Posts Tagged ‘change’
Deep Meaning
I am greatly moved by what I have enjoyed the past two days here, learning from the horses. There are many words to be written about it, yet, at the same time, few that will convey the fullness of my experience. It is quite an exercise to move from paying primary attention to my mind, and the limited cues modern society relies on, toward giving the heart and gut equal value. There is wisdom, ancient wisdom, in practicing a more informed awareness of the unseen signals of communication.
Observing and interacting with untethered horses, offers a special opportunity to become more aware of parts of ourselves that we often neglect, or even, simply disregard.
This is Mystique, who communicated with me in ways I have yet to fully comprehend.
I look forward to absorbing the full depth of what transpired in the sessions with the equine companions here.
I believe it is infused with deep meaning for me.
Definitely Re-acclimated
The weather has me on pins and needles, wondering when the next snowstorm is going to hit. I won’t feel safe until we make it two weeks in a row without snowfall. We are off to a good start: made it 6 days now, without new snow.
I had the opportunity to meet my friend Gary for dinner the other night, in Glen Lake, very much Cyndie’s and my old stomping grounds. Gary and I dined outdoors, on the patio. First off, it was just nice to finally be outside, without needing to have on a winter jacket. But, more noteworthy than that, for me, was the no-longer-as-familiar suburban sound scape. A motorcycle started up in the parking lot beside the seating area, the engine being revved with that loud “bap-bap-bap.” Shortly after that, a siren blared as an ambulance drove past.
I have grown accustomed to our new environment in the country, where I hear mostly songbirds, a dog in the distance, the neighbor’s donkey, and an occasional tractor droning in the distance.
In the grand scale of passing time, it hasn’t been that long since we relocated, but it has been long enough for me to become sufficiently re-acclimated.
The experience served to help me recognize how pleased I am with our new environs. As if there was any doubt.
Quick Rescue
It is the month of May, after all, so it comes as no surprise that when the precipitation pauses, and the sun peeks out, the snow melts very quickly. The first order of business for me was to try to salvage or mend the damaged trees.
Using a pruning saw on the end of a telescoping pole, I gave my arms a workout, cutting broken branches back to the main trunk of otherwise intact trees.
This image shows how the damage varies, and can be easily overlooked, if you only scout for obviously broken limbs. The branch below is easy to spot, but the one above has an open split that remains connected on each end. It demonstrates the reason I was hearing so many cracking sounds, without seeing very many branches actually falling, when I was out for a walk after most of the snow had accumulated.
Hard as it is on tiring arms, to stand on the ground and hand-saw a branch high up in a tree, there comes the added complication of trying to get the severed branch down out of the tree, without breaking others, or causing any additional damage. It had me cursing for fear of doing more harm than good.
I succeeded in pruning multiple branches out of 4 of our prominent maples, before my arms gave out, and daylight faded.
I took one significant break from exerting myself on that project, during which, I rigged up a way to pull up a pine tree that had tipped over, using a come-along. It is the same tree that I wrote about in my post titled, Doubly Tipped, which we tried to support by tying to t-posts. That time, we just used muscle to push it back up to a partial tilt. The posts weren’t able to keep it upright, because the ground was too wet for them to stay put.
For now, we will let the tree rest against the pull of the cable, rigged to a nearby tree, with chains and straps. When the ground finally dries out, we’ll put the posts back in the ground and tie the tree off to them again.
Look at the dramatic difference of a few days in the life of this pine: (If you click on the last image, it will enlarge so that you can see the way we have it supported.)
Day’s Difference
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Here are the images I took on Tuesday morning, after the overnight dump of almost a foot of snow. It is hard to get an exact measure of the total amount, because, it is so heavy and wet, it compacts on itself as it accumulates.
When I left for work on Tuesday, the road beyond our driveway had only been plowed one-lane wide. That made it really nerve-wracking to climb the hills, not knowing what might be approaching from the other side. Luckily, there was no other traffic at that hour.
By the time Cyndie left, the plow had made another pass, and she discovered that it blew our mailbox off its post, again. With how heavy the water-logged snow was, it didn’t surprise me one bit to hear.
Next winter, I may need to strap that mailbox down, or I may be repairing it after every heavy snowfall. The plastic platform on top of the post, which is where a mounting screw is supposed to find purchase, is showing signs of wear, after the two dramatic failures this year.
When I got home from work yesterday, I re-mounted the mailbox, and then pumped up the tires on the new trailer, putting it to work moving firewood. I hauled the last of the split wood that the sellers had left stowed under the eve of the barn, moving it up to the wood rack we bought for the deck.
I took a picture of the trailer in action, which shows how quickly the snow disappears in the late-April sun. What a difference a day makes.
The water run-off was really flowing! I spotted something very interesting while inspecting how well it was running off the plowed field to the north of our property, and into our ditch, where a culvert runs under the driveway.
Just to the left of where the water was flowing in a concisely defined stream, there was a small pool that appeared to be bubbling up from the ground. I figured it was an optical illusion, and that it was just more of the flow through the grassy area.
I hopped from the edge of the driveway, through the flowing water, to get across the ditch, for a closer inspection. I moved all the grass away, to verify there was no above-ground stream feeding this flow. Sure enough, this water was bubbling up from below grade. I stuck my boot down into it, but didn’t really feel anything noteworthy.
That served to cloud up the water with the silty soil. Most revealing was how quickly that cloudiness was replaced by the very clear water that was flowing up from below. This was a classic example of what I had read about, where the spring appears when the ground in the area is saturated with water. I will keep an eye on it, checking to see how quickly after things dry up around here, the water ceases to flow from that spot.
I’m guessing it won’t be running for very long. And, if I discover that I am wrong about that, I’d be delighted.
Got Boards?
Progress continues on the fence project. I think they chose to attach the boards on the lower end of the paddock now, so they won’t need to be working down in the muddy areas in the coming days, since temperatures are predicted to remain high in the afternoons for the next week.
There is still a lot of snow in the fields that has yet to melt. The drainage ditch beyond the paddock now has a babbling brook flowing, non-stop. Last night, just before sunset, I followed the flow to the end of our property toward the south, and discovered that it doesn’t immediately drain into the ditch that exists along the border of our property line and the farm fields next door. It is spreading out to form a large wet spot on the edge of our cut field.
I can tell, now, why some of that wasn’t already cut when I was mowing the area with the brush hog last fall. It probably remains wet most of the time, when we aren’t experiencing drought conditions.
Maybe I can dig it out a bit, in order to encourage the pooling of water (instead of fighting against it), creating a small pond. It may take a few years of seeing the seasonal tendencies of water behavior here, before I take that kind of action. Ultimately, my goal would be to work with the natural tendencies, and not endeavor to reshape them away from the natural. No sense digging a pond if it is only wet for a few weeks in the springtime.
I also want to be on the lookout for possible springs on the property. Most recently, we were informed there may be one near the willow tree that has now been made part of this first paddock. I am confident the future horses will help reveal the presence of a spring, if there is one there.
Something leads me to believe that the springs here will all be seepage springs that create wet spots, or dry out, depending on the amount of precipitation and ground water levels. The recent trends have delivered longer and hotter heat waves, and increasing drought conditions around here, so I am not inclined to expect any possible springs will be dependable for offering pools of water for more than short periods of time.
I have much to learn here. The last few nights I have been noticing how far along the horizon the sunset has changed already, from not so long ago.
Every day here –certainly in the period of our first year– is a brand new experience. In addition, the changes we are introducing on the property since we arrived, are reinventing the place from what it was before.
Yes, Mary, change is good!
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 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!
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.
Relative Something 