Posts Tagged ‘gratitude’
Home Vacation
It’s been a little over a month since our adventurous trip to Iceland, and the thrills of the experience are still resonating. As I was sitting in our newly established lookout knoll with the horses grazing nearby yesterday, I recognized a feeling in me that matched those thrills of standing in the presence of incredible waterfalls or striking basalt columns or the spectacular ice formations of a glacier.
Listening to the quiet natural sounds of distant bird calls, feeling the combination of the warm sunshine and the cool breeze, and watching the little details of how the horses were behaving filled me with a sense of gratitude for the moment.
In Iceland, after flying for hours across an ocean, we drove long distances and walked for miles to reach amazing sites that presented a similar sense of awe. I only need to open my door and step outside to find myself in a place that offers me equivalent satisfaction.
It is as if I am on vacation at my very own home.
Plenty of people prefer travel adventures for fulfillment. I am not one of them. An occasional road trip serves me just fine, but more often than not, I prefer to stay home and soak up my immediate surroundings.
It is not lost on me that we are living in a place of exceptional natural beauty.
With our log home on the top of the hill surrounded by forest and fields, combined with the magnificent energy of the herd of four horses, this place makes me feel like I am on vacation every day.
It probably doesn’t hurt that we’ve put a lot of sweat equity into improving and maintaining some of the features. That’s just part of my nature. I saw several opportunities on trails in Iceland that I felt an urge to tend to as well.
Taking care of the land fits into the kind of things I like being able to do. It’s pretty great I get to include that in my vacation life on our glorious acres at home.
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Feeling Thankful
I’m particularly thankful on this final day of the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The good fortunes bestowed upon us by the universe, chance, choices, and a smattering of genuine efforts are beyond measure. As such, engaging in the exercise of naming a few that come to mind provides valuable perspective for a immeasurable phenomenon.
When I realized the automatic waterer for the horses in the paddocks was getting warmer than a hot tub, I looked up the temp control details online. Upon opening the access panel of the waterer, I found there was no thermocouple to adjust. After I got over the shock and traced wires several times, suddenly my fingers landed on the leads to the unit that was just dangling in air. I don’t know what caused it to slide out but I’m extremely thankful the fix was so easy and the water is now a reasonable temperature that won’t sting the horses’ lips.
- The surgical incisions on Cyndie’s ankle have a ways to go before the skin has healed fully. Still, already she is experiencing joyful relief over the absence of the screws and plates that once held the shattered bones together. They eventually became a problem of their own. I’m really thankful for the good work of the surgeon and staff of the hospital and Tria Orthopedic for their excellent treatment of Cyndie’s injury.
- This is an ongoing appreciation but lately, I’m feeling particularly aware of the mental benefits of successfully treating the depression that dominated much of my life from childhood through roughly mid-life. I am so very thankful for the doctors and therapists who guided and educated me, some of whom I can’t even recall names or faces. I guess I wasn’t focused on the guides but on the destination.
- Lastly, for this exercise, I want to tell you how thankful I am that you are reading the odd chronicles I decide to post here every day on Relative Something. To the worldwide audience of WordPress bloggers who happen upon random posts and end up returning for more and the friends and family who understand I don’t use other social media and keep in touch by reading me here. Even if I don’t know you are following along, if you are reading these words right now it means something to me and I am thankful internet stranger(s).
Maybe by exercising my thankfulness muscles in this way, I will continue to gain prowess in my journey toward optimum health. Mental “planks” as compared to the back-saving core exercise I continue to employ. Thankfully, those seem to be helping me to avoid prolonged repeated episodes of debilitating pain.
Happy last day of this (U.S.) holiday weekend!
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Being Horses
This morning I am feeling overwhelming awe over my opportunity to live in such a beautiful place and care for these four rescued thoroughbred mares. In a conscious effort to compartmentalize all the ills and angst-inducing news roiling our planet, I am focusing on the peace and tranquility of my immediate surroundings and soaking up the soul-nourishing thrill of it all.
Being home alone with our animals brings on plenty of opportunities for contemplation. Half of me is thinking about which of our unending projects I can tend to on my own –chainsaw use is not allowed when I am alone– and half is wallowing in the bliss of all the pleasantries of solitude.
Partial solitude, that is. Delilah frequently reminds me that I am not totally alone. She also influences which projects I choose to tackle and when because some tasks don’t lend themselves well to having a leashed dog along. I am extremely grateful for her patient tolerance of my extended lingering this morning after tending to the horses.
The completion of the morning routine at the barn is regularly the trigger for returning to the house to feed Delilah breakfast. That she would accept any delay in being fed is absolute generosity on her part.
While the horses were calmly consuming their morning feed servings today, I quietly made my way down to open the gates to the freshly cut hay field. I was dumping a wheelbarrow of manure onto the most active compost pile when the horses took advantage of the renewed opportunity to roam the front field. They were just making their way over the hill and out of sight when I returned to the barn.
Curious about what was drawing them to immediately head to the farthest reaches of the field, I convinced Delilah to walk away from the house toward the high spot in the driveway to see what the horses were doing down by the road.
They were munching on the grass along the fence line as if in a gesture to demonstrate that they could. It was as far from the barn as their confines allow. With Delilah’s generous patience providing me ample opportunity, I just stood and watched our herd of four gorgeous horses being horses. Mix turned first and began to make her way back up the rise in the big field.
She stood at the top for a moment and looked absolutely regal, then moved into a happy trot down to the gate into the paddocks. The other three walked along behind. They appeared to be reveling in the regained access to the full reaches of their current home.
It is such a rewarding honor to be able to give them as much autonomy as possible throughout each day.
Their happiness is contagious.
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Overnight Snow
It’s so much more gorgeous to have snow brightening up the landscape this time of year. We awoke today to a nice coating of white covering everything, which pleasantly provided a precise visual for the travels of our resident wildlife on Delilah’s and my walk this morning. The timing of snow and our walk meant that we came upon individual, single tracks from the fox, raccoons, deer, and a cat who visits almost daily.
The chickens showed a reasonable bit of hesitation upon exiting the coop, but quickly got over it and skittered their way through the trees toward the barn for breakfast. They didn’t linger long there. Before Delilah and I had even completed our full circumnavigation of the property, the chickens had scrambled across the driveway to one of their favorite spots beside the shop garage.
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Rocky was his bold self despite his aversion to putting both feet down into the white stuff. There is a lot of single-foot balancing that goes on during the snow season for our birds. They’re such chickens.
Yesterday, while traveling the trail on the southern border of our property, I caught sight of a bald eagle circling the precise location where the chickens hang out, flying just above the trees. Before I could react, I found the birds were all under the barn overhang and the eagle was already moving on to the neighboring fields.
It was an immediate relief but obviously only a temporary reprieve. Our birds free range in a cruel rural world where predators prowl.
Every day they come through unscathed is a victory we celebrate.
Tomorrow through Tuesday we are expecting sunshine and daytime temperatures above freezing, so the white-flocked Christmas card views out our windows won’t likely last.
Nothing lasts forever so we practice appreciating the sacred in each precious moment. A fresh coating of pristine white snow helps to make that exercise a breeze.
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First Aroma
It was one week ago that I wrote about the waning days of summer and my noticing colored leaves in our grass beneath the tree that always turns early. Now, on the last day of August, it’s probably right on schedule that I noticed my first scent of dry leaves in our woods.
It doesn’t even look like there are enough leaves on the ground to be noticeable, but the smell is there.
I was doing some forest bathing with Delilah and breathing in the aroma as we walked the trail. It made me think of September, and then I realized that the month begins tomorrow.
The smell may not be early, but it seems like it is.
Last night was a gorgeous summer evening with a perfect temperature and fabulous sky when Delilah and I headed out later in the evening to tuck the chickens in their coop for the night. The horses had wandered through the open gate out onto the grass of the middle pasture again, and the scene was a perfect picture-postcard moment.
In sharp contrast to the travails of so many other people and places in the world, the sanctuary of our property is quite the healing balm for whatever assails my being.
The aroma of fallen leaves comes as a particularly precious added bonus.
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Precious Getaway
We are so lucky to have people who are willing and able to take care of our animals for enough time to allow us to get away to the lake place every so often. It is our Memorial holiday weekend in the U.S. and for the second time in three weeks, we are again up at the lake place.
This time, we are without Delilah. She stayed home to be with our very capable recent college graduate, McKenna. Two of Cyndie’s brothers are up here with kids, and her parents as well. We got the weekend off to a very festive start by venturing out to the Lost Land Lake Lodge for the Friday night fish fry.
The place was hopping and our server was a real charm. Food was perfect in every way and the family banter was wonderfully entertaining. It was almost enough to entirely purge the lingering mental distractions of the day-job, where business has gotten so good (busy) it’s getting annoying.
Before the night was over, I had already lost two completely different card games. It didn’t bother me one bit. The precious ambiance was all the victory I needed for putting me in my happiest of places.
A precious getaway is an amazingly priceless luxury. This one is certainly more than I deserve.
As it fills my cup to overflowing, I will send the extra love out to you and the world to distribute and amplify all that is good.
It’s the least one can do for a world that too often seems out of our reach to help.
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In-Law Jackpot
It was at Christmastime about 34 years ago that I embarked on the first steps of a journey that has proved to be more remarkable than I dreamed would be possible for me. I won the in-law lottery. I hit the jackpot. I will never comprehend what it was like for Cyndie’s parents to deal with the fact that I had asked for permission to marry their daughter —their first-born child, for heaven’s sake— but for me it was just a mind-numbing step in my magical journey of life.
Sometimes when I think back on it, I feel astounded that they said yes. I owe Fred and Marie Friswold more appreciation than I have been able to convey. How can I adequately express what it has meant to me to be accepted into their family? The immensity of my gratitude is beyond what I have ever thought to speak.
From that very day when I asked for their blessing to take Cyndie’s hand in marriage —when Marie’s first response came out as shock that I was asking her while she was in the middle of untangling Christmas lights— I have fallen short of telling them what they have deserved to hear.
Once again, I resort to writing. It is my preferred means. I figured maybe I would get a Christmas card for them and write a heart-felt note. Thinking about what I should write, I realized it would probably need to be a letter. That quickly led to this: a blog post. Even though they are humble enough to likely favor I had stuck with the card idea, I would like to profess my appreciation for them to the world.
It’s not like the years have been without turmoil. I am embarrassed for the number of times I failed to mask my preference to be back among the Hays way of doing things when in the midst of all things Friswold. It has always turned out to be a small price to pay. For the most part, I have been blessed with the opportunity to bask in the greatness that Fred and Marie create. Their generosity and patience is immeasurable. They have taken me to places I never thought possible, and provide never-ending support to me, Cyndie’s and my marriage, and to our children. Their acceptance and support of me is a precious gift I treasure more than any other.
Christmas is a particularly special time when their saintliness shines. They care for others with boundless benevolence. I always receive from them more than what I feel I deserve, but that is not how they measure their giving.
Fred and Marie have succeeded in the art of family where so many others have failed. It is a wonder to behold and an amazing thing to experience first hand, as their son-in-law. I owe them credit for more than I can grasp about who I am and what I have experienced.
Either written or spoken, what they mean to me really is greater than words. If you are reading this, I hope you have a sense of how blessed I feel and an inkling of the grandiosity of jackpot with which I have been blessed. I hope Fred and Marie will sense that I am more grateful to them than I ever have been, or ever will be able to say.
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Relative Something 