Posts Tagged ‘Minnesota Vikings’
Frozen Observations
Getting out of bed on mornings when the temperature outside is below zero and the first order of business involves walking a dog and tending to horses, takes an extra level of oomph that gets harder and harder to muster. Even Asher chose to stay in bed for an extra few minutes this morning after Cyndie opened the door of his crate.
But greet the day we must, and soon we found ourselves plodding along the North Loop trail on the snowless frozen tundra. I don’t know what depth the frost has reached at this point, but not very far beneath our land, the water table is still liquid. Hydrostatic pressure is pushing it up above ground where it freezes in slippery growing mounds on our trail.
Asher had no interest in lingering after the horses were taken care of because the pads of his feet were getting almost as cold as Cyndie’s fingers. The little black pigeon that I have taken to calling “Plucky,” must have been suffering from cold feet, too. After pecking away at the cracked grains beneath where Swings was eating and having spillage from Swings’ mouth shower its feathers, the fearless bird chose to perch on Light’s back.
To a bird’s feet, that must feel like standing on an electric blanket.
Our agenda for the day involves taking Asher up to the lake with us for a single overnight visit in order to meet a contractor tomorrow for a quote on carpentry work, both indoors and out. It’s tricky figuring out what to bring for such a short getaway that will still involve walking a dog in extremely cold temperatures.
We have horse duties covered for tonight and tomorrow morning, but that’s it, so we need to return by dinnertime tomorrow.
Tonight will be a big night for NFL fans as my Minnesota Vikings will be doing battle in Detroit against the Lions in a single-game competition that will determine Division Champion and playoff seeding. It is hard for my tiny mind to perceive that some people will be oblivious to the significance. It’s as if there might be other issues of greater importance in this world.
Not to the 8-year-old boy in me!
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Interesting Conditions
Here’s something I find interesting: The NFL team I have been a fan of for my entire life, the Minnesota Vikings, has exceeded most expectations to reach 14 wins in 16 games in 2024. We fans always wish for success like this, but I never expected such impressive results to happen this year.
Even more interesting is the fact that the Detroit Lions, who have been the better team for the last two years, are in the same Division as Minnesota, and the schedule has us facing each other next week in the last game of the regular season that will determine the Division champion and number one seed in the playoffs.
Very interesting.
Meanwhile, our weather continues to hover around the freezing point, causing the persistent fog to freeze on surfaces overnight and melt to merely wet during the day.
The way it froze on the driveway was really interesting. When I stepped out just an hour later, most of that had melted. Most being the keyword because there were still slippery spots every so often, invisibly hiding in plain sight.
I’m ever so grateful that there is nowhere we need to be driving in these conditions.
Walking to the barn in the mornings is hard enough.
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Appreciating Teamwork
Forgive me for a gushing sports fan post. I’m trying to learn how to fully appreciate the wins and my NFL team, the Minnesota Vikings pulled off a victory against a sequence of circumstances that appeared to doom their chances several times over. What stands out to me is that they didn’t give in when repeated misfortunes knocked them for a loop.
Our star quarterback suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in a game a week ago and his backup was inexperienced. The team traded for a quarterback with experience (Joshua Dobbs) but didn’t plan to use him until he had a week or two to learn the intricacies of the Vikings’ system.
Near the end of the first quarter in yesterday’s game, the first backup, who was playing respectably, scrambled toward the endzone and was tackled powerfully, resulting in him getting concussed. At that point, with our chances already suspect, it felt to this fan like all was doomed.
Thank goodness that isn’t the way the players and coaches interpreted things.
In came the guy they had just traded for. He hadn’t been around long enough to learn his new teammates’ names, let alone the custom play-calling language the Vikings use. Then he got sacked in the endzone for a two-point safety, followed by having the ball knocked out of his hands for a fumble.
Things just kept going from bad to worse. One of our big play receivers caught a long pass and was walloped in the helmet forcing him out of the game with a concussion.
This is where I am so impressed with how well the coaching staff –I think it starts at the top with the head coach, Kevin O’Connell– maintained poise and calmly guided the athletes toward opportunities to succeed.
Joshua Dobbs put in some impressive individual effort to scramble for big gains and throw key passes, but his success was made possible by critical blocking from the offensive linemen and essential plays by the entire defensive unit. Yesterday’s road game for the Vikings was an impressive display of teamwork in the way they dealt with adversity and ground out a victory against the odds.
I would have understood it if we had lost, and that makes the surprising win even more rewarding entertainment.
Now here is a “horse tax” in a nod toward readers less interested in the goings-on of an NFL franchise…
Speaking of teamwork, our horses, Swings, and Light often team up to eat from one feed pan at the same time.
The thing is, Swings tends to pick her head up to chew between bites and feed pellets leak out of her mouth and rain down on Light’s head.
It’s cute because Light appears totally oblivious. Sometimes I think Swings knows what she is doing. A passive aggressive way of suggesting Light might rather go back and eat from her own pan. Is that a form of teamwork?
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Improbable Happens
On the morning of the title game of the 2022 FIFA World Cup between France and Argentina, my mind is clouded by the unlikely outcome of yesterday’s NFL game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Indianapolis Colts. You’d think I’d be used to it from this year’s Vikings team, having squeaked out so many other wins by one score in the final moments, but this one was a record-breaking epic.
I had given up hope for the Minnesota team early in the first half of the game, not just because of the lopsided score but because of the humiliating way it was playing out. An NFL record-breaking come-from-behind victory seemed more than improbable.
Final score: 39-36 OT, Vikings win.
It was a game that had recently been moved up to Saturday from the typical NFL Sunday fare in what is basically a marketing move. Unfortunately, not everyone tracks each decision sports leagues make. Imagine you are a music student showing up at your downtown Minneapolis music school for your usual Saturday lesson and discovering the cost of all the reasonable parking options has mushroomed to a $30 event fee.
I bet that felt improbable.
This morning, I really didn’t want to climb out of my warm bed to go out in the single-digit cold air to feed and clean up after the horses. Maybe it wasn’t all that improbable, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be rewarded with some cherishing views of nature’s glory.
The gorgeous sunshine was made possible by a cloudless sky that allows the temperature to drop to bitterly cold levels, but the sunlight still makes it seem warmer, even if it’s not.
Improbable?
It happens.
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Who’s Boss
These days I’m on my own in tending to the horses and we have added a third feeding at mid-day to their routine. As a result, I am singularly tasked with managing two different serving sizes among the four horses. The general routine we have tried to maintain has involved closing the upper gates temporarily to break them into pairings of Light and Mia on the left and Swings and Mix on the right.
Oftentimes, they arrange themselves perfectly after they see us coming, but not always. Although, even if they start in the desired positions, it is pretty common for at least one of them to decide they need to go check on the other pan on their side, just in case it tastes better.
Or something like that. It would not be beyond them to also be flaunting a little dominance when they are feeling it.
The last couple of days I have taken to showing the interlopers that I am the boss of all of them. For example, Mix eats slower and gets served a larger portion than Swings. When Swings decides it’s time to saunter over and nudge Mix off her pan, I have been taking the pan away from Swings and serving it back to Mix, holding it while she tries to finish.
There can be one or two more maneuvers that transpire but it seemed to me yesterday that Swings was starting to recognize my intent and accept it without protest.
When circumstance has allowed, I have also experimented with changing who gets paired or switching to three horses on one side and one horse on the other. Since Mix and Mia both get the same-sized portion of feed, I like having them together on one side. Then I don’t have to care if any of the four try to switch.
We grant these horses so much autonomy that it is refreshing to occasionally brandish my authority with enough clarity that they have no reasons to doubt who the boss is when Cyndie and/or I show up.
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For The Record: Lest there be any confusion resulting from the fact our home is located in Wisconsin, *this* John W. Hays is now and always has been a Minnesota Vikings guy. Sometimes I have been inclined to whisper that fact instead of showing it off proudly. After a performance like the one yesterday against NFL’s second-ranked Buffalo Bills, where the Vikings came from behind and then survived an overtime battle culminating in an endzone interception to win 33–30, I just wanted to make sure nobody was mistaking me for a Green Bay Packer backer. Especially since I couldn’t bear to watch the last drive in overtime by Buffalo and took Delilah for a walk and fed the horses.
[silly grin]
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Pond Down
Despite the promising prediction that our daytime temperatures will warm considerably next weekend, the near-term prognosis suggests we will experience a couple of overnight hard freezes. Our last required act of preparation was shutting down the landscape pond yesterday.
We pulled the pump and associated plumbing and then Cyndie trimmed back the Sweet Flag pond grass and picked out handfuls of pine needles and leaves. We have come to the realization that a pine tree is a bad choice to have around a landscape pond.
The final step of winter preparation for the pond was the netting we drape across it to capture the continuing assault of fallen leaves that blow in all throughout the off-season months.
Mission accomplished.
What’s next? I don’t know about you but I’m feeling ready for a day when it is snowy and cold and there is no reason to do anything but lounge by the fireplace and read or work on a jigsaw puzzle for hours on end. Maybe with a cup of hot chocolate.
I shouldn’t get greedy. I spent a few hours on the couch yesterday watching the NFL Minnesota Vikings achieve their fifth victory of the season. I tried to swear off the NFL some years back but that was a goal I failed to achieve. There are just a bit too many of my impressionable years immersed in the games and the characters involved, not to mention my father’s fanaticism, which still runs in my blood. I watch games now somewhat begrudgingly.
Keeping a distraction handy when things aren’t going my team’s way helps me avoid getting sucked into a funk. Yesterday, I tried searching the internet for a live performance of a song I once had on a VHS tape and haven’t seen for decades. After a few iterations with increasing promise, I stumbled on more than I hoped to find.
I recognized the look of the first image that appeared. Not only was it the right artist in the right venue, I had discovered a full 26-minute segment of the 1991 show broadcast on our local public television station. I let it play while simultaneously following the ever-improving circumstances of the Vikings football game.
Unfortunately, only one of the two versions of entertainment turned out the way I wanted. The Vikings won!
When the 26-minute performance had ended, the song I was waiting for had never shown up. It had been left out of this version.
This afternoon, we have a scheduled appointment for the final step of getting hooked up to high speed broadband internet. One of the first things I hope to do when it is connected is deepen my search for that song performance, using what I discovered yesterday.
Greg Brown with Pat Donohue performing “Good Morning Coffee” on Twin Cities PBS program called, “Showcase,” air date 12/1/91.
Why that song isn’t included in the 26:55 available minutes of the version on TPT’s web site is a mystery to me.
Seems like a good project now that we’ve got the pond down and it’ll be freezing outside for a couple of days.
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Losing Effort
I imagine that watching Minnesota Vikings football is a little like having bought a ticket to the lottery, but I can’t say for sure, because I don’t buy lottery tickets. I would guess that a lottery ticket provides inspiration to dream of becoming independently wealthy. A Vikings fan can only hope for the possibility their team won’t come up short of a necessary victory.
I have suffered the psychological abuse of being a Vikings fan my entire life. It’s been hard, because the franchise has often fielded great teams of incredible athletes. When I was a kid, the team was respected by fans and foes for having a dominating defense. The Minnesota Vikings were good teams and won enough games to earn their way to 4 Superbowls, from which they came away losers, all 4 times.
It’s the repeated dashing of hopes that begins to feel like some kind of a mental endurance test.
Yesterday’s game was one of the worst kind. Leading for most of the playoff game, then falling behind late, and finally achieving a position on the field where they had a chance to win as time runs out. The field goal attempt was wide left. Game over.
Season over.
Hopes dashed.
I wonder what I would do with a billion dollar lottery win.
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Relative Something 