Posts Tagged ‘shadows’
Fast December
Does anyone else feel like the first week of December has passed in a blink? I’m going to need to start planning my decorations for Valentine’s Day soon. I’m not sure I can remember where my red hearts sweater is stashed. I’ll need to dig it out for all the Valentine’s Day celebrations people will be hosting.
Of course, I jest. February is too far over the horizon today. I’m busy getting ready for New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, Cyndie is getting a head start on some of her holiday treat-making for December festivities.
Cookies aren’t far behind.
I’m biding my time until the weekend bake-athon by working hard to stay awake while trying to finish reading a Bruce Springsteen biography, walking Asher through the snow –which he is absolutely loving– watching big matchups between NCAA & NFL teams in US football (Indiana winning the Big Ten Championship!), and taking photos of scenes that catch my eye.
How about those shadow patterns in the snow on the back deck? Cool, eh?
Today is primed to deliver a fresh batch of flakes if the predictions prove accurate.
…POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY, ACCUMULATING SNOW AND VERY GUSTY WINDS FROM CENTRAL MINNESOTA TO WESTERN WISCONSIN TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT…
The forecast map last night placed us in a band indicating a span of possibilities from 1-5 inches. That’s a pretty safe range for them to predict without being wrong, but as they often add, advisory zones may shift as the system advances. We could get more, we could get less.
At least I’ve got the ATV plow finally set up correctly and ready to face the task at hand. If I end up spending a few days clearing snow, I expect to check the calendar and find we are suddenly just hours away from Christmas.
December is flying by in a flash! Make sure you are staying off the naughty list!
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Different Profiles
As Asher was trotting up the driveway the other day, his shadow on the pavement looked like an interesting silhouette. I pulled out my phone and tried to snap a photo, needing to wait for good sunlight through the tree branches while also trying to keep up with him.
The challenge of keeping up with him is that he speeds up as soon as he notices someone closing in on him.
The first shot had him looking rather moose-like to me. At jogging speed, I didn’t get the shadow framed as well as I wanted.
This one didn’t line up so well, either, but it captures a little more of a truer profile of him. I particularly like that it caught one of his front paws in the motion of his scampering.
Yesterday, before the rain really started falling, I took a picture of Mia in her muddy rain slicker.
Since our rain overnight was predicted to turn into snow, I think the horses will understand this morning why we subjected them to the nuisance of blankets again. At least I didn’t find any evidence yesterday that they were rubbing the mud onto the newly braided bale twine we wrapped around the post on Monday.
Cold and wetness are never a good combination for the girls. It would seem most logical to stay beneath the overhang and munch on the hay we hang under there for them. For some reason, at least three of them can’t seem to resist the adventure of exposing themselves to the elements.
Swings is the one who most often demonstrates the ability to remain dry by staying under the roof. She is the oldest of the bunch. Maybe the additional years have produced a more informed intellect.
She be older, so she be wiser.
This would be a good time to be able to tune in to their telepathic frequency to find out what they are thinking. At the very least, I hope they recognize we want what is best for them. We wouldn’t subject them to the rain sheets if we weren’t concerned about their exposure to wet snow and rain when temperatures are cold.
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Sunrise Ride
Watching 13 stages of the Tour de France provided ample inspiration for me on a beautiful morning bike ride over the hills and past the cornfields of my neighborhood in the driftless region of Wisconsin.
The low angle of the sun created shadows that proved irresistible for me to pull out my phone while riding, which I am VERY reluctant to do. The odds of my dropping it are extremely high, but I got away with it this time.
I was probably feeling a little cockier than usual because I had chosen to ride in the opposite direction of one of my usual routes, which put me immediately into several big climbs, and I found myself pulling it off without feeling noticeably abused. Maybe all the miles I trod back and forth on our hilly property are keeping my cycling abilities fit.
Since I had failed to test my bike since I picked it up from the shop almost a month ago, I was also energized to find my pedaling was as quiet as ever. It would have been a massive disappointment had it been otherwise.
By riding first thing in the morning, so that I could get back to feed the horses at their usual hour, I still had the whole day open to take on whatever chore I wanted. The one that seemed to offer the greatest return for the effort involved cranking up the diesel New Holland with the brush cutter to knock down the uncut areas along the edges and corners of the hay field that the hay mower couldn’t negotiate.
That is an exercise that takes only a few minutes, but it serves as a precursor to moving into the back pasture to trim the weeds before they go to seed, which takes more than three hours.
After giving my legs an early workout, the extended tractor time may appear to be a more forgiving endeavor, but hour upon hour of pushing the clutch pedal, then the brake pedal, while spinning the steering wheel around and back on every turn, was almost as exhausting as conquering Pierce County hills on my bike.
I had closed the gates to keep the horses out of the back pasture, but they were free to graze in the recently mowed hay field. I always love seeing them out on the grass instead of standing in a stupor under the overhang, which tends to be their preference much of the time. That’s Mia all by herself in the image.
This morning, I’m riding bikes vicariously through the pros racing Stage 14 of the Tour. They are a great inspiration.
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Morning Shadows
Yesterday’s sunrise was fun to watch through the windows overlooking the lake, but it was the golden light hitting the walls inside and the shadows cast that triggered me to pull out my phone camera to capture images.
Day two of my assignment at the lake was even easier than the one before. Our contractor, Brad, didn’t take me up on an offer to help lift or carry anything, so it was another day filled with reading, writing, puzzling, sweeping a dusting of snow off the steps, streaming movies and TV shows, and finding ways to somehow make a respectable dent in all the food Cyndie sent up with me.
I looked up from my puzzle and spotted Brad loading a tall, old gas wall heater into his truck he’d uninstalled from Cabin 3. I have no idea how he got it off the wall and down all the stairs by himself. A short while later, he was hoisting the old gas range and oven onto his tailgate that he’d wheeled down on a two-wheel dolly hand truck. He is a very independent worker.
We are done dealing with the smell of micro-leaks of propane from the vintage appliances with no plan to replace them. (I apologize in advance to Thomas, who must cringe at the thought upon reading that sentence.) The small cabin isn’t winterized, and no cooking ever happens there these days. It makes a great overflow space for sleeping in the summer with multiple beds, a full bathroom, a refrigerator, and a kitchen sink.
Don’t know if I’m heading home this afternoon or tomorrow. I won’t complain if I get to stay one more day.
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Injustice Exists
At times, the expedition I’m on to avoid news media leaves me oblivious to current events happening in other parts of the world until someone brings them to my attention. In reassessing my goal and the progress thus far, Cyndie and I chatted about how news avoidance was going for each of us.
She mentioned that injustices of the past have been survived by many people for ages and that injustices will continue to exist in the future. Coexisting with the atrocities perpetrated is an unpleasant reality. My immediate survival mode involves “turtling” to preserve my sanity and hopefully build some reserves of fortitude to face inequities that close in on my range of influence.
As a beacon of hope, love, and beauty, I present some views of our surrounding natural glory at the lake up near Hayward. Pictures we took on a walk yesterday in the cold on the last day of November.
This morning, there are four white swans swimming around between our shore and the island nearby, frequently plunging their heads deep to feed, with their tail feathers pointing straight to the sky. They have no concerns about what the citizens of the world will face in the coming months and years as they consume some food and give their wings a break from their migration to winter quarters.
I can relate to them entirely. Maybe I am “swanning,” not turtling.
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Low Sun
These days the stroll up to the house after feeding the horses is happening when the low angle of the sun is casting long shadows. The leaf shadows look like outlines of science-fiction creatures.
So, I shot ‘em.
With my phone camera.
Then I noticed an even longer shadow creature:
For a second, I imagined I was that tall. It was dizzying.
No skiing, snowshoeing, plowing, shoveling, or igloo building happening around here this winter. Pictures of shadows in low sunlight were my winter entertainment yesterday afternoon.
Weird.
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Different Shadows
Walking with Asher yesterday I spotted interesting shadows where the overnight snow didn’t land.
Do you think maybe it was a calm night? Yeah. Me too.
Later, coming out of the barn, I looked back at Cyndie and pointed out a bit of a shadow on her jacket from when she gave Mia a dose of medicine from a syringe.
No barn pigeons were involved, despite how it looks.
The full story starts from the night before when we were riled up over Mia’s pain and suffering. In Cyndie’s defense, she has only recently been getting back into outdoor activities and had no intention of spending more than a minute looking at the horses when Mia fell ill with that choke.
Cold, and walking painfully in her winter boot before her incisions have fully healed, Cyndie ended up making multiple treks back and forth between the house and barn. She came down with a syringe filled with a recommended dose of a pain med for Mia and suffered an epic failure to deliver.
Cyndie slid the syringe into Mia’s lips and pushed the plunger to deliver but the tip wasn’t in Mia’s mouth it was against her lip. The fluid of medicine sprayed straight back, covering Cyndie’s jacket, face, glasses, and hat. It was hard not to laugh but her frustrated cursing indicated it wouldn’t be considered laughable until much later.
The good news was that it helped Cyndie decide she had mixed the powder with too much water. She hiked back up to the house to prepare a fresh dose and ultimately delivered that batch like a pro who does this all the time.
Yesterday, Cyndie washed her jacket before heading down to help me with the afternoon feeding. Mia received most of this dose from the syringe but the fresh-out-of-the-dryer coat still took a hit.
I think that’s what a barn coat is supposed to look like, but we don’t always share the same standard.
Mia continues to improve. Yesterday morning we heard one occasion of just two coughs from her but by the afternoon we heard no coughing at all. She looked to be in good spirits and eating well.
We have the herd divided into two pairs: Swings with Mix and Light with Mia. After Monday night’s snowfall, I found evidence yesterday morning that Swings and Mix had walked all the way around through the hay field into the back pasture to approach the backside of the large paddock where Mia and Light were confined without food for the night.
The four of them were hanging out together on either side of the wooden paddock fence. Their hoof prints in the snow provided a shadow of their companionable activity from the night before.
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Spring Scenes
Among the range of memories lingering from our night out to see Neil deGrasse Tyson’s talk about a cosmic perspective, these have been prominent: The earth wants to kill us and the universe wants to kill us. As if supporting evidence for these statements were even necessary, Neil provided simple lists.
Earth:
- earthquakes
- volcanoes
- hurricanes
- tornadoes
- droughts
- wildfires
- floods
He introduced this segment with a reference to people who rhapsodize longingly about flowers and trees and all the romance and beauty in Mother Nature’s spectacular displays. Brings to my mind amazing sunrises and sunsets, waterfalls, ocean waves, golden fields, and gorgeous forests.
The contrast provided one of the many chuckles evoked throughout his presentation.
Universe:
- solar flares
- radiation bursts
- black holes
- supernovas
- asteroids
- meteors
Bringing this information forward in my consciousness had me looking at things with a fresh reference on our walks around the property yesterday. It’s impressive to survive long enough that we generally grow callous to most all of these hazardous natural threats. Some of the earth weather risks don’t get buried all that far away in our minds, but I have tended to view them as more neutral threats than as earth’s intended attempts to snuff me out.
The spring scenes we came upon in yesterday morning’s snowscape included the barn towels that were hanging out to dry from the day before.
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When the horses don’t finish eating before we head back to the house, we leave the feed pans out. It makes for some interesting finds upon our return.
Muddy hoof prints are the least offensive version of soiled pans we’ve had to clean out.
After the sun showed through the thinning cloud cover, the snow evaporated except for places that were shadowed. It made for some cool scenes in the woods.
This morning there is no snow left and we haven’t received new precipitation in the last 24 hours. A big sigh of relief for a day or two.
It looks to be another day when the earth won’t kill us. I can’t say for sure what the universe has in store.
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Driving Home
In a rare change of routine for a weekend at the lake, we stayed overnight Sunday and drove home yesterday a little before noon. Why? Basically, because we could, although the added benefit of avoiding typical Sunday traffic returning to the Twin Cities was a welcome bonus.
It was a bit of a surprise to see a new inch of snow had fallen while we were gone. By the time we got home, the temperature had climbed into the 40s (F) and the snowpack was morphing from individual flakes into one smooth slushy.
Some short-legged critter left a trail of footprints in the deep snow by our labyrinth. In stark contrast to the mini-labyrinth among the trees at the lake, our circuit at home hasn’t been walked for months, making the path mostly invisible beneath the white covering.
Around the corner, we found an even more interesting pattern melted into the snow in the shadow of the fence of the back pasture.
Somehow, the lines of the wires were clearly reflected on the surface of the snow. I’m guessing it had to do with the angle of the moving sun aligning just right with the wires as it made its way across the sky.
By the time we got there, the sun was being obscured by a rather distinct change of cloud cover in the sky.
Near the bottom of that image, tiny specks of what happens to be our four horses can be seen hanging out in one of their favorite areas of our fields. As we made the last turn toward the barn, they started their journey up to the overhang for the afternoon feeding.
We were happy to find things in good order after a long weekend of care by the very capable horse person Cyndie found to cover for us when we are gone.
It was a wonderful weekend away, but as always, we are really glad to be home again.
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Relative Something 