Gardening Again
The starters have had a few weeks to sprout and grow so it is time to get the garden planted for the season. I gave Cyndie a hand turning soil and hauling compost, she has done all the rest.
There were a few hours when it wasn’t raining on Wednesday, so we did as much as possible in the time allowed.
Cyndie accomplished pretty much everything except moving the starters outside into the dirt. When we woke up yesterday morning, steady rain was falling and our drainage ditches were flowing near their maximum rate. It was too wet to do anything outside.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t still need to tend to the horses and walk the dog. Manure management is barely discernible from mud management. Walking reached the difficulty where an attempt to pick up one foot might leave behind your boot if you do it wrong.
You can’t try to lift your foot straight up or the suction holds the boot. You need to roll your step, heel to toe.
Our land is as wet as ever which I didn’t anticipate would happen coming out of a winter with almost no snow. That’s not all bad when it comes to growing a garden. Plants are much happier growing in wet soil compared to parched dry dirt.
I read somewhere that the British documentary series, “Clarkson’s Farm” about Jeremy Clarkson and his farm in the Cotswolds was releasing a 3rd season this month. Last week, I discovered Cyndie and I had only watched the first season. To prep for watching the new release, we binge-watched all the episodes of the Season 2 on Prime.
Even though it is very different from the experiences Cyndie and I have had for the last 11 years in our move from suburban life to 20 acres in the country, there are enough parallels to make the events of the show feel very familiar to us.
Since we haven’t had a professional television production crew following along every moment, my narration by blog posts will have to suffice for our “reality show” presentation. In my estimation, the stories of Wintervale Ranch and Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm would likely appeal to a similar audience.
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Splish Splashing
After a lot of rain, a large puddle forms in the larger of our two paddocks. While I was turning one of the compost piles, I heard splashing and looked up to find Swings stomping away in the water. It looked like she was either trying to make the puddle deeper or she was splashing to wash off her legs.
This got Light’s attention, who then walked over and started stomping her hoof on the ground at the puddle’s edge. Since she never joined in the water splashing, her behavior gave the impression she was doing it in encouragement to Swings.
“Do it some more! Yeah! Go for it! Do it again!”
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When Swings decided she had had enough of the escapade, she turned and walked out of the puddle. Light seemed to completely understand the task was complete and moved away with Swings, as if they were tethered together.
As soon as I stopped recording and walked back to what I was doing, Mia went over to the puddle and immediately lay down in it. I barely got my phone out in time to capture her getting back onto her feet. Then she walked over near the others and they all acted as if nothing had just happened.
Mix grazed in the foreground without paying them any attention.
Horses are so much fun to have around.
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Rolling Again
The ground hadn’t dried out all that much but the grass was growing so thick and tall along the driveway, with more rain due to arrive soon, I decided to take a chance with the heavy zero-turn riding mower yesterday afternoon. The experience I gained driving the machine throughout last year’s mowing season appears to have carried over nicely. I successfully avoided getting stuck or making muddy skid marks despite needing to drive over slippery grassless spots and navigate the challenging slope along the road.
To warm up my skills, I started with the area behind the barn where it is drier, the grass is well-established, and closer to flat than most of the rest of our grass areas.
From there, I set off for the muddy slopes along the driveway. The thick, wet grass presented the perfect conditions for sticking to the mower deck and plugging things up. I was already prepared to deal with that situation because I made ramps last year that hook on the loader bucket of the diesel tractor. It was a sturdy surface that provided just the right height.
A clean mower deck makes for a happy mowing guy. The unfortunate thing about the task is that I get to see how abused the blades are. Okay, that is a good thing. I just don’t like seeing it.
At about the same time that darkness arrived at the end of the day, it began to rain hard enough and long enough that I felt really happy to have gotten out to mow when I did. Based on the seven-day forecast, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna get any drier around here anytime soon.
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Finishing
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goodbye april
is no reason to be alarmed
hello may may be a shock
get used to it
it’s not rocket science
some people have seen it
a hundred times
or more
what is a lifetime
of changes
that consistently happen
pages turning
with predictable regularity
upon finishing
line after line
constantly yearning
to know what’s around
the next bend
binging adulthood
with insatiable indulgences
asking for seconds
politely
then clearing the table
without being asked
and excusing oneself
forever
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Successful Test
We didn’t get the downpour I was expecting would show me the improvement achieved by my rerouted gutter downspout, but the daylong drizzle yesterday produced results.
A puddle was almost forming in the grass beyond the outlet of the last stretch of the downspout. That is water that would have been soaking into the dirt along the foundation from the ineffective (broken) plastic solution that had previously been in place for years.
It must have been more than a drizzle at some point in the last 36 hours because Cyndie reported over an inch of water in the rain gauge last night.
Knowing that this kind of rain was on its way, we jumped to accomplish as much as possible on Saturday afternoon during a dry spell. I pulled out the diesel tractor, rearranged equipment, and retrieved the wood chipper from the back of the garage.
Using knowledge gained from previous failures, I detached the loader bucket to reduce weight and picked a strategic route to reach the wood chip “station” by the labyrinth without a problem.
A few years ago, I got stuck and created a muddy disaster trying to drive that tractor along the fence line of the back pasture. Saturday, the tractor tires did nothing more than leave a reasonable impression on the soft earth.
There is so much I don’t know about using heavy equipment, but in the eleven years I’ve been playing the role of Wintervale’s property manager, I have figured out how to get along at a level that serves our needs. When the shear bolt broke during the session of chipping a big pile of oak branches, I wasn’t the least bit fazed.
We used that excuse to decide we had done enough chipping for the day and I simply wrenched in a new bolt when I got back to the garage. No big deal.
Before gaining these years of experience, I would have perceived a broken bolt as a sign I had done something wrong. I saw it as a failure. Something to be avoided. Now I keep stock of spare bolts and suffer no unnecessary concern when they are needed.
A successful day of using our equipment to accomplish tasks is a good test of the knowledge I’ve gained from the school of hard knocks.
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Spending Time
A zone of mental energy resonates when a jigsaw puzzler hits their stride and loses track of the world while reassembling an image, one piece at a time. I’m one of those who enjoy that mental resonation, yet I sometimes question the value of the outcome merely being a picture that will soon be disassembled and returned to a box and stored out of sight.
I recently discovered that I experience a similar mental energy reward by digging up weeds from the gravel portion of the driveway loop around the hay shed. In some ways, it provides a more powerful reward than jigsaw puzzling because the activity results are not then stored in a box on a shelf.
Every time I go past that weeded gravel and see how much better it looks, I enjoy a bonus reward from the previous effort. There is also a bonus brought on by time. The puzzle is never-ending because in no time at all, there will be new weeds available for pulling.
Actually, that image might make for a good challenge in a jigsaw puzzle.
On a rainy day when still in shock from an unanticipated dose of grief, losing myself in a repetitive routine task offers a welcome respite. It’s hard to tell if the body aches I experience at the end of the day come more from activity or sorrow.
When the heart hurts, a whole lot of the rest of us hurts, too.
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Guitar Pal
I first met him as my friend’s friend. The Honorable H. Peter Albrecht. Only knowing him for all too short a time did nothing to soften the horrible shock of learning Peter died yesterday after suffering a stroke. The primary connection I was privileged to have with Peter was playing guitar and singing songs at our friend, Gary Larson’s “music night” parties.
Peter was fun, funny, friendly, gracious, witty, a jokester, I’ve heard prankster, and did I mention fun? He also was a collector of guitars. Peter described keeping an old empty guitar case at his office so he could purchase a new (to him) instrument and bring it home without revealing he had added another guitar to his collection.
He didn’t exclusively play and collect guitars. Some nights after dinner at Gary’s, Peter would pull out a gorgeous mandolin or less often, a banjo. As thrilling as that was for me to see the greater extent of his musical passions, it left me struggling to follow along without being able to see what chord he was playing on songs I didn’t know.
We all tend to struggle with remembering lyrics at times. When Peter clicked into a song, I found myself mesmerized by the many verses he was able to deliver with ease. Suddenly, he would nod my way and invite me to improvise a lead up the fretboard, jarring me back to needing to connect my head with my fingers.
I cherish the stories from Gary and Peter’s years together working as judges that I was able to hear over so many dinners. It was not enough though. I was playing my guitar yesterday to polish up my underused skills in preparation for the latest occasion of Gary’s music party scheduled for tonight.
Receiving that shocking message from Gary yesterday afternoon introduced a finality that I’m wrestling to comprehend. How can Peter be gone? Why didn’t I play more songs with him when I had the chance?
It has instantly made every memory of playing together with Peter and Ned Wahl on those music nights a pure treasure for me.
I wrote a song for Gary to commemorate his many years of hosting these parties. Peter was such an influence on me he made it into the lyrics, good-naturedly poking fun at him for his bad jokes.
look what Gary has created
he’s done it again
gathered all of us together
to feast among friendsthen we revel with some music
and lush sing-alongs
well maybe not so lush
we can’t remember the songsChorus: hail, hail our friend Gary
it’s a wonderful thing
he gets all of us together
and inspires us to singwe pause to remember
all the times come before
then relish this fine moment
singing with friends we adoresome say it’s penance we’re paying
for being so well-fed
or a way to forget the worst jokes
Peter has saidbut the truth is that we’re happy
to sing when it comes time
it’s a precious thing to be here
mixing with folks so divine
Into the light, Peter. I will think of you every time I flip the latches open on my guitar case.
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Over Top
This is a test. For the next period of substantial rain, I will be testing a new downspout configuration from the gutter along our entry walkway. I have rerouted it overhead.
If it appears to work, I will continue with the next phase of creating an arbor to camouflage the aluminum a little bit. That work will probably commence after I tackle the masonry crack repairs and re-grade the landscaping along the foundation.
When I started contemplating a change in the way that downspout drains, almost everything I searched dealt with burying the drain beneath a walkway. The total lack of information about routing a downspout drain overhead had me assuming there was a functional reason that isn’t done.
However, like all online search exercises, you need to ask the right question to get the answer you seek. When my search refinements finally provided images of others doing what I was considering, I gained the confidence to take a crack at it.
I won’t take long to observe this new setup in action. Rain is in the forecast for the next five days.
Sure wish I’d gotten more mowing done before this next wet spell. There are areas where the grass really needs trimming but the ground hasn’t been dry enough to support the weight of the lawn tractor. I’ve been chipping away as time allowed, using the hand mower in certain areas but it will go much quicker when I can use the rider.
When the rain finally stops, it takes about three days here for the wet zones to drain enough to make mowing feasible. Meanwhile, during those three days, the blades continue to get taller by the minute.
It would be great if someone would design a flying drone that cuts grass in wet areas. Just need to figure out how to keep the propeller down draft from flattening the grass you are trying to cut. Oh, the drone could fly high enough that it wouldn’t affect the grass and the cutting sickle bar could hang on a long suspension line.
Look at that. We are almost done inventing it. Just a couple of minor details left to work out. What color should it be?
Okay, that’s a little over the top. Well, so is my gutter downspout. Do you think it will be a viable solution to get the water away from the house without obstructing the walkway? I’m favoring function over form here. It might look a little hokey at this point, but it is better than the (broken) plastic setup that it’s replacing.
Bring on the rain. This is only a test.
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Budding Signs
We are beginning to see hints of color on the tops of certain trees on the horizon. Many shrubs and bushes at eye level are sprouting tiny new leaves. Looking straight up, signs of life appear at the ends of high branches of tall trees. It won’t be long before we have trees with leaves again.
It’s been a while since we’ve experienced any high-heat days. Recently, our mornings have hovered around the freezing point but I don’t think it has been harsh enough to kill new sprouts. Grasses are going gangbusters and will require mowing soon or some areas will get out of hand.
In yesterday’s glorious sunshine, Asher stopped in the middle of a walk to lie down in the shade and watch the natural world unfolding before us. I decided to sit down with him.
In less than 30 seconds, I spotted a wood tick walking across the front of my shirt. Despite that unwelcome reality, we enjoyed the spectacle of a bird in a tree over our heads that seemed to be practicing every call or song he had ever heard. I never once noticed a repeated sound. Up and down; high and low; trills, chirps, whistles, yodels, slides, chatters, singsong melodies… it seemed to have it all. The “Rich Little” of bird calls.
I guess the budding sights of spring were inspiring that bird to sing in the extreme.
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Left Out
The day started mostly sunny but the forecast warned of a chance of rain in the afternoon. Sometime after Cyndie departed for a couple of days away with friends, I granted Asher a chance to walk through the woods wherever his nose led us, hoping to distract him from already missing her.
Before we set out, I opened a gate to allow the horses some time to graze grass. As far as we can tell, their bodies are adjusting to the gradual change in diet just fine.
While our neighbor to the south mowed grass along our property lines, Asher and I popped out of the woods and made our way between the horses in the field and the riding mower. It seemed like a perfect afternoon of spring sunshine.
The sky was partly cloudy, but it didn’t seem all that threatening. I hadn’t paid any attention to what the radar looked like. I’ve heard the phrase “popcorn showers” used for the dotted image of precipitation blobs that showed up when I finally checked.
Asher and I had made our way around our entire property and into the barn where I left him to kill time while I cleaned up manure and then prepared buckets of feed. I was planning to bring out the buckets as an enticement to get the horses to come in off the field. Before I made it out the door, they came racing in at top speed.
We couldn’t feel the wind at that point but the sound of the howling gusts that suddenly blew through the surrounding trees was downright spooky. Eerie enough to scare the horses back to the safety of the barn. I hung their buckets of feed as quickly as I could to get them focused on their evening meal while I scooted down to close the gate to the field.
I made it back just as rain started to fall. Then it started to pour out of the cloud with an ominous roar that rumbled the metal roof to maximum decibels. I looked out the half door at the horses and noticed why it was so loud on the roof. It looked to be equal parts rain and BB-sized hail.
Unfortunately, of the four spots the horses choose for feeding, Mia’s is outside the cover of the overhang. With enough warning, we can easily move her under but she was already out there when the deluge hit.
I could see the pellets of hail bouncing off of her. It didn’t seem to bother Mia a bit. Light turned around a couple of times to look out at the cloudburst but other than that, the dramatic precipitation didn’t disturb the horses from their feed.
The gusher ended as quickly as it arrived. Mia was wet but unfazed by it all.
Asher and I walked back up to the house under a fresh interval of sunshine and ate our respective dinners devoid of any further meteorologic theatrics.
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Relative Something 