More Posts
Monday is the weekday I don’t drive to the day-job, with my 4-day work week, and yesterday provided me the opportunity to witness the process of fence posts installation. I discovered there is a lot more to the task than just digging a hole and dropping a post down into it.
I am very grateful to see the crew we hired are very particular about getting the posts precise, to assure we end up with not just a functional fence, but one that will look good, too.
With each post, they have to watch multiple things, simultaneously: first, that it is the right distance from the previous post, but then also that it’s set to the right depth, level in two directions, square to the line which the cross-boards will run, and ultimately, in line with the rest of the posts.
When they finally achieve all of those parameters, they need to back-fill the hole, packing the dirt tight as they go, without allowing the post to move out of position. When you are setting a lot of posts in a line, one bad one can really stand out of the bunch. They have to repeat this series of steps over and over, with sustained vigilance to meet each goal, for every post. I think it’s pretty impressive.
They also agreed to create a radius, which I didn’t think they wanted to do, so the fence by the new driveway will follow the arc of the loop.
While that work was happening, we received one more truckload of sand for the driveway, and then the trusses for the hay shed. The dump truck driver informed us it would be the last load for now, as he discovered the route has been posted with road restrictions for reduced weight limits, due to the spring thaw. That restriction will likely last into May. We got close, but we were intending to put at least one more load than was delivered yesterday. Luckily, we have the fill we need for work on the shed to commence.
Here is a wide shot that shows how the fence line will arc with the driveway, and where the hay shed will be located beside the driveway loop:
New Posts
We have fence posts! And that’s no April Fool’s joke. The first ones were placed on Friday. It is still very wet down there, so progress will be limited to hours when the ground under foot is mostly frozen, but fence posts are a great visual of progress that has been long-awaited. An actual fence may be days away yet, but that is better than being weeks away.
Yesterday wasn’t a big day of melting, but it did get above freezing, and the angle of sunlight is high enough now to be productive in causing melt, even if air temps don’t get very high.
There was a fair amount of wind, and the air blowing across the fields of snow felt noticeably chilly. In spots where there was a wind break, the solar energy was unmistakably warm. You feel it instantly.
Elysa and Anne were visiting and we played for a bit in the melting snow piles, creating paths for drainage, which quickly became babbling brooks of runoff. What a wonderful playground we have here!
Kill Me
.
some days, when I read of a Taliban attack
on a school principal
or a mexican drug cartel repeatedly killing town officials
or Afghans who volunteer to become police
getting blown up by a suicide bomber
I marvel over people’s willingness
to step into such threatened roles
It makes me think
just kill me now
because I support the creation of schools
the governing of towns
the policing of communities
and when you are killing those
who choose to step into such roles
you are also killing me
but I don’t actually die
I live on to see
the messes continually made
by your demented logic
just cut out all the dancing around
stop chipping away at it
kill me now
save me the hassle
kill everyone who doesn’t see things your way
kill all the innocents
kill the girls who want to learn to read
kill those willing to teach
kill the people who want to live a decent life
those willing to work
for peace and harmony
sanity
civility
respect
rainbows
diversity
a planet-full of human beings
that don’t see things
in the demented way
of your criminal enterprise
or your holier-than-thou logic
amen
.
Mysterious Conflict
.
in the deepest, darkest hours of the night
awakened by crashing and thrashing sounds
traveling through the house
toward the spaces directly under my bed
I discover a voice I’ve not heard before
a mixture of breath and growl
and a hint of a hiss
that goes on at length
telling me someone is not happy
but I can’t decipher who
and I’m tired, so I go back to sleep
hoping whatever the problem is
it will pass with the night
and normal will arise at daybreak
except we don’t make it all the way to light
when the fighting loudly resumes
and that growling breathing sound
picks up where it previously left off
its cadence speaking an eerie gloom
and I wonder with hope
if this might be
the first battle with critters
since the cats had arrived
to lay claim on this abode
since no mice have dared appear
now that cats have settled in here
and when morning eventually dawns
with rain showering from cloudy skies
that clearly filled my dreams
with visions of leaks in my house
from windows in ceilings above
and making rivers into a dirt floor garage
it takes some time
before a feline decides to appear
it’s the wee she who jumps up on the bed
obviously nervous to a dramatic degree
and I get no sense that this escapade is over
when she tries to act normal
but can’t let down her guard
shortly after, proved to be true
when he, too, showed up on the bed
trying to act as if nothing was wrong
and she immediately attacked
appearing the offending aggressor
and he takes flight with her in pursuit
and crashing and thrashing ensues
out of sight, so I only hear sounds
and I wonder, if there is fault
will I figure out who is to blame
.
.
New Level
It is amazing how quickly we are able to adjust our perspective about things, when given the “opportunity.” When I turned into my driveway after the long drive home from work yesterday, I immediately had my definition of asphalt damage dramatically re-framed.
All winter long, I have been fretting over the scrapes and marks I have been making on the driveway, as a result of my crash-course in plowing technique this year. Then, on Wednesday, the first truckloads of dirt for our new loop created some cracks, and damaged an edge.
Yesterday’s truckloads made all the other minor damage a moot point.
Suddenly, all my previous concern over the driveway seems like much ado about nothing.
So, now it’s got a real bad spot. So what. We’ll deal with it. My previous obsessing over the condition of the pavement has been adjusted to a whole new level.
Meanwhile, the fill for the area where the hay shed will go is starting to take shape. Day 3 was again cut short by the afternoon melt. The project will proceed in half-day increments.
Progress Interrupted
Despite our interest and energy to get this fencing project going full-tilt, the elements continue to hinder progress. We have gone from the problem of having too much snow in the way, to having too much snow melting all at once.
We were able to get a good start in the morning yesterday, while things were frozen solid from the overnight temperatures. The first two loads of fill arrived and the truck slipped, slid, and spun wheels to successfully empty them. The skid loader was used to spread the dirt out, between deliveries, which provided increasingly better traction for the truck on each subsequent pass.
Unfortunately, by late morning, the melting snow was creating streams of running water, and the new dirt was quickly transforming into a mucky soup. We only got 3 loads delivered. Work stopped at lunch, and will resume again this morning, for as long as the overnight freeze lasts.
I filled in the idle time with some trimming of tree limbs and then sweeping dirt and mud off the driveway. That dump truck was a lot more abusive to our asphalt driveway than anything I did this winter, plowing snow with the tractor. Where the tires rolled off the pavement, they broke it up pretty bad along the edge, and then created significant ruts in the soft, wet turf. I was able to stomp the turf back down a bit, but there isn’t anything I can do for the broken asphalt.
I’m not able to be home today, to oversee the operation, so I will be anxious to see, at the end of the day, if a second day of this activity will cause even more damage. I won’t be too surprised if it does. We are accepting it as a price we have to pay for trying to get this done at this time of year.
We are just happy to have this progress happening, even if it is something of a stunted progress.
At Least
It’s not really all that much progress to boast about, but at the very least, the wood has finally been unloaded from the trailer. The major effort put forth yesterday involved moving snow out of the way, in the areas where work will occur in the days ahead.
Today we are anticipating delivery of several truck loads of gravel, which will get distributed and packed in construction of our expanded driveway to the barn. At this point, any progress it thrilling, but this step will significantly define the fence line for the first paddock, which is a really big deal. Already, as I was walking around after I got home from work, I was better able to visualize the area that will soon be fenced. It is energizing.
Actually, just walking around on the land that we now own is pretty energizing. Since we don’t have any horses yet, we haven’t been spending much time down around the barn. As I explored the area where they had cleared away the snow, I experienced a sense of how much this will change with the arrival of horses. This space will become the center of attention.
I discovered that the snow that slides off the “uphill” side of the barn roof, and piles up against the wall, eventually leads to water leaking into the barn there. Next winter, when we will be spending time in the barn every day, I will be managing the snow more regularly, and will take steps to keep it from piling up to this same degree.
We have learned a fair number of things about our new property this winter, but I’m not sure it has been all that helpful toward helping us prepare details for when we get horses. I think the best way to do that will be by actually having horses. I expect we will quickly discover what works and what doesn’t. Then, as with all things, we will simply adjust accordingly.
I’m told that we could see fence posts installed by Thursday or Friday. Yahoo!
Practicing Action
It is no surprise to me that our recent period of stasis is arousing urges, in both Cyndie and me, for renewed action toward the pursuit of our dreams for Wintervale. It seems like we have come a long way from that life we had in the suburbs not so long ago. We have gotten too far to turn back now. Moments like this are opportunities to push on toward fulfilling the potential that our long term dream might hold.
Yesterday, when Cyndie got home from work, we quickly discovered we were having some of the very same feelings. Lately, we have been doing a lot of talking about things we are thinking about doing, but neither of us has taken any action toward actually getting anything to happen. I attribute part of it to the fact that the weather has been putting the fence project on hold for months.
Last night, we finally made a decision, and then purchased a ticket to fly me down to Arizona to participate in her last session of equine assisted leadership training. We also did some fresh research, and came another step closer to getting her car listed for sale.
Today, the fencing contractor is scheduled to get back to work on our project here, and Cyndie is going to be able to come home early to supervise. I am now planning to take Wednesday off to be here for the expansion of the driveway loop in front of the barn.
We are rallying to act on the energy that seems to have hit both of us at the same time, in hopes of maintaining progress in a positive direction. We aim to avoid a trap that is easy to fall into, given a little inattention; one I find is way too easy for me to be comfortable with: living in general acceptance of the situation that surrounds you, however stagnant or messy it becomes.
Cyndie is pondering new ways to put her knowledge about leadership into more effective practice. We are both looking to bolster our methods of collaboration. We are practicing taking action.
Wonderous Mystery
At the moment, I find myself feeling like a leaf, floating in the current of a wandering brook. My plans come and go, and the realities of life play out rather oblivious to my notions. I marvel over all of it.
Why do I receive such immense pleasure from smelling wood smoke?
Why does the smoke smell so good, yet cause me to recoil in agony when it gets in my nose and eyes at the camp fire?
If I am getting sunburned by an afternoon of exposure in March, how careful am I going to need to be when summer finally arrives?
It is interesting how pleasant the sense of calm is after a certain trio of young ones departs from our home at the end of their visit, yet how vacant our place suddenly seems, causing us to miss them as soon as they are gone, even as we delight in the peace and quiet.
We have intended to have work start on the next step of our project toward getting paddock fencing in place so we could finally take steps to bring on horses, yet, week after week, work has been postponed due to weather.
I received a call from our contractor yesterday, informing me of the latest plan to start today. Unfortunately, special circumstance is requiring me to be in the cities for work on the weekday I usually have off. He was okay with that, and decided to move the start back another day to see if warm weather might aid in reducing the amount of snow that still remains to be dealt with.
The workload at the day-job has rather quickly gone from famine, to feast. For some unknown reason, we just experienced the unprecedented situation of receiving an order from a customer on a Sunday, of all things. I have no idea what that implies.
Our internet connection has been extremely unreliable of late. I don’t understand its behavior of appearing to be connected, yet failing to load pages, then also frequently dropping connections as fast as we reset them.
We have been receiving messages from our service provider, alerting us when we approach our plan limit, except for the month-before-last, when we blew past the allowance without receiving a single notice. Which came first? We blew past so fast, there wasn’t time to warn us, or, they didn’t warn us of the fact we were approaching the limit, so we continued to use it, oblivious?
I haven’t been playing my string instruments very often since we moved, and recently set a goal of re-establishing calluses on the tips of my fingers. I am always fascinated by how much muscle memory my fingers demonstrate, even as I struggle to push them past the tenderness of pressing against the thin steel strings.
I wonder why this phase of the process doesn’t cause blisters. I seem to get blisters on the rest of my hand when I put them to work just as hard, raking or shoveling.
I often feel that my written sentences about my wondering something should end with a question mark. Should it? Basically, I am just writing a statement about the fact that I wonder something.
It’s a good thing I am comfortable accepting mysteries that exist in the world.
Snow Fun
We have company this weekend. Cyndie’s niece and nephews stayed overnight. Yesterday was a beautiful day for outdoor fun. There is still a lot of snow around here for fun and games, but it was warm enough to be completely comfortable in the spring sun. I started the morning by digging a path to the fire pit, so we could have an outdoor fire. We created sled runs on our back hill, one with banks and turns, and one straight shot down the hill. A snowman materialized, an activity that was followed by snowball battles, snow angels, and much running and exploring. The kids were particularly interested in one of our brush piles that never successfully burned last fall.
Soaking wet, rosy-cheeked kids came indoors for treats and respite beside the fireplace. I got a chance to watch a little of the college basketball tournament games before it was time to head back out to cook burgers over the fire. That gave kids another opportunity to see how the sled runs were setting up in the cooling evening temps.
The runs had gotten a bit too fast for the size of our banks. I think that is the funnest part for the kids.
