Posts Tagged ‘planning’
Reunion Planning
A few posts back I was waxing nostalgic about the 70s and I think I failed to point out another aspect of my renewed interest in the good ol’ days. This coming summer will mark 40 years since my class graduated from high school in Eden Prairie, MN, and I have again volunteered to participate in planning our every-decade-whether-we-like-it-or-not event.
Some people loathe the idea of a high school reunion. I get that. I love class reunions, except for the part where I don’t get to visit with unique people I was fond of who don’t come because they loathe reunions.
There is also one other problem I have with reunions: The nights always wiz by in a blur that leaves me short of having talked in any depth with all of those who do show up.
I guess I could frame the missing classmates who skip out on the event as a positive, since that gives me fewer people to feel bad about not having had enough time to chat up by the end of the evening.
In my experience with reunions, like so many other things, the main event can tend to be anti-climatic. The preparation and anticipation are often where I get the most reward for time invested. A few of my life-long friends gathered last night for a planning meeting, and once again, I heard some hilarious stories from our youth. After all these years, I’m amazed there are still tales I’m hearing for the first time.
Plenty of them have me wondering how we ever survived the shenanigans.
Our planning committee has the significant details established. We settled on a date, location, and rough outline of a plan for the evening. The next biggest step is getting the word out. A decade ago, I pushed an attempt to reach every name on our list, which made for good adventure in sleuthing. Who doesn’t like a little game of following clues every once in a while?
Ten years later, I’m finding myself much less interested in playing. Maybe it is a result of seeing the futility of trying to reach people who loathe reunions. Why bother? It makes more sense to me now that we should direct our energy to those who want to come. All we need to do is make it easy for people to learn of our event.
We advertise.
I’m thinking we should try something like the zoo did with April the giraffe’s pregnancy. If you don’t know about April at this point, you are in the uninformed minority. (Google: April giraffe. I dare ya.)
We need to start with some outrageous objection to our reunion event that would cause it to be banned. Something salacious enough that news organizations would pick up on it and cause a stir. Then we resolve that, get the ban lifted, springboard off the attention with a GoFundMe campaign, and get some corporate sponsorship.
See why the planning part is so much fun?
Still, part of me really hopes some of my old classmates who have skipped every other reunion will discover an urge to come this time. We intend to make it easy to learn about our event for those people who choose to inquire.
Do your classmates a favor. Do the math yourself and every 10 years, check to see if your class is holding a reunion. Then tell the planners whether you will come or not. It’s a simple courtesy that I know will be greatly appreciated.
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Feel It?
The sun set at 7:30 last night. The last two nights were chilly enough to require sleeping well-tucked under the covers. Change is upon us once again. We have color showing up in the trees. I was inspired to apply a new coat of waterproofing to my boots.
There is no doubt about what lies in store for us in the weeks ahead.
Shorter days and colder temperatures bring a shift in priorities. I need to start identifying items that shouldn’t freeze and moving them to safe storage.
It occurs to me now that I still haven’t fixed the winch on the Grizzly, which I will need for the snow plow blade this winter.
How’s that for living in the moment? I’m already thinking about snow season.
While I’m focused on the future, the sunny September weather is serving up some delicious days. It wasn’t lost on me yesterday, as I basked in the warm glowing sunshine with the cool gusts of wind.
Cyndie started the day working with clients in the arena space and later moved to the round pen. It had dried up wonderfully, allowing activities to proceed as intended.
This time of year is pretty dreamy around here, when it isn’t rainy. It’s my favorite.
At the same time, it tends to bring with it a feeling that the other shoe is about to drop.
I can feel it coming.
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Multiple Designs
My poor little brain is getting a workout lately with a mixture of simultaneous design projects outside of my realm of experience. I want to build a bridge over a ravine, buy and install a signal booster for voice and data, and make a chicken coop out of found material.
At the same time, we still need to purchase and transport more hay for the winter, clear downed trees, cut and split firewood, keep the lawn and labyrinth mowed, and turn the composting manure piles.
All these latter tasks are the reason the design projects tend to get put off until later. I already know what to do to accomplish them, so I’m more comfortable filling time making progress on familiar work that needs to be done.
It is a source of some conflict between Cyndie and me. I struggle to figure out in my mind how each step will proceed, hoping to establish an order of assembly and final functionality. It tends to delay visible progress for a long time. Cyndie fearlessly dives into projects, solving problems as they arise and devising creative solutions in order to get things done.
I’ve heard that opposites attract.
Meanwhile, I’m chipping away at progress on the designs. We have had a long run of very poor connectivity and dreary news reports on possible plans for service upgrades. After the recent addition of a new cell tower nearby provided no noticeable improvements, a signal booster has become our next big hope.
Last week, I timidly scrambled around the portions of our rooftop that weren’t too steep, in search of a decibel reading on my phone. I am supposed to find the spot for the directional antenna that will keep it from pointing back across the house. Then I need to figure out how to get a cable from out there into the attic. Finally, I need to determine a location for the inside antenna and get it installed to beam the amplified signal to our devices.
I wish that was as easy to actually do as it was to write out.
This weekend we cleared the last of two stumps that were in the way of our perimeter path around the back pasture. That brought us to the next obstacle, the ravine. It has bumped up our interest in having the bridge installed to facilitate foot and mower traffic around the entire circumference.
Also during the week, I drove the truck to work so I could bring home a couple large panels from a crate we had received that I felt would make a good floor for a chicken coop. That has helped us lock in a plan on size and enabled progress on burying support posts.
Three design projects that I am uncomfortably unsure about how I will ultimately complete to my satisfaction, but which have some momentum in play. With Cyndie’s help, we’ll keep making progress despite my inclination to wait and think on them a little bit more everyday.
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Altered Plan
Okay, I admit it. I spent much of yesterday focused on a plan of what I could accomplish today, instead of living in the moment of the tasks at hand. Admittedly, the majority of yesterday’s activity involved “tractor time,” which naturally provides ample opportunity for a mind to wander.
I was going to distribute composted manure and overturn the piles still cooking. I wanted to power up the trimmer and clean fence lines and drainage ditches.
Today’s weather has given me a chance to rethink those plans. It is raining.
Yesterday, I contemplated the absurdity of how much anguish I was feeling over the difficulty I was having maintaining my cut lines, while people in other parts of the world are living in the middle of wars, unable to get enough to eat.
On the diesel, while chopping weeds in the back pasture, my mind looked ahead to how I could clean the edges of the field with the trimmer.
Now I don’t know what I am going to do. The ground is wet enough that I am hesitant about bringing out the big tractor because it can really make a muddy mess of the ground.
Maybe I’ll split some wood.
Looking at the radar, I’ve got a little more time to think about it before the precipitation clears.
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Mostly Ready
Today I depart for my week of vacation and I believe I am, for the most part, ready. That is, I finished the majority of necessary tasks at work and got my “away message” programmed in my email. I completed the task of mowing all the grass areas that we regularly mow. Most amazing to me, I took care of two tasks that have been successfully neglected for a loooong time.
It may have something to do with the fact that we have Elysa’s celebration planned for the day after I return from my adventure. I won’t have much time to tend to things in the small number of hours after I get home. What I find curious is how particularly easy it was to address both of these issues. It was like changing a light bulb.
Well, one of them was, anyway. Except, the light bulb(s) were high enough to require a tall ladder to reach, and were a unique size which we couldn’t buy until we climbed up to pull one of the burned ones for reference.
The other task was to adjust the hinge on one of our french doors to the deck. That’s not all that hard. I’ve done it before. But it requires a wrench and instructions that were down in the shop. I just kept neglecting to get around to remembering to bring them up to the house.
The real kicker is that the act of fixing the hinge adjustments put me in the mindset to finally also look at the lever mechanism which has been a curious nuisance from the day we moved in. To set the latch on the three doors to the deck, the levers needed to be lifted upward, which is entirely counter-intuitive. Visitors are always baffled by the anomaly, and often fail to successfully set the latch.
Since we plan to have a lot of visitors soon, I felt added incentive to take a crack at solving the riddle. It was a case of the simplest and most obvious possibility being the answer. There was a plastic plug holding the conventional latch retracted in all of the doors. Popping the plug out released the latch that automatically catches when the door is closed. Now when the handle is moved in the more typical direction of down, the doors will open.
It was a huge fix for us. Now it’s done. How much more ready could I now be?
Bring on the trip, and then bring on Elysa’s celebration.
In the mean time, for those of you who haven’t already seen it, I’ll offer the song I wrote about the week of biking and camping which I have participated in for many years around the middle of June…
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Almost Gone
Today is my last day of work before my week off to go biking and camping. That produces a natural desire to wrap up loose ends and clear my head of as many lingering issues as possible. Already, the biggest burden has been lifted. We learned yesterday that a significant meeting that had been scheduled to happen during my absence, ended up needing to be postponed. I won’t have to miss it after all.
Tonight, I hope to cram in as many ranch chores as possible before diving into the challenge of deciding what needs to be packed in preparation for tomorrow morning’s departure. Will it be hot, cold, wet, windy, or a little of each over the course of the week?
This year’s itinerary for the Tour of Minnesota will be:
June 17th – camp in Brainerd
June 18th – bike to Walker
June 19th – bike to Park Rapids
June 20th – bike to Itasca State Park
June 21st – day off while camped in Itasca
June 22nd – bike to Bemidji State Park
June 23rd – bike to Pine River
June 24th – bike back to Brainerd
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At least I don’t have to worry about what to bring for a snack.
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Cool Skills
It was hot yesterday, and tropically humid. That double whammy is enough to alter our choice of activities. That goes for the horses, too. Cyndie put a halter on Legacy in a plan of walking him out to a shadier and breezier spot to graze. She reported that he responded with a sigh and a look spoke volumes to her.
He didn’t want to expend the energy of walking to a potentially better spot.
Maybe that is what inspired Cyndie to find a way to emulate Legacy’s attention to self-preservation. She offered to help me prepare the rest of the pallets I have been collecting from work. I looked up to find her hammering with one hand while sipping an ice-cold smoothie gripped in the other.
Now that’s efficiency.
I wish I could manufacture some of that efficiency for myself. It would come in handy for actually turning a pile of pallets into a structure that will house and protect some chickens.
In case someday we ever actually get chickens.
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Planning Again
Sometimes, between the daily chores and ongoing projects that never seem to be finished here, we allow ourselves to imagine new things we could be doing to benefit our operation. One specific vision we have held from the very early stage of arriving on this property is to have chickens, but it just keeps not happening for us.
Initially, it was seen as a way to naturally control flies and break up piles of manure. That benefit alone was enough reason for me to look beyond the details involved in actually caring for and protecting a flock of birds. We could sure do with less flies.
One early delay in our acting on that vision was that we didn’t yet have horses, and we instead brought home a very carnivorous young dog that required a lot of time and attention. When the horses finally arrived, our attention was consumed by the combination of orienting ourselves with actually owning and caring for the 4 very large creatures, as well as the puppy dog and 2 cats.
Now, as we have become more acclimated with our animals and the surroundings, and have grown more familiar with our neighbors, the subject of owning chickens gets discussed as a natural given. We should have chickens. George has even offered to give us some of his.
When someone else we met reported that, in addition to having less flies, they haven’t seen any ticks since they got chickens, it was a lock. We need chickens.
All we have to do is build a coop.
Do you know how you would build a chicken coop? There are as many versions as there are people in the world. As is usual for me, I would like to accomplish it using as much found material as possible. I searched for plans using pallets. There are as many versions of plans for chicken coops built out of pallets as there are flies in a barnyard.
I am now at the point where I have a real good general idea of what I would like to do. That just leaves an unending number of actual details that need to be figured out and executed.
Yesterday, Cyndie helped me prepare 5 more pallets that I brought home from work. They have 4 extra blocks nailed on top that I remove to get a flat platform. We experimented with several orientations to see if there was a natural fit that would work easily. She then disappeared to the back of the shop garage for a minute and returned with 3 perfect clear vinyl panels that could be used for windows.
I had forgotten about those. The previous owners had screwed them on the sliding screen doors for protection from their small dog. I had completely forgotten of their existence.
A few more baby steps toward building a coop so we can get chickens.
One of these days, it might happen. It will be just like we have been envisioning throughout the last 4 years.
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Thursday Night
When you don’t work on Fridays, Thursday night becomes the early occasion to party like the weekend is upon you. Have some neighbors over, eat a feast, play some cards, and stay up late having loads of fun.
Check.
I’m exhausted. And rejuvenated.
Is that even possible?
Bring on my 3-day weekend. It’s my last one before leaving on the annual week-long June bike camping trip, The Tour of Minnesota. I guess I better start thinking about preparations. Will it be a hot trip this year? Rainy? What should I pack?
I’m thinking about trying a minimalist approach this time around, so the questions take on more significance for me. In one week, I will be making a final decision about what makes the cut.
I hope the weather forecasts show some general agreement by then, and as long as I’m hoping, that they predict nothing but the smallest of chances for rain.
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Much Improved
One of the first things I notice when I come up our driveway is how the temporary fence around the arena space is holding up. I’ve figured out that it is in a spot that is particularly prone to a beating on windy days. Logic would suggest we could solve that issue with a permanent fence, but we aren’t ready for that level of commitment yet. This location is growing on us, but it was far from a certain thing when we chose to mark off the dimensions.
It was refreshing to discover Sunday that we could fix, and even improve the current set up without needing to spend a lot of money. We already had most of what was needed to accomplish adding better anchor posts and getting it connected to the existing electric fence.
Now I don’t need to use the solar-powered fence charger that the horses had taken a liking to nibbling on last fall, and I can still keep them from messing with the plastic posts.
I pulled the webbing tight when I finished on Sunday, and it was still looking great when I got home yesterday, despite a reasonable breeze.
Now all it needs is Cyndie and a horse out there doing some dressage routines.
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Relative Something 