Posts Tagged ‘family’
Year End
’Twas the last day of the year, and all through our house, we did a quick review through my blog to see what had mattered. It occurred to me that I am more inclined to reminisce about long-past events than the prior year. I spent time in the morning looking through newspaper articles from the 1870s. The minutiae of Pierce County, WI, in 1874 strikes my fancy more than the collection of my daily reports on the ranch.
Looking through the “Previous Somethings,” we were reminded of trips we made to the lake to supervise the replacement of a rotting log truss on the main house and to do a little DIY masonry on the satellite building we call Cabin 3. The fall I experienced at the end of February didn’t require any “remembering” because it led to a chronic shoulder problem that I am painfully reminded of every single day.
We coped with water on the basement floor at the beginning of the year and the broken power line to the barn. We dragged out a DIY landscape project to our entryways over several months. After a soaking wet first half of the year, we experienced a long drought that revealed the water fountain in the paddock had sprung a leak.
In February, we hosted Hays relations up at the lake place in Hayward with a photography contest as one of the features. I rode my bike in the 50th version of the Tour of Minnesota. At this point, I’m undecided about whether I will do the 51st in 2025 or not.
In a year when Cyndie went surgery-free, we each took a turn at having our first case of COVID-19 illness and separate bouts of pneumonia. For the most part, we are otherwise healthy, although both of us have been noticing aging is increasingly sapping our youthful vigor.
The most notable adventure was our trip to Iceland with friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus in September. That island country is a marvel of fascinating natural beauty.
Despite that wonderful event highlighting 2024 for us, I’m afraid the heartache of the results of the U.S. Presidential election in November and my resulting coping reaction of avoiding news ever since has become the predominant pall shadowing my perception of the year. I can pretend all I want that I didn’t notice, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and we will all face the consequences in one way or another.
Considering all the terrible things that have happened in the world since those quirky stories of interest in the 1870s, it is noteworthy that good people still endured, coped, and found ways to survive and sometimes thrive time and again. We can do this.
Thus, my review of 2024 is complete, and I am ready to return my attention to whatever today brings, especially taking note of the many blessings bestowed upon us.
Sending love to all you readers who have successfully found your way to the last day of this calendar year. Let’s spread the love far and wide throughout the next 365 and beyond!
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Holiday Socializing
Cyndie and I did the old back-and-forth routine again this Christmas, starting with the hour-long drive to the Cities on Christmas Eve to gather with family from Cyndie’s mom’s side, then returned late to sleep at home. On Christmas morning, we fed the horses (Asher is away at a trainer’s kennel for a week) and then drove back to her mom’s for the classic Friswold breakfast and an opening of gifts exchanged.
From there, we drove home again for a brief rest in the afternoon, which allowed us a chance to feed the horses before driving back to the Cities for food and fun at her brother’s house.
Up past our bedtime for the second night in a row, stuffed beyond sensible with scrumptious foods, and buzzing from the precious energy of socializing with people we love so dearly, we hopped in the car one last time to drive home and crashed into our bed to sleep deeply.
I am ever so grateful that this was the only crashing we experienced because we witnessed some crazy speeding and risky maneuvering occurring on the highways yesterday. No one wishes for a traffic ticket on Christmas, but that doesn’t mean the Highway Patrol should take the day off.
It didn’t appear there was any enforcement in place during our cautious commuting, and some reckless speed demons were taking full advantage. Thankfully, road surfaces weren’t excessively slippery, and no bumpers were bumped throughout our many trips to and fro.
Every last trip was worth it for the treasure of special holiday time with our peeps. For those who love solitude, it provides a healthy reference for how nice it is to return to the calm and quiet of our own homes after periods of intense socializing.
Down in the paddocks, there was some unique social interaction going on between one particular pigeon and the horses and me.
I first noticed it walking around me as I rolled out the wheelbarrow to do some housekeeping under the overhang. It showed up on a fence board as I was sweeping off the placemats under a feed station.
When I arrived to tie a hay bag, the pigeon didn’t move away from its puffed-up position where I wanted to be. So, I took its picture.
Friendly little guy. When I stepped out of the barn with buckets of grain, it was sitting on Swings’ back. After it stayed perched there while Swings walked over to eat, I pulled out my phone to take another photo of the friendly bird.
I was too slow. It had hopped down to see if Swings was sharing any holiday cheer on the placemat below.
The rest of the pigeon flock is much more flighty about the presence of humans, but this one seemed to have no fear. Much as they tend to annoy us for the racket and mess they create, not to mention the temptations they are for Asher, I chose not to shoo this one off.
It was Christmas, after all. That wouldn’t have been in the holiday socializing spirit.
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Escape Puzzle
’Twas the day before Christmas, and what am I doing? Playing with the new gift I’ve already received from Elysa!
It’s an “escape puzzle” from Ravensburger. The information says the puzzle is different than the image on the box. I assumed that might mean completely different, so I didn’t closely look at the cover at first. Eventually, I noticed it’s mostly the same with a few minor differences.
The assembly was just easy enough to keep me engaged all the way to the end in one afternoon. Knowing where some of the details don’t match the cover image doesn’t automatically solve any riddles for me, but at least I have a good idea of where I should be looking.
Now comes the hard part. There are indications that it’s a numbers game and math will be involved. Oh, joy.
Here’s hoping you can enjoy some diversions from the real world this Christmas Eve and make an effort to have visions of sugar-plums dancing in your head.
Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!
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Almost Healthy
The splitting headache is no longer splitting, and her vital signs have returned to normal. Cyndie seems back to reasonably functional. She helped with horse chores and has taken Asher for a couple of walks in addition to a trip to the Post Office as Santa’s little helper. Goodies are in the mail, and the neighbors will find a bag of holiday cheer has been dropped at their doors.
At this stage of holiday preparations, it’s hard to tell that Cyndie was off her game at all.
In support of all her Elf-ish energy, I have been mining the far reaches of our Apple Music offerings to find appropriate holiday sounds. The first few notes of an Andy Williams Christmas album instantly transported me to a big old farmhouse on the border of Edina and Eden Prairie, MN, and the 5-year-old me arose from within my depths with visions of leaded tinsel being draped across branches from outstretched arms of a person standing on a folding ladder above me.
The result of that surge of nostalgia left me feeling lonesome for the clamor and banter of my siblings buzzing around me.
The branches of that family tree have sixty years of growth that have spread us out beyond the conveniences of frequent contact.
That 5-year-old me would only have his father around for 17 more years. I will always remember the time he almost convinced me that he had heard something on the roof in the minutes just before I showed my face one Christmas morning. I was old enough to know better, but I’d never experienced my dad putting on such a believable act before and was gobsmacked by it.
I like to think he was rewarded by the innocent astonishment that must have shown on my face.
Much less astonishment came over me when I stumbled upon news of a school shooting recently in Wisconsin. That innocence is long gone.
Looking at our trees, I was grateful they don’t need to know such things happen. Same with the horses. Then, I realized how attuned trees and horses are to the universe, which means they probably sense each and every atrocity through the connectedness of all things.
They keep calm and carry on their existence, and so should we. I’ll pretend we are almost healthy.
And now I miss the innocence of my 5-year-old self more than ever.
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Turkey Feast
In classic Cyndie fashion, we did not have one turkey for our Thanksgiving feast; we had two. She soaked one in brine and purchased a smoked bird from a local barbeque joint.
A Thanksgiving feast deserves to be served on a royally set table so Cyndie pulled out family heirloom china and silverware and augmented them with her hand-crafted dried leaf place markers.
Speaking of leaves, we put all five extending leaves in the old Hays family table to provide generous elbow room for our modest-sized gathering.
While dinner was cooking, I guided a group down to the barn to offer the horses a few Thanksgiving carrot bites to brighten their day. I was greatly impressed with Light’s quick acceptance of my message that I had no more treats for her. She is prone to prolonged, insistent begging for more when we start offering treats. In this case, she reacted as if she totally understood what I was communicating and turned around to walk away and stand beside Swings, who had already given up on a chance for any more bites of carrot.
When we returned to the house, there was time for a little word-guessing game in front of the fireplace before Chef Cyndie made the call for “hands.”
Much feasting ensued.
All visitors were sent home with generous servings of leftovers, but due to some strategic pleading by me earlier, they made sure to leave a little for me, as well.
Today, Cyndie and I are heading north to spend the weekend at the lake, because we can. Our leftovers will be going on a road trip along with us.
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Less Hot
The weather alerts that keep pinging my phone warn of excessive heat. Sounds ominous. Medium heat would be tolerable, but excessive? Yikes. We better be very careful. Except, the breeze coming off the lake this morning is about as perfect as a person could ask.
The filtered sunlight with dancing shadows of tree leaves projected on the logs of the sunporch wall augment the ambiance of serenity to a wonderful degree.
If I wasn’t inclined to think about how much the horses at home will be sweating today and Asher thrashing against his itchy skin, my life today would be downright heavenly. Comparing my usual grimy activity of constantly groundskeeping 20 rural acres to our getaways north where I laze around luxuriously highlights the significant difference in my experiences.
There is no lack of appreciation for this privilege on my part.
In fact, were I to imagine a time when Cyndie and I no longer chose to live in the situation where we needed to do so much work to maintain Wintervale, I’d gladly lobby to become the caretaker of her family’s property on this lake.
That might be the excessive heat warning talking. Check with me in the midst of a January deep freeze to see if that visualization of a possible future still stands up.
We are enjoying conditions that feel a lot less hot than what the weather app warnings keep beeping about. In today’s blurb by Paul Douglas in the Strib, I see that Saudi Arabia saw a midnight temperature index of 134°F when the dew point was 95.
Hot conditions, like so many other things in this world, are relative, aren’t they?
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Giant Paradise
Back in June, Cyndie received a present from Elysa and Ande of a giant bird of paradise plant they were repotting. Elysa had rescued the root-bound plant from her workplace when it was about to get discarded. Ande worked determinedly to untangle the mass and turn one pot into several.
It was quite a challenge for Elysa and Ande to tip down and fit our new transplant into her car for the trip to our house. It was also a challenge for us to find a place where it would fit indoors and keep it standing without an established root structure yet.
After it continually leaned too much, we decided to tie a line to the wall to hold it up while hoping the roots would soon get a grip to stabilize the tall shoots. I don’t know if that stability is happening yet, but this weekend a new shoot burst up and began to unfurl to a surprising degree.
This is one vigorous tropical beauty.
We are thrilled to see this new evidence of that vigor and feel optimistic about the future of this beauty of an indoor plant in the corner where it now resides.
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No Hurry
The luxury I enjoy to come and go as I please is not lost on me. In the absence of a time constraint on my drive to the lake, I was saved from any stress when I caught up to a long train of vehicles following a giant farm tractor at around 38 mph.
A younger me would have grown increasingly frustrated that the tractor was traveling for so many miles on this road without bothering to pull over and let some of the backed-up traffic pass. Yesterday, I didn’t let it bother me. I had packed snacks and had them well within reach since I was traveling at lunchtime.
The slower speed gave me a good opportunity to munch while driving and listening to a random shuffle of my music library.
The large pickup truck that raced to pass many vehicles in the train caused me no concern, unlike the driver of the car ahead of me who sped up in an attempt to block the truck from getting back in our lane ahead of him or her. It is really pleasant to not need to be in a hurry and to not care about other people causing delays.
Upon arrival at Wildwood, I found Cyndie on the deck doing some painting in the sunshine.
We were alone for a night but expecting to see Elysa and Ande later this afternoon to add a little family energy to the weekend. It’s quite a contrast from the vibe of 13 rowdy guys here a week ago.
One common feature is the multiple channels of Olympic competition available for viewing. There’s less swimming and more track and field but the same energy of medal-seeking international athletes pushing for their best and chasing record times/scores.
No hurry, but I’m chomping at the bit to watch the Men’s gold medal Football match between France and Spain.
Allez, allez!
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Like Home
My project yesterday morning felt a little like being at home. We enjoyed a visit from Julian up here at the lake for a few days and he brought along a present that I’ve been looking forward to. He got us a new battery-powered string trimmer to add to our gas-powered Stihl model trimmer resources. I’m hoping this will give Cyndie a quick and easy option for certain jobs since she is beginning to find it difficult to pull-start the Stihl engine.
There was a perfect testing ground for the new trimmer in our mini-labyrinth in the woods up here at Wildwood.
I bundled up in long pants and a shirt with long sleeves to do battle in the mosquito’s territory. Knocking down flurries of leafy green ground cover and ferns along the pathway unleashed a crowd of mosquitos that quickly figured out my head was rather defenseless. I got a chance to practice using the trimmer one-handed while swatting away bugs with my other hand.
About three-quarters of the way to the center, the mosquitos started to figure out they could fit their proboscis through the fabric of my shirt. It got to the point that I didn’t know if the bites I was feeling were a residual itch or a new, active bite in progress. Flailing and swatting becomes a full-time effort whether or not bugs are present when it reaches a certain point.
I was close enough to finishing that I forged ahead regardless of the feasting insects so the labyrinth pathway could be re-established to completion. Now it is possible to travel the route without disturbing underbrush where mosquitos rest during the day.
As soon as I got out of the woods, I made a beeline for the lake to soak in the water and quell the sensory overload of real and phantom itchiness.
Up until that point, it was feeling a little like being home while working with the trimmer, but the one thing we definitely don’t have at home is the opportunity to jump into this refreshing lake after completing hot and sweaty projects.
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Being Amazed
“It was such a beautiful day!” they said, expressing a level of astonishment over the change. A slow rumble of nearby thunder wafted through the open porch windows. I checked the radar for the umpteenth time to find the orange and yellow blobs covered in lightning bolts were still morphing amoeba-like just north of our lake. That storm cell had been hovering close for the last 45 minutes during which we sporadically received periods of just enough rain to make things wet.
The air was strikingly still.
Is it all that unusual for a thunderstorm to occur on the tail end of a beautiful day? I don’t think so.
In a way, I envy that level of becoming amazed by things that aren’t necessarily all that amazing. At the same time, it defies my sense of reality. I had just finished reading an account of the rescue operation after an incident where four people in two canoes had been swept over a waterfall in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness along the Canadian border in northern Minnesota.
It made me acutely aware of how everything can be completely fine in the moments before the onset of a tragedy.
How do we know when the calm we are experiencing at any given time is a breath away from the unexpected? In a way, it’s much more dramatic and amazing how common it is that nothing unexpected suddenly pops up. (I don’t mean to disrespect people who deal with mental health issues that involve symptoms of uncontrolled anxiety and maybe suffer a constant concern for possible looming calamities.)
People certainly have differing levels of perceptions. I can be embarrassingly oblivious to some scenery that means a lot to others. On our drive up to the lake last Thursday, Cyndie’s mom frequently marveled over the glorious summer views out the window. As we passed through the third or fourth town which triggered repeated amazement over lawns mowed or the floral arrangements displayed, it occurred to me how little I was feeling moved by the views.
From a farm just as we got started to Turtle Lake, Cumberland, and Spooner. They all elicited gleeful wonderment from Marie over the healthy displays of summery blooms. My lack of enthusiasm became increasingly apparent to me as her appreciative comments rang anew. Part of me wished to be equally amazed. The rest of me felt perfectly satisfied just the way I am.
Arriving at the lake, Cyndie’s and Marie’s first priority was assessment and care for the potted plants strategically stationed around the house.
That did not amaze me one bit.
I was much more surprised by the fact that the looming storm last night never arrived. Based on the view of the radar screen, it just lost steam and fell apart. Potential tragedy averted.
This morning, I’m feeling ready to take better notice of how amazingly beautiful our surroundings are here at the lake, rain or shine.
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Relative Something 