Beautiful Night
It was another beautiful night on our new property. Breathtakingly so. The richness of being here is almost overwhelming sometimes. Walking through our woods on the snow-covered trails, heavily marked by the frequent activity of wildlife, large and small, is an enthralling experience. It is a dance of life. It is a privilege and a pleasure, and a feast for the senses. The crunch of footsteps in the snow makes what seems like a thunderous cacophony announcing my presence, but stopping to stand still, immediately wraps the surroundings in a blanket of comparative silence. Just as quickly, subtle hints of movement can be detected in the increasing darkness of distances. Branches creak in the flow of cooling air, a dog barks somewhere far away, and the sound of a bird brings a sensation that springtime is locked up in everything here, on the verge of bursting forth in all its splendor.
I can’t wait to see it happen, but I wonder if I have the capability to bear it all. Part of me senses the beauty of this place could be incapacitating if I am exposed to too much all at once. There are times I feel like I’d be perfectly content to just sit down in any spot here and do nothing but absorb the surroundings to the fullest until my ultimate demise. It is intoxicating!
One Year!
Holy cow, my dear readers, how far things have come in one year! Last night, as I was walking the quarter-mile length up our driveway, in the enticing rural darkness, (returning from having dropped off the trash bin for morning pickup) I felt a wave of sensation about how much has changed from our previous life. We have now been living at our new place for a whopping 4 months.
It got me to thinking about where our lives were at a year ago. When I got back in the house, I went online and paid a little visit to the “Previous Somethings” link on the right margin. I picked February, 2012.
There I found an image of trees weighted down by ice and snow, and I had written about a storm. Cyndie had just been home from Boston, to visit for a weekend. It was February 28, 2012, when I wrote the following:
We have lived in the house on this lot for about 25 years. Just 3 days ago, Cyndie and I met with a realtor to begin the process of selling this home, and buying a horse farm.
Whoa! What a trip. Not a long, strange trip, though. It feels like it has been a fast, thrilling ride. And I’m not just talkin’ about the tractor.
‘Nother What?
The popular image guessing game returns with an easy image to decipher …or is it? Easy can be misleading. Don’t second guess yourself. Oh, go ahead, do it anyway, what have you got to lose? But, no peeking! You need to make your guess before you click on the image to have the answer revealed.
,
.
Tractor Lesson
Last Saturday, we received a visit from our fence contractor, who came over to shoot some elevations in preparation for locating and creating the new driveway loop, and the hay shed. Work here has been in a holding pattern, due to the weather we keep getting smacked by. When the spring melt happens, we will be subject to road restrictions for gross weight allowances. That means our plan becomes a bit pinched. Can’t start too soon, but don’t want to wait too late.
In a phone conversation discussing the status of our project, Cyndie asked the simple question about getting the dirt/gravel fill we need, delivered early, before road restrictions are in place. That was deemed a good idea (she’s so smart) and triggered some activity. Our contractor showed up with an assistant to take some readings. The first thing that needed to happen was removal of snow, to provide a good base to work from. I offered to try with my tractor, but warned them I was inexperienced, and had already gotten myself stuck on the ice there, multiple times. Luckily, the guy he brought with him was skilled with heavy equipment.
I jumped at the chance to have him use my tractor, and give me some tips. It was a great opportunity to stand by and watch from the ground, beside the tractor, to see how he manipulated it. I don’t get to enjoy that view when I’m the one driving, taking my lessons via trial and error.
I’m pleased to report that my operation is not very far off. Mostly, it looked like he was doing what I do, except he was doing it better than me. He definitely demonstrated a better ‘touch’ on the hydraulic control for the loader bucket. It made me realize that I usually over-correct. His adjustments were much more subtle.
I was happy to discover that there is an indicator that tells me when my bucket is level to the ground. It was always right in front of my view, I just didn’t know what I was looking at, and thus was operating blind.
When he developed a leg cramp, we switched up and I got to mess around on the tractor while they took care getting elevation readings at a few key spots. I got the snow cleared again from the path where the new section of driveway will be.
If the weather holds, we are hoping to see truckloads of gravel dumped for the driveway loop, and the start of progress on the paddock fencing, next week!
Looking at this picture now, I realize the dramatic difference the last 4 days of warm weather have made. Our driveway is mostly melted, and there is a lot more gravel and grass exposed in front of the barn where we cleared the snow Saturday.
You can see in that shot that we put down some sand to break up the skating rink ice that was developing on the driveway. That, and the above-freezing temperatures have helped immensely!
News Morsel
Breaking news: A few of you reading here may have heard whispers about a job I applied for recently. The main attraction was that the position was practically in our back yard here at Wintervale. There is something else in store for me, because that position has been filled. I finally got the call last Friday.
I’m looking forward to what comes next, with full expectation that it will be better than the one I was envisioning as being ideal, primarily for its proximity. After driving 65 miles, one way, to my day-job, I may have gotten too focused on the possible benefit of being 2 minutes away.
Stay tuned for future updates on the employment situation, as information will be published here when it becomes available. Thanks for all your support!
Cardinal Drama
Long time readers might remember the story of the resident cardinal that repeatedly does battle with his reflection in the windows of our house, in attempt to drive the apparent challenger away. I had read that the behavior, which I discovered is not uncommon, usually occurs for about a month in springtime. Our guy was still busy at it in October. …And November. …And December.
Lately, we have had very few of the gentle kerfluffles on our windows. The males seem to all be getting along with each other just fine during the month of February. We counted 6 of them out there together yesterday.
Then the peace and quiet was disrupted by an impact that gave the distinct impression of a bird colliding at full flight speed. Out of the corner of my eye, I detected a blur of red deflecting down and to the right. Based on the sound of the initial impact, I was hesitant about wanting look, but there is something about it. You just have to look.
My suspicion that it was a cardinal was confirmed, and it did not look good. I was definitely influenced by the sound the impact had made. I was expecting the worst.
He had landed in an evergreen shrub below the window. His tail feathers were sticking out like he was still in flight, and one wing was visible, feathers spread unnaturally, for a perched bird. I could see the trunk moving rhythmically, as if breathing. I expected motion to stop any second. I watched for what seemed like a long time. It was probably a few minutes.
Suddenly, surprisingly, he flopped to the ground, under the tree. He was on his feet, and he looked perfectly normal, except for the fact that he wasn’t moving. At all.
It was about this time that I realized there were no other birds around anymore. There had been dozens before this occurred. Now, not a one. That cardinal seemed totally immobilized. The thought that came to my mind was, he was a very high risk of becoming some other creature’s prey. I wondered if the other birds were aware of the same thing, and were choosing to keep a lot of distance between themselves and him.
He stood there, motionless, for a very long time. I wandered off to do something, but kept stopping back to check. Still there. Eventually, I noticed birds were starting to make a return appearance. Slowly, but surely, they made their way toward the feeder, and their previous level of activity.
The cardinal stayed motionless. Then I caught him making a slight glance to the side, toward some of the little juncos or chickadees that were ground feeding. But that was it. Back to motionless.
I bet it was over 5 minutes that I had been walking in there to see if there was any progress. Finally, I walked up just as a flash of red from another cardinal swooped down under that bush and …nothing. He was gone. Nothing under that tree except a scattering of feathers.
I don’t know what that behavior was, but it worked, and that concussed bird was off cavorting with the rest of the flock.
A happy ending! I was impressed. From the sound of that initial impact, and the sight of him sprawled out on that branch, I figured he was a goner.
Hilarious Mistake
I appear to be missing the gene for interest in guns, and as a result, have almost no experience with them beyond the safety course I took as a youth. I recall having returned home from one of the sessions to tell my dad about the plan to have us shoot a shotgun the next time we met, and that I had some apprehension about it. He seemed surprised. Maybe because I was the 5th of his 6 kids, he had lost track of who had done what, but I think it was probably more a function of his level of inebriation at the time. He didn’t realize I hadn’t fired a shotgun, and decided to remedy that right then and there.
He walked me out in the driveway, and we took a couple shots up in the air. I remember thinking what we were doing was violating a lot of what I was being taught in the safety course, but it was with my dad, and I was about 12, so who was I to argue?
As a parent, I didn’t encourage our children to learn anything about guns, but that didn’t stop Julian. He took up the hobby of Airsoft, became an active member of the MAA, and would buy and sell those non-lethal guns, often dismantling new ones to customize and modify them to higher levels of performance.
Recently, we asked him if he could loan us one of those guns to shoot plastic bb’s at a squirrel that is helping himself to the bird feeders. Julian brought over a simple spring-operated, single fire version of an assault rifle style gun, and gave me a quick lesson on loading and firing it.
We were both sober at the time.
Yesterday, I had the first opportunity to introduce the squirrel to our new toy. Eventually, I had fired enough times that I figured I should refill the magazine. Julian had only showed me once, so I’m not sure I was doing it by the book.
There is a spring in the magazine, that needs to be pulled down and set, allowing the bb’s to be inserted. I know to be careful not to let the spring snap back up, because it could break the plastic, so I was careful to hold it in the detent while I dropped a couple of dozen little green plastic balls in.
Then I released the spring.
The entire cartridge of bb’s shot up into the air and came raining down in the kitchen, bouncing and rolling in every direction. It was like being in a rain shower of plastic balls. It made a really cool sound. I couldn’t help but laugh at the hilarity of my action. I think I missed some part of the lesson. Do you put the magazine back in the gun before you release the spring?
I’m just really glad I don’t play with a gun that has real bullets.
Dang Critters
I’ve got a lot to learn about mouse-proofing. Yesterday, I discovered that the fresh air intake for our fireplace, outside on the rock structure of our chimney, was again plugged by a nest. I assume it was a mouse’s nest.
The interesting thing about this is that I had cleaned it out last fall, and then put up a screen to barricade access. Or so I thought. I think what I did was make it even more secure for the little critters.
The actual opening to the tube that runs to the fireplace is protected by a wire mesh that is cemented in place. From what I can see, it appears intact. That screen is about 8 inches back in the structure,
about the depth of the stones that form the face of the chimney. That creates a wonderful crater for a nest.
When we bought the place, there was a bunch of insulation, and a lot of chewed acorns stored in there. I cleaned it out and improvised a screened cover to block the entrance to the cave. As I was hauling in some firewood yesterday, I thought I noticed some debris accumulated inside my outer screen. I grabbed a light and discovered it was filled. There were some pieces of insulation in there, but mostly, it appeared to be animal hair. In fact, it looked exactly like the deer hair that was strewn in the area around the carcass the 
coyotes took down in our woods last fall.
Did some critter really haul this from way down the hill in the woods? I don’t know. I also don’t know if the nest-builder was able to sneak around the edge of my barrier, or if there is an internal route that I can’t see, along the blocks on the inside of the stone facade.
I may resort to constructing some form of tube from the inner screen to the edge of the rocks, and then filling the surrounding space with expanding foam. That way the critter will have something to chew on in order to open up another entrance to build his next nest.
At least the fire was looking real good yesterday, with the return of a full dose of fresh air available at the intake again. Since the screen wasn’t keeping the nest-builder out, I didn’t put it back. For the immediate time being, I plan to watch for signs of activity in there, and just clean it out as fast as they try to fill it up.
I’ll know now, to check it right away if I notice the fire seems to be burning slower than usual. Before, I thought it was probably just the wood. Now I know better.
