Snow Day
While the northeast United States makes news for the big wallop of winter they got socked with, we in the Twin Cities area are left with a drippy mess that surprises me for being another winter rainstorm, turning to sloppy wet snow reminiscent of the April storms of my youth. Unfortunately, they are now occurring in February.
We did what you do with April snow… 
Then we snuggled into the exceptional comfort of our log home, where we had a beautiful fire in the fireplace. We turned on the broadcast of the Grammy Awards show, and let Pequenita step all over us in search of attention. Where was Mozyr? He is much more reserved than that. Sometimes, I think it is just to be different than his sister.
Sunday Morning
It’s Sunday morning, and the precipitation has yet to start. A glance at the radar reveals it is not far off. We are experiencing a fair amount of wind, and the squirrels and birds seem to be putting in extra effort to consume every morsel in and around the feeders.
Cardinal perched in shelter during our last snowfall
On my agenda is to lounge in the comfort of our warm home, and watch nature do its thing.
A quiet day.
a quiet day
to contemplate
take stock
count blessings
restore
revitalize
stretch and recoil
ponder
what is
what can be
visualize
possibilities
allow them
set them free
.
Feel free to join me, wherever this day has you being. Find your optimal health!
Not Me
I was reading an article in National Geographic last night, and came to the conclusion that I am not a man. Not compared to the men who lived in years gone by. I am a lawn ornament, maybe. Or, a flower. Admittedly, the modern conveniences that we have come to accept as normal, make me feel like a softie, when comparing to anyone who lived in centuries before us, but stories of the explorers of the time boggle my mind.
The story was written by David Roberts, describing the experience of thirty year old Australian, Douglas Mawson, exploring Antarctica in 1912.
I’ll just highlight a few examples from the description, each one sounding like it would be my demise, that have me measuring life today with a fresh perspective.
- Living through winter for years in a place with wind gusts of 200 mph.
- Getting 300 miles away from the base after 35 days, with a 3-man team, and then losing a man and the team’s most valuable gear, including their three-man tent, the six best huskies, all the food for the dogs, and nearly all the men’s food, to a crevasse.
- Trying to dash back 300 miles with remaining dogs, having them all die, one by one, in the first two weeks, and needing to eat them to survive.
- Forced to pull the sledge themselves, and having it repeatedly capsize, exhausting them, and forcing the dumping of remaining gear.
- Teammate gets sick, risking both their survival, but not being able to leave him.
- Burying dead teammate, and choosing to go on, even though the food was almost gone, and his own physical state was deplorable, with open sores on his nose, lips, and scrotum; his hair coming out in clumps; and skin peeling off his legs. And he still had a hundred miles to go. “I am afraid it has cooked my chances altogether,” Mawson wrote in his diary.
- Discovering, three days later, that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the skin beneath them, which spurted pus and blood. He taped the dead soles to his feet, and put on six pairs of wool socks. Every step thereafter was an agony.
Okay, that right there is enough for me. I’m done. Bury me back by my teammate. As if I would have made it that far. But the story goes on to describe that he eventually falls in a crevasse, hanging from the sledge above by rope, expecting the sledge to come down on top of him any moment. When it doesn’t, he climbs, hand over hand, back up the rope. That is something that would be hard to do when healthy. Douglas was far from healthy.
When he gets to the top, trying to climb over the edge of the crevasse, it gives away and he falls back down to the end of that rope. I would have lost the mental battle there, for sure.
It does describe that he considered cutting the rope and falling to his death, but then recalled a verse from his favorite poet, and somehow rallied to climb that rope again. He passed out at the top, then woke later to find his body covered with a dusting of new fallen snow. It says he was now convinced he had no chance to survive, but wanted to get to a place where someone would find their diaries to learn the story of their experience.
I think the most mentally grueling aspect of his feat was a window of time that he had been up against. He needed to get back to base camp before the expedition’s relief ship was scheduled to leave for Australia. Even though he somehow makes it back, after coming upon a food cache left by expedition members searching for his team, he can see the ship out at sea. He missed it by a mere five hours. He has to spend another 10 months there, with 6 men deputized to stay and search for his party, waiting for the next ship.
It is too much for me to fully grasp. Douglas Mawson was a man. All I know is, I do not compare.
In Case
Just in case you are following my saga of solving the problem with my beloved hand plow, I have progress to report. The best thing I did thus far is write about it, and talk with as many people as possible about it. My ideas for ways to add support to prevent future bending, have expanded significantly with the input I have received from a wide variety of sources.
The solution that thrilled me the most, and was much easier than fabricating a bracket, is simply attaching a length of angle iron and using ring clamps to secure it.
I drew my idea for a brace, on this image, in red: 
It was suggested that a bracket underneath, in the area I was considering, should be much longer, to reach further up the handle. Here it is with the suggested bracing:
Laying a piece of angle iron over the top and clamping it seemed like a much easier plan. I stopped by the hardware store on my way home yesterday, and picked up parts. It didn’t take me long to realize an oversight. There is a plastic piece that needs to float back and forth for adjustment of the blade angle. I won’t be able to clamp the angle iron over that. Unfortunately, it is in the exact area that most needs to be braced.
Luckily, it was also suggested to me that if the fit was right, the angle iron could be inserted inside the tube. Walaa! That will work nicely! So, that is the avenue I am pursuing. I think I am close to succeeding, but I still need to work out a problem in one spot where the angle iron is interfering with my getting a bolt through.
I have some work-arounds in mind for that, and hope to be back in business by the next snowfall.
Wish me luck!
Fatal Flaw
At the end of December, I posted a description of the human-powered snow plow I got for Christmas. It is one of several great presents I received. The thing has been working superbly, right up until the second time I tried to use it.
I was making great progress clearing snow, but after about 10-minutes into the job, something seemed different. It was subtle, but I sensed that something was amiss. I figured out that the handles seemed lower. The main shaft was bending!
Talk about a weak link. This is the critical load bearing arm of the device. How could they design it with such a fatal flaw? I love this plow so much that I immediately began thinking about how I could brace it, to protect the thin tube from needing to bear all the weight. I really want to be able to keep using it.
I disassembled the parts to get down to the failing piece. Then it occurred to me that I should probably contact the manufacturer before modifying it with my own crude methods of attaching something for support. Especially, I thought, in the off-hand chance they knew of this weakness and already had their own fix in the works.
Luckily, I was successful in making contact with a service person, and without hesitation, she offered to replace the failing part. Unfortunately, that meant they didn’t have a fix in place yet. I prodded to see if they knew it was a problem, and she admitted that there have been other calls related to this situation.
I suggested heavier tube, or a support bracket, but I don’t think I was talking to the right person, I needed the responsible engineer. She told me she would have someone look at the weld of the replacement part before they send it to me. I’m not sure looking at it will make much difference.
I’m going to continue with my plan to devise some sort of bracket to keep it from bending at that spot. Everything else about this device has won my favor. The wheels work great, even though it seems like they would slip. The blade/scoop is a good size and shape. I like the dual hand grips. The quick adjustment for angling the blade is simple and functions well. The entire plow is not too heavy to lift. In fact, if it got heavier by way of using a more robust tube for that one piece of the main shaft, the added weight would be well worth it.
This is where John wishes he knew how to weld. And, had a machine to turn down the outside diameter on the one end. And, a way to cut square holes in the sidewall of a tube. I’d make the replacement part myself.
As it is, I will need to rely on the good will of some talented acquaintances, just to come up with a bracket I will be able to attach with common hardware. If it works, maybe I can sell it to the manufacturer of the hand plow.
Love it!
This is not to scale, but shows a hint of what we are contemplating for a hay shed beside the barn. Yesterday, I shoveled a mock driveway that you might be able to discern in front of the image of a shed that I have pasted into the photo I took.
There is no denying that this will impact the visuals of arriving to our place, but we think it will fit in the long run. There will be fencing of the paddock which will run on the near side of that new driveway loop, and often times, horses grazing in the pasture along the entrance. Just the addition of the fence alone is going to greatly alter the way things look in that area.
We don’t think having the hay shed right there, front and center –the first thing you come to when arriving– is ideal, but this is the way to make it most functional. Without having it physically in place to judge, we have to just guess how well it will fit. I fear the reality will be a bit shocking. I expect it to look larger than I am imagining it to be.
We are hoping to be able to adjust to it in a short amount of time, and let the activity surrounding it establish the justification, and the ultimate appropriateness, for the location. This is not the kind of thing that we can easily change our mind on after it is built. By that time, we will be putting our energy toward convincing ourselves how much we totally love it.
Sports Spectating
There was a big sports championship waged yesterday in the U.S., ending the National Football League season for another year. Congratulations to the fans of the Baltimore Ravens.
American football is a team sport, 11 vs. 11. Each play is a battle of eleven different 1-on-1 competitions. I think that is what provides much of the intrigue of our game.
When it comes to players on offense trying to execute a block, all they need to do is occupy the person to whom they are assigned, for the brief moment of play. Sometimes, it can be as simple as getting positioned between the defender and the ball carrier. The offensive team knows where the play is intended to go, so it would seem they have the advantage.
The defensive players are tasked with needing to quickly deduce what is happening, fight off or avoid the block, and then make a play for the ball.
Many of the individual match-ups on any given play, could probably be judged a draw. Then it comes down to a player who can be either a hero, or a goat, which may produce a gain, or loss, of particular significance.
For as slow as the actual 60-minutes of play-clock takes to run (games take around 3 hours), there is a lot of action that happens in each short burst. It is a pleasant distraction from the real world, while it lasts.
Now that we have arrived at the NFL off-season, I can return my discretionary attention to things that actually matter.
As if. I do still have the sport of hockey for frivolous entertainment, you realize. Yes, the truth is, I’m rather hopeless when it comes to the distractions of spectator sports.
Can’t Stop
Okay, I admit it: we are smitten with my son’s new album. I awoke this morning with one particular song running in my head. I just needed to hear it again, and when Cyndie noticed the sound of it playing, she asked me to play it again, out near the kitchen, where she could hear it better, because she wanted to hear that song, too.
If you read yesterday’s post here, and didn’t want to explore all the songs on Julian’s album, I will promote one for your consideration. Listen to “Of Mistress, Master, and Malcontent.” This song includes vocals from Dave Marshall, Julian’s friend in Chicago, and the blend of their voices together is a joy to behold. They have created an arrangement in this song that is captivating, and I think deserves to be heard by a wide audience. I have submitted it to a local radio station for consideration.
Do you think they will be able to see past the gushing parents to take time to consider the music for its own merit?
I hope so. That would make today a real SUPER Sunday.
Enjoy the day!
Big Accomplishment
This past week, we received an email from our son, Julian, with the subject: “My album has been RELEASED!”
Even though some of my son’s taste in music is different than mine, I can’t stop myself from listening to the whole thing, over and over. What a parental rush!
You can read his descriptions of the What, Why, and How, and listen for yourself at the web site he created to share his music: jaywalkerbroadcasts.com.
I recommend you sample enough songs to discover the wide variety of voice and instrument he has put together.
Talk about highly capable, he wrote songs, played all the instruments, sang, recorded, found and financed a professional studio to do mixing and mastering, and then built the web site to distribute his product. And, he did this as a side project to his current full-time day-job. To say we are proud of him, and all he accomplished with this, is an understatement.
When I was young, and heavily interested in recording artists of the time, one thing that boggled my mind was, when individuals would play all the instruments at such an accomplished level, so as to be able to produce a marketable product on their own. Now my own son has done just that!
I remember showing Julian a few things on my guitar when he was little. Then, he took up percussion in the school band, and off he went, playing guitar in rock bands, becoming an accomplished drummer, developing his singing, and developing skills on keyboards and bass guitar. Julian has performed live, in a variety of bands, in a wide range of venues. It’s the stuff that some folks dream of doing, and others actually make a living doing, but he has done it as just one of his many life interests.
Cyndie and I are always thrilled with the music our children make. I’m pretty sure we were annoyingly proud of watching our kids as marching band percussionists for many years. We drove Julian to ‘battle of the bands’ gigs back when he and his school friends didn’t have driver’s licenses. We were also fixated for quite some time on a video that Julian and friend, Dave Marshall, produced while Julian was living, and going to school, in Stockholm, Sweden, and Dave was back in Chicago. I’m including it here again, with Julian’s permission, because we still love it so much.
Julian has now gathered years of his music in a present day recording. He has included guest artists from high school and college days, and put together a legitimate album that he is distributing free on the internet. We think this is a really big accomplishment. I hope you will give it a listen, and then share it with all those who you know that have an appreciation for what he has produced.
If you agree with me, that his efforts are worthy, I invite you to post a comment at his site, or on any of the music sites he links, so he doesn’t just hear it from Mom and Dad. We all know, our support can appear to be a little biased.
