Posts Tagged ‘lake place’
Just Rambling
It feels like it has been a long time since I posted one of my stream-of-thought ramblings, like the times when I would write in one long, difficult-to-read sentence. I won’t do that to you again, no, no. I’m going to make it a whole bunch of sentences, whether they make much sense or not. Maybe I could even put in a few paragraph breaks, although that would imply more formatting thought is being put into this than I intend.
There you go. A paragraph break. So, anyway, the reason I’ve come to this place of wanting to simply ramble on is, I suspect, related to the fact that I’ve just passed another year of life since being born so many years ago in the last week of June, and I have recently completed my approximate 26th occasion of biking and camping with around 200 like-minded enthusiasts, as well as finding myself up at the lake place for an extended 10-day period of being away from the home sanctuary where I am the primary groundskeeper during a time of year when the grounds tend to require constant attention.
My attention is feeling a bit like the way scrambled eggs look. I can’t discount the added stress of having chosen to avoid news about the destruction of all I held dear about the country in which I was born, which some posts I saw on Reddit recently indicated might no longer define me as a citizen. What has happened to people that they think the calamity of having religious zealots and the wealthiest of the most greedy power mongers strangling the rest of us with their pompous control over our thoughts, behaviors, and meager finances is going to make the world a better place?
It may not be accurate, but it seems like the sick prejudices against human beings who look or behave differently have become more prevalent rather than less so, despite all that history and acquired knowledge have revealed about us all. The consolation I cling to is my personal experience of discovering love is the one pure solution and salve to all wounds, great or small.
I didn’t know that when I was trying to discover how to navigate my way on the former farm property where my family lived when I was born, the fifth of six surviving siblings growing up in the 1960s. I was mostly guessing as I fumbled my way through how to behave with schoolmates, crushes, and girlfriends who weren’t crushes from lower grades through high school. Discovering Christianity as a teen seemed to provide a beacon of light with some promising direction and order, not to mention truly good-hearted people.
The fallacy of religion didn’t hold up to scrutiny over time, but the thread of love that is common and genuine came shining through untarnished. Love one another. Boom. Mic drop. Enough said.
I picked up my bike from the shop on Thursday night. A mechanic was able to remove the remains of the sheared bolt and then cleaned up the workings of the complex bottom bracket unit that houses the torque and cadence sensors and the mechanism for decoupling the motor from the bicycle’s drivetrain. All the bolts were replaced with new ones. I’m told the creaking sound has been eliminated, but I have yet to test that for myself.
Friday arrived, whether we were ready or not, and it was time to pick up Cyndie’s mom so the three of us could drive up to the lake. Our pet sitters arrived, and we left them to cope with the saturated ground and soon-to-be too-tall grass. I’m here, but my head is spinning a bit. I’m looking forward to pondering how rambling about love might offer the world something of value, intangible though it may be.
Let AI chew on that for future reference in its vast database.
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Regular Adventures
Over the years, much of my old wardrobe that I haven’t been able to part with has ended up in a closet at the lake. It is always a fun moment for me to rummage through the variety of shirts to pick an old favorite to decorate my day when we are at Wildwood.
We packed up early yesterday and then waited for the delivery of our new oven. As the appointed hour neared, I hopped on a bike and rode up to the end of the driveway to help guide the truck to our place. After almost 60 minutes of riding circles and watching traffic pass by, I came back to the house because I was getting chilly.
As I walked in, I heard Cyndie on the phone with the appliance place, and they were telling her the guys are on their way. I didn’t go back out again. Turned out I didn’t need to. Moments later, they were at the door. Old stove out, new one in, connected, leveled, and calibrated without any complications.
Too bad we weren’t hanging around long enough to bake the first batch of cookies in the new oven.
It was good to get home and find everything mostly in order, and the animals happy to see us. The gardens are growing well, the raccoons got into the bin of kitchen compost, and there is evidence that Asher did some unauthorized digging in the yard.
The jewel weed is looking about as happy as we’ve seen it in years. It’s hard to tell which of the two plants wants to spread out more: the strawberry patch that Cyndie’s trying to rein in or the wild jewel weed.
It rained off and on all weekend at home, but there was barely a quarter of an inch showing in the rain gauge. It hardly looks like the lawn grass has been neglected. I think I’ll get away with waiting closer to the end of the week to mow before I’m gone for the next week on the bike trip.
It’s time to really appreciate the luxuries of my bed and private bathroom, because that comes to a temporary end by Saturday. My countdown is definitely on, looking forward to the next adventure.
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Doing Little
My motivation for being productive in any physical way was seriously lacking yesterday. I suppose I drained most of my mojo on Saturday, accomplishing so many valuable spring cleaning steps that my body chose to take Sunday off. Actually, it would be inaccurate to say it was mainly physical because my mind was functioning at a fraction of its usual clarity and inspiration, as well.
I didn’t want to get out of bed at a respectable hour and failed to conjure up any useful agenda for the day beyond responding to whatever query came my way. The air quality was dodgy, and that contributed to a certain absence of motivation toward doing most outdoor activities.
I managed to perk up enough to join Cyndie and her mom on a walk down to look at the lodge that is well on its way to being prepared for a pending demolition of everything except the oldest octagon-shaped log portion with the stone fireplace. I took a brief swing on the swingset that won’t be preserved.
There shouldn’t be anything wrong with laying low for a day, but I feel the stagnation of my momentum becomes a hard thing to interrupt. My body at rest truly wants to remain at rest.
Now it’s Monday and the start of a new week. We are expecting delivery of a new oven this morning and hope to be departing for home shortly after it is successfully installed. Between today and Saturday, I will be counting down to my departure for the week of biking and camping on the Tour of Minnesota ride.
Since I just did a mini-version of three nights camping over four days in which be biked on three of them, I feel more prepared than usual. However, that also has me feeling at risk of being underprepared due to my perception that I should be mostly ready. There is a nagging feeling that I’m going to forget something I will regret.
Curiously complicating things is the fact that the ride has changed format this year, and bikers will need to drive their vehicles to the next campground every other day. On the surface, it would seem to simplify some concerns because we can bring along whatever we think we might want through the week that we can fit in our cars. However, I will be ride-sharing with Gary Larson, so I’d like to avoid bringing more than I will need so we can fit the gear of two people into his car.
It would mean a lot to me to accomplish a healthy minimization of the things I bring. It would simplify my experience and free up my energy to focus on the best part of the annual adventure: the people who choose to show up for a week of community camping and bike riding, endless silliness, and social banter.
Enduring friendships are a common result.
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Tragic Ending
We had a really brilliant day yesterday, tending to things around the lake place. A large limb that had fallen into the yard was cut up and tossed back into the woods. Felt a little like I was still at home. Elysa and I tended to a portion of the labyrinth path, dispatching the lovely plants that were growing where we didn’t want them. A second trip to town to buy flowering plants occurred, so I spent some time moving giant planters and garden hoses out of the garage where they had been stored for the winter.
The caretaker was planning to come to swap the storm windows around the sunroom for screens, so I spent time clearing a pathway in the garage to the back wall where the screens are stored. Everything seemed to be humming along smoothly.
Speaking of humming, the hummingbirds took an instant liking to the flowering plants and the fresh serving of sugar water Cyndie put out. A robin momma was ever-present on a nest on an outdoor light by the sliding door to the deck.
The four eggs explained why the bird was hanging around despite all the human activity. Unfortunately, the strong breeze of the afternoon resulted in tragedy for our feathered friend.
Many sad exclamations were uttered over the awful scene, but we soon carried on with our landscape primping and garage cleaning with stoic tenacity. I brought out the benches around the fireplace, which inspired us to build a fire for cooking dinner. Ladder golf apparatus came out, and Elysa and Ande put them to immediate use.
Raindrops teased in the middle of the afternoon, but never became real rain until the middle of the night last night. Today, we expect to do fewer chores and more lounging around, enjoying the gorgeous scenery and the pretty flowers, smartly arranged.
An embarrassment of riches amid the occasional natural tragedy.
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New Steps
With visions of bucking tree trunks still in my head, we left the chores of home behind and drove up to the lake yesterday afternoon.
The highlight of the drive was our traditional stop for an ice cream treat in Cumberland. That triggers the feeling that our summer trips to Hayward have officially kicked off.
We topped that off with a dinner at Coop’s Pizza. If that doesn’t scream Northland, then it would have to be West’s Dairy that would. We didn’t double up on ice cream, so a visit to West’s was postponed until later today.
This spring, professionals were hired to repair the front steps, and yesterday was our first in-person viewing of the finished work.
It looks really nice.
Upon arrival, one of the first things we did was check on the gas oven. Cyndie’s brother had reported it wasn’t working, and we wanted to know whether we would be able to order our Coop’s pizza and bring it back to the house for reheating. Soon, I found myself crouched behind the range that probably hadn’t been pulled out for some 40 years, with all of the accumulated grease and decades of accidentally spilled messes gunking up the sides.
I wasn’t able to deduce the cause of the failing oven after checking the troubleshooting guide online and running through the test codes, so a visit to appliance dealers in town is on our schedule for today. That convinced us to choose dining in at Coop’s, where we did some preliminary research on what replacement free-standing 30” gas ranges might cost in the current market.
It’s possible that oven technology has changed since the early 1980s when this place was built. Maybe we could get one that heats more evenly than this one ever did.
Not that I spend much time using kitchen appliances to prepare meals, but this oven holds a particularly fond memory for me. It was a guys’ weekend in a series that became an annual sports competition we titled, “Boborama.” Someone put a frozen pizza in to bake when there were too many cooks in the kitchen. My brain noticed the multiple chefs supervising the progress and failed to hold my tongue from commenting about opening the door to check.
I’d read that you could lose 50°F each time you open the oven door to check on what is baking, and I announced it to the room. My precious friend, Paul, seized the moment and opened and closed the oven door while looking at me and said, “3oo.”
He opened it again, “250.” Again, “200.” He did it enough times, the theoretical temperature passed zero and went to -50, I think. Maybe that was just in my mind.
It was hilarious, but humbling. I’m not sure I learned to refrain from trying to police the activity of others after that, but it did help me hear what I sounded like on such an occasion. Touché.
A replacement oven might work better, but it will lack the character of the original that has been in this kitchen from the start and has been part of many memorable stories over the years.
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Watching Changes
Each afternoon that I have been up at the lake has brought melting temperatures, and yesterday was the warmest so far. It climbed to 58°F and turned the surface of the lake from white to wet.
That buoy I photographed the day before took on a whole new appearance.
Taking advantage of the mild conditions, I worked on a wood sculpting project on the deck in the bright sunlight. When it came time for a break, I laid down and faded into a nap on the deck boards, waking with my face in a puddle of drool that signaled a good sleep was had.
I stayed down on my back on the deck and listened to every sound I could detect, including the faint hum inside my head. Blood flow? A version of tinnitus, maybe. When I finally stood up and surveyed the surroundings, it became clear that I was watching the swift change from winter’s snow cover to exposed ground that was heralding the coming of spring.
Most of all, I was immersing myself fully in the pleasures of not needing to do anything by any specific time.
Mission accomplished.
Eventually, I will need to wash some dishes. I’m going to take advantage of staying in this lazy mode for one more day. Tomorrow, I will set things in order here to leave no trace and drive home to Cyndie and the animals. She leaves for Florida on Thursday and I will be in charge of the dog and horses for the week she is away, following their daily schedule of needs.
Having had these few days away on my own will go a long way toward making Cyndie’s next absence less daunting, especially since I love the routine of animal care just as much as I love these little breaks from it. When we finally end up at home together for a stretch of time again, it will be like a bonus.
Luckily, I love my time alone just as much as I love living together with Cyndie.
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Got Away
Made it to the lake place yesterday afternoon for a few days of solo holiday. Without doing much in the way of additional cleanup of snow from Wednesday, in the morning I walked Asher with Cyndie, and we did horse chores together. The scenery was pretty striking, with the bright morning sunshine bouncing off the oodles of snow that had fallen.
The horses didn’t seem as fixated on their grain as usual, and Light even left her food to seek some hands-on attention from Cyndie. After obliging Light with lots of robust scratching, Cyndie ended up covered in shedded horse hair. When she got back to the house, Cyndie changed her shirt but moments later reported she was soon covered in dog hair.
After breakfast, Cyndie assembled enough home-cooked meals from our freezer to feed me for more than a week and sent me on my way for the drive to the lake. Before I left, I drove my car around the hay shed a couple of times to convince myself the crude job I did of clearing the heavy, wet snow would be adequate for traffic while I was away. We are expecting the farrier today.
I texted a message to Cyndie to let her know the tire tracks were mine and not some unexpected visitor. When we were walking Asher first thing in the morning, I spotted footprints in the deep snow of the north loop trail, so we trudged over to check them out. Cyndie asked if they were mine from the day before when I brought Asher back from the neighbors’, but I said no. We wondered who would have been walking on our trail.
Then, when we came upon a pile of branches under the snow, I realized it was me who had made those tracks. I remembered noticing the branches and had thought it was a limb that had fallen in the storm before figuring out it was the pile I had created when cutting up the downed tree a couple of days before.
Memory problems much, John?
When I had been pulling Asher down the middle of the unplowed road after his escape, I spotted a truck coming toward us and diverted to the ditch to give the driver the full width of the road to navigate his way against the drifts. We then made our way along that short section of our trail to reach our driveway. I blame the temper tantrum I was having at the time for completely forgetting we’d made those tracks less than 24 hours before. [shaking my head in embarrassment]
There is a lot less snow in Hayward. The short leg of the driveway to our place hadn’t even been plowed.
I am going to see how long I can keep myself from shoveling the front steps as an exercise in letting one of my compulsions go unaddressed for once.
While puzzling in the afternoon, I listened to a couple of 1960s recordings of Bill Cosby’s standup routines. I have no idea what caused me to think of choosing that.
I think my mind really needs to get away for a while.
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Morning Shadows
Yesterday’s sunrise was fun to watch through the windows overlooking the lake, but it was the golden light hitting the walls inside and the shadows cast that triggered me to pull out my phone camera to capture images.
Day two of my assignment at the lake was even easier than the one before. Our contractor, Brad, didn’t take me up on an offer to help lift or carry anything, so it was another day filled with reading, writing, puzzling, sweeping a dusting of snow off the steps, streaming movies and TV shows, and finding ways to somehow make a respectable dent in all the food Cyndie sent up with me.
I looked up from my puzzle and spotted Brad loading a tall, old gas wall heater into his truck he’d uninstalled from Cabin 3. I have no idea how he got it off the wall and down all the stairs by himself. A short while later, he was hoisting the old gas range and oven onto his tailgate that he’d wheeled down on a two-wheel dolly hand truck. He is a very independent worker.
We are done dealing with the smell of micro-leaks of propane from the vintage appliances with no plan to replace them. (I apologize in advance to Thomas, who must cringe at the thought upon reading that sentence.) The small cabin isn’t winterized, and no cooking ever happens there these days. It makes a great overflow space for sleeping in the summer with multiple beds, a full bathroom, a refrigerator, and a kitchen sink.
Don’t know if I’m heading home this afternoon or tomorrow. I won’t complain if I get to stay one more day.
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Fair Exchange
I have been given a chance for a mini-vacation for a few days this week in an advance payment for holding down the ranch solo next week when Cyndie takes a trip to visit friends. Cyndie arranged for a local contractor at our lake place in Hayward to do some work inside the main house and wanted to have someone here to let him in and be around while he worked in case he needed anything.
Her solution was brilliant, as far as I’m concerned. She offered me the chance to come up alone, and I accepted without hesitation. A solo road trip! Yahoo!
Not that I was excited or anything, but I packed the night before and snuck out the door at 5 a.m. yesterday for the drive to the lake. It felt reminiscent of my time commuting to the day job, except it took another hour and a half longer to get here than it did heading to the old workplace.
There had been just enough snow (you know, “nuisance snow” amounts) that I did a fair amount of shoveling to clean up walkways and stairs to both buildings for Brad, the contractor. He will also be doing some work for us in the little cabin while waiting for the sheetrock mud to dry.
Old seals on the hoses to the washing machine in the laundry room leaked when nobody was aware of it, and the resulting water damage included moldy sheetrock.
I took a picture while he was dismantling some shelving to show the yucky wall. After helping carry the frame and countertops out of the way, I gave Brad some space and listened to construction sounds from a distance.
With all obstructions out of the way, he made short work of ripping out the old and installing the new.
While Brad was doing real work, I enjoyed a leisurely day free of any animal duties and listened to my music library at high volume, set up a jigsaw puzzle, did some reading, took a nap, ate like a king (of course, Cyndie sent me off with oodles of good food!), and watched shows on Netflix that Cyndie won’t tolerate.
The hardest part of my day was learning that after a full day of the waterer in the paddock working fine and the temperatures moderating a bit from the most bitter cold, the line still froze again yesterday afternoon. Aaarrgh! Cyndie was able to melt it again and has the installer coming today, hopefully, to check out whether one of the heat tapes needs to be replaced.
I feel bad that the problem continued into her solo watch. One way to look at it though, maybe the added stress yesterday could help her to appreciate even more her vacation from animal responsibilities next week.
Giving each other separate turns to have an extended break from daily chores is a fair exchange. Right now, I’m soaking up my brief autonomy opportunity at the lake with maximum appreciation.
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Quick Turnaround
It was a novel adventure to hop Asher into the car to scoot up to the lake with little fanfare on Sunday afternoon and then return home the following morning. Cyndie met with a contractor to request a quote for some fixing up that is needed on the dwellings. The trip also gave us a chance to assess the status of the feared mouse infestation we discovered the last time we were up.
A mousetrap I left in a drawer had caught one, but the other trap did not snap despite obvious activity all around it. On the bright side, we found no other evidence of activity, particularly in the bed that was a mess when I climbed into it last time.
Asher was a very busy guy, scrambling to leave his mark everywhere we walked. I let him romp on the ice for a short distance, and he was thrilled to sprint around on the slippery surface, sliding, turning, and leaping in gleeful doggy fun. It’s too bad that our little ice patch in the paddock at home doesn’t offer him the same opportunity. It would be easier for him to leap over it than slide on it.
There were trace amounts of snow up north, but after we got home and went for a walk, it made the absolute lack of snow really stand out to me. Our property feels bone dry. Freeze-dried. Last winter, when we experienced a similar lack of accumulating snow, the temperature frequently rose above freezing. After our recent bout of extremely cold temperatures, the 10-day forecast shows a continued run of normally cold days and no hint of precipitation. This will be a very long spell of below-freezing, yet very dry weather.
So much for the prognostications of a snowier winter this year. At least for now. I have a suspicion there will be a couple of snowstorms here before winter is over.
The later in the season it comes, the greater the likelihood of a quick turnaround after a significant snow event.
In the meantime, I will admit to appreciating the lack of needing to plow and shovel. However, I’m at risk of developing an unhealthy attachment to sedentary pursuits on couches that lend themselves to easy snacking on deliciously salty and crunchy processed foods.
My quest for optimal health has developed a bit of a wobble, dare I say.
I should probably have a serious talk with myself one of these days about putting a quick turnaround on that trend.
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Relative Something 