Posts Tagged ‘leaves’
Different Ropes
Ours weren’t the only ropes hanging in the trees over the weekend. The woods were thick with spider webs that were made all the more impressive by the drops of 100% humidity clinging to them. It was impossible to move around in pursuit of our goals without repeatedly disrupting some very impressive architecture.
Cyndie let out an audible startle when she suddenly came upon a chest-high web with the spider perched right in the center. It was probably just finishing a meal.
I tried to capture some of the wonder of this beauty from several different angles. I wanted to get that big leaf out of the frame and finally just reached out to nudge it aside, but it was firmly attached as a primary support. I had to leave it right where it was.
It really was the quintessential web design for the most part, but then the web maker seemed to veer off into a dramatic free form array of supports, angles, and lines.
It looked abstract enough to imply the spider may have been tipping back some fermented fruit or something. At the same time, it’s quite possible it was sheer brilliance to establish a framework on which the rest of the traditional web could rely.
You be the judge.
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Springing Along
The season of spring is springing along nicely at Wintervale. The leaves have started making an appearance on a variety of shrubs and saplings. The raspberry bushes in particular have shown dramatic development in the last few days. It is hard to tell whether the recent rains triggered this, or it was just coincidental timing, and would have happened at this time, anyway.
It amazes me how quickly the initial sprouts of foliage obscure the view into our woods. Very soon, there will be so many green leaves, we won’t be able to see more than the outer surfaces.
I’m wishing I could remember this moment long-term in order to hold it as a reference for comparison with the other extremes of the stark bare branches of winter and the view-obscuring green leaves of summer. Every season seems to last just long enough that I mentally fall into a trap of perceiving views as if a present state is the only way it could ever be.
When the forest is fully leafed out, I find it hard to comprehend that just months earlier, it was the complete opposite.
Though most areas of our yard have yet to be mowed, I already needed to cut one section a second time.
I sense that summer is just a short blink away from replacing spring, and the expanding leaves on trees and bushes will be leading the charge in the days ahead.
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It Missed!
It turned out that my concerns were unwarranted yesterday about even more rain falling on our already saturated grounds. From my repeated checks of the radar all day, it looked like a wall was keeping the surging mass of precipitation from moving north past a certain point. As it reached the southern boundary of our county, it stopped its advance and just seemed to slide past us to the northeast.
This doesn’t mean that we dried out any. On the contrary. The sky remained heavily overcast and the dew point high enough that wetness continued to be the order of the day.
It was a good day to have the warm glow of a fire in our fireplace!
Happily, the lack of actual falling rain was a break for our horses, allowing them to avoid the cold soaking that rain in December involves.
The bleakness of our landscape lingers on. According to forecasts, the next possibility for freezing temperatures comes at the end of this week.
Even if it doesn’t bring a dose of accumulating snow, I will be happy to at least have the wet ground turn frozen, to give us a break from the frustrating mud.
I’m pretty certain that frozen leaves will provide less hazardous footing than the wet leaves over slippery mud which we are currently enduring.
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Quick Work
When you only have a limited amount of daylight in which to get your work done, you find a way to work quickly.
After seeing how nice the front yard looked after I mowed it to a close cut on Sunday, I desperately wanted to have the same result in the back. With the beautiful weather blessing us for another day, I made a point of rushing home from work and changing into grubby clothes.
There wasn’t much that needed to be done in preparation, so in no time I was on the back hill mowing all the leaves that had fallen. I made one pass around the perimeter and stopped to take a picture, hoping to get a “before” and “after” combination.
That image was lit with sunshine that would last barely another hour. Unsure whether I would have enough light to get an “after” shot, I picked the angle for this view and got down to business.
Since I was cutting very short, areas where the moles have wreaked havoc became much more glaring than when I leave it longer, but taken as a whole, the turf landscape looked rather noble by the time I was through.
Before snapping the second shot, I snuck a peek at the first image, because I’d already forgotten where I had stood to take it. For as little effort as I put toward aligning them precisely, I am tickled to have ended up with a shot that almost perfectly matched the earlier view.
The only thing missing was the sunshine, which was below the horizon by that point.
The hill is ready for becoming a sled run, in the off-chance we end up getting enough snow for that this winter, what with the “Godzilla-of-all-El-Niños” forecast to be moderating our temperatures in the months ahead.
If our current spell of good weather fortune is any indicator, we could be in for a short ski and igloo season this year.
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New Incentive
This time of year, when trees and bushes drop their leaves and we can suddenly see things in the woods that were previously obscured by greenery during summer, the number of standing dead trees becomes much more evident.
Last week, just to make the point more dramatically clear, one of them gave in and toppled over before I could get around to cutting it down for firewood.
It is giving me new incentive to get out and prune the forest of these potential threats to the health and well-being of those who may be traversing the path at such an unfortunate time.
Cyndie says she didn’t hear it fall, but noticed the startled horses running away and Delilah’s barking in reaction. I’m particularly happy that she hadn’t been walking the trail at that particular moment…
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Fall Arrives
Fall has definitely arrived. Suddenly, all the essential tasks of preparation for freezing temperatures and accumulating snow take on an increased level of urgency.
Last spring, I removed the snow plow apparatus from the Grizzly and discovered one of the welds on the frame was broken. All the welds have been repaired or enhanced, but I need to reattach the components of the plow and get it remounted on the ATV. Can you say, memory test?
I am thrilled to have one essential project taken care of in advance of freezing temperatures. On Thursday, a plumber arrived to replace a soldered frost-proof hose spigot that was leaky. While he was here, I had Cyndie ask him to look at the filter on our incoming water line. It has always bugged me that it appeared to have been installed backwards, but involved way too many plumbing joints to change than I felt comfortable messing with.
He was more than happy to fix it for us, and I am more than happy to have a correctly installed, spanky new filter in place. In addition, he made improvements to the routing of the water line which raised the filter up to a much handier height for maintenance.
I don’t mind paying for the services of a tradesman who can efficiently do work that I have no experience with, especially when they make improvements that exceed my expectations. I can’t help myself pausing just to stare at the new filter, as if it is a work of art, on display.
Yesterday, while walking Delilah on the perimeter trail through our woods, I was enjoying the layer of brown leaves that now cover the ground. I always love the way fallen leaves create the look of a spectacular carpet beneath trees.
Suddenly, the ground changed to a brilliant glow of color that inspired me to pull out the phone camera. Why all the color in this spot? All I needed to do was look up.
Things have really taken on the appearance of fall around here this weekend. Time to get ready for what comes next.
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Double Double
I am doing double, double-duty this week: at home, I am covering for Cyndie while she is visiting the west coast with friends, and at the day-job, I am filling in for a vacationing employee. What an unfortunate coincidental timing for these two situations to occur.
I am taxed with not being able to leave home before rush-hour traffic builds, because I need to tend to our daily morning animal-care routine first, while at the same time, I have twice the work facing me at the day-job, which realistically requires I spend extra time there. Not gonna happen. I need to get home early to rescue Delilah from the confines of her outdoor kennel and then feed the horses their afternoon nutrition.
Somethings gotta give, and I’m afraid it’s going to be service to our customers for a few days. Maybe they won’t notice.
At home, I fear the never-ending grass growth is likely to be my ongoing nemesis. It needs mowing again already! I didn’t have time yesterday after work. Between needing to give Delilah a healthy amount of attention and cleaning up a day’s worth of manure, the ever-shorter evening daylight hours were easily consumed.
Now that I am checking the temperature of the composting manure pile every day, I am finding that I need to turn it over with the pitch fork much more often that I had been doing.
I took a picture of the thermometer displaying that it was over 160° (F) again, after I had just mixed it around on Sunday. What a fascinating phenomenon that heat generation is.
Speaking of heat, we are enjoying a spectacular rendition of warm September days this week. Yesterday felt like warmth of a summer day, but there is no mistaking the subtle clues that frame it as autumnal.
I expect that the changing angle of the sun contributes greatly, but the actuality of that is not entirely obvious. Around our place, we’ve already got enough crunchy leaves over our trails that they are contributing a distinct fall-like aroma to go along with the auditory serenade that happens beneath footsteps.
We are in a period of high winds, as well, and something about the way the rushing warm air felt on my skin last night gave me a feeling that this is something special to be appreciated. It was hot, without being hot. Seriously. That may not make sense to you, but it explains the impression that warm September air can produce.
I am challenged with needing to luxuriate in this brilliantly spectacular weather for more than just myself, but for Cyndie, too, since I’m absorbing her share of bliss while she’s gone. It’s the least I could do.
It wouldn’t make much sense to only take on the burdens her absence presents, would it?
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It’s Beautiful
It was Saturday, and Cyndie was home, so I wanted to take advantage of having a potential assistant. Despite my wishes, there are some tasks that demand attention, particularly when it is essential they be completed before another task is able to occur. During the week, while the landscaper and fence crews were working, my attention needed to be on their activities, and I postponed chores like mowing the lawn and managing the manure pile.
The landscaper is done and the fencers are off for the weekend, so Saturday was a chance for me to catch up, regardless of the fact the tasks were the ones I try to save for when I have no one around to help. I absolutely needed to rotate the composting manure piles to create space for dumping the fresh daily collections. Production never stops, and I was running out of places to put it.
It worked out well that Cyndie chose to spend time with the horses, doing some grooming and then exercising them in the round pen, before turning them out into the hay-field to graze. Our activities kept us within sight of each other, so it felt like were working together, despite our different tasks.
It also worked out nicely for me that Cyndie had scheduled an afternoon fall-color drive with a friend, so I could get after the over-due mowing while she was gone.
Well in sight of the middle of October, and I am wondering if this is the last time I will need to mow for the season. I set the mower to cut the grass short and am hoping that will be it. I’m conflicted between wanting the new grass I planted in the drainage swale to grow and the lawn grass to stop growing.
The place looks great with the fresh, close-cut green grass complimented by the colorful leaves of fall. We are in the midst of a series of warm, sunny autumn days with cool nights. I want to be sure to give this pleasant weather as much attention as the wet and cold days usually get.
It would be nice if I stopped and took a few pictures to capture the beauty, I suppose. Maybe I was just working too hard yesterday, but I neglected to pull the camera out even once, even though I had it in my pocket all day. You’ll just have to trust me. It’s really beautiful here right now.
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Relative Something 