Big Little
Amid all the big issues swirling around the pandemic, like federal government response, different state government responses, economic doom and gloom, employment insecurities, and uncertain futures, there are still a lot of typical everyday little things that continue to play out.
I find that I keep putting off making a call to address a need to replace the windshield on my Crosstrek. For months I have ignored a chip from a rock impact that only showed up in my view when the light was hitting it just right. More recently, a second stone strike, low on the passenger side, began to form a crack. Now that crack is slowly growing evermore toward the midpoint.
Last night, we enjoyed lo mein and sesame chicken take-out from King House restaurant in Ellsworth. It tasted divine. It was almost a religious experience to open the classic white box of lo mein and dish out a generous portion of noodles and goodies onto my plate, then spoon the dangling noodles back into the box to discover it was still filled to the top. If I hadn’t just served it myself, I would have argued that it couldn’t be true.
I’m already looking forward to enjoying the leftovers in the next few days. There looks to be enough remaining to feed an army.
While we were up in the loft eating, there was a very loud bang on one of our windows. We get a lot of bird strikes against our glass portals to the forest views, but this one was loud enough that I struggled to imagine what could have made that impact. A small deer? When the dog and I finally reached the front of the sunroom, a very large bird leaped up into the air and flew to the closest giant oak tree. It was a pileated woodpecker!
Cyndie noted the feathers and a panic-induced s-shape of excrement stuck to one of the crank-out windows beside me.
Little distractions from the historical pandemic drama playing out in the agonizingly slow motion of months threatening to drag into years are a welcome diversion.
Even if they have to do with two grossly decaying mice that were discovered in the long-stored chicken waterer that Cyndie pulled out for use now that freezing temperatures appear to be behind us for another year. Apparently, they figured out a way to squeeze inside the egg-shaped plastic dome, but not how to get out again.
I’m told it didn’t smell pleasant.
I have no new news to report on the friendly feathered visiting grouse that was keeping Cyndie company on Wednesday as she worked around her garden plots. Maybe it was just passing through. Just like the woodpecker and so many of the other wild travelers who traverse our terrain.
The two worlds of big things and small things coexist, but rarely seem to show any particular concern for one another.
Gladly, we have free choice to decide which of the two will have the focus of our attention at any given moment in time.
.
.
Wild Visitor
The first message I received from Cyndie yesterday was a celebration of the recently broody Wyandotte choosing to exit the coop of her own volition.
Cyndie had first attempted the cold bath method, which simply rendered the hen incapable of standing but didn’t break that drive to brood. Then she resorted to the broody cage for a required two different sets of multiple days.
The second message I received announced a different bird had showed up to chill near Cyndie while she was working on her new garden plots.
This beautiful little grouse let Cyndie get very close without showing any nervousness, but didn’t react with any interest to offered seeds or water.
I figure the bird sensed Cyndie’s chicken-momma skills and was naturally drawn to her nurturing spirit. Or, it was seeking protection from marauding turkey flocks that roam our area.
We frequently hear pheasant calls and occasionally see them, but this is the first time I have seen a grouse. Funny that it gave such an appearance of being domesticated. Maybe it wants to get in with the cool kids and join up with our chickens. With the flock of hens drastically reduced in number, now might be a good time to try.
The three chickens seem a little lonesome for their absent sisters.
.
.
Similar Theme
My visit yesterday to the Previous Somethings archive fed an urge to explore my media library from the earliest days of this blog. I found some images from eleven years ago which interestingly correlate with our life in the present.
Back in May of 2009, we were still living in Eden Prairie, MN, on a fraction-of-an-acre corner lot. At that time, we had no inkling we might be selling that house and moving within a few years. Back then, we were…
…building the frames for a raised garden!
This week, while I have been occupied with the day-job, Cyndie has decided to go a little further than the initial terrace we worked on together in the last few weeks. She framed in a few more spots for select plantings she’s decided to add which will need more space.
Another old photo I found was taken up at the lake place in Hayward. The month of May brings out a carpet of trillium in the woods up there that we totally adore.
Last night, Cyndie brought me a picture she took of one that just showed up in our woods at Wintervale.
We have been trying to bring a few trillium back with us from annual visits to the lake in May and have been transplanting them into various locations in our woods. I don’t know if we’ll live long enough to see them flourish and spread like they do at Wildwood, but each time I spot one here brings me great joy.
.
.
Completely Forgot
My poor brain can’t keep up. I expect it must be dropping old information out the back each time I try to stash something new in the front. I was just blessed with an opportunity to discover that I had forgotten entirely about a very valuable lesson learned through experience. I even blogged about it at the time for good measure. Granted, this was from 5-and-a-half years ago, but still…
In a humorous message exchange yesterday with my friend, Rich Gordon, I thought he had me mistaken for someone else. He had asked “What’s the best stuff to use to lubricate my garage door springs? I saw you had a repairman over recently.”
No. No, I haven’t had anyone here recently. I guessed that he had me confused with someone else. My response was to answer with a smartass quip in jest, figuring he would notice he meant that for someone else.
When he came back to ask in all seriousness, we discovered the miscue. Rich questioned his sanity for thinking he had just read about this in my blog and that triggered my scouring the “Previous Somethings” archive for the time our door spring broke. I confirmed that I did write about it, just not recently.
I’m guessing the old post from November of 2014 probably showed up as an auto-generated link of similar post suggestions that Rich inadvertently clicked without realizing he was delving so far into the archives.
As I reread my old writing, I was embarrassed to see I had clearly pointed out the need to lubricate the garage door spring, but soon after, I completely forgot anything about it. Out of sight, out of mind, even though I use our garage doors almost every day.
The icing on the cake of this whole memory failure appeared in the comments under that original post. Way back then, Rich and I already had this same discussion about what to use for lubricating the spring.
Guess what just moved up near the top of my home maintenance “to-do” list?
Garage door springs are not something that should be included in the category of “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” chores. Somehow, I spaced this one out entirely. It’s nice to have gotten a laugh out of it, but there’s an element of nervous laughter threaded through it. The power of those springs and the amount of weight they are counter-balancing is not something to be trifled with.
Now, if I could somehow figure out what important detail just dropped from my memory after bringing the door spring back to the front, that would be just great.
.
.
Inverted Stump
In the ongoing saga of finishing what we started with clearing growth from beneath two large oak trees near the driveway, I resumed the weekend lumberjack role on Saturday. Wielding the Stihl chainsaw like it was an extension of one of my limbs, I spent the day cutting up downed wood from the week prior.
Some of the main trunks were so heavy that we couldn’t lift them, which presented a challenge when it came to cutting them into fireplace log size. I don’t like cutting on the ground. We came up with a solution using a pry-bar, but I have since realized I could have made partial cuts down the full length of the heavy trunk and then rolled it over to finish each one.
I can test that method next week. There is one downed tree trunk left to be cut into logs.
While I was cleaning up the area, I decided to cut some of the leftover stumps closer to ground level. That exercise led to a need to change the chain on the saw. One particular stump was hollow and very resistant to my effort to saw it off. Turns out the bottom portion was filled with dirt and debris that quickly destroyed the sharpness of the chain.
We decided the abuse was worth it in the end because that stump is going to make a wonderful planter and we have the perfect spot for it. I flipped it over and showed it to Cyndie who was instantly sold on the idea.
The grape-vine covered bird feeder that tipped over this spring due to a rotted cedar post created a void that Cyndie had planned to fill with flowers. Now, the inverted stump-turned-planter is going to be the centerpiece of that new display.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Two Soils
It’s a tale of two soils at Cyndie’s new garden plot. First, she turned over the turf, then she used a garden spade fork to break up the soil. In so doing, the clay content of that slope became very clear. Cyndie started tossing aside the clay clumps that were coming up in solid blocks.
Look at the difference in color of the dirt she tossed over the end compared to the composted manure soil we brought in yesterday from two different places where it’s been stored on our property for a few years.
I’m not really sure why it even matters. The grass was growing like gangbusters in that clay soil before we dug it all up.
Now, if the overnight temperatures would stop dipping down below freezing, that would be just great. Maybe she could start growing vegetables in that black gold.
.
.
Damaged Faith
Among the many unsettling reports that have daily battered the shorelines of our consciousness since the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, I am particularly dismayed over the multiple revelations of unethical profiteering that have hit the news. It breaks my heart and has damaged my faith in humanity to see such blatant large scale examples of disdain for others in selfish quests for personal gain.
I’ve noticed that the focus of news reports cultivate outrage that large publicly traded corporations were awarded huge sums of federal recovery money intended for small businesses that didn’t get it. Same thing about the scandal in Mississippi where an audit uncovered details of millions of dollars of federal welfare funds were spent on concerts, cars, and Brett Favre events that didn’t even happen.
Yeah, that’s so wrong. We should be outraged.
But you know what? The outrage shouldn’t be over the fact that it happened, it should be over the fact that in order for it to be occurring, someone had to make decisions to allow it to happen.
How many times have you heard the opinion that people on welfare are lazy and don’t deserve getting something for nothing? People trying to use food stamps are highly constrained and closely scrutinized about what purchases are allowed. Disproportionate amounts of concern are levied over the use of pennies at the end of the line while millions at the top are allowed to be wrongly redirected to people who are neither in need nor deserving.
We heard about known name restaurant chains and a top NBA team among at least 75 public firms that got federal low-interest loans through the Paycheck Protection Program that was intended to aid small businesses.
Who at these companies made the decision to even apply for this money? What are they thinking? Seems to me our outrage should start right there. And it wasn’t just a handful of scandalous people. According to the New York Post, the Associated Press investigation came up with “at least 75 public firms.” That’s a lot of independent cases of unethical decision-making in positions of power running big businesses.
Just a short time later we hear about the audit of the Mississippi Department of Human Services discovering $98 million in funds from the government’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program being misspent. Who made the decision to execute those transactions?
Imagine trying to decide if you should pay out a few dollars to many families in need or give MILLIONS to one or two people who are already wealthy.
At the same time, who in the government processing these payments and seeing where money is going doesn’t respond with alarm? Small Business Administration aid package money going to the Los Angeles Lakers? Sure. Cut the check. Makes total sense. NOT!
Yes, the pandemic crisis is exacerbating a lot of injustices that were already in place. It has dented my faith in people to see how prevalent the inequitable decision making is by too many individuals in places of power.
Do me a favor. If you find yourself presented with an opportunity to take more than you need, …don’t.
Just don’t.
.
.
No Control
Life feels a little more out of control lately than the illusions of control we felt satisfied with while plodding along on our merry ways over the years prior. It’s noteworthy how the easily understood signs of mental strain gradually arrive and intensify as the duration of an invisible health threat drags on, expanding economic turmoil in its wake.
It is difficult to tell whether anything happening to us or around us is merely incidental or somehow related to the main news topic of the day in the midst of a pandemic viral event.
We have no control over how cold it is going to be outside this morning and are watching the budding leaves on our young trees with an anxious concern they won’t freeze just as they are beginning to unfold.
Last night, Cyndie and I had a good hard laugh over one comical “outburst” I experienced at the end of my day-job work week. Exhausted by a seemingly endless barrage of customer orders that are swamping our capacity (a good problem to have, no?) that daily threaten to overwhelm my attempts to control, I found myself mentally numb and entirely listless.
For almost the entire time the world has been shutting itself down to control the spread of the coronavirus, we have been seeing orders grow almost exponentially. It’s crazy-making.
When the day finally passed into the darkness of night, I rallied the energy to get my butt up off the bed to ready myself for a good night’s sleep. Dragging the shirt off my shoulders, I considered just throwing it at the closet in demonstration of my contempt for… well, just everything. But my routine prevailed.
It would merely cause me more effort later to pick up, so I grabbed the hanger as usual.
Still seeking to protest the facade of anything being usual, the thought occurred that I might not button the collar as is my habit before rehanging a shirt. I could just shove it onto the closet to hang on the rod with utter disdain.
Except, I couldn’t. That fastidious habit has become too ingrained.
I went in to brush my teeth, because skipping that grooming habit was one I tried last weekend and was quickly reminded that it definitely wasn’t worth it by morning, and described my ridiculous moment of ‘almost’ rebellion to Cyndie. We laughed heartily over the embarrassingly infantile attempt to lash out.
The sad truth of it all is how far from suffering our life is at this point. I’m feeling all angsty over a level of stress that is of no comparison to the hardships so many others are living right now. I can’t imagine their version of not having control. It’s heartbreaking.
Somehow, I hope we all muster the gumption to soldier on and take care of ourselves and others.
It really is the better option compared to giving up and throwing our shirts on the floor of the closet.
.
.
That Door
.
there are days when I like to pretend
I don’t know which drawer she hides her candy in
back before the virus
there were a lot of things we took for granted
it’s funny how features that haven’t changed a bit
somehow look different now
tall tales that seemed laughable when we were young and still fascinated
have grown almost scary to me now
combined with the changing angle of sunlight
and smoke from distant fires
the world is painted in a slightly different hue
it’s a long hard sigh
done more for effect than for bigger air to breathe
waiting for all the other shoes to drop
in consequence for everyone trying to make too big a hop
from one thing to another
too many humans flit around after purposeless purposes
in impassioned attempts to not settle down and allow themselves to feel
but real doesn’t simply vanish into thin air
when we neglect to slow down and actually care
for ourselves
with hymns of wailing and flailing for peace and harmony
looking for love to crawl out of our core
blossom in our bosom
if and when we come to our senses
and finally open that door
.
.
Weak Link
There are many days when the Wintervale connection to the world via the internet is annoyingly flakey. The problem is mysterious and invisible, frequently interrupting progress in the middle…
.
.
Hi, I’m back. That’s the way this works. After a seemingly interminable pause, activity resumes as if nothing is amiss. You wouldn’t notice a thing, unless you were attempting to visit with others via Zoom.
“Your internet connection is unstable.”
As soon as that message appears, even as I rush to write a chat message to everyone to explain that I could hear them all even though my image may have frozen to them, my fate is doomed to closing and then immediately reconnecting, minus all the text I had just entered in the chat window.
It’s life in the country. For all the advantages we enjoy living out among farm fields and forests, it comes at the expense of having a reliable internet connection. The industry can’t balance the economics of running fiberoptic cable to handfuls of houses scattered across many wide miles.
We don’t stream. We rent DVDs through the mail.
If we want to accomplish something without interruption, it takes a lucky combination of atmospheric conditions and an absence of too much competition for the limited bandwidth. Oh, and we can’t have already exceeded our cap of monthly allotted usage.
In all of the Zoom meetings I have participated in over the last month, I was the weakest link.
It’s too bad because I love the possibility of connecting with my multiple remote communities, but I love living where we do even more.
Cyndie pointed out that our new openings around the two big oak trees beside the driveway allow for excellent viewing of the rising moon.
Since our internet browsers weren’t having much success loading pages, we were more available to get out and enjoy the lunar view.
.
.
