Posts Tagged ‘Memories’
Looking Back
Last week we reached the milestone of the 3rd anniversary of making Wintervale Ranch our home. Lately, Cyndie and I have found ourselves randomly recollecting some of the early days here and marveling over the variety of things that have since changed.
It feels a little —what is it? Presumptuous? Gratuitous?— somehow inappropriate for me to request, but I urge you to sneak a peek at one or two posts from the Relative Something archive (Previous Somethings) for the month of October 2012. There are too many gems depicting our arrival for me to do justice to them by trying to produce links, or re-posting to bring them forward to current posts this week.
Barely a month after we finally closed on the purchase of this place, we adopted the cats, Pequenita and Mozyr. After about a year, we came to the realization that Mozyr was not happy with his situation, and we returned him to the shelter, but Pequenita has proved to be compatible with the random chaos that arises here from time to time.
In July of 2013 we added 10-month-old Belgian Tervuren Shepherd, Delilah, to our family, purchased from a breeder nearby. From that day on we have tended to find ourselves in a battle between her training us and us training her. It’s fair to say there have been a smattering of victories on both sides.
Just short of 3-months after Delilah joined us, in the last week of September in 2013, our horses arrived. That was a monumental occasion for us, and came after an intense effort over the previous 11-months to be appropriately prepared.
We removed rusted barbed wire, installed new fencing, built up protective cover on barn walls (previous owners had miniature horses), buried a water line to an on-demand waterer in their paddock, and built a hay shed, along with a variety of lesser noteworthy projects.
I knew so very little about horses at that time. They have taught me a lot in the ensuing years, and come to mean the world to me. Just standing among them, passing time, has become one of my favorite things to do.
I have built a wood shed, twice. After it blew down in a storm, our friends Barb and Mike Wilkus came by and helped me to put it up a second time. Any time we weren’t working on something else, we were creating the spectacular 70-foot “Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth.”
Speaking of storms, we have endured a variety of dramatic winter weather events. Two of them particularly stand out for me.
The first one involved 18-inches of heavy wet snow in early May and snapped a lot of tree branches. Two pine trees that tipped over during that storm eventually died, even though I tried standing them back up and staking them.
The second snow storm blew for days and eventually filled the space between the 4-foot banks on either side of the driveway. It took me two days to dig us out, even with the assistance from both of our closest neighbors. What did I learn from that storm? The neighbor to our south told me he had plowed his driveway twice during the storm, so it never got to the extreme that ours did.
Lesson learned.
An awful lot has changed in the last three years. It is hard for me to imagine what might be different, three years from now, but I expect the changes won’t be near as dramatic as what transpired when we first arrived and worked to establish the infrastructure to support having 4 horses and fulfilling a dream of creating our Wintervale Ranch & Retreat Center.
What fun it is to look back once in a while.
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Peaceful Here
Today is the 4th of July and right now I am basking in the leisurely luxury of a lazy Saturday morning with Delilah asleep on the floor under the dining room table and the hazy low sunrays painting everything in orange hues through the smoky white sky that we’ve been experiencing for days. Cyndie has departed in her red convertible for Hayward to be with her family for the traditional holiday games at their lake community home. I’m back on duty as Wintervale manager for the weekend.
I’ve chosen Bruce Cockburn to accompany me while I write this morning, and am thoroughly enjoying a throwback to 1977 in his live recording, “Circles in the Stream.” I recently rediscovered this old favorite of mine on iTunes due to a gift my son, Julian gave me for Father’s Day/Birthday. That fact makes listening to this seem even sweeter, regardless that it is a digital version playing through a small speaker attached to my laptop and not the vinyl version through the Marantz amp and huge stereo speakers of my youth.
Yesterday was a fantastic mix of accomplishment and leisure on a Friday that felt entirely like a Saturday to me. We received a visit from an acquaintance who we met on the day in 2013 when our horses arrived. Jim saw we had no way to move large bales of hay and offered to help get a custom rig built for our New Holland tractor. Almost two years later and the project is just now coming close to being accomplished, even though we no longer have a pressing need. It’s one of the funnier stories that have evolved in this odyssey of transition to our country life.
After his visit, my plan to start mowing was further delayed by a much-anticipated visit from our excavator, Mike, who showed up in record time —one day after we spoke on the phone!— to re-level the Ritchie waterer that had settled unevenly in the time since it was installed. He was able to offer valuable consultation about bringing in sand for our round pen and the future leveling of the space we have designated for an arena. He makes it all sound so easy, it is inspiring!
It has become clear to me that the installation of a gutter on our barn was done in such a way to be as least effective as possible. It is probably too small, it is not spaced out far enough, and it is too low. Oh, and the down spout is probably too small. Other than that, is has worked okay when it isn’t raining much. Both Jim and Mike pointed out these details in our consultations yesterday.
No wonder we have all these rills being created on the slope from the barn. I just had to throw that in, because I just learned the word, “rills” from Mike. He suggested I keep a spare pile of lime screenings nearby to use for filling washouts after heavy rains. Or I could get the gutter fixed. I’d like to do both.
I eventually got to the mowing and Cyndie picked berries and pulled weeds. Late afternoon, we enjoyed a surprise visit from friends who were out exploring backcountry roads on their motorcycles. The dew point temperature was comfortable in the 50s (F) and the evening was idyllic in a way that rejuvenated our desires to generate momentum toward this place becoming a destination for those seeking solace and inspiration for their lives.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Jeff said.
Yes. It is.
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The Twentysixth
On this day, many, many years ago, I was born. I wonder if I subconsciously knew what I was getting into at the time. In so many ways, I am still the little boy who was trying to figure out which way to go.
I haven’t ever noticed any maturation of my inner consciousness. In my mind, I have always been the same age, or ageless. I have a recollection of one day realizing that I was able to reach the Dixie Cup dispenser in the kitchen of my childhood, on my own, but that was strictly physical growth. It was a memorable milestone for me.
It meant I could drink milk whenever I wanted, because we also had a milk-can refrigerated cooler/dispenser with a heavy knob lever that pinched a rubber hose to control the flow of milk. Lifting that lever brought very cold milk that flowed so quickly it would create a froth on top.
Eventually I would be holding bowls of cereal under that hose and getting ice-cold milk on my Cocoa Crispies, or Sugar Puffs, or Cap’n Crunch. My sugar habit started way back then, back before the introduction of corn syrup. In the 1970s, things began to change in the food industry and my addiction was off to the races.
I consider myself lucky to have let my sweet tooth run free for so many years and not suffered outrageous weight gain. I have no idea whether it would be accurate to blame my prolonged high-sugar diet for my depression, asthma, arthritis, and belly fat, but more than one source I have read seems to implicate it as a potential cause for those afflictions, and more.
It makes sense to me that we are dealing with something we don’t completely understand, given the relative short span of our entire human history in which we’ve been consuming such dramatic amounts of sugar annually. Sugar was a rare luxury for most of the world until the 1800s when granulated sugar was invented.
I don’t believe our bodies have evolved enough in the last few generations to effectively deal with the onslaught of glucose that is altering the balance of enzymes and minerals which regulate bodily functions and deliver nutrition to our cells.
In many ways we are healthier than ever before, yet at the same time, we may be undermining the best of our health by the over-sweetening of the majority of packaged and prepared meals and snacks which we consume today.
I’m now closer to 60 than I am to 50 years old. This year I am working to undo the years of accumulated sugar consumption in hopes of reversing a trend toward diabetes and possibly clearing up a few other nagging ailments. It’s a little like being born all over again. It’s not the first time I have made a conscious decision to change course and start down a new path toward better health.
As always, I seek optimal health. It’s one of the best birthday gifts that I can give myself. Happy June 26th!
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Remembering Nepal
I am thinking of Nepal and the friends that I met during my visit in 2009. The Sherpas and porters who took care of us during our trek were great people. I have not received any information regarding their situation, but given the severity of the damage caused by the earthquake, and the large area affected, I imagine all survivors are suffering hardship. My heart goes out to them.
I am sending big love to the people of Nepal.
Carol, a member of our group, took this shot during a pause in a tour of some fascinating places in the city of Kathmandu. We saw some incredible history in buildings that I fear would not likely have held up well during such a severe quake.
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Pam captured this great shot of two happy guys from our support crew up in the high country above the town of Lukla in the Khumbu region.
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I enjoyed the luxury of spending extra time with Lhakpa Sherpa after separating from our main group. He shared several personal stories that helped me gain perspective of what life was like for the people living in the areas most influenced by the commerce of guiding tourists on treks. I’m pretty sure it was Gary who took this picture for me with my camera.
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Hoping that gracious relief from suffering comes swiftly for the people in Nepal.
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Fond Remembering
Gary and me
Last night I had dinner with precious friends at Gary Larson’s house about 65 miles west of where I live. It is always so very worth the long drive to be present for these gatherings.
Gary and I were thinking along the same lines when we both marveled about having met each other on one of Jim Klobuchar’s annual June bike trips and soon after, traveled together on the trek in Nepal in 2009.
That trip was one of the reasons I had my long hair put into dreadlocks and it was the catalyst for my starting this blog. I’ve been posting every day ever since.
The dreadlocks, though I miss them in many ways, didn’t last as long.
David Piper took this shot of me overlooking Namche Bazaar
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On Fatherhood
Each morning, after I have finished tending to the horse chores, Delilah and I go for a walk around the circumference of our property boundaries. Lately, I have noticed this time is becoming a particularly fruitful one for inspiration and insights.
Yesterday I was thinking about fatherhood. My children are both grown and living their own lives at this point, so I am well beyond the day-to-day responsibilities of raising them. We are now in a phase that I hadn’t really given any thought to: being a father to adult children.
It occurred to me that when I was the age that they are now, my father had been dead for about 4 years. I was 22 when my father died. I don’t have the benefit of having had a relationship with my dad while in my adult years that I can use to inform and guide my decisions as a father from this point forward.
I suppose that could be seen as a feature instead of a flaw, in some regards. However, I’m finding that not having had my father alive for most of my adult life has me now feeling somewhat unschooled about what comes next. I’m sure that the manual that comes with each kid would have provided answers for any questions I had from here on out, if it had been included at the time of delivery.
Thinking back, the only type of feedback I recall receiving from my father during the time our lives overlapped involved indirect grumpiness and griping. If it came at all, direct praise or reprimand was rare enough that I hold few recollections of them. He was not one to tell me he loved me. That level of connection needed to be assumed. We did the best we could with it.
I definitely love my kids and am able to tell them so, though doing it still doesn’t come naturally for me. At this point, I don’t really know how to say or do much more than that, from within the role of being their father. After they left the nest, they became more like friends for me than people whose lives I direct.
Luckily, they are great to have as friends. From here on out, when the time comes for something more than friendly advice from me, I’ll be winging it; hoping to be the father I would like to have had as an adult.
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Consciousness Streamed
Never mind that there is no reason not to keep on going despite the obvious restrictions and hesitations that never cease to exist in every manifestation of whatever reality this is at the moment that is surging past unless it’s not and instead is totally stationary and we are the ones doing the moving at such high rates of speed that it becomes difficult to discern what has already happened and what hasn’t actually happened yet in the way we currently perceive things that happen based on the senses that we have relied on to get us here thus far in our lives as measured against the backdrop of the climate as we knew it from the past fifty-some years which someday might be compared with the next fifty as a way of detecting the possibility of there being a difference as in change which would be undeniable one would hope at that point in the proceedings especially since this stream of basically unconscious rambling seems to appear about once every year maybe as a way to scour the surface of residual order in hopes of restoring some reset of rote writing routine repeated in a cycle of day after day wording that tries to make sense regardless the random missing word or unintelligible thought splayed out in broad daylight for all the world to see in the rare situation they just happen to do and willingly hang on till the end with some morsel of curiosity or macabre fascination that there will be some pot of gold at the end of this rainbow of brilliance that reaches in an arc across the screen from one point to another with shapes to decode the message therein however frightening and disturbing the exercise may be but unless some magic or miracle arrives all we’re left with is what we had on when we walked in here plus the thoughts that we carry inside of our heads that we believe must be precious because they haven’t been forgotten and lost for forever like the ones that are gone which we’ll never remember and we live with that fact because we’ve no other choice and speaking of choice that’s something we do have when it comes to this thing called love which when all else has failed is one thing that remains and in this stream unconscious where very little makes any sense love might be an answer worth considering to solve what it is that is bothering your distressed countenance.
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Sibling Revelry
Despite a sloppy wintry mix of precipitation doing its best to dampen our spirits (sorry ’bout the pun), the gathering of Hays relatives was a joy and a half. As always happens to me at family gatherings of limited duration, the riches of access to siblings I grew up with is enticing, but the reality of our usual chaos leaves me wishing there was more time. It is hard to finish a story, and sometimes a single sentence, without interruption. My attention is too often wrenched away from the person I was listening to, and time flies by so fast, the hour of departure comes up way too soon.
Regardless, every moment was precious. Reconnecting after long periods of separation, with siblings who share so many tendencies and characteristics, is refreshing and invigorating. I tend to feel a kind of validation of who I am, discovering the brothers and sisters that I grew up with remain so similar in behavior and perspectives. I am among my people again.
I’m lucky that, as a family, we all get along. These are the people who inhabited Intervale Ranch with me from the day I was born until 9 years later, when our family moved out and the property was razed for development into an industrial park.
With technical assistance from my son, Julian, I was able to display a digitized version of a slide show I put together close to 30 years ago, which featured that old farm property. It provided an opportunity to exercise our memories, as we analyzed some of the images and compared recollections.
Meanwhile, there was non-stop food to be consumed, youngsters to get reacquainted with and entertained by, and horses to visit. Unfortunately, that last part with the horses was complicated by the weather conditions. They have been a little jumpy the last two days. I’m thinking there may have been some coyote activity in the area. That jumpiness was then compounded by wet precipitation which brought them to shivers.
As the bulk of our visitors wandered down to greet the herd, the attention suddenly needed to be redirected to preparing the stalls and moving the cold, wet horses inside. At least people were able to witness the process as it happened, and see the horses enjoy the reward of coming in to warm up and dry out.
Delilah was pretty excited to have so many visitors, but eventually adjusted to the clamor of all the conversations and quietly laid in front of the fireplace. She seemed more than happy to accept cuddles from Reese, one of the older grandchildren present.
It’s nice to see the kids doing well with our animals, because we see them as potential ranch hands in the years ahead. When their parents eventually start thinking about sending them off to some camp for the summer, we can put in a pitch for the valuable experience they could gain here, doing chores at Wintervale. Seems like a win-win.
Cyndie and I express our extreme appreciation to all the family members who made the trip through messy weather to bring our place to life with their love and energy. Here’s hoping we don’t let too much time pass before the next Hays family gathering materializes!
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Gift Remembered
My sister, Mary, commented that she likes when I write about my early years growing up in our fabulous family. I always feel a little unsure about writing my version of the past for an audience that includes others who were present at the time and enough older than me that they probably were able to form more dependable memories of the actual events.
I have an impression of our holiday gift giving involving a certain amount of shenanigans. I’m sure my siblings will be able to clarify, but I have a vague recollection of someone needing to follow a trail of yarn that had been fiendishly “spider-webbed” around the furnishings of the room, to get to the prize at the end. Maybe that was just a party game. We had a fair amount of those events, too.
There is one gift I remember in particular that I was fooled by, that went on to become one of my prized possessions. I’m guessing it was the Christmas of 1967, because November of that year is when the album, “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd.” was released by The Monkees.
That year I would have been 8-years-old. For a kid that age, the usual assumption is: the bigger the box, the better the present. Well, the length and width of this box were big enough to fit a record album, but it was deep enough to hold something much larger. It was thrilling. I unwrapped the present, removed the cover, and found nothing but tissue paper inside the box.
They had taped the album to the cover of the box. I think it was a little frustrating for me, but that was definitely diminished by the excellence of the gift. I don’t recall actually putting the album on the old hi-fi, but I remember studying the front and back cover of the album while listening to the songs, over and over.
I still have the 3rd cut on the second side memorized. It’s the lead-in to the song “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and it is titled, “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky.”
Peter Percival Patterson’s pet pig Porky ate so much pie that do you know what he did? He popped.
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Memory
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it might as well
be a fleeting thought
gone as quick as it comes
memories lost
to time and happenstance
senseless stuff all shiny and new
claiming attention
for no particular reason
at the expense
of more valuable personal views
leaving lucid dreaming
to grasp for threads
of meetings from the past
with precious people
more spirit than face
feelings that endure
minus basic facts
hope loiters
wishing for some purpose
that it’s not just soot
from smoke
that randomly wafted past
clinging to the walls
along the hallways
of my flimsy mind
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Relative Something 