Monday After
News reports warned that MSP airport was going to be a busy place this morning, as Super Bowl attendees from out of town would be flying home in droves. I wonder if workplaces are going to be quiet this morning. I was up past my bedtime last night.
Before becoming a major couch potato for too many hours around the actual game time yesterday, I spent a lot of hours outside in the brilliant sunshine plowing and shoveling.
There is something really satisfying about a freshly plowed path. I enjoy it while I can, because in no time, there will be another snowfall and it will lose that just-cleaned look.
Even though it was single-digit cold, the sun showed its power against the snow on the window of our truck.
I prefer watching the environment slowly clean off the truck as opposed to sweeping the snow off all at once. Silly me. It’s just the opposite of how I appreciate the good clean look of the driveway after it’s been plowed.
Congratulations, Philadelphia Eagles fans!
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Super Sunday
It’s finally here. The big NFL game is happening in Minnesota this year and the hyped up media have whipped things into a frenzy for the last few days. I will be glad when it is all just a memory and we can get back to normal around in the Twin Cities.
Visitors were treated to a day of beautiful falling snow yesterday, and this morning, below zero cold with dangerous wind chills. This is the way we do winter.
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I gave Delilah a workout yesterday, making her leap through deep snow in an off-trail walk across some of our fields. I tried to capture the beauty of the falling flakes in the shot back toward the barns, and ended up getting one little blurry flake to show up.
At the time I pulled out the camera, we were out on a wind-swept slope covered by hardly any snow. Delilah took great fascination with some scent that grabbed her attention and scratched at the frozen ground, layed down and rubbed her fur against it repeatedly.
Now I need to go out and plow.
That’s another way we do winter.
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‘Nother Day
It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning here on the ranch, with snowflakes flying and a fire dancing in the fireplace. Wish you could be here to take it all in with me, but since you are not, I’ll try to enjoy it enough for all of us.
I’m afraid Hunter is going to see this as another day of imprisonment. Despite our belief in an equine sense of the world that is heightened beyond our perceptions, I all too often fall back into a common thinking that we are outsmarting him.
The doctor’s orders are for full-time confinement in the stall with extra bedding for at least a week, plus daily doses of an anti-inflammatory. Whether or not Hunter recognizes our efforts are aimed at relieving his pain, he is not accepting the regiment willingly.
The way Cyndie describes the relative futility of injecting medicine into the mouth of a horse who doesn’t want it reminds me of raising kids. However, there is a big difference between imposing your will on a helpless little baby and a 1000-pound horse.
Watching Hunter battle his forced confinement by biting on the top board of his stall that is just barely out of reach for him breaks my heart when comparing this option to the acres of rolling open fields he is longing to gaze upon.
Our exercise becomes one of searching out a flavoring agent that might loosen his clenched teeth when medicine is delivered, and testing all manner of gimmicks for him to “play” with that will pass his time within the four walls.
We bought a two-burner heat fixture that is mounted atop a small propane tank in hopes of throwing a little heat into the barn during the veterinarian’s visit. Only one of the burners worked. The valve on the second one wouldn’t feed gas unless the starting button was held in.
The instructions said to hold it for 30 seconds. I tried, 3o, 40, a minute, two minutes. Yeah, I’m that patient.
No, it wouldn’t work.
At least the below zero cold is on hold for the days this week, and we are at a balmy 15°(F) with all this snow flying today.
We don’t need no stinkin’ heater.
Luckily, Hunter has received a room upgrade at the inn. Due to a recent vacancy, he has moved from a stall with no window to one on a corner that has two windows.
Here’s hoping he is enjoying the view of the current snow-globe landscape and not wasting his energy gnawing on the top board.
Send our sorry pal your love!
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Bold North
There’s a new slogan in town that arose from the committee responsible for landing this year’s Super Bowl game and coordinating all the related local events around it. The motto being brandished everywhere we look is, “Bold North.”
I like it. It speaks of the harsh reality we face in carrying on with our everyday lives regardless the extremes of weather our northern location dishes out. I take pride in being able to tolerate the ridiculous cold or the stifling heat which we face, both happening within a span of mere months from each other.
However, and I really hate to whine about this, there are times when the bitter cold can really become an excessively excruciating pain in the butt, …and the ears, toes, fingers, nose, and even eyes.
We haven’t even received a bill yet for the last time the vet was here when the extreme cold contributed to ending Legacy’s life, and now we need the doc back this morning to take a look at Hunter at a time when it is again so cold that the tools of an equine veterinarian barely function.
It’s hard on the horse and hard on the doctor trying to help him.
That makes it hard on us.
We ran an errand last night to pick up a propane heater in hopes of taking a little of the edge off for the vet while he is working in the barn.
I don’t think I was as grateful as I should have been for the relative luck we had in the prior four years of being first-time horse owners. I basically had no idea what I was doing when it came to being responsible for the ultimate well-being of our herd. Some days I would return from feeding them and realize, if asked how they were doing, I hadn’t really even looked them over all that closely.
I guess that set me up to have a sense that problems were few and far between, and I came to see that as normal.
This past year it feels as though it’s been one issue after another.
Instead of things getting easier with time and experience, we are in a phase of experiencing just the opposite, and it seems to be reaching peaks of difficulty that coincide with drops in temperature.
It’s got me feeling not so bold, after all. In fact, I caught myself having thoughts last night of the type that snowbirds express, like wishing to be somewhere warm during winter.
It’s a blaspheme of what I hold sacred!
I’m from Minnesota! The bold north! I love winter!
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Just Thinking
I tried thinking and thinking but no thinks ever came to me. Where did they go? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, because with an absence of thinks, comes a propensity to not care. At least, I don’t think I care, if that’s what it’s like to not think any thinks.
What I mean is, I don’t care that I can’t think of any stories to write.
The other day I found myself telling Cyndie that I felt an urge to be preparing for a new expedition. Obviously, life with animals and 20 acres is its own expedition, but I think I was longing to escape to some other remote adventure.
I would not be surprised if this were a way I am manifesting my grief. Escape.
Conveniently, today I have an opportunity to begin planning for one of my favorite annual adventures. Today, registration opens for the Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week. My adventure awaits.
It is not lost on me that one of the things that I love the most about the Tour of Minnesota is that I don’t need to do much thinking throughout the week. The route is determined and mapped in advance for us, the camping locations are established, the meals are set.
I just show up to ride my bike, and go with the flow.
No critical thinking required.
I think I can manage that.
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Playful Moments
Despite the undercurrent of grief and uncertainty for us around the ranch lately, there are still moments of blissful play that arise organically without warning. Over the weekend, Cyndie and I headed out with Delilah to give her another chance to explore of her own free will through the middle of our woods.
That canine radiates like a kid in a candy store when we let her rush around through the trees chasing wherever her nose leads. I’m embarrassed to admit that we tolerate her pauses to root out deer droppings because it allows us to catch our breath after the jungle-gym challenge of navigating branches to keep up with her.
When the trail exits the trees and follows the pasture fence around the property, Delilah falls in line without objection and resumes her usual routine of walking the path.
What she didn’t realize on Saturday was, I had a plan to crawl through the fence to romp with her in the hay-field.
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It is so much fun to watch her reaction when she suddenly catches on to my idea.
“Oh boy! We are going to play in the big snow!”
Although, it wasn’t very big snow any more, after a few days of warmth and sunshine. It’s beautiful to look at, but a hassle to walk, with the crust not being strong enough to support our weight. Delilah had a little easier time of it, but even she broke through on occasion.
When I collapsed from exhaustion, Cyndie pulled out her phone to take pictures of Delilah showing off that she wasn’t tired yet.
Mother nature is a major part of our life out in the rural acres. It can be harsh and wonderful all at the same time. I expect we will get more snow storms as winter plays out, but right now we are dealing with hazards that are more common in March, like dangerously slippery ice from melting snow that has re-frozen.
At the same time, we can play outside without a jacket on. Or, make that “could,” as that warm spell is already over and we are now back to a big chill again.
As I’ve written before, the weather brings adventure to us.
Tomorrow, we get the added bonus of a triple-treat full moon. It will be another “super moon,” with the orbit closest to the Earth. It’s a “blue moon,” because it’s the second full moon this month. Lastly, it will be a “blood moon,” for about an hour with reddish coloring from an eclipse.
What’s not to love about that?
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What Led?
The weeks that have followed the unexpected death of Legacy, our Arabian gray who was the herd leader of three chestnuts, have been made even more difficult by some extreme winter weather, the death of a colleague and friend whom Cyndie worked with during her years as Principal of Eden Prairie High School, and now signs of some laminitis lameness in Hunter.
Among the many contributing factors listed for laminitis, we found that hormonal imbalance caused by stress of moving a horse or the loss of a field companion spoke directly to the situation effecting our remaining three. Sadly, this recent heavy snow accumulation, followed by the dramatic thaw, has added another risk by making the uneven frozen footing in the paddocks hazardous for bruising or mechanical damage to the cellular bond between sensitive laminae and the hoof wall.
On top of these issues, this weekend Cyndie and I were smacked with the reality that her car is in need of cost prohibitive repairs. Logic indicates it is time to shop for a different vehicle for her.
Roll all these issues together and our grieving minds both came to a similar thought: has our dream of making Wintervale Ranch into a functioning business met with defeat?
Life was a heck of a lot less complicated for me when I lived in the suburbs and only had to deal with maintaining the house and our tiny lot. I hate to admit there are aspects of that which look desirable in comparison to our current situation.
Our unpredictable and decidedly inadequate combined incomes do not make shopping for a replacement vehicle as simple as it once was for us. Right now, shopping for a different car seems to be a tipping point for our analysis of this whole crazy move to the country to build a self-sustaining retreat and learning center.
What led us here in the first place?
We found ourselves revisiting the series of inspirational events that sequentially fueled our passion and groomed our decisions. From the magical trip to spend two weeks with Ian Rowcliffe in Portugal, to Cyndie’s apprenticeship in Linda Kohanov’s Eponaquest workshops, to our discovery of this gorgeous property and log home in west-central Wisconsin, the mid-life transition we embarked on seemed supernaturally ordained.
Where is that inspiration now?
Instead of the surprisingly achievable answers and solutions that have blessed us in response to all the incredible challenges that arose throughout the early years of this adventure, we are increasingly noticing a lack of income-generating response to our offerings and an increase in stressful difficulties with our animal partners.
Obviously, the most dramatic stressor being Legacy’s sudden death.
Just like all that has come before, we know there is a lesson for us in this. Even though he is gone, Legacy still has something to teach us.
At the center of it all is, love.
We grieve because we love and experienced a loss, but loving is how we got where we are today.
We believe it is possible to rediscover the love and inspiration that guided us here and we are seeking to re-attune ourselves to more of the surprisingly achievable answers and solutions that have graced our journey thus far.
What led us here is exactly the same as what will lead us to what happens next.
Please keep your seat belts fastened and your arms and hands inside at all times for the remainder of this wild ride.
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Tragic Breakup
The beautiful snowstorm of last Monday is mostly a memory. The 14-inches of accumulation that poured down on us in a matter of hours during the day has been drastically reduced by a few subsequent days of an above-freezing thaw.
Grass became exposed where I plowed or shoveled, pavement showed through on the driveway, and the deck got as clear as a summer day.
I was gazing out at that deck yesterday when I spotted a tragic result of all that snow.
One of the prominent pine trees near the house had lost its top, as the two main leaders split apart and toppled away from each other.
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Meanwhile, despite the areas of pavement that were dry, the slope beyond the shop garage remained an icy challenge that a FedEx delivery truck was unable to successfully cross.
Moments after delivering his package, Delilah’s barking alerted me to the driver trotting back up toward our house. He’d slid off the driveway into the snow bank and wondered if I could pull him out.
We tried several options, seeking the least complicated solutions first, but everything led his truck deeper into trouble until I got out the diesel tractor. Using the trick of wedging the loader bucket against the driveway and using the hydraulic force to “walk” the tractor backwards, we successfully got the truck out of the snow and back up on the icy driveway surface, which we had smartly covered with grit from our pile of lyme screenings.
That allowed the driver to roll forward off the riskiest segment of ice and out of the most hazardous section of the driveway.
We shared a laugh over how nice yesterday’s warm weather was and how far removed it was from the drama of Monday’s storm, yet the results of that storm were still having all this impact on our lives.
The ditched truck was a quick resolution, but the tragic breakup of our tree will linger as a long-term reminder of the harsh realities that come along with the beauty of these big snowfalls.
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Saturday Morning
It’s just another Saturday morning. Yesterday is over and tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. I’m tired, like so many millions of mornings before, but more aware of it than usual. Is it a physical tiredness, or mental fatigue? I think the answer to both is, yes.
I’m tired like I must be another day older. I guess I can’t argue with that. Older, I am.
I’ve got Trey Anastasio’s self-titled 2002 album playing straight through, in the order it was presented. It’s become an anomaly for me to let recordings play the way I listened to them when I was a kid, one side of a vinyl LP and then the other.
Now days, for me, it’s almost always a computer-generated “mix-tape” of songs from the complete catalog in my iTunes file. That has its own rewards, but it produces a different result, for sure.
Music is like food for my soul. Sometimes I eat just because there is food in front of me. “See food,” I call it. I listen to a lot of music in the same way, consuming it just because it is there. I like to assume it nourishes me adequately enough, but sometimes my mind must develop a craving for tunes that will give me something particular I need.
I want to hear a song I love, an instrumental performance that thrills me, or a composition played so inspiringly that I get a shiver up my spine.
It is a phenomenon that is difficult to manufacture. There are a lot of intangible aspects fueling the outcome, most of them in my head.
It’s odd that I picked one album this morning because I usually get what I seek by way of spontaneously building a custom mix for the moment and letting one song feed the next in a climb to satisfaction.
I’m thinking I might try that next, but the single album mode served to get my tired old self started this Saturday morning.
As I write that, Trey is singing, “Push on ’til the day, push on ’til the day, push on ’til the day…”
With no firm plan of action for the weekend, I look forward to discovering what unfolds.
Pushing on!
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