Posts Tagged ‘mystery’
Winter Hints
Can’t complain when the first vestiges of winter show up in the latter part of November. If you were worried that Paddock Lake might dry up before all the horses got a chance for a good mud pack, we can report the opportunity is still there for them if that urge strikes.
It’s uncertain whether it will last long enough for the coming drop in temperatures below freezing. Today, the forecast indicates daytime temps will stay below 32°(F) starting in three days and could dip into the single digits overnight by next Sunday. If the water holds, that would be more than enough cold to create a skating rink for the girls.
The mares just had their hooves trimmed, so they should be able to fit into their figure skates without too much difficulty. It’s pretty comical watching them try to tie the laces using their teeth. Is there anything more beautiful than a gorgeous Thoroughbred doing a camel spin or Lutzes and toe loops out on the ice?
Up in the house, there are no skating shenanigans happening despite the potted Bird of Paradise leaking enough water lately to fill a skating rink. We have no idea what triggered this event, but after Cyndie slid the huge pot away from the window to allow access for professional window washers to show off their mad skills, I think maybe the saucer under the pot cracked.
That’s only part of the mystery. The real unknown is where all the water came from. We honestly began to wonder if someone from the cleaning crew dumped a bucket in there. Cyndie reports that for months when she watered it, excess flowed into the pan where she could soak it up per instructions.
In the last month, she noticed that no water was coming through into the saucer, so she tried increasing the frequency to twice a week, but no water was showing up in the pan anymore. Meanwhile, the plant appeared to be thriving. We’ve been surprised and thrilled with the new growth in the time since Elysa gifted us this gem.
Maybe it likes soaking more than we knew. Yesterday, we replaced the saucer with a brand new one, and this morning, we verified the old one had a leak because the new one is holding. Unfortunately, it is still mysteriously draining in unbelievable amounts that we are sopping up with a sponge.
Cyndie found a moisture scale and measured the soil this morning at the middle of the range of dry to wet. She won’t be adding any more until the scale shows movement to dry.
It’s possible the drain path was plugged and opened up when the pot was moved, but the plant is doing so well that it has us thinking it liked being that wet, despite information that Bird of Paradise does not thrive in soggy soil.
At least we learned how slanted our floor is by the length the leaked water flowed toward the fireplace when we first discovered it.
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Gate Drama
While the “parents” are away, the horses will play? In all the years we have had horses, we’ve never seen what happened yesterday while we are up at the lake. The friends staying at our house sent us a question about one of the gates. They didn’t remember it being bent and wondered how it was supposed to be secured. Photos had Cyndie and me massively shocked by what we were seeing.
What in the heck happened!?
The chain was completely gone. Whatever the impact was, it broke the link and sent the chain flying into the tall grass.
Our best guess is that Swings or Light, or possibly both, might have gotten spooked and sprinted toward the gate, forgetting that it was closed. Whatever occurred, it must have been quite a spectacle. Our friends didn’t find any evidence of injury to either horse, so that is good news.
We had been told the farmer who cuts and bales our hay field was hoping to show up within days so we had confined the horses to the paddocks and opened the outer gate by the road to allow the tractor to roll in unobstructed. With that paddock gate blown open, the two horses in that paddock could have made their way to freedom if they had ventured to the far side of the field. Luckily, they didn’t.
Over the phone, we strategized with Pam and John to guide them to materials to temporarily secure the gate and assure them all was fine, even as Cyndie and I marveled over the outrageousness of what we were seeing and the incident we were imagining had happened. We also had them close that gate by the road as an additional precaution. The farmer can open it when he finally arrives.
You just never know when the usual serenity of life with horses might be disrupted by some spectacular incident.
Of course it would occur when we are away.
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Pocket Pictures
I don’t understand how my phone is able to activate in my pocket when it won’t do anything in my hand until it identifies my face. Many times I pull the phone out after I’ve been mowing or using one of our trimmers and the phone is in the middle of some activity I don’t even recognize. There is usually a cancel option for me to end the phantom task but I am at a loss to understand how it woke up, opened an app, and began trying to do something.
Yesterday, I pulled the phone out after mowing and my camera was on. No big deal. I swiped the camera app away, got back to the home screen, and pressed the button to put the phone back to sleep. It wasn’t until later when I was checking my photos that I found a series of unrecognizable images and one video that I can only guess were taken in my pocket.
I was wearing green pants, so maybe that’s where that shade of color came from. The second image gives the impression of possibly being a zoomed photo of the one above. There were five images like the zoomed one, then five with the green dots, then a one-second video of the dots, and finally, one more still image of dots.
Makes me long for the simplicity of the good old butt dial. That also has happened in my pocket when I’m working and in thinking about it, I have the same questions. How did it wake up? Why did it choose the phone feature? How does it decide who to call?
I think my smartphone is a little too smart for its own good. How does it wake up and begin functioning without seeing my face or asking for my passcode to unlock?
It doesn’t make any sense to me.
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Nighttime Screeching
Two nights in a row now. High pitched snarling, screeching growls in the darkness. We are grateful to be sleeping indoors, even if the sound leaks through our windows and doors enough to be audible. In the cold darkness, it must sound magnitudes more unsettling.
It wasn’t originally obvious what was going on, since we have heard the cries of rabbits being preyed upon, intense yelping from packs of coyotes, and rare screeches from owls in our woods on various occasions. This seemed to hold elements from any and all of those.
When there was no evidence of any carnivore activity to be found on the morning after the first night of terrorizing sounds and the screaming resumed the following night as darkness settled over the land, my suspicions about the source coalesced.
For reasons that completely evade my understanding, both Delilah and Pequenita showed no hint of reaction to the angry creature sounds happening just beyond our walls. They both seem to react to a myriad of other triggering sounds occurring beyond my range of hearing, but this drama that was catching my attention mysteriously meant nothing to them.
I pressed my ear to the glass of the back door to gauge the distance and direction to the source of the creepy screams as I attempted to silently work the latch. As soon as the door cracked open, the sounds stopped. There was no echo, no winding down of conflict, no sounds of movement. Only silence. Instant silence.
Standing motionless outside the door, holding it closed but not latched to avoid making a single sound myself, I hoped to outlast whatever creature it was that was smart enough to respond to my appearance with such immediate disappearance. Was it holding its breath?
I was, mine.
It would have to eventually move. Whatever the screaming was all about couldn’t have just totally ended. If it was some fracas between two animals, the animosity couldn’t have just vanished because I showed up.
They, or it, won. I gave up after a few minutes and went back inside. Undaunted, I headed right to our high beam spotlight flashlight to follow up on my hunch. At the back door again, I switched it on and pointed it toward the high branches of the nearest big tree.
Suspicion confirmed. Two beady raccoon eyes glowed in the light beam.
We had thought the masked bandits weren’t active in the coldest months but research reveals mating can be happening in February and March. Yippy! Up to seven new babies possible in April and May. [sarcasm]
That screaming could be males competing for a single female. Beats me why I only saw one set of eyes in the tree limb when the noise definitely sounded like conflict between two parties.
Time to practice our trapping skills again to see if we can improve on the modest effectiveness we had last summer.
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Different Puzzle
My love of toiling away on jigsaw puzzles and searching for specific shaped “needles” in the haystacks of pieces has a correlation to another of my treasured hobbies. This is probably not the first time I’ve come to the realization that I feel the same about the hunt and discovery of missing people in my family tree each time I return to my genealogy project.
I just began looking anew at my 3rd great-grandfather, John Hays (1795-1840) because he is the primary dead-end, or his father is the primary “missing piece” I would next like to find.
Just like with jigsaw puzzles, when I can’t find what I’m looking for, I will settle for other, easier pieces along the way. Because I haven’t been able to find out who John’s parents are, I have tracked down a lot of other people on different branches of my family tree.
But I always find myself returning to the missing link in the path toward confirming the precise origin of our surname.
According to information taken from the 1922 death certificate of one of John’s other sons, John was born in Hinesburgh, Vermont, USA.
In 1828, John married Laura Kittle (born 1807 in Lachute, Qc) in a Cushing Presbyterian church in Argenteuil, Quebec, Canada.
Their firstborn, Stephen W. Hays (1829-1910) has the birthplace of Vankleek Hill, Ontario, Canada.
Take a look at the proximity of the three locations on a map:
I haven’t found any record of who John’s parents were in Vermont in 1795.
When Cyndie and I traveled to Ontario in the early 1980s (with absolutely no genealogy experience whatsoever) we stumbled onto the plot of farmland owned by John, as well as his hand-written last will and testament. His will began with the fact he was ill of health but of sound mind. It was all very fascinating, but we had no way of knowing at the time that he had originally come from Vermont.
I wouldn’t mind visiting Hinesburg to see what we might stumble upon there in the present day. It looks like it might be a nice place to explore on my new bicycle.
Not having a good knowledge of history, I am curious what it was like to travel between countries in the early 1800s. Or, even fifty years later when Stephen W. traveled from Vankleek Hill with my very young great-grandfather, John W. Hays (1860-1931) to come to Redwing, Minnesota.
Was it a big deal to them to be crossing the national borders?
What took John from Vermont? Did that move happen when he was young and as a result of his unidentified parents’ decision?
How did John meet Laura Kittle whom he married in 1828?
Their son, Stephen W. married the girl who lived on the farm next door near Vankleek Hill. Maybe the answer to John marrying Laura Kittle will be revealed by a similar proximity of residence in the 1820s.
One thing I am sure of, it will be a huge rush if/when I find one of these key missing puzzle pieces of who John’s parents were.
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Spider’s Nest?
There is a corner of our large paddock where the grass has grown pretty tall that I wander by frequently when pushing the wheelbarrow during manure management duty. I recently came upon what looked like a well-shaped hole formed out of the surrounding grass, almost like some burrowing animal was making a nest.
Being a person with no interest in getting surprised by a snake, I am hesitant to make close inspections in areas of tall grass. I didn’t see anything obvious at the bottom of that hole in the grass from my safe distance of slightly leaning forward.
A couple of days later, the hole seemed even more well-defined, and this time, there was an obvious occupant present.
Looks like a garden spider to me.
Does anybody know if the spider might have created that “hole” or is it more probable she was simply taking advantage of an excellent location somebody else had already made?
If it wasn’t the spider that made that nicely rounded nest in the grass, was it a bird or maybe a rabbit? Seems like all the birds around here prefer to make their nests in and around the barn ceiling and eaves. If we still had chickens, I’d expect to see that hole filling up with precious eggs, based on past experience.
I think it was the spider, but I have no idea if that is even possible.
Anyone out there have knowledge of the capabilities of Argiope aurantia?
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Chilling
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but you had beef jerky in your pocket
and I didn’t know that
six strange ways we wasted one chance
late that night
in the forested swamp
it wasn’t even cold
nothing like the bitter biting icy burn
we faced up north every January
where ice fractures when it freezes too hard
it was damp
creating a different chill
one that pulls out warmth
more than it pushes in cold
and ideas start to vanish
common sense vaporizes
as it certainly did
late that night
or we would have probably lived
to tell about it
and why this had anything to do
with the cupola on the roof of that barn
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Bloody Mystery
It is never a good thing for chicken owners to come upon loose feathers and blood drops in the snow. Yesterday afternoon, that is precisely the scenario Cyndie happened upon.
First, here are the facts we know. All 14 of our chickens are still with us. Cyndie was walking Delilah and came upon spots of blood in the snow. As they approached the barn, the appearance of enough loose feathers to imply something amiss raised her alarm. She secured Delilah in the barn and rushed toward the coop.
We are putting the basis of our conjecture about what might have happened on her findings upon arrival. Rocky was standing guard outside the coop and all the hens/pullets were inside.
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After determining none of the chickens were missing, she went back and followed the blood trails. When she told me about it, I joined her and we walked a long way to see if any more information could be gleaned from the evidence. We could tell the tracks made it all the way to the road, and by that distance, it seemed clear the bleeding was greatly reduced.
The size of the footprints lead us to suspect a small cat, which aligns with the location where we have frequently seen a cat of unknown ownership prowling.
The rest remains a mystery, but we have developed a possible explanation from the data available.
We think our rooster, Rocky, took on the attacker and successfully fought it off, sending it away wounded.
Earlier in the day, while I was walking Delilah, Rocky let loose with a series of about seven “cock-a-doodle” calls. He is still about one syllable short of the classic rooster crow, but it gets closer each time we hear it.
Cyndie is hoping to get a closer look this morning to assess for possible injuries. It looked like there were mostly yellow feathers tossed about, which points toward the Buff Orpington. They all looked okay in the coop, but the birds do a pretty good job of masking any problems they might be suffering, which makes good sense as a survival instinct.
Here’s hoping the wounded visitor will lose interest in our flock now and redirect its attention somewhere a little less threatening, and that our theory about Rocky’s heroics happens to actually be true.
Gory Find
We have been living in rural farm country for eight years and seen some interesting things, but yesterday’s find was a new one for us. As I pulled into the driveway at the end of my long commute home and climbed the first incline, my eyes spotted something in the grass beside the pavement that stood out distinctly for its uncharacteristic color.
My brain quickly worked to make sense of it and toggled in a split second between thinking it could be something that had fallen or been tossed from a passing vehicle or possibly a cluster of brown oak leaves on a fallen branch. I stared toward the image as I slowly rolled past until it was out of view.
Then I stopped the car. My mind couldn’t make sense of what I’d just seen.
I needed another look. Putting the car into reverse, I rolled back slowly until the unidentified object reappeared out my window. It was not a cluster of brown leaves. It was redder in color. Honestly, it looked like a surprisingly large chunk of raw meat.
Logic suggested I might want to get out of the car to take a closer look, but I had no interest in getting any closer to that ghoulish specimen. I put the car back in gear and rolled up over the hill to find Cyndie walking toward me with an arm-length plastic veterinarian glove on and carrying a plastic bag.
Obviously, she had just discovered this spectacle moments earlier. She described walking Delilah back from the mailbox and catching sight of the oddity well before the dog did. Cyndie shortened Delilah’s leash as they neared and when the oblivious dog was almost past it, her nose picked up the scent and she lunged against the leash, hoping to do her own close inspection.
Cyndie walked her far enough ahead to secure the leash to a gate and walked back to see what it was. We are not schooled in such detail, but it was very obviously a large chunk of raw meat and included what looked like valves? She took Delilah back to the barn where she found the glove and bag to go remove the body part from beside our driveway, which is how we came upon each other.
Questions linger. What is it exactly? Where did it come from (wild or farm livestock)? Where’s the rest of the carcass? Who (what animal) dropped it on our property? Why did it get dropped (still plenty of good eatin’ there)? Where was the animal taking its prize? A lone wolf? Pack of coyotes? Mountain lion? Stray dog? A neighbor’s cat?
I agreed with Cyndie that we didn’t need to leave it out for critters to have a second chance at it. It occurred to me that, were I more motivated, I could quickly set up the trail cam to see who returns to the lingering scent in the darkness overnight, but I’m happy to live with the mystery.
For the sake of those who feel no need to see what it looked like, I’ll offer the image in the form of a link: Gory find. There is no size reference, but it was larger than any cut of roast I have ever seen in the grocery store meat departments.
Try counting the tooth mark punctures.
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Dream Visit
It’s a mystery to me, one which I believe equally that either of two possibilities could be true. When a deceased person makes an appearance in my dreams while I am sleeping, is it because my mind conjured up the occurrence or because the spiritual nature of the passed soul placed themselves into the perceptions going on in my mind?
On Wednesday night, or actually, in the wee early hours of Thursday morning, I was having a series of fantastical dreams. At one point, I found myself seated in a booth common to many eateries, with Cyndie beside me and her mother across from me, and then Cyndie’s dad, Fred, showed up, sitting on the corner opposite from me.
It is the first time I have dreamed of Fred since he died in June.
I was shocked to see him, and incredibly thrilled. He seemed to acknowledge my reactions, flashing an impish grin as I scanned Cyndie and her mom who remained oblivious. I was so moved with his presence, the rush of emotions made me want to cry.
It being a dream, and my body essentially paralyzed, I couldn’t get myself to act on the urge.
My question lingers; did my mind choose to create this scenario of Fred’s spirit appearing in my dream or did his supernatural essence actually show up to connect with me?
Either way, it brought me a lot of joy in the moment, joy that lasted all day long and expanded each time I described it to people.
Of course, the best was when I had a chance to tell Cyndie about it.
While he was seated, he took a swig from what appeared to be a beer bottle. He looked really happy to me. The thought occurred to me that he could probably have a beer if he wanted in his afterlife. Fred had been sober about as long as Cyndie and I have been married. He drank a lot of non-alcoholic beers, but I don’t recall him ever looking as happy about it as he looked when tipping that bottle in my dream.
Did my brain conjure all that up? Maybe. Since I don’t really know, I’m happy just relishing the great feeling the dream provided.
It did nudge up the emotions of missing him a bit more than before, but the fun of seeing him again, and his looking so perfectly happy and mischievous was worth it.
Missing Fred is something that a lot of us are adjusting to and will linger long. If we could meet him in our dreams at will, I suspect it would happen more often than it does.
Maybe that lends a little credence to the possibility that appearances of lost loved ones in our dreams is more their doing than our own.
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Relative Something 
