Relative Something

There wasn’t anything unusual about yesterday compared to any other Thursday. I got Wordle in 4. We did the morning horse chores after I walked Asher. Cyndie heated servings of an egg bake from the freezer for breakfast. Even though I was listening for the arrival of a truck to pick up the tractor, I never heard a thing.

When I stepped outside with Asher after breakfast, the tractor was gone. I think our house is soundproof.

Instead of getting one particular project started and finished, my methods of late tend to lean towards picking away a little bit at many tasks simultaneously. While walking Asher, I grabbed the hedge trimmer to cut down last year’s stalks of our tall Japanese Silver Grass at various locations around the property.

Later, I spent some time turning and reshaping old compost piles in hopes of reactivating the process that fell dormant over winter.

In a spontaneous decision, we suddenly decided to cut down an entire section of the lilac tree in our front yard.

The bark was peeling off the trunk. We tried wrapping it but that didn’t lead to the tree healing the wound. When the wrapping started falling off, we noticed a mushroom growing out of the side. Even though there were signs of new buds on the branches, we decided to cut the whole section off to avoid the tree wasting energy on the doomed portion.

That tree was there when we bought the place over 11 years ago and has continued to get taller and taller every year. I don’t know what to expect from it next. We’ll see what removing one of the five “trunks” does for the remaining portions.

While I had the chainsaw out, we headed into the woods to remove the latest tree that had fallen across one of our trails. I also brought down a medium-sized tree leaning against others at a 45-degree angle. We keep adding to the dead wood lying on the ground in our forest because trees fall more often than we can consume the wood.

One good outcome of the recent winds was that a previously snagged limb finally fell to the ground. It had been up there for years. It was just beyond the reach of my pole saw. I was able to cut down the rest of the tree, but this one section was hung up in the collar of another tree and we couldn’t shake it loose. Given enough time, it eventually came down without our help.

Toward the latter part of the afternoon, we gave the horses the next increment of time on the fresh pasture grass. Before our time limit was reached, Swings and Mix had come in of their own accord. I was doing some equine fecal relocation work in the paddock and Light came in to check on me. Mia stayed out gobbling grass.

When Cyndie presented their buckets of feed, I had to walk out and talk Mia into coming in.

It’s a special treat when a horse follows your lead without requiring a lot of coercion. My charm can be irresistible.

Just another Thursday in our little paradise.

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