Posts Tagged ‘enjoying the moment’
Precious Pause
The fine art of knowing how to pause to enjoy the beauty of a moment is not lost on me. Tall grass is already swallowing the bottom wire of our fence line and making it difficult to discern some of our trails through the woods, but the weeping crabapple tree beside the freshly mowed labyrinth is flowering.
Asher and I decided to take a break from landscaping chores and bask in the shade beneath the falling flower petals while being serenaded by our new resident Baltimore orioles.
It was blissful to the extreme, right up to the point where the fabric of the rocking chair ripped, sending a surge of adrenaline coursing through my reaction system.
That chair is the second of a pair. The first one is up in the shop garage, currently beating me in a challenge to remove the remains of its ripped old fabric in my overambitious intentions to renovate it. Well, now there are two. It’s a shame, because the rocking frame still looks like it has life in it.
At this point, we will be better off buying replacements and leaving the remains of the old ones to be turned into some funky art conversation piece. I always wanted to learn to weld. Hmm.
The pause was cut short, and we got on with the next cutting project that caught my attention. I had already done a fair amount of work with the string trimmer the previous day, so I pushed the riding mower to its limits, knocking down the tall grass on each side of the North Loop trail.
For the record, I was able to trigger the error code for the blade motor overtemp toward the end of the effort. At least now I know what I’m dealing with and have a solution in the works. I can still get the machine to work if I avoid cutting where the growth is too thick or tall.
As a bonus, allowing the mower time to cool down will give me more opportunities to pause and bask in the beauty of our surrounding scenery and its wildlife serenades.
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Transcendent Ambience
With our weather taking a mild turn, I took the blankets off three of the horses yesterday, leaving Mia covered because she doesn’t grow as thick a winter coat as the others. Blanketing horses is interesting in that it seems like they’d just as soon not have them on, but they appreciate the added protection against the elements when the weather gets crazy.
As such, they will cooperate by standing still while we put them on. It is a treat to be able to reward them by taking the blankets off again as soon as the conditions allow. Happily, Mia doesn’t fuss over keeping hers on.
She finished her feed and came down to where I was tying a freshly-filled hay net on a fence post. I did my best to read her intentions in case she preferred to get rid of the blanket, but she gave me no indication that was the case. She seemed more interested in gobbling bites of hay.
With the warm temperature, I was working without a hat and wearing uninsulated gloves. After finishing all the chores and collecting empty feed buckets, I paused to lean on the gate and enjoy the moment. It was a wonderfully quiet night. As darkness approached, Mia was wandering from one placemat after another to scrounge any remaining spilled feed pellets. The other three horses were each at a different hay net, munching away.
In the distance, across the road in a grove of pine trees, an owl started hooting, adding to the transcendent ambience.
It was the kind of solitary experience that wouldn’t have been as special if someone else were there, but as I was enjoying it, I found myself wishing everyone could have the same opportunity.
I don’t know how I ever got so lucky to live in this remarkable place and have a relationship with these precious horses.
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Relative Something 