow of fire energy, as it slowly, but surely consumes tree root bundles. You can’t leave it untended, if you want to make constant progress. There is just too much moisture stored in the roots, and they don’t really want to burn. You need to keep feeding the fire wood that is dry enough to burn well, and stoke those coals to keep them glowing red-hot.
Still, the fire will tend to grow calm, as the burn consumes the immediately available fuel. It is mesmerizing. Then, a simple adjustment of the pile, by poking around in the coals, followed by the addition of some new wood, brings a rush of sound and fury. It is energizing.
I completely understand why someone I know explained that her husband took a picture of her when she was lured out to tend their brush pile burn, while still in her bathrobe. The task has that addicting allure.
Last night, I had a tough choice: the addiction of the fire, or the addiction of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament championship game.
The brush pile will still be here today. The game won out last night.
Disappearing Day
Maybe this can be attributed to the old saying, “time flies when you’re having fun,” but it seemed like yesterday did more than fly. It just plain disappeared.
In all fairness, we did get a bit of a late start. We enjoyed a leisurely beginning to our day, and then dove into chores to prepare for a late brunch with our children and their significant others. As the noon hour came and went, Cyndie and I stepped out to putter on some outdoor chores while we waited for the kids.
We made our way down to the barn, where we started the process of clearing the eagle statue and the rocks used for landscaping, from the area to the right of the door. We will be creating space to drive the tractor around the back side of the barn, and that is going to involve removing some dirt. Before we can move the dirt, we have to get the rocks out of the way.
We barely got started on the project, when kids arrived. After a brief tour to show off the fence progress, we headed inside to prepare the feast for serving. It was a classic “Cyndie brunch,” with her homemade waffles, and oodles of fruit. When the meal was done, we didn’t even clear the table, but retired directly to the comfortable seating by the fireplace, to visit.
With the afternoon sun showing dominance over the thin clouds, we were lured back outdoors, where we explored for something to do. I decided to see if we could get any of the branches in one of our brush piles to ignite, with the hope of picking up where we left off last fall, burning them.
The process of burning brush can be real mesmerizing. We made it a challenge to start the fires without any paper or accelerant, which I’m sure occupied much more time than any of us realized. Once we achieved a spot with some good coals, it became a process of finding the driest stumps and root balls to pile on top of the flames.
It seemed like just a short time, but when we finally dragged ourselves away from the fun, and back up to the house, it was almost 7 p.m.! Holy cow! Where did that day go?
The tough thing about this experience is, we can now see so many outdoor springtime tasks already deserving attention, the phenomenon of amazing disappearing days is going to become an all too common reality for us.
It’s like magic! Luckily, we like magical things.
Wanna watch us make a day disappear?
Got Boards?
Progress continues on the fence project. I think they chose to attach the boards on the lower end of the paddock now, so they won’t need to be working down in the muddy areas in the coming days, since temperatures are predicted to remain high in the afternoons for the next week.
There is still a lot of snow in the fields that has yet to melt. The drainage ditch beyond the paddock now has a babbling brook flowing, non-stop. Last night, just before sunset, I followed the flow to the end of our property toward the south, and discovered that it doesn’t immediately drain into the ditch that exists along the border of our property line and the farm fields next door. It is spreading out to form a large wet spot on the edge of our cut field.
I can tell, now, why some of that wasn’t already cut when I was mowing the area with the brush hog last fall. It probably remains wet most of the time, when we aren’t experiencing drought conditions.
Maybe I can dig it out a bit, in order to encourage the pooling of water (instead of fighting against it), creating a small pond. It may take a few years of seeing the seasonal tendencies of water behavior here, before I take that kind of action. Ultimately, my goal would be to work with the natural tendencies, and not endeavor to reshape them away from the natural. No sense digging a pond if it is only wet for a few weeks in the springtime.
I also want to be on the lookout for possible springs on the property. Most recently, we were informed there may be one near the willow tree that has now been made part of this first paddock. I am confident the future horses will help reveal the presence of a spring, if there is one there.
Something leads me to believe that the springs here will all be seepage springs that create wet spots, or dry out, depending on the amount of precipitation and ground water levels. The recent trends have delivered longer and hotter heat waves, and increasing drought conditions around here, so I am not inclined to expect any possible springs will be dependable for offering pools of water for more than short periods of time.
I have much to learn here. The last few nights I have been noticing how far along the horizon the sunset has changed already, from not so long ago.
Every day here –certainly in the period of our first year– is a brand new experience. In addition, the changes we are introducing on the property since we arrived, are reinventing the place from what it was before.
Yes, Mary, change is good!
Relative Something 