Posts Tagged ‘October warmth’
Early Return
Graced with a deceivingly pleasant October day of moderate warmth and plenty of sunshine, Cyndie, Asher, and I enjoyed a leisurely Sunday free of any responsibilities. I wasted some of it watching NFL football on TV, but when the game wasn’t going my way, I distracted myself with a jigsaw puzzle.
Cyndie rewarded me with photos from her first walk of the morning with Asher and their last walk of the evening.
When I took him exploring in the middle of the afternoon, I found the sunlight and the lake surface were far less captivating. During the weekend, we reached a point of successfully allowing Asher to romp off-leash, with the e-collar for prompts if needed. At the lake, since he hasn’t spent a lot of time here, we are cautious about how much freedom we are comfortable granting him.
Since the presence of other unleashed dogs is always a possibility that we don’t control, it’s a different gamble to have him running loose.
After dinner, while we were binge-watching the first few episodes of Season 3 of “The Diplomat,” Cyndie received a message that one of the owners of This Old Horse would be coming out this morning with a veterinarian to look at Mix. The cause of Mix’s occasional slight gimpiness in her hind end has yet to be confirmed. We both want to be there for the visit, so we initiated preparations for an early departure from the lake place before going to bed last night. The sooner we can get on the road this morning, the better chance we have of getting home in time for that.
It was a fun, uneventful getaway for a few days that gave us a chance to employ the two newest UWRF students who responded to our help-wanted post for feeding horses when we are away. Now it’s time to return to attend to all the activities on our weekly calendar of events.
Somehow, I have let the date of the anniversary of our move to Wintervale pass without fanfare. October 18, 2012, was supposed to be the day, but signing the paperwork was delayed by a few. We can now say we are entering our 14th year here.
It’s been a pretty good run. A lot has happened in the last 13 years, and it’s all been captured here in my ongoing memoir of a daily blog: the fun, the sad, and the embarrassing.
Here’s hoping the coming year will be filled with more fun than sadness. And lots of love, too!
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Still Blooming
Nearing the end of the second week of October in my part of the world didn’t used to involve rose blossoms. These days, this kind of outdoor plant behavior is not all that surprising.
Asher and I were visiting the labyrinth to top off the water bag around the maple tree when I noticed the flowers. They stood out against the drought-influenced fading life and fallen leaves all around them. I was struck by the fact the rose bush was able to do so much with so little moisture available in the ground.
I must admit, it feels somewhat futile to try giving one tree a tiny bit of extra water while the rest of the growth in the surrounding woods is left wanting.
The fall colors have been less spectacular than some other years but it is changing.
As dusk settled in and the half-moon stood out brightly in the sky, the uncharacteristic warmth of a summer evening on this October night was simply the new normal.
While other parts of the world are coping with floods, our little nook in Wisconsin, USA, is warm and dry.
With rose blossoms.
Moderately Disorienting
Just because we had July-like temperatures on the first day of October, it shouldn’t be all that disorienting. But over the weekend, both the college Gophers and NFL Vikings won their games and that knocked me for a loop. Not really, but I like to poke fun at the subject of local teams having a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Some things that make the summery heat and humidity disorienting at this time of year are the shorter hours of daylight, the lower angle of the sunlight, and the fall-colored leaves covering the ground.
Oh, and the hum of lawnmowers cutting on neighboring properties.
I got a small portion of mowing done between periods of throwing balls for Asher to chase. He is not a fan of heat and we needed to take frequent breaks inside where he likes to lay on the cool floor tiles.
Plenty of panting was included during his cool-down sessions.
We are expecting a visit from the farrier today to trim and shape horse hooves. We’ll have fans blowing under the overhang. The horses are growing their winter coats, so this kind of heat in October has got to be more uncomfortable for them than it is for us.
They may have been hot yesterday, but they didn’t look the least bit disoriented by it.
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Hot Start
Hello October. Goodbye Twin Cities Marathon. Marathon officials canceled today’s races early this morning because the expected heat and humidity pushed the conditions to the extreme and dangerous “Black-Flag” status. Aye-yai-yai, that’s like living in a time when the warming of our planet is impacting everyday life.
On the way to the barn this morning, I noticed the recent rains we’ve received have invigorated lawn grass growth. I’m so happy to have electric lawnmowers that make end-of-season maintenance a non-issue. Mowing grass in October is not something that used to happen in the past in our region.
We have taken advantage of this late-season warmth by planting grass seeds along the driveway. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
While waiting for the seeds to germinate, I noticed the rain softened the gravel drive loop around the hay shed enough to make pulling weeds easy. It’s an activity the Asher can help with and not be a pest. He even bites and pulls at weeds as he aggressively digs.
It looks great, but progress is slow working by hand. If I was serious about cleaning up the whole loop, I’d be well-served by getting out the diesel tractor and using the back blade.
For now, I’ll put my attention toward mowing. If it rains again soon, I can return to weeding the gravel. It just looks so nice, I can’t help myself.
Here are a couple of other things that look really nice:
Freshly fallen pine needles are carpeting the trail along our north property line.
This morning’s sunrise was illuminating the colorful leaves in the trees around the labyrinth before it was high enough to reach the ground below.
It will be a scenic day to mow.
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October Realities
There is a feast underway over the decaying roots of the tree we recently removed from the small paddock.
If any of those mushrooms are edible, I don’t think they interest the horses. Our horses chew wood, but not so much the squishy fungi that feed on wood.
We are enjoying a summery October so far. I tried mowing the grass one last time yesterday. That’s the second time this fall I hoped I was cutting for the last time.
It’s a pain because I want to cut the grass short in preparation for the coming snow season but then it keeps growing and gets so long it is hard to cut short again. I took extra time to avoid excessive clippings laying around and also cut at an odd angle to offer the turf a break from the natural ruts forming where the tractor repeatedly rolled throughout most of the cutting season.
It looks pretty good today. Now if the growth would just go dormant, that’d be just great.
Just to push the universe in that direction, I drained the oil from the engine after I was done mowing. I’d love it if I could also drain the gas and park the machine until next spring.
I was hoping to be fastidious about the oil change and was very pleased to be able to drain it while the oil was hot. With pan in place, I attached the extending hose to the not-very-reliable plastic drain apparatus and pulled the piece open. A little oil leaked onto the frame and then the extending hose came loose and dropped into the pan of hot oil.
While rushing to try getting the hose reattached, the entire plastic piece pulled off and oil got all over the frame and ran along the edge to drip almost beyond the pan below. That had me racing to wipe oil while adjusting the pan while inadvertently getting the rag in the primary stream of draining oil.
Fastidious, it was not.
It didn’t really wreck my mood because that had already been smashed by having gotten the rubber clipping deflector on the end of the deck caught against a fence post on an incline and wrenching it out of position. If I would have simply stopped to get off and reposition the tractor, calamity could have been averted. But, no, I forged ahead and suffered the consequences of my bullheadedness.
Maybe all the bullheadedness of so many people refusing to accept reality is rubbing off on me.
I’m going to be able to clean up spilled oil, I’ll figure out a way to fix the clippings deflector, and I will strive to be open-minded about the possibility our grass will continue growing in October 2021.
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Relative Something 