Posts Tagged ‘family’
Mice Everywhere
Today is Cyndie’s and my 42nd wedding anniversary and our son, Julian’s 35th birthday. Other than that, it feels like a regular old Tuesday. Regular, except for the fact there are mice showing up everywhere I turn.
Sunday night I was doing dishes when a mouse walked out from beneath the stove, traveled along the baseboard and disappeared beneath the refrigerator. I put a trap along that path and it hasn’t been touched since.
Over the weekend, Cyndie called for my assistance because there were two live mice in the wash tub in the laundry room.
Yesterday, while I was eating lunch at the center island of our kitchen, I glanced over to my right and spotted a mouse walking from the dining room rug into the sunroom. Cyndie swatted and disposed of it before Asher figured out what all the fuss was about.
Obviously, our house is not sealed tight against rodent intrusion or maybe the snakes just stopped eating mice and there’s been a population explosion.
I couldn’t get away from dealing with mice when I went out to the shop to work on setting up a new water tank we bought. I needed to connect wiring for a 12V auxiliary plug on the Grizzly ATV. There had been a mouse nest under the seat long ago and back then, I disconnected wires where the insulation had been chewed. Now I needed to patch them up and reconnect them.
There was still leftover debris in the compartment under the seat so I pulled out the shop vac and turned it on. Chewed-up bits of fiberglass insulation shot out of the exhaust port of the vacuum and blew over everything in the vicinity. Somehow, an industrious mouse made its way up into the guts of the shop vac and built quite a nest.
There is probably very little insulation left in one of the walls of the shop.
Maybe for our anniversary, we could buy each other the services of a pest control company. True love.
Happy Birthday, Julian!!
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One Solution
There is one easy solution for me to get a break from any more close encounters of the slithery kind at home. Pack up my things and get out of Dodge, as the saying goes.
But where would I go?
We left Asher at home and skedaddled to the lake where conditions were perfect for floating under the afternoon sun.
The poor pup got as anxious as ever over the obvious signs of our impending departure. While I was finishing up tending to horses down at the barn, Cyndie brought Asher up to the house for his breakfast. My mostly-packed bag was on the floor in our bedroom and Asher helped himself to a box in one of the end pockets that contained a pair of my eyeglasses.
When I stepped into the house, I commented that it seemed strangely quiet. Cyndie told me Asher was on a time-out. I noticed she was holding my glasses and a long-nosed plier. She could work on them all day long but after a pair of eyeglasses have been chomped on by a dog, they will never be the same.
My spare pair made the trip to the lake with me.
I drove up on my own and Cyndie came later with her mom. On Monday, I will head back to take over for our animal sitter, Anna, and Cyndie will stay for a few days to help host a gathering of Marie’s friends.
I’m going to enjoy this break from dog duty to the fullest because when I get home it will be all me and only me in charge of keeping the pooch safely occupied.
I wonder if I can teach him to hunt snakes.
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Days Two
Family who slept over Saturday night were treated to a second day of the events of Hays Days, starting with a breakfast of baked double-berry French toast and a perfectly spicy egg bake.
Asher made sure everyone received a warm greeting to start “Days” two.
If they had tented overnight, weather conditions would have allowed them to pack a dry tent in the morning but not if they waited too long. We finally received a small amount of precipitation and I’m not going to complain because a little is better than none at all.
We received just under a half-inch of rain out of a mid-day shower.
Indoor activities included plenty of cutting and pasting for collage projects, then some delicious pasta-making, and ultimately, fabric painting.
It has been confirmed for me once again that an overnight stay increases the connection among relatives at family events dramatically more than just a one-day visit.
I’m not sure what it does for pets. Asher had endless opportunities for human interaction yet he began behaving as if he wasn’t getting enough. What started as one isolated incident of picking up a tossed sock and trotting off with it eventually became a never-ending routine of grabbing a shoe or a shirt or a bag of dice, anything in reach that he seemed to understand wasn’t one of his toys.
At first, I wrote it off as him being out of sorts due to so many new people occupying his living space but after everyone had departed yesterday evening, Asher twice absconded with one of my slippers. At bedtime, after we put him in his crate, he uncharacteristically whined and whined until I finally came out of our bedroom to sit near him and watch Lionel Messi playing for Inter Miami on AppleTV on my laptop.
Asher quieted down immediately. I think he likes Messi.
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Hays Days
Just like all the small-town fairs and carnivals that come up with names like “Schooner Days” (Eden Prairie, MN) or “Rutabaga Festival” (Cumberland, WI), this weekend is “Hays Days” at Wintervale.
Cyndie pulled out a collection of sidewalk chalk and Heidi Shatek created a gorgeous logo for our event. One highlight of the day was a visit from a relative my siblings had yet to meet. We share a great-grandfather because each of our grandfathers were brothers. I met Jim Hays after he contacted me while researching our ancestry. Now most of my siblings got to meet him too.
Another highlight was having our son Julian bring a drone that allowed the easiest group photo we’ve ever taken.
The scavenger hunt I devised worked out slick. I think I had more fun hearing about people finding one of the ten items than they did finding them. “Old metal gate in the woods… three different types of pine cones… carabiner clip in use… two different rain gauges… butternut tree seed pod…”
Asher was in his glory with all the attention and loved being in the middle of the action.
There was no shortage of scrumptious food prepared by loving hands to keep much of the activity close to the kitchen throughout the day. Toward evening, many of the folks needed to head home but two adults and a crowd of third-generation cousins hung around for a sleepover.
Tent camping was considered but the ease of just crashing indoors in sleeping bags won out. There was a chance of rain that bolstered that decision but rain never came. We continue to endure a serious dry spell that has the soil cracking and the dust under kicking horse hooves creating clouds.
As Hays Days winds down today we can turn our sights to another season. Yesterday we announced a save the date for February when the lake place is reserved as the sight of a winter gathering of our clan.
Here’s hoping we boost the numbers to include even more families than were able to show up to this weekend’s Hays Days at Wintervale.
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Search Worked
Walking Asher unleashed through our woods yesterday, I took a picture of him trotting in front of me because he was so calm and happy. I was even happier because he stayed on the trail and was not manic about the sights and smells constantly vying for his attention.
Shortly after I captured that image, his trot picked up pace and soon he was running out of sight ahead of me.
It was nice while it lasted.
No trouble came from any of his brief excursions out of our sight on multiple sessions of walking with him unleashed. Asher generally explores the woods adjacent to our property and returns within roughly one to five minutes of vanishing. Since he has yet to reliably respect our voiced recall commands, our off-leash walks happen more toward the wooded end of our property as opposed to the open fields near the road.
We do not trust he would know enough to stay away from traffic passing on our street. I suspect just the opposite; he would be inclined to dangerously chase after moving vehicles at this point.
On one of our trails, we passed something I don’t recall ever seeing before.
Do you know what critter makes this?:
There was a half-dozen of them in relatively close proximity.
I added my foot to one of them to give a size perspective.
Just ignore that brightly colored leaf stuck in my boot. [I can’t keep my eye from looking at that distraction.]
Cyndie suggested we do an image search after uploading one of my photos. I figured that wouldn’t work but I was very wrong. She quickly found many photos with striking similarities to this one of mine:
Based on the search, the likely creatures are ground bees. Color me surprised.
I’ve seen bees disappear into a hole in the ground but I’ve not seen the ant-like piles of granules with the perfect pencil-sized hole on top like these.
I learned two things from this. One is obviously the discovery of ground bees. The other is to not doubt Cyndie’s problem-solving prowess.
Married for over 41 years and known her since we were teens in high school. You’d think I would have already learned not to doubt her abilities by now.
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Changing Landscapes
As I so often do, I ended up choosing hand tools over the diesel tractor for reclaiming some of the lime screenings that have washed into the drainage swale in the field beyond the paddocks.
It was just a lot easier to start the task when the moment presented itself, I have way more control over what I am doing, and I could work without bothering to isolate the horses.
The washout isn’t all that dramatic in the picture above, where I had already dumped several loads back on top, but the erosion was beginning to get a lot worse with each batch of heavy rainfall we had been getting. I’d like to interrupt the pattern of increasingly greater washouts as early as possible.
It would be grand to add something like a grid or fabric to hold soil in place but hoof traffic through that space tends to destroy that kind of thing. We’ve got some thick rubber mats under the overhang where we place feed pans and the horses’ hooves do a surprisingly good job of tearing them up.
They have been stomping their feet to knock biting flies off their legs and that tends to bust up their hooves a bit. I spotted a big rock that had recently surfaced on a slope of one paddock. It appeared to have scuff marks on it so I asked Cyndie if it should come out. Her response was, yes, because it can be bad for their hooves.
When I finally pried it out, it fell into two pieces. I think a horse had already broken it by stomping.
I took “before and after” pictures of a different project yesterday afternoon.
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We cleared out this path along our northern property border last year to create our newest walking trail. Everywhere I had cut a tree, new shoots sprouted with a vengeance from the stumps. I hadn’t given this any attention since spring and the weeds and tree shoots were taking over. Now the path is much more inviting.
This coming weekend we are hosting a Hays family gathering that will include a scavenger hunt for one of the events. I now have one more trail where I can think about sending hunters in search of some unique item or landmark.
Cyndie and I have already agreed that no clues will require digging, moving anything large, looking under manure piles, or climbing trees to find designated items.
The scavenger hunt beat out my idea of a treasure hunt where increasingly helpful clues would be provided each time a task is completed. What kind of tasks? I was thinking of things like splitting some firewood, filling in erosion ruts, hauling hay bales, or turning compost piles. The treasure was going to be a seat in our reclining easy chair and a glass of ice-cold lemonade.
See ya this weekend, Hays siblings and offspring!
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New Visitors
This morning we found evidence of new life arriving overnight down under the overhang.
At least two recently opened eggshells were on the ground beneath the horses. I won’t be the least bit surprised if the many barn pigeons have expanded their numbers. They will share a close birthday with the new robin hatchlings nesting in the branches of the spruce tree just outside our sunroom windows.
Yesterday we spotted the momma bird hopping up branches of the tree with a worm in her mouth and the little heads soon appeared with mouths opened wide.
We also enjoyed a visit from a new connection made at the Tour of Minnesota bike week. After several years of seeing each other on the tour, Scott Skaja overheard me mention having horses and quickly showed interest in bringing his family to see the place one day.
Yesterday was our opportunity before his oldest leaves for college in Florida and we were graced with a beautiful day to roam the property and mingle with the horses while also giving Asher plenty of attention.
The Skaja family was able to witness our experiment with refamiliarizing the horses with the inside of the barn. A vet appointment on the calendar in early August will require the horses to be in the stalls, so we will be offering them multiple opportunities to grow comfortable doing so.
We tried this last year but when Cyndie shattered her ankle in November it interrupted the process and the horses ended up making it through the winter without ever needing to be brought in.
Moving them one at a time when they aren’t sure about coming inside was a challenge I did not want to deal with all alone.
Scott and his wife and daughters stood outside the half-doors to observe how the four horses made their way inside and sniffed around every nook and cranny before eventually finding pans of feed to snack on inside each stall. Cyndie and I felt as though the horses showed evidence of remembering the visits last year and seemed pleasingly comfortable being inside.
It was a great chance to let the Skajas watch the horses explore new things and behave like the big, beautiful creatures they are, including pooping in the barn. Daughter, Bella graciously volunteered to do the scooping up afterward. I took advantage of that momentum to show off my manure composting process.
Not very impressive compared to Cyndie serving up freshly baked scones, a variety of incredibly delicious cold salads for lunch, topped off with a peach pie she baked earlier.
Obviously, Cyndie and I have different areas of expertise.
It will be tough to beat the fun we had yesterday, once again confirming our impressions that hosting visitors is truly what brings our paradise to its fullest splendor.
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Evening Thunder
In that cabin 3 bedroom, just inches from the open window, the peals of rumbling thunder were an almost spiritual meditation lulling us into slumber last night.
After a brilliant day of pickleball and swimming followed by a nap and a fabulous dinner out, we finished the night with five of us around the table in the porch for a card game.
I had no inkling that a mellow thunderstorm was coming until a notice appeared on my phone. Cyndie had already made her way over to the little cabin and was almost asleep when I shuffled over before the rain arrived.
It didn’t show signs of getting windy so we left all the windows open wide and let the symphony of rain and thunder serenade us to sleep.
My Tour de France entertainment is over for another year, freeing up my morning hours for a return to normal routines, except for days when the Women’s World Cup soccer tournament games of primary interest happen in Australia and New Zealand during the wee hours of our local time.
Being a sports fan can be demanding sometimes. [play tiny fiddle of sympathy here.]
Company’s coming today! Our friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus are due to arrive this morning, launching a few days of added lake place bliss for us. Blessings abound and we humbly revel in the friends, family, and experiences we are able to enjoy this week.
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Different Sleep
A change of perspective is always a valuable experience for me and this weekend up at the lake we have been residing in the old cabin #3 beside the main log house above the water. It is one of the original cabins of the former fishing lodge that Cyndie’s family saved when the Wildwood Association transitioned to families owning individual lots.
The Friswolds moved cabin 3 to a new foundation farther back from the lake to make room for the new log home they had built back in the early 1980s. When our kids were young, we spent most of our time up here in the old cabin, granting people in the big house respite from the clamor of infants waking early and the occasional outbursts of either glee or angst associated with that age.
Currently, there are no young ones of the next generation in the family and cabin 3 gets used less often, primarily as overflow accommodations when attendance numbers swell for a weekend.
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Cyndie and I are really enjoying the throwback to a time when our primary experience up at the lake was from the vantage point of the old, and much smaller cabin.
I have been sleeping deeper than in recent memory and with Asher left back in Beldenville with a sitter for this visit, we have no reasons to rise early. This morning the 8 o’clock hour had arrived before we got up. I had woken early and read the whole paper in bed on my computer and then faded into a morning nap that felt rather decadent.
The small rooms and close proximity to the ground (in the big house we usually sleep in the loft) make it feel like we are almost sleeping outdoors.
The view out the back window is one I relish for the trees and forest floor I’m most attracted to for a natural environment.
It’s as if I’m forest bathing all night long as I sleep.
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Fly Whip
Throughout the spring and summer, the horses go through phases of showing emphatic frustration with being harrassed by flies and stoically tolerating their persistent presence. I stood for a while yesterday and watched Swings manipulate her tail. A horse swishing their tail is a quintessential aspect of the animal.
It is iconic. It is what they do.
As I focused on Swings’ tail movements, a new level of appreciation arose in me. The amazing number of subtle muscle movements at the dock of the tail can make the long hairs (the skirt) twirl around in a circle, snap like a whip, or strike a fly on their underbelly.
The gyrations of the skirt become an artistic random wave pattern with a really long reach.
I have been swatted in the face many times as I wander too close when filling hay bags or scooping manure while the horses are eating from their feed pans and swishing away flies.
It is almost always unintentional on their part. The exception is Mix demonstrating remnants of the food aggression she showed when the horses first arrived.
Mix still has moments when she very intentionally shows us her powerful awesomeness.
I admit to smugly enjoying that her ploys don’t intimidate me, partly because she just as quickly will approach and gently share breaths with me.
She never does that (share breaths) with the flies buzzing around her head.
Cyndie and Asher pulled up the driveway yesterday just as I was sitting down in the front yard to enjoy a popsicle on a break from using the power trimmer along fence lines. They both seemed happy to be home again.
I’m pretty happy about it, too.
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Relative Something 