Posts Tagged ‘Memories’
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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Food Choices
As I was eating my fancy breakfast of yogurt with cereal and a side of peanut butter toast all by myself yesterday morning, it occurred to me that there is a pretty well-defined difference of choices I make when it comes to eating for nutrition vs. eating for pleasure. The most obvious influence is directly related to how much sugar has been added. It’s a fact of our human nature that sweetness is very high on the pleasure scale. There are people who can claim to be exceptions to the norm of appreciating sweetness, but I believe the number is a minority.
If a well-balanced diet didn’t matter, I’d choose ice cream at every meal. For uncooked breakfasts, I tend to select yogurt with my cereal. That is not a choice I would make from the side of pleasure. I select a yogurt with little to no added sugar because it’s good for me. Instead of hardly being able to wait for the next bite, yesterday, I found myself noticing that I wasn’t all that excited to put the next spoonful in my mouth.
But it’s good for me, so I eat it anyway.
If healthy nutrition didn’t matter, I would eat even more pizza than we already do. I’m okay eating fruit and vegetables, but I would choose a lot less fruit if I didn’t know it was good for me.
I’m not always hungry, but that rarely stops me from eating food when I see it. When I am on my own, like I have been the last few days, my laziness keeps me from eating all the food Cyndie sends along. For lunch, I could heat and eat the beef stew she provided, but it is quicker and easier to grab some cheese curds and crackers, mixed nuts, and beef jerky. Since they were convenient, I also grabbed a bag of pea pods and carrots to munch.
Of course, all I really wanted to eat was ice cream.
Rural Development
While out on a walk yesterday to get some exercise in the high heat of early March, I spotted new additions to the landscape in the forest across the highway from the Wildwood lakefront properties.
An electric company has wired power to the edge of the wooded land across the road. I passed two of these boxes that make it look like a new subdivision is going in. Maybe they are putting in the infrastructure to support a massive influx of climate refugees who will want to move to the Midwest after fleeing rising seas, intensifying hurricanes, and inhospitably hot high temperatures.
This area is probably not immune to drought and wildfires, but we are close to the Great Lakes, which might ameliorate those risks some.
We used to bushwhack our way through those woods to explore, at one time bouncing over downed logs on mountain bikes. We found several routes that reached all the way to the Birkie trail for skiing or cycling. More recently, I’ve noticed “No Trespassing” signs going up in those woods, so I’ve greatly curtailed explorations other than very close to the road.
Those new utility installations gave me a real sense of how much time is marching on.
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Almost Healthy
The splitting headache is no longer splitting, and her vital signs have returned to normal. Cyndie seems back to reasonably functional. She helped with horse chores and has taken Asher for a couple of walks in addition to a trip to the Post Office as Santa’s little helper. Goodies are in the mail, and the neighbors will find a bag of holiday cheer has been dropped at their doors.
At this stage of holiday preparations, it’s hard to tell that Cyndie was off her game at all.
In support of all her Elf-ish energy, I have been mining the far reaches of our Apple Music offerings to find appropriate holiday sounds. The first few notes of an Andy Williams Christmas album instantly transported me to a big old farmhouse on the border of Edina and Eden Prairie, MN, and the 5-year-old me arose from within my depths with visions of leaded tinsel being draped across branches from outstretched arms of a person standing on a folding ladder above me.
The result of that surge of nostalgia left me feeling lonesome for the clamor and banter of my siblings buzzing around me.
The branches of that family tree have sixty years of growth that have spread us out beyond the conveniences of frequent contact.
That 5-year-old me would only have his father around for 17 more years. I will always remember the time he almost convinced me that he had heard something on the roof in the minutes just before I showed my face one Christmas morning. I was old enough to know better, but I’d never experienced my dad putting on such a believable act before and was gobsmacked by it.
I like to think he was rewarded by the innocent astonishment that must have shown on my face.
Much less astonishment came over me when I stumbled upon news of a school shooting recently in Wisconsin. That innocence is long gone.
Looking at our trees, I was grateful they don’t need to know such things happen. Same with the horses. Then, I realized how attuned trees and horses are to the universe, which means they probably sense each and every atrocity through the connectedness of all things.
They keep calm and carry on their existence, and so should we. I’ll pretend we are almost healthy.
And now I miss the innocence of my 5-year-old self more than ever.
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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.
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None Taken
“No offense,” she said. “I was just trying to make a point.”
It didn’t make any difference to me. I wasn’t listening. It was her eyes. I was lost in the mysterious feeling I was experiencing from the way they commanded my attention. It didn’t matter that she occasionally over-formed her mouth when she spoke certain words.
There was a person in there and I didn’t know who that person was. Something about her eyes seemed familiar.
For most of my life, I had no reason to consider the idea of reincarnation. I had no reason to consider New York, either, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. For all I know, reincarnation has been happening since the beginning of time. How is it that there are infants who demonstrate abilities beyond their years?
Sometimes I wonder if I am remembering someone from one of my previous lives. What if I went to grade school with this person? Could they have lived across the road when I was a kid? What about those three months when I lived in Detroit Lakes? Who was that woman in tech school? How many people have I interacted with during my working life?
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Oh, sorry –no offense– I was just distracted for a moment there. If you were 45 years older, I’d ask if we’d met somewhere before.”
“None taken.”
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Confusing Days
Don’t be confused. Today is Sunday. The solar eclipse will happen tomorrow. The championship game of the Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament tips off today.
I don’t know why I’ve been so disoriented this morning, but I mixed these up at least twice before finally realizing where I was in time and space. Maybe it started yesterday. Cyndie and I huffed and puffed to drag the tangles of vines we’d collected up to a temporary staging area.
Before I attempt to craft an entryway arbor out of them, I will need to spread them out to see the individual twists and turns.
When I went in for lunch, Cyndie stayed outside to putter on other projects weighing on her mind. I got a text from her that she came upon a pile of vines we had missed.
Absentmindedness? I thought we had gotten them all.
It’s the kind of thing that leaves me thinking, “What else have I forgotten?”
My past is getting mixed up with the present recently because we have decided to “declutter” the remaining 100 record albums from our life-long combined collection. Long ago, I sold a majority of our library in the transition from vinyl to digital music, but I couldn’t part with the works of our most adored artists and a few one-of-a-kind records that would never be re-released.
After 45-50 years of holding most of these albums, we are ready to send them back into the world. Since our collection wouldn’t bring an impressive amount of money from buyers, Cyndie sought (and found!) an interested party who would appreciate them in a spirit commensurate with how we feel.
I’m not agreeing to this step cold turkey. For one particularly rare Eric Clapton album, I checked online for the availability of every song and then created a personal playlist in the exact order for my digital library. Attaching the artwork to the file gave me the comfort of a memory that will serve as a special link between albums of my youth and the digital library I’ve switched to as I age.
We’ve successfully saved our children from any guilt they might feel if they had to throw these away after Cyndie and I die.
Now, what else am I forgetting?
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Friend Group
Some of my favorite summer biking friends gathered yesterday for a walk around Lake Nokomis followed by an early dinner at Italian Eatery restaurant. Turns out the restaurant is a block away from the double bungalow Cyndie and I rented when we first got married over 40 years ago. Talk about a visit to what feels like ancient history.
I arrived just early enough to allow myself a chance to walk the alley where I used to park my truck to see if it matched the fragments of my foggy memory.
That was a long time ago. I think I would need to go inside to do my memories justice, but that was not on my agenda. I circled around to the front of the house and the primary impression I was able to form was that a lot of time and a wide range of experiences have occurred since our time there.
I traveled from those fragmented memories to the immediate presence of the precious energy of my like-minded comrades. The warm sunny day I was enjoying when I left home had morphed into an overcast dreary chill by the time we set off to amass some respectable number of steps.
There were a LOT of dog walkers out and about. It was a challenge to keep Julie from stopping to meet every pup we came upon. I ended up having a pleasant visit with a woman walking in the same direction as us with a gorgeous German shepherd. A very well-trained shepherd, which is what made an impression on me.
Our restaurant destination was a perfect choice after our brisk exercise. Italian Eatery makes their pasta fresh daily. We enjoyed great food in a nice atmosphere topped off with excellent service.
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On the left, Pappardello with yam puree, whipped ricotta, honey, and sage. To the right, Baked Garganelli of wild boar meatballs, rosemary sugo, Fontina, Taleggio. Delicious.
We shared some good yucks and caught up on a few details of the Tour of Minnesota bike trip coming up in June. Just like the Birkie event this year, it will be the 50th anniversary of the bike ride. What was it about 1974 that kicked off these epic adventures?
Whatever it was, I am a richer person as a result. The friends these events have connected me with are truly priceless.
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Eleven Years
In October of 2012, Cyndie and I packed everything we owned and moved from Eden Prairie, MN to the property we named “Wintervale” in Beldenville, WI. I am very lucky to have a record of the process and everything that has happened since preserved in the archived posts of Relative Something.
We spent a little time yesterday looking back at pictures we took eleven years ago and marveled over some of the changes. We found one of me sitting on the Ford New Holland 3415 diesel tractor with the manual open to the “Instrument Panel” information.
There is also a photo of the one and only time Cyndie drove that tractor.
The bucket is filled with debris we were clearing out from the space beneath the barn overhang. The previous owners had stored gates, fence posts, and a bunch of firewood under there. It’s been the primary hangout space for horses ever since.
On a walk yesterday, I tried to take some pictures from a vantage point similar to ones from eleven years ago. It wasn’t easy to find the exact same spot.
October 2012
October 2023
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I tried using the top part of the barn visible in the shots above to line up a reasonable comparison. There’s no longer any sign of the shop garage or the house roof from that hill. It’s nice to see how much the evergreen trees have grown. In the 2012 photo on the left, the willow tree that is visible became fenced inside the small paddock and is now nearly dead.
There was an incredibly warm day in 2012 that inspired us to cook dinner outside over an open fire for visitors, Elysa and Ande.
October 2012
October 2023
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It is easy to see that there are more leaves remaining on the trees in 2023.
October 2012
October 2023
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That spruce has gotten a little taller.
I’m curious how much growth might happen in eleven more years. While walking through the area we call the North Loop –which over the years has been cut for hay, fenced in for grazing horses, and now allowed to grow wild– I was surprised to discover several new pine and oak trees that have naturally sprouted on their own. The existing poplar grove is doing a fair job of expanding its reach and many of the existing pines are growing strong.
We look forward to shepherding this acreage toward becoming its own little forested space on the north side of our driveway for years to come. Based on clear evidence revealed on our walk, the deer are already fond of bedding down there.
Happy 11th Anniversary, Wintervale!
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Schedule Changed
The farrier appointment we were expecting yesterday was moved out a week so we had the day open to do whatever grabbed our attention. The focus became the labyrinth. Cyndie has guests coming on Friday to walk the path and we hadn’t dealt with overgrowth around the rocks in far too long.
It turned out to be a very rewarding project. A couple of days ago I wrote about how I like things to look nice, and yesterday’s effort has the Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth looking better than it did when I posted the nice picture with morning sun on the colorful trees.
As I was gushing over how good the labyrinth looked, I reminded Cyndie of the summer of 2013 when her idea first began to take shape.
May, 2013.
The medieval eleven-circuit Chartres labyrinth pattern Cyndie chose.
Rocks positioned in the center.
August, 2013.
October, 2023.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Panoramic view –note how much the leaves have faded or fallen in just two days.
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Accident Scene
Something clicked when we reached the intersection of Hwys 63 & 77 in Hayward. I told Cyndie I felt a moment of post-traumatic stress at the sight of the interchange as it triggered a memory of driving through it toward the emergency room at Hayward Hospital.
I went through that intersection twice more that night, on the way to and from the pharmacy in Walmart where I also needed to find wide-leg sweatpants for Cyndie to put on before leaving the hospital. I found a mauve-colored, elastic waist velvet number that Cyndie is prone to describing as “hideous” but she always follows that with the clarification that she loves them and they became her favorite pant during those weeks of recovery.
I asked Cyndie if she wanted to revisit the scene of her accident last November at the footbridge over the lagoon.
Without hesitation, her response was an emphatic “NO!”
Beyond the fact she didn’t want to get that close to the memory right now, the amount of snow and her hobbled condition make that walk ill-advised. From the comfort of the cabin, I took a photo in the general direction of that bridge.
I didn’t feel like walking out there, either.
In fact, we are watching the start of the American Birkebeiner while snugged on the couch.
We will be heading out to see Ella Williams ski her second Birkie after her wave crosses the start line. Trying to pick her out of the online streamed view of the thousand skiers staging for their wave is our first thrill of the day.
Soon we will don our winter wear and venture out to a convenient crossing at 00 (doublel-oh) to cheer her on in person. Then we will drive to town to watch the finish.
It will be an interesting test of how much walking Cyndie’s ankle will tolerate outdoors in the cold.
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Relative Something 