Posts Tagged ‘looking back’
Year End
’Twas the last day of the year, and all through our house, we did a quick review through my blog to see what had mattered. It occurred to me that I am more inclined to reminisce about long-past events than the prior year. I spent time in the morning looking through newspaper articles from the 1870s. The minutiae of Pierce County, WI, in 1874 strikes my fancy more than the collection of my daily reports on the ranch.
Looking through the “Previous Somethings,” we were reminded of trips we made to the lake to supervise the replacement of a rotting log truss on the main house and to do a little DIY masonry on the satellite building we call Cabin 3. The fall I experienced at the end of February didn’t require any “remembering” because it led to a chronic shoulder problem that I am painfully reminded of every single day.
We coped with water on the basement floor at the beginning of the year and the broken power line to the barn. We dragged out a DIY landscape project to our entryways over several months. After a soaking wet first half of the year, we experienced a long drought that revealed the water fountain in the paddock had sprung a leak.
In February, we hosted Hays relations up at the lake place in Hayward with a photography contest as one of the features. I rode my bike in the 50th version of the Tour of Minnesota. At this point, I’m undecided about whether I will do the 51st in 2025 or not.
In a year when Cyndie went surgery-free, we each took a turn at having our first case of COVID-19 illness and separate bouts of pneumonia. For the most part, we are otherwise healthy, although both of us have been noticing aging is increasingly sapping our youthful vigor.
The most notable adventure was our trip to Iceland with friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus in September. That island country is a marvel of fascinating natural beauty.
Despite that wonderful event highlighting 2024 for us, I’m afraid the heartache of the results of the U.S. Presidential election in November and my resulting coping reaction of avoiding news ever since has become the predominant pall shadowing my perception of the year. I can pretend all I want that I didn’t notice, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and we will all face the consequences in one way or another.
Considering all the terrible things that have happened in the world since those quirky stories of interest in the 1870s, it is noteworthy that good people still endured, coped, and found ways to survive and sometimes thrive time and again. We can do this.
Thus, my review of 2024 is complete, and I am ready to return my attention to whatever today brings, especially taking note of the many blessings bestowed upon us.
Sending love to all you readers who have successfully found your way to the last day of this calendar year. Let’s spread the love far and wide throughout the next 365 and beyond!
.
.
Clever Disguise
It took Cyndie’s curiosity to draw proper attention to a volunteer tree growing by the driveway a couple of days ago. I had noticed it recently and wondered what it might be but didn’t give it any more thought than that. Cyndie handed me Asher’s leash and pulled out her phone with an app for identifying plants.
To my surprise, it showed Common Buckthorn as a result.
I went back for a closer look. Sure enough. It even had berries on it, the curse that attracts birds to help spread its seeds. How did I let this grow all summer long?
One reason is the absence of the classic dark green coloring of the leaves. This time of year, it gets much easier to spot the new appearance of buckthorn by the deep green that lasts much longer into the fall season when surrounding growth is fading.
Just a short distance away, I came upon these shoots that had sprouted from a spot where I had cut out growth a year before.
Much easier to notice and positively identify.
That tree by the driveway was cleverly disguised by leaf coloring that had it looking like any other innocuous growth present in the surrounding area. If Cyndie hadn’t taken notice, I probably would have ignored that bunch of sprouts for a least another season.
Speaking of seasons, as in years, we are now into our thirteenth year living on this property in western Wisconsin. Last week, Cyndie and I looked back at the posts I wrote in October 2012 when the moving truck came to our old home in Eden Prairie, MN, and relived some of the drama around the failed attempts to easily close on each property.
A LOT of things happened in the ensuing years. Our first spring here, we received 18” of snow in the first days of May. There was a lot of activity to change the fencing and build the paddocks in preparation for getting horses. We put a few years into starting a little business with the horses.
When that dream faded, it was replaced by a focus on providing a retirement home to four rescued thoroughbred broodmares. We’ve annually hosted a peace walk on World Labyrinth Day every May and improved or maintained various trails through our woods.
Every fall, I put my focus on eradicating every hint of Common Buckthorn that I can find within the borders of our twenty acres. This year, it is warmer and dryer than most Octobers here, which seems to be aiding some of the buckthorn in hiding from my view.
That doesn’t worry me. I’ll find it next year if that’s what it takes.
Our clever disguise is that we are starting to look like we’ve always lived here. We are happily forging ahead into our thirteenth winter at Wintervale. Despite 80°F temperatures yesterday, logic tells us winter will show up eventually.
.
.
End Near
On the last day of the year 2023, I was considering looking back through the images in my blog library to review what happened in our lives in the last 12 months. I couldn’t finish a scan through the images because the pictures stopped loading for some unknown reason.
That’s similar to my attempt to complete the installation of our new WiFi repeater cabling yesterday. I couldn’t finish because icy conditions kept me off the roof.
In the morning the heavy frost made the shingles way too slippery so I concentrated on the indoor work. Later in the day, a freezing mist started to fall on top of the frost that hadn’t dissipated. This morning there is a fraction of an inch of snow on top of the icy substrate.
Yesterday, I spent some contorted hours in the attic, balancing in a crouch on angled trusses to route a length of ethernet cable from one side to another. I drilled holes to give mice another couple of potential access points where the cable passes through wall and ceiling boards.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I plugged the camera in to test my new connections and verified everything worked. The portion remaining involves drilling through the log wall at the peak of the loft ceiling to bring the cable from the repeater inside. Then I need to seal around that cable to prevent mice and bats from taking this new opening as an invitation to come live with us.
Today, I may putter about devising the mount for the camera down at the barn if the roof of the house remains overly hazardous.
I’m hoping the project doesn’t end up waiting until spring like the plan appears to have for digging up the electric supply wires to the barn.
I hope the theme of ‘not finishing’ doesn’t define the year ending today. Without the benefit of reviewing the year in my blog images, this is what comes to mind about the odd-numbered year, 2023:
We spent much of the winter months focused on Cyndie’s convalescence from her ankle reconstruction the previous November. She was functional enough to travel to Puerto Rico in April. In May, we adopted Asher. I did my annual bike trip in June. We made it up to the lake as much as possible through summer. As fall approached, we got the shoulders of the driveway professionally graded and then did the raking and grass seed planting ourselves. Finally, Cyndie opted to go for one more surgery on her ankle and had the metal hardware removed now that the bones had healed.
This morning a meteorologist on the radio announced this December has been the warmest since measurements started being recorded in the 1870s.
We have obviously reached the end of 2023 but I doubt we’ve seen the end of the warming climate’s effects.
Like we always do, I expect we’ll cope one day at a time and respond to whatever 2024 brings with as much love as we can muster.
Celebrate safely tonight all you wild and crazy people! Happy last day of 2023!
.
.
Old Images
I was exploring old images and came upon these shots from 2013, our first spring on this property. We were in the process of installing new fencing to create the paddocks outside the barn and trying to build the hay shed.
That spring was so wet the main post holes that had been dug for the hay shed sat filled with water week after week. I remember thinking the pole shed might never happen.
It pains my brain to think about all that I DIDN’T know back then. Somehow we forged ahead to eventually get where we are today. It involved a lot of making things up as we went along. Looking back on it, I’m happy now for all the wild ideas we entertained back then.
Makes me wonder about what things I might not know today that in ten years could become our everyday.
Probably hovercrafts.
At the same time, it always feels presumptuous to assume I’ll be here in ten years.
.
.
Contrasting Visuals
I’m so happy that Cyndie carries her phone on walks and shares the views she captures. This first one has the cool effect of blurring around the center focal point that adds energy to the scene.
We have reached the time of year when there are a lot more hours of darkness than light but she didn’t let that stop her and I love the murky mysteriousness of this next one.
There is a lot of action in some of those tree trunks. I don’t quite understand the source of light behind those clouds. Was it really just the last traces of sunlight so many minutes past sunset? I cannot confirm.
A couple of other shots she showed me from the night walk revealed the snowflakes that were blowing around at the time.
It was brought to my attention that this happened seven years ago:
That was when Cyndie rolled the old farm pickup just a few days before she had hip replacement surgery. When responders fretted over her painful limping, she had to tell them that was how she walked even before the rollover.
In contrast, now I’m thinking about what we’ll be taking pictures of seven years from now and how different it might look.
.
.
Sale On
What’d I tell you? That girl doesn’t do things halfway. In a single day, Cyndie transformed our barn into a spectacular equine boutique. Then she fled town and left me to handle the first two customer appointments on my own.
There is a conference of some sort in Dallas that has been on her calendar for some time, but she found a way to do a couple of weeks worth of work in two days before leaving, so that she would be ready to capture this weekend’s target audience of horse folks headed to the Minnesota Horse Expo at the state fair grounds in St. Paul.
It feels strange to no longer have horses living with us.
It is so bittersweet. It’s what we wanted, while also being not at all what we wanted. Obviously, we can’t have it both ways, so it is time to reconcile the reality of our here and now.
We are giving new life to perfectly good equipment so it can serve the purposes for which it was created, as well as bringing pleasure to folks who will find beneficial treasures for their horse activities at reasonable prices.
I’ll be trying to keep that in my mind, but I gotta admit, this all feels rather disorienting for me.
I must be adjusting some already though, because I’ve noticed several instances lately of flashing back to not all that long ago when I had absolutely no horse experience whatsoever.
I guess it would come as no surprise that I had a dream a couple of nights ago that was set in our old Eden Prairie home.
It makes me chuckle to look back at my old self there in the suburbs and contemplate how oblivious I was about where I would end up in the twenty-teens.
Horses? Uh uh.
Not until I visited Ian in Portugal.
I’ve come a long way since then.
.
.
Six Years
Somehow, six years have passed since we moved from our home of twenty-five years in a suburb of the Twin Cities to this amazing property in western Wisconsin.
Happy 6th Anniversary, Wintervale!
What an amazing time we’ve had figuring out a completely different life from the one we had previously known.
Looking back on our arrival here, we now laugh about the week-long struggle we endured to accomplish the actual closing on the property, while being granted access anyway by the sellers and moving our furniture in as if it was already officially ours.
We put our trust in a local fencing company to help design a layout for our paddocks and pasture fences and were rewarded with a much-loved result. They also helped us accomplish the addition of the hay shed, overcoming repeated weather delays caused by one of the wettest springs locals had experienced.
Five years ago September, our horses arrived and really brought this place to life. That started an ongoing lesson in the art of composting manure, among many other more romantic attractions of owning horses.
This time of year, we are probably composting as many leaves as we are manure.
We are in our second year of having chickens around to control flies and ticks, while also enjoying the secondary benefit of unbelievably great eggs.
We have learned a lot about baled hay and forest management.
We dabbled a little in trying to launch a business.
We’ve stumbled through trying to train our first dog, while simultaneously working on keeping one of two house cats we adopted from a rescue organization.
Every time the leaves fall from our trees and cover the trails six inches deep, it throws me back to that first year when we arrived.
That leads to thoughts about all the things I’ve listed above and gives me an opportunity to acknowledge the number of things we have accomplished since moving here.
I also have a tendency to contemplate what life might have been like had we not made this move. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be in as good of shape as I am now. Caring for animals and managing many acres of hilly fields and forest has a way of keeping a person off the couch for long stretches of time.
I wouldn’t trade this for anything. It’s been a great six years.
Here’s to diving into our seventh with wonder and glee over whatever adventures it may bring!
.
.
Past Blast
Yesterday, a co-worker pointed out that it reached 80° in March six years ago. I had no recollection whatsoever about what I was doing in March of 2012, but I pointed out that I have this handy-dandy online journal that allows me to easily check.
The blast from my past that appeared on my screen was very interesting to read, in relation to some of the current challenges and discussions Cyndie and I have been having lately regarding what lies in store for us and Wintervale Ranch.
I am moved to re-post what I wrote for March 29, 2012:
Dream Hesitation
What the heck do I know about owning a horse farm? With the brains of this organization off gallivanting around Boston right now, it is I, your humble correspondent, who am on the front line of decision making. Yesterday, we received the first batch of properties from the realtor we met with a month ago, and I noticed some things about the listings that triggered a little apprehension in me.
“Do we know what we want to spend?” she wrote. Um… no. Well, that’s not true. We would like to spend nothing, but I assume that is not going to bring the results we are hoping for.
Private sewer? This property has a private sewer. Oh, just what I always wanted, a sewer of my own.
One property had a lot of acreage, but within a flood plain. Do I want to open that box?
Then, there are all the improvements we did to our home of 25 years. Looking at this first list of potential properties, I see all the things we’ve already done here, needing to be done all over again. Oy. Siding, insulation, gas fireplace insert, gutters, windows, garage door and floor, new driveway, landscaping, kitchen remodel, bathroom upgrades. Did I mention siding?
And, of course, now we are going to have all the walls and ceilings here repaired, freshly painted, and new carpet installed! How many of you can see John deciding to stay here and rent a stall in a stable nearby for Cyndie to have a horse?
Cyndie is the true dreamer of our team. I’m just a tag-along. I fill in some of the creative blanks, but I also tend to drag in a bit more realism (read “pessimism”) than she wants to hear. I guess we are a good balance, eh?
It doesn’t feel right trying to do this without her around.
But, hey, don’t let me get you down. This is just a normal phase of my processing things. I’ll get over it. Seriously. And, Cyndie visits again in about 3-weeks. In just a few minutes of arriving, she’ll have me back up on our dream cloud and we’ll be designing our little paradise together as if it is what my whole life groomed me to be doing.
Meanwhile, maybe I should sneak out to visit the horses she tends to here, on my own, and just stand near them… see if I can hear what they have to say. I could use a dose of their wisdom.
. * . * . * . * . * . * .
.
It is so interesting for me to read that, especially the end. I had zero experience with horses at that time.
We did end up designing a little paradise together, and it has felt like what my life groomed me to be doing. At the same time, it feels jarring to read my pondering about staying put in our old house and renting a stall for keeping a horse when questions have been popping up recently about the viability of our current situation.
The past really does provide an interesting reference for the present.
.
.
Four Years
I was reviewing the “Previous Somethings” archive for some posts that I published four years ago and came upon a picture that means so much to me. During our very first visit in 2012 to see this property with our realtor, I was so overwhelmed by the experience that I hardly took any pictures.
This is one of the few I had for remembering what we had seen, to help me describe the place to family and friends. We had walked a short loop of the trails and I dropped behind Cyndie and Patti while dizzily trying to comprehend what I was experiencing. The place was beyond my wildest imaginings for us.
I came to my senses for a moment and remembered my camera. I captured Cyndie and Patti walking in the distance on a mowed path through one of the fields.
They are walking in a spot that today is about where the entrance to the labyrinth garden is, on their left. The tall weeds on the right are now what we call the Back Pasture, surrounded by a fence.
These are some recent shots of how that spot looks now.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I get a shiver thinking about that first impression and our visions of the possibilities, combined with the realization of all that has come to be in the four years since.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Intriguing Find
While searching through old images recently, Cyndie and I uncovered many wonderful memories, and discovered some particularly precious pictures of our horses. These images were snapped before we had any idea the horses would end up living with us.
Years ago we were visiting the horses at their previous home because Cyndie spent time working there with several of the herd which totaled around 35. She had even ridden Legacy in the past.
I accompanied her on a few visits to see the large collection of horses, and always brought my camera. Looking back on the pictures now, with the added knowledge of all that has transpired, has a bit of a mystical feel to it. At the time these images were captured, we had no clue whatsoever that these beautiful animals were in our future.
Seeing these images again, and thinking about our being unaware of what was to come, provides a tingly sensation for us today.
Pulling burrs from Legacy’s mane
Dezirea approaching to say hello
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Hunter (right) listening in on conversation
.
Since we didn’t spot any shots that included Cayenne, I’ll throw in a couple of bonus items that we received in the mail a short time ago. The previous owners found some pictures of Cayenne when she was a mere hint of what she would become. What a hoot!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 