Posts Tagged ‘friends’
Got Company?
Our guests have arrived! Let the fun begin.
Delilah was so excited to meet them, she peed. We stayed up later last night than I have been awake for as long as I can remember. Did I even make it to midnight last New Years? I don’t think so. When we finally went to sleep, it was already this morning, that’s how late it was.
Temperatures should be mild today, so we will be able to give them a soft introduction to our northern version of winter.
That’s it. I don’t have time to write more. We’ve got company!
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Anxiously Awaiting
We are absolutely thrilled to be just days away from the arrival of our friends from Guatemala, Dunia and Marco, and their sons, Marco and Jose. Cyndie was busy all day yesterday adorning our home with decorations of the season, and cleaning rooms to set up beds with her typically fabulous flair. When I wasn’t lending a hand indoors, I was out cleaning snow off the areas of the driveway that I didn’t hit when I plowed on Saturday, shoveling the deck, clearing a path to the woodshed, hauling wood to the rack by the house, packing the labyrinth path with snowshoes, and lastly, (this especially for Dunia and family…) making the first attempt to establish a path for a 2-turn bobsled run down the hill in our back yard.
I have visions of building up a big enough pile of snow just beyond the deck after a few more storms, so that eventually we can start from up on the deck! In order for that to work, we would need some really big banks of snow at those two turns, so there will be plenty of snow-construction we can work on when we aren’t off on some other local adventure.
My driveway plowing on Saturday turned into a bigger project than I planned. It was my second chance to practice maneuvering the Griz while moving snow. The ATV is working as well as I had hoped. I am learning some things about getting it to shift easily, and apparently becoming increasingly aggressive as I gain experience. I over-stressed the winch cable that lifts the plow blade and broke it, twice! Maybe I’m a slow learner since it happened a second time, but I guessed that the first break was due to the cable being old and weakened, so I didn’t change my behavior.
After I cut off the bad portion of the cable and re-clamped a fresh end, I figured it would be as strong as ever. When that broke almost immediately, I decided I must have been trying to lift the blade beyond its stop point. After applying the fix a second time, I paid a lot more attention to the process of lifting the blade, and as a result, had no more problems the rest of the way.
Now, with all the snow cleaned and ready to entertain guests, the forecast is predicting flurries tonight and snow showers tomorrow. The difference between the two main seasonal chores of mowing grass in summer and shoveling snow in winter is that you know after mowing that you have at least a week before needing to cut the grass again, but with shoveling, you just might have to start over again on the very next day. There’s no rest for the weary.
Usually, after a snow storm, we get smacked with extremely cold air, but since this is just a small system of passing showers, it looks like our daily high temperatures will be going up! As of now, Wednesday is predicted to reach a degree short of the melting point. That will make creating the large banked turns of the bobsled run as easy as baking a cake.
Dunia, Marco, and sons, we hope you are able to enjoy your day of travel tomorrow. We are looking forward to greeting you at the airport in the evening so we can whisk you away to our Wintervale wonderland where our creatures, great and small, are all looking forward to getting to know you.
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Cold Advice
Right on schedule, the bitter cold arrived to seize the region in its icy grip. It is something of a shock when it happens in such a short time. The messy slop that was on our driveway Wednesday, became rock-hard glacial ice yesterday, after the temperature plummeted from above freezing, to well below in a matter of hours. As I was walking up the quarter-mile distance of our driveway after taking the trash bin to the road in the dark last night, I noticed myself flinching tight against the biting breeze.
Relaxing your muscles in reaction to extreme cold is a little secret of mine to bring a moment of warmth. I tried for years to get Cyndie to embrace this trick, but she was a very reluctant student of my teachings. I eventually came to discover that her level of discomfort in the cold was much more extreme than I ever would have guessed. When she told me she couldn’t feel her feet while we were trying to play racquetball after a short trip to the gym one winter, I took off her shoes and put her feet to my stomach. They were like solid blocks of ice! I was dumbfounded, and insisted we would buy her a pair of sensible insulated winter boots to replace the shoes she had been using.
With Venus and the crescent moon demanding attention in the sky above me, I took a breath and consciously willed my muscles to relax tension. Instantly, I felt a sensation of calm, the transition of which provides a pleasant side effect of the feeling of not being as cold as it just seemed. It is a mental game, really. A psychological ploy.
It got me to thinking about the fact that our friends from Guatemala, which we have invited to stay with us for a couple of weeks this month, might be interested in learning some steps to being comfortable while taking part in activities outdoors here in the winter.
• 1 – Drink Water – The first thing we were given when we arrived at Sue and Paul Schurke’s Wintergreen Lodge for a dogsledding vacation was a personal water bottle for each member of our family. Not only is staying optimally hydrated the best thing you can do for yourself in everyday life, it is the MOST IMPORTANT thing you should do in order to stay comfortable outdoors in the winter. If your urine output is more than a hint of yellow colored, you are short-changing yourself of the multitude of benefits of optimal hydration. Give your fingers and toes the best advantage toward staying warm outdoors on cold winter days by drinking enough water.
• 2 – Wear Layers – There are a variety of clothing options that can work, but the important aspect of layering is to choose base layers that wick body moisture away from the skin, a middle layer that insulates, and an outer shell that repels water of snow or rain. Depending on my activity, I will often forgo the outer shell and choose a wool shirt or sweater. Wool can absorb a lot of moisture and not feel wet, and it will keep on insulating. I prefer it because it breathes, instead of trapping my heat.
• 3 – Don’t Constrict – If you are going to take full advantage of being optimally hydrated, don’t constrict your blood flow by wearing boots, gloves, or clothing that are too tight. When I first put on Steger mukluks like the ones that were worn on Paul Schurke and Will Steger’s expedition to the North Pole, it felt completely wrong to me. It feels like wearing slippers outdoors. I got used to it very fast. My feet have never, ever gotten cold in the surprisingly comfortable Steger mukluks. Let your blood flow. Don’t think that an extra sock is worth it, if it makes the fit of your boot too tight. Better to skip the extra sock and allow your foot room to wiggle your toes. Mittens work better than gloves, because your fingers can wiggle all over the place, and they aren’t isolated from each other, so they can share their warmth.
• 4 – Don’t Sweat – The important reason for wearing layers is so you can begin to shed your covering when you generate so much heat that you begin to sweat. Keep in mind that this list is based on the assumption of dressing for outdoor activity. If you are active, you generate your own heat. If you want to stay warm, the wetness of your own sweat will work against your goal. Pace your activity, and open your clothing to adjust your body temperature in order to avoid getting wet from the inside out.
• 5 – Stay Dry – If you put effort into keeping your base layer dry, don’t waste it by letting your outer layer get wet. If it is precipitating, have a waterproof shell. If you are going to have a lot of contact with snow (sledding or making an igloo) have waterproof pants. Don’t spill your drinking water down your front. Avoid stepping into standing water or reaching into open water. I like it cold, because then the snow is dry. Water in winter is a bummer, unless you are drinking it. Lately, I am having a hard time dealing with handling buckets of water in the barn for the horses when it is single-digit cold. I don’t like water getting me wet in the winter.
• 6 – Pick Smart – Make smart choices when selecting winter wear. Wool is better than cotton. Jeans make terrible snow pants. A neck gator and good hat provide a huge amount of benefit for being such simple accessories. Get the right fit for everything. Take drinking water with you while you are outside. Eat a substantial healthy breakfast. Be prepared to deal with wind. Don’t forget to be active and have fun.
It amazes me to watch the horses deal with the cold of winter. Sure, their coats grow longer and thicker as the hours of daylight shorten, but that’s about it. Otherwise, they just stand out in it like any other day, butts into the wind. I wish it were that easy for us, but with rather simple preparation, it is possible to come pretty close. If you tend to the 6 points above, all that is left is finding the balance of activity that generates enough heat, and then you can be out all day long having so much fun, you never bother stopping to think about feeling cold.
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Clean Up
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“What do you mean I have to put away all my toys because company is coming?”
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Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and all through the house… Yeah, we’re cleanin.’ And cooking!
Cyndie read somewhere that you should give your dog a new toy every few days, or at least, rotate them out of service for a while as new ones are introduced. I know how this works. We raised kids. Delilah would just as likely play with a stick or a leaf and be fascinated for an hour. She would just as happily devour the cardboard backing a new chew toy had been mounted to, instead of the toy itself. Ice cubes are a current fascination. But it seems everyday I discover a new colorful device in our house that pet scientists of the world have devised to keep our dog intellectually challenged.
I’d like to meet the marketing genius who wrote that article Cyndie read, …and congratulate him.
“Don’t forget to clean up after the horses in the paddocks!”
Yes, dear. I should just let Delilah eat it all. With a dog’s sense of smell a gazillion times better than humans, you’d think manure would smell something awful to them. So, why the need to taste it at every encounter? The horses, deer, raccoons… She doesn’t discriminate.
I sure hope it won’t be too sunny tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll get around to washing windows before guests arrive.
If you are traveling today, be careful out there! We hope everyone in the States reading along will have a chance this holiday-extended-weekend to gather with others, sit down to a meal together, and bask in the valuable energy of being thankful. If you notice your hosts missed a spot when they were cleaning for guests, be sure to cut them some slack. Especially if they have been trying to live with a great big puppy and two frustrated house cats for the last two months.
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Missing Katie
For those of you who may have noticed something suspicious about the amount of activity I have been engaged in on the ranch lately, I will reveal that I have stopped going in to the day-job. For reasons beyond just saving gas money for the 65 mile one-way commute, or reclaiming the hours lost to driving, I am on leave from my usual employment.
At about the same time I started my leave, a person I worked with there moved on to a new position at a different company. How do you part ways elegantly when someone you used to see every day disappears from your life? Not a day has passed without me thinking of something that I would normally have told Katie about when we next saw each other at work.
Instead, I now find myself trying to talk with Legacy. It’s just not the same, I tell you.
I am trying to be open about the possibility of finding work closer to home, but my few attempts thus far have been met with rejection, so my inspiration is waning. In the mean time, it occurred to me that I can balance the loss of income by taking on some chores that we would otherwise need to spend a lot of money to get done. Yes, that means building fences.
A year ago, I didn’t know a thing about how to build a fence, but after watching the professionals put in our paddocks and string up the border of the big field, I’ve learned a lot. I thought it took them a long time, but now that I am digging my own holes and burying posts, I have a new appreciation for how much they could get done in a day.
It is very important to Cyndie that we get rid of the barbed wire fencing that is close to the trail where she plans to ride horses. Yesterday, I surveyed the most exposed section and came up with a new idea: Leave it be.
That fence has been there so long that trees have grown around the wire. It will be much less work if we simply erect a new fence, just inches inside the old one, and choose fence material that will serve as a barrier to the barbed wire beyond it. Since that old fence defines the boundary of our property, it is technically shared by our neighbor. Leaving it in place eliminates any question as to the location of the old boundary and avoids putting any burden on them to make changes they don’t need.
We really don’t want to cut down trees if we don’t have to, so putting our barrier up just inside the old fence means we can run inside the trees that have grown up right on the old line. It’s a win-win scenario!
Except I’m slow, …and I don’t get to talk with Katie.
Work Visit
We put the new “Griz” ATV to use yesterday, and it worked like a charm. One of my goals for the day was to take down the temporary fence we put up to define a grazing area just west of the big field. Our friend, Rich, and his daughter, Sarah, offered to visit and help with some chores, so I also had a goal of having a little fun. Both were accomplished!
They got to meet our horses for the first time, which also served a purpose for us, because we want the herd to be at ease in the presence of visitors. The more chances our horses have to experience receiving visitors, the better.
Cyndie brought Legacy into the barn to be groomed, and Sarah was able to help out with that task. I think she may have done too well, because when we returned to the barn later, to give the horses their afternoon feed, Legacy was covered with mud. He must have felt too clean, and rolled on the ground, in his version of self-grooming, to create a new layer of “insulation.” It was pretty funny to see.
Rich helped me to roll up the poly tape and pull out T-posts. I had rigged a way to connect our little trailer, ill-fitting and undersized though it is, to the Griz, and pulled that along as Rich picked up the posts. We reached that point where the load was becoming precarious, yet had only about a half-dozen left, so we went for it, and with Rich supporting the posts hanging off the end of the trailer, slowly worked our way out of the field.
The load was enough that I got stuck on the slope of gravel leading up to the pavement of the driveway, so I shifted to low, and then put it in 4-wheel-drive, and up it went, easy as could be. Then my only remaining problem was figuring out where the heck I would put all the posts. I hadn’t thought that far ahead!
Rich helped me create some space in the back of the shop garage and we finished putting things away just as soup and fresh-baked bread were being announced, topped off with cookies that Sarah helped Cyndie bake.
Thank you to Rich and Sarah for the visit, and assistance with chores. More than just a helping hand, having another person around when working provides opportunity for banter that energizes the endeavor.
Wintervale is a place that is made whole by the presence of guests. That has become apparent to me. At first, I thought we just needed to get the horses here to achieve the fulfillment of potential this place holds. Horses are a big part of it, but having people here to immerse themselves in the experience is the most precious of all.
Incredible Gift
We have received an incredible gift from our friends, Mike and Barb Wilkus. It has Cyndie and me struggling to find a way to fully convey our appreciation. It is a one-of-a-kind painting by Mike. Not only is it a unique and generous gift, the artistry has absolutely captivated both of us. Like a favorite song that you want to hear over and over, we keep finding ourselves drawn to gaze upon this image repeatedly.
Cyndie has collected and displayed a significant number of images of horses, but none of them come close to catching my eye as much as Mike’s watercolor image does. It is alive with the vibrant spirit of a horse.
It is absolutely stunning, and perfect for us, Mike. We can’t thank you enough.
It is a priceless masterpiece that we will enjoy anew every single day.
Great Anticipation
Today is the day. After years of preparation, starting way back when we hatched this crazy scheme, we will finally have horses. It is the culmination of our vision, and it is the first step into a new normal. What an amazing change this is from our years back in Eden Prairie.
It should be a busy day today. First thing in the morning, I am expecting a visit from a log home professional who will quote the job of sealing up our home and preserving the logs for the coming winter season. After that, we will be watching for friends coming to visit, the delivery of bales of hay, and then the arrival of our herd of horses –not necessarily in that order.
We’ve got some things to do yet, prior to their arrival, so we hope to get one or two chores accomplished before we enter the phase of just standing and staring, which I expect will consume us for the remainder of the day.
I hope they will be happy with the grass they find here. They are coming from fields that have been over-grazed, so our long, thick grass will be a significant change. I also hope I will remember what I learned at the Epona seminar I attended with Cyndie in Arizona.
“Breathe.”
I will remember to breathe.
Counting Down
Okay, I’ll finally admit it. We are now counting down the days until horses arrive here. I have purposely avoided writing about it, in case something interferes with the plan, but now we are close enough that I am breaking my self-imposed silence on the subject. Four Arabian horses have been identified, two mares and two geldings. This fact woke me in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep until after I made a list of all the things that were flashing into my mind that remain to be done.
I think I came up with a list of 12 items. After both Cyndie and I were up and talking in the morning, the list grew to 31 things to be done. Yikes! On second review, I was able to convince her that many of the tasks could wait until after the horses arrive, but there are still more things than can probably be accomplished. We’ll just have to prioritize.
Yesterday was a beautiful day to get a lot done, but we struggled with hitting our high gear. We knocked off some things that were on our list, but not the one that will take the most time, which is unfortunate, because time is now in short supply. It was a beautiful day, sunny, breezy, and the temperature was perfectly comfortable. There was no reason we shouldn’t have gotten a lot done, until our first visitor of the day arrived.
George, from our neighboring CSA farm came over by horse-drawn wagon to deliver this month’s share of meat and eggs. We had a wonderful and valuable chat, but it extended well into time we can barely afford. It is a tough thing to balance, because on the one hand, such interactions are priceless. It is very close to being the very essence of living in a rural setting like we do now. On the other hand, it keeps us from finishing what we start.
Normally, it wouldn’t be such a challenge, but yesterday, it happened twice. The second time it turned out to be the person who will be delivering a semi-load of hay with the horses. He was scouting the route to our property and wanted to check the layout of our buildings and driveway in order to be prepared. He turned out to be another very talkative person, full of knowledge about things pertinent to our endeavors here. Another priceless meeting and exchange that we are blessed to receive, but which knocks us off our list of tasks we want to get done. This took us into the dinner hour, and standing in the cool evening breeze brought on a chill that had both Cyndie and me happy to call it a day.
We ended up building the first fire of the season in our fireplace and Cyndie made soup and heated some french bread for our meal. More things to love about September.
That, and the pending arrival of horses…
Just Know
This deserves to be a blog post. The question posed was about how to stay positive despite the scary amount of negativity in the world. Far be it from me to come up with a concise reply.
I knew how to answer it for myself, but I had to think a moment, about how to communicate my process to another person. It was a wandering explanation, as each insight I explored seemed to spawn another that deserved mention.
What came to me right at the start was that having a positive disposition isn’t something that I do, it has become something that I know. The rest of my rambling response was an attempt to provide enough background to give the words more weight than just a routine platitude. It doesn’t seem logical to me to offer advice along the lines of just needing to “know” that things are not as bad as they appear to be. On the other hand, does it suffice for me to proclaim that they simply need to live through enough experiences to gather the insights I have acquired?
I don’t think I can reclaim everything I came up with at the time, but the simplified version of why I know things are not as bad as it seems is this:
I have overcome a history of depression. I have mended a dysfunctional relationship with my wife. I have almost completely eliminated my exposure to commercial broadcast media. That alone, probably makes the biggest difference on the amount of unwelcome news and energy that was previously bombarding me.
I have become aware of energy that we emanate and absorb. This one isn’t as ‘out there’ as may appear to some people. Science has proven that emotions are contagious. It is easy to notice that a depressed person in the room can bring people down, an angry person will spread bad feelings, and a happy and pleasant individual can lift the spirits of those with whom they interact. I have witnessed the impressive distance our electromagnetic heart field energy radiates, during my time working with horses in Arizona when I joined Cyndie for the conclusion of her apprenticeship training.
Our energy is a powerful force. We should arm it with something positive and profound. I have always felt in my core that love was the vital component of all human interaction. We know to “love thy neighbor” and many of us believe we should love our enemies. I believe love is the way to heal, to bring peace, to raise healthy individuals, and, radiated in advance, to engender best possible interactions with others. Let love be the primary vibe riding on your projected energy field and you shower all in your vicinity with good will.
All of these things combined, provide a sense of knowing, despite all that seems wrong in the world –and think about it, people have been predicting that the ills of the world indicate ‘the end is near’ for eons– we hold unbelievable power for good with our love that can blossom if we alter our focus from all that is wrong, dwell on all that is right, and develop our skills to radiate healthy love in every direction. It magnifies. Love begets more love.
Try it. You can’t help but have a positive disposition when you put your attention to it!
Relative Something 