New Room
My builder showed up on Monday and we finally have progress on the construction of a new storage room in the basement corner where the entertainment center used to be. In a few short hours they removed the old studs, decided on a location for the door, figured out a plan for the lighting, put up the frame of the new wall, and finished stringing electrical wire. Tuesday they got the drywall hung, taped, and a first layer of mud applied. It feels real good to have another of our imagined changes finally transitioning into actual progress.
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Totally Unexpected
I have been using WordPress.com to host my blog from the time I started it in 2009, publishing one post per day from the beginning. Long-time readers will note that I make very few changes to the appearance of my blog. I chose a theme I liked, and I have stayed with it. I have been focusing my energy on content, not the vessel, which is/was supposed to be the advantage of WordPress.com. Now it appears that a change has been forced upon me.
Yesterday was an interesting day for me, as I monitored the forum activity on the topic of the recent WordPress update to the image editing option. I am not alone in my grief and frustration over the loss of control. Plenty of other people were struck with the same brutal discovery, a fair number of them trying to maintain multiple blogs and/or business blogs. All of us bewailing the unexpected and unwelcome loss of features.
At this point, the limited response from WordPress representatives has been distant, somewhat evasive, and pretty unsympathetic. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
It is like someone turning off a light while you are working, and you holler, “Excuse me, I was using that!”
Would you be satisfied with this response? “Well, we made some improvements in the way you can open and close the curtains. It is much easier now. You don’t have to walk over to the end of the window any more. Now you can just grab the curtains anywhere and move them. Many people have worked long and hard on this change. It may take some time to get used to this new way of doing things, but we’re confident you will enjoy it after you become used to it. We welcome constructive feedback, but we will not be going back to the old way of doing things, so if you have something constructive to offer, we will seriously consider it for future versions.”
“Um, what about the light I was using? Could you please turn it back on?”
From WordPress “Happiness Engineers” [yes, that is how some of the staff responders are labeled in the forums], the response we are getting to the equivalent question we are asking has been mostly silence.
Hmmm. What is up with that?
Dangblasted Updates!
Curses! Progress has foiled me once again. While trying to compose today’s post, I discovered I could no longer format the images I upload in the “advanced” way I have previously.
This is a view of the old editing tab that has been eliminated in the latest update.
I was very fond of the previous version and the control it provided me to make things look the way I wished them to look.
Thank you for “improving” your software, WordPress, by removing features I used. You have completely taken the wind out of my creative sail.
Dear Relative Something audience, please forgive me for my loss of interest in posting what I had in mind for today. I will be whimpering in the corner until I can compose myself enough to return and investigate my options. With luck, it will just require a short learning curve to master a different way of doing things to get the results I seek. If not that, I may need to pony up some funds to purchase the control I hope to gain, if that is possible.
Time to consult with my much more tech-savy son… Stay tuned, I hope to be back to regular programming as soon as possible.
New Hay!
Of the many blessings we have experienced in the time since we first learned about this place we now call home, the ones that involve our animals seem to have a special preciousness for us. Our horses have been with us for less than half a year, and every success we achieve in caring for them brings a welcome sense of relief, since we are pretty much figuring everything out for the very first time. Managing the hay to keep them properly fed has been one of our primary lessons.
Back in September, as complete novices in all things hay related, we didn’t have a clue about what we were looking for in a bale. Even after learning a few things, we are still humbled to discover that even “good” hay can develop some mold, or contain sections with undesirable contents. The bales we acquired from two different sources, and have been feeding to our horses all winter, turned out to have some of both problems.
A month ago, I wrote about the discovery that we had too much foxtail grass in some of our hay, which was giving the horses mouth sores. We ended up losing many large bales from our stash due to that problem. Our struggle with finding mold inside other bales has been consistent, showing up in hay from both providers. We eventually deduced that some of the hay we purchased from the unfamiliar supplier must have been what is called, “ditch hay.” The grass in the bales proved to be dusty, like grass beside a gravel road is dusty, and included bits of plastic refuse and many large sticks. 
The dustiness is not appealing to the horse’s keen sense of smell, and it confounds our efforts of identifying whether we are seeing clouds from mold spores, or not.
Recently, a reliable source surprised us with the wonderful news that they had some small bales they could make available. Their message was a blessing that couldn’t have come at a better time. Yesterday, to make room for the new bales, Cyndie and I removed the pile of moldy hay that has been tossed aside.
Within minutes of Jack and Joanie pulling into our driveway, we felt the thrill of connecting with good-hearted people and sensed the hay would be ideal for our horses. In our bliss over having good quality hay, we neglected to think ahead about how we stacked it. Chatting while we worked, Jack tossed bales almost faster than we could stack them, I tried to think about fitting the bales into the smallest space possible, and Cyndie placed them at every which-way orientation. Later in the evening, I asked Cyndie if she counted the bales.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
What that reveals is that neither she nor I felt any concern about trusting the quantity delivered. Unfortunately, our lack of concern about counting bales relates to our not having a logical pattern to the way we stacked them, which means we will never actually know how many bales remain on hand after we’ve used a bunch. Another lesson learned.
Happily, the horses seemed as thrilled with the new hay as us. I captured Dezirea and Legacy breathing in the delicious smell, while Hunter and Cayenne wasted no time in chomping away.
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Will They?
One of our current spring dramas is whether our pine trees will recover from the stress they have endured from our dry fall that was followed by the most extreme winter we’ve had in 35 years. I’ve not consulted with an arborist yet, but our trees are definitely browning from the bottom up and the inside out. This doesn’t match the descriptions I find of how winter injury or pine wilt symptoms appear. Whatever it is that is causing the problem, it’s not affecting every single pine, but it is widespread throughout our property and not confined to one spot. We are hoping for the best, but I’m inclined to believe the prognosis is not good. The die-back on many of them is over half the tree.
That isn’t our only drama this spring. We are also anxious to learn whether the maple tree we transplanted to the labyrinth last fall survived the obvious shock it endured from its being uprooted and relocated. If we witness signs of life from that tree in the days ahead, my spirit will soar and we will have much cause for celebration.
There is also concern for the number of plants Cyndie worked so hard to get established in the rest of the labyrinth. This winter was hard on everything, so even if the plants survived the onslaught of snow and long periods of extreme cold, they will now face risks from animals that are trying to eat anything and everything available to recover from their own season-long deprivation. I don’t intend to erect a 10-foot-high fence around the garden to keep deer away, but I fear that is about what it would take to dissuade them from bellying up to our conveniently situated buffet down there.
We could ask Delilah to patrol the area for us, as she would be thrilled at an invitation to chase deer, but she would likely wreak her own havoc on plants, as she demonstrates amazing reckless disregard for all living things in her excitement to chase and dig.
One last drama we came face to face with yesterday is the question of whether we will be able to continue allowing Delilah to be both an indoor and an outdoor pet. This is the first spring that she has lived with us, so we haven’t previously needed to deal with managing both spring mud and a dog before.
When we step in the door, we can simply remove our muddy boots. I wish it were that simple for her. Yesterday, a day when the temperature was below freezing, but the sunshine was still melting exposed ground, she got legs and belly covered with mud and manure-cicles. When we came inside, Delilah was rubbed down with a towel in a cursory attempt to dry her off. Later, when we had time, she would get bathed to remove the residual grime.
So much for waiting. Soon we were seeing dark spots all over the floor. The mud and manure frozen to her underside, and which toweling did not remove, was now melting at a rapid pace. Everywhere she walked in our house was becoming a bio-hazard site. Poor dog was unceremoniously evicted and sent to her kennel outside do be dealt with later.
If I thought it stood a chance of working, I’d look into mud boots for her. I wonder if she’d let me wrap her torso with stretch-wrap to keep her belly fur dry.
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Merciful Melt
Thus far, the spring thaw has been happening at a merciful pace. We get a day or two of melting, and then swing back to a solid freeze. Each day that it gets above freezing, larger percentages of snow cover are being peeled back.
The latest hazard to emerge is due to the fact that the routes most commonly tread around here are some of the first spots where the bare ground is being revealed and thawing. That means the places we want to walk are getting sloppy and muddy on the warm days. Suddenly I find myself trying to walk on the snow that remains, in an ironic reverse of the usual logic. It is a blessing when everything re-freezes and we can walk across the hard ground without the slurpy mess for a day.
Sadly, Delilah’s kennel out back is not ideally situated for optimal drainage. There is some work to be done there this summer to create a better grade at the spot we selected, so the water won’t pool as readily. There is a raised wooden house in there for her, but she seems to prefer the stuffed pad that is out on the ground, and it ends up soaking in the edge of a pool of melt water.
Yesterday we were blessed with a gloomy, cloudy day when the temperature climbed above freezing, so the melting was definitely happening, but at a measured pace. I was again intrigued to find how well my simple shoveled gullies in the gravel driveway by the barn and hay shed work to channel water where we really want it to go.
Just like priming a pump, when a puddle is given an outlet for drainage, it seems to all of a sudden pull water from above, and then flow begets flow. Soon the channels come alive with running water and the areas above visibly begin to dry out.
It works for the period of time when we are enjoying this eased pace of melting. In the days to come when the sun comes out in full and the temps really soar, I suspect my little channels will prove to be rather under-sized for the job. Long term, I am envisioning some larger-scale grade landscaping in a few areas to create the same effect for the full capacity of our entire acreage.
That’s my dream, in theory, anyway.
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Lake Wintervale
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This time of year, there’s water, water, everywhere. Can you guess where this is?
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Go ahead, click on the image…
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Spring Arrives
Today is the first day of spring on the calendar, so that means only a few weeks, or maybe a month, more of days when we might experience significant snow events. Yesterdays’ little excitement is already melting fast. I did need to plow the driveway when I got home from work, but it was relatively easy and the remnants left behind on the pavement melted quickly, leaving the driveway mostly clean after minimal effort.
Unfortunately, I was doing some cleanup with a shovel and leaned into it, sliding the snow to the edge, when a disc in my back went kablooey. It’s impressive how quickly a person can go from standing upright, to flat on their back on the mucky wet ground. It’s also interesting how blissful it can seem to be laying down with no pain, regardless the fact it was on the wet pavement. I was feeling content to lay there for the rest of the night, but Cyndie happened along and inspired me to make my way back to my feet again with the enticement of Chinese takeout she brought home for dinner.
Today is not a day for whining, it’s spring! I’ll celebrate with a shot of Cayenne posing in the bright March sunshine. Green things won’t be far behind.
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Snowing Again!
As of last night, it looked like this out our back door:
Cyndie ended up staying in town overnight, and I am trying to get out of here in the dark wee hours of the morning to get ahead of the mass crush of other commuters, on my way to the day-job. Sadly, that means dragging Delilah out of bed before she is awake, to put her outside in her kennel, and then trying to get horses fed a couple of hours earlier than they expect it, in the wet, snowy darkness. Oh joy.
Those tricky tasks are on top of my otherwise tight routine of simply waking up and getting in the car to get on the road as early as possible. If I don’t leave here early enough, it’s traffic jam city and commuting anguish for me.
An overnight winter storm doesn’t help things one bit. It’s a good thing I signed up for this adventure, or I could become one grumpy bunny.
Actually, I’m a little bit of a grumpy bunny anyway, this morning. Yesterday afternoon, I learned that the plaque detected in my heart by a recent test places me on the wrong side of the healthy curve for men my age. I have been welcomed into the club of aging folks who must take cholesterol medicine and the once-a-day baby aspirin to keep that bad boy from rearing up and surprising me someday when I least expect it. “Preventive medicine.” Gee, my favorite, except I like it to be from exercising and eating well, not from taking meds for the rest of my life.
Actually, when I asked the doctor how long I need to take them, he gave me an out. He said I would probably only need them for another 40 years.
I wonder if I will actually follow his prescription… Right now, I’m thinking that my previous ignorance was bliss. I was just fine until I went in for my latest “well-health” physical.
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Nature’s Course
There is no getting around the fact that we are at that time of year when the weather can flip from enticingly spring-like to “as winter as ever” in a single day. It can be a tough blow at the end of a harsh winter to be walloped by storms that give the impression the weather is headed in the wrong direction. Today is expected to be one of those tough blows, but it is not clear what the precise position of the storm will be. We are on the edge of a suspected path which could swing either to freezing rain or heavy, wet snow.
For the time being, I’m going to enjoy this image of our paddock from Saturday, when the snow had been cleared off the ground and the clouds were gone from the sky. We’ll have more of this type of enjoyment in the days ahead. We just need to tolerate a small setback to a winter storm for a few days.
That’s Dezirea munching hay, with Legacy standing by, on watch.
A couple of days later and it looked like this (although, in fairness, this one was taken with my phone looking through a dirty window from inside our sunroom):
At Delilah’s desperate urging, I let her outside to chase a squirrel, or squirrels, which had been tugging mercilessly at her predator instincts while she was trapped indoors. I followed her with my eyes as she sprinted deep into the neighbor’s woods to our north, much farther than she normally explores. The unconscious chase left her in new territory, and I would have been surprised if she just turned around and came back into our yard.
She disappeared for quite a while. When Delilah finally reappeared outside our windows, it wasn’t a squirrel she had as a prize, but the bottom portion of a deer leg. It is most likely that she happened upon a carcass that was left by some other predator(s), but she looked so much like a wolf out there, gnawing on that limb in the heavy falling snow, I felt a renewed appreciation for why our cats appear so wary of her.
She’s just doing what comes natural, but it can be almost scary seeing how incredibly proficient she is about it.
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