Posts Tagged ‘time’
Sad Face
We are still waiting for significant signs of improvement in Delilah, but whatever is causing her sharp pain –even though she is simply lying on the floor or in her crate overnight– it appears to be more intense than the drugs she is on.
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Since Cyndie is trained to administer Tellington TTouch, she is offering Delilah more than just the pain killers prescribed by the vet, but our poor dog still finds ways to move that triggers involuntary vocal response of acute discomfort.
That is so too familiar to me and my degenerating discs. We have inquired with the vet about a local dog chiropractor and I’ve been wondering if Delilah would tolerate accupuncture. It helped to ease my discomfort.
There have been a couple of encouraging glimpses of Delilah’s old self appearing, but thus far they are too few and far between to allow us much release from the ongoing stress of knowing an animal in our care is suffering.
I’m looking at this as a way to help me slow down my perception of the ever-faster passing of days. With October looming large and the standing order to keep Delilah completely inactive for two weeks, I’m hoping the days will drag for a while.
It’s not my preferred way to slow down the days, but already it feels like our sad dog has been hurting for far too long. The next two weeks are going to take forever if we can’t let her have her usual luxuriously long walks.
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It’s Curious
For as much of my life as is now committed to caring for our property and animals, I find it curious that I can still have a series of days with very little contact to them. Yesterday, in celebration of our anniversary, we went out to dinner in Hudson after I got home from work.
When we returned after dark, I dropped Cyndie off at the barn so she could make her way to the chicken coop to close their access door for the night. I parked the car in the garage and headed inside to start my evening routine.
Tonight, I will be meeting the family at a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis to celebrate Julian’s birthday. This will lead to another night of arriving home after dark, not even seeing either the horses or chickens.
During my work weeks, it can happen that I’m completely disconnected from the activities of our ranch for a few days. It’s a little disorienting for me.
Especially since the most orienting thing of all for me is when I am able to spend time with our animals.
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Part Way
I made it part way through doing a thorough job of re-leveling the gazebo frame when my patience for the project ran out and I resorted to doing a less-than-perfect, but good enough wrap up to call it done. Funny how the perspective changes when the limited hours in a day are slipping away and the cost/benefit assessment provides a justification for aborting a plan.
Only time will tell whether or not it was a worthy choice. In the short-term, we are well satisfied with our progress. The shaded platform is ready for use.
With that done, we did turn our attention to using the loader bucket to remove a significant portion of the oldest composting manure. These were piles that had gone cold due to no longer actively composting. Interestingly, of the three piles we tended to, two of them retained a lot of moisture and one was surprisingly dry.
The dry one proved to be suitable for rodent housing and it appeared we disturbed a momma mouse in the process of giving birth. While Cyndie was at the pile discovering that, I had driven off with a full bucket and spotted a large mouse scrambling to and fro on the mechanisms of the loader arms.
It was a little like trying to drive a car with a bee flying around you. It was pure luck that I didn’t bash into the side of the barn while backing up as I focused on trying to get the dang critter to jump off the bucket and not run up toward my position.
He skittered over to an opening at the end of one of the loader arms, so I lifted the bucket high to slide the mouse out, but I don’t know if it is actually open all the way through. I never saw where he came out, or maybe he’s still in there.
It’s the kind of mini-drama that we are growing accustomed to, and as a result, we tend to just shrug these encounters off and carry on with the task at hand.
All manner of creatures can be found taking advantage of the spaces we create. They probably see our occasional intrusions on their luxurious accommodations in a similar way we look at hazardous weather. It happens. You clean up after it and get on with life.
Mowing the fields dislodges a lot of crawling and slithering things. Last time out, the prevalent sighting was a leaping creature. Several large, long-legged frogs were disturbed by the big wheels and high RPM roar of the tractor. I’m pleased to be able to say I didn’t witness any unfortunate encounters with the whirring blades of the brush cutter.
There are still plenty of other compost piles for the rodents to take up residence. Better there than in our house. Inside, they have to deal with a storm called Pequenita. When that happens, we have to deal with watching where we place our feet in the morning.
It’s such a glamorous life we lead.
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Mood
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maybe it’s this mood I’m in
that has me feeling this way
falling head over heels
for another character
Anna Kendrick played
in a movie
and getting floored
by every song
on a John Hiatt album
from deep in the stack
when did we get this old
that we look like our parents
or some of us
like our grandparents
slogging away
at the day to day
letting time sail past
unaware how it pulls
us along on the crest
flying through moods
as they materialize
conjured from unlikely sources
a dream
a picture
a thought I once had
a dog I just remembered
from a long time ago
it’s all Jello
in different colors
before photo manipulation was all the rage
but it can’t be retrieved
no matter how long we wait
so we wrestle with the trick
of figuring out how it’s still connected
with this particular minute
and I wonder what it has to do
with this mood I still find myself in
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Days Happen
Despite our lofty plans and petty concerns, time marches on. Days happen, one right after the other. The present moment unfurls and that quickly becomes history. Last night, I was struck by a reference in a PBS Frontline story to research done in the archives for information from 1977. Was that really that long ago?
I guess so.
Today I am struck anew by the amazing place where I now reside. As the year 2016 nears the twelfth month, we have become ever more normalized with our rolling hills and areas of hardwood forest. We have slowly developed new trails and arranged sections of fenced pasture. It is becoming a reflection of us and the animals now living here.
In the relatively short time we have been here, the neighborhood has changed noticeably. We are currently in the final weekend of the annual deer hunting season, an event that has quieted significantly compared to our first years on the property.
I’m not sure why there is less activity visible this year on the properties adjacent to us, but it’s been nice to have fewer sights and sounds to trigger Delilah into the fits of unnecessary outbursts she feels called to deliver. I wish I could attribute her good behavior to a continued maturation, but evidence hints otherwise.
It’s quite possible that her presence alone is a factor in relocating local hunters to more distant acres, although she isn’t chasing all the deer off. We still see them around with regularity. More likely, what has moved the hunters away is the combined activity of the horses and humans roving around here along with her on a daily basis.
Life is happening here everyday. And as soon as I chronicle it, the stories become archived in the “Previous Somethings.”
Time marches on.
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Now
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what we don’t know
that waits around the corner
is not there
until we show up
if we do
with our bells on
it is our time
our moment
notes of a song
real
happening like laughter
singing
because timing
that is everything
is actual
like now
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Cold Rain
Okay. About that idea I wrote of yesterday that we might have a string of dry days to celebrate this week… Not exactly. I drove home from work in rain and by the time dinner was done last night, the temperature had dropped into the 40s (F).
Our furnace got turned on yesterday morning, and we lit a fire in the fireplace last night.
If it weren’t for the leftover leaves still attached to the tree branches, I’d think it was already October. Wet and cold. Cyndie made apple crisp which helped take some of the edge off.
The horses got a night in the barn because Cyndie was concerned about preventing their hooves from being wet all night.
Part of me wants to lament over the rapid disappearance of September, but I’m thinking I should avoid moping about it and put my sights on what lies ahead. I might as well start waxing my skis and getting the snow blade mounted on the ATV.
Winter is not far off. It’s a good thing it’s my favorite season of the year. Looking forward to it is so much more fun than dreading what is to come.
If it weren’t for all these constant distractions, I might make better progress at living fully in the present moment. The art of doing that continues to be something I struggle to accomplish.
It doesn’t help that lately the present moments so often involve rain around here. Who can be blamed for needing a break from that repetition?
I like to imagine what it would be like if our temperatures were already below freezing during these recent batches of precipitation. Speaking of which, I wonder where I put my igloo making fixture.
Of course, the next thought that comes to my mind when thinking about snow this year is, I should have purchased that fat bike I was looking at over the summer. 
See how one thing leads to the next?
It’s the kind of mental exercise that one falls into when the weather outside gets cold and rainy.
Looks like Thursday through Sunday holds some promise for dry sunshine. That would go a long way toward helping me enjoy the last days of September to the fullest…
Completely, in each and every one of those moments.
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Ponder This
Time changes everything. Time has a tendency of changing my memories. I’ve been told that each time I remember something, the memory morphs a little bit.
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When I mentally visualize plans for the future, the conjured perceptions in my mind have the same “look” to me as when I am revisiting my memories.
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What if, in the present moment, I imagine a future occasion where I re-experience something I remember from the past?
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Already Late
My least favorite day of the year is the day our society moves the clocks ahead one hour. That first day, this first day, I wake up already late for the day.
Time travels too fast for me on a regular basis. It becomes uncomfortably amplified when the clock is adjusted to steal an entire precious hour for which I can do nothing to account.
Yesterday I read that there is a myth that the adjusting of our clocks is something that helps farmers, but that the myth is not true and the majority of farmers actually dislike Daylight Saving Time. It is supposed to have something to do with saving energy, since Germany first did it for that purpose during World War I.
It appears it doesn’t actually save energy. The other thing it doesn’t do is save daylight.
It annoys me that real proponents are the retail industry, which profits when more people go out (drive vehicles and use gas) to do things (spend money for barbecues and recreation) in the evenings during the longer day-lit evenings.
The most ridiculous reason I read was that it moved daylight from the morning when people are asleep, to the evening when they are awake.
Just get up when the sun comes over the horizon if you have a problem with it! Who cares what time that is?
Our horses have the luxury of completely ignoring what time we set our clocks to. They do what they do, whenever they see fit to do it.
Yesterday, Hunter wanted to sleep deeply in the middle of the day. Once again, my first reaction is alarm. It is always shocking to discover the horses so entirely unconscious.
It was an uncharacteristically warm and sunny March day. The air was calm and the other horses were up by the barn, grazing on hay when we approached with Delilah. Not wanting to startle Hunter, we paused to take in the serene scene. Delilah laid down by the wood fence of the paddock and looked on.
Horses don’t stay down like that for long, so we waited to witness a behavior that would show us he was fine. The very first thing I did was zoom in my attention on evidence he was indeed breathing.
Not long after I started taking pictures, or maybe, because I started taking pictures, Hunter picked up his head and looked around at the world. Yep, still daylight out.
Moments later, he went right back down where he came from. I figured he probably wanted to finish a dream that had been interrupted.
He wasn’t late for anything.
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Relative Something 