Posts Tagged ‘visiting neighbors’
Delayed Escape
I’m still at home this morning. The snowstorm that the weather service named “Lola” created more work than I could complete in a day. And it was miserable work, indeed. On most occasions, I actually enjoy clearing snow. Yesterday was not one of those days.
First of all, we awoke to more than 8 inches of heavy, windblown snow plastering everything. Beneath that coating of white was a layer of slush left from the gradual transition from rain to sleet to snow. All of that rain had nowhere to go since the ground is frozen and once again, hydrostatic pressure pushed water up through the concrete floor in the basement or along the block walls and soaked all the area rugs.
Cyndie said she would tend to the horses so I could get a start on plowing. It would have been easier to stay with her. The wind was ferocious and new snow was still falling. My goal was to try just breaking through with a couple of passes to make it a bit easier to do when it stopped snowing. It was barely possible. The machine and I got coated with a complete layer of sticky snow as I tried blasting my way through the deep drifts with the blade only lowered part of the way down.
After breakfast, I was using a roof rake to pull down the giant drift overhanging our front door and letting Asher play with his favorite ball while dragging his 30’ leash behind him. I noticed he had stepped away from the ball and I called to him to command his return. He gave me that look of mischief, turned, and ran full speed the length of the driveway.
I knew right where he was headed, to the neighbors across the road, where he started barking ferociously at their cat. I needed to trudge through the deep snow on the unplowed road to climb the rise to their driveway and was completely exhausted when I finally reached him. The ONLY redeeming aspect of this angering situation was that I got to visit briefly with our neighbor, Eileen.
Walking the equally arduous distance back in my seething frustration left me too tired to finish shoveling away the snow I’d pulled off the roof. I went in for lunch and waited for it to stop snowing while Cyndie took up the task of clearing the mess of snow in front of the garage doors. Every scoop of the shovel would end up sticking.
It’s hard to plow by the house because there’s nowhere to push the snow, so hand shoveling is usually easier. When there is almost a foot of snow, nothing is easier.
I made reasonable progress cleaning up the rest of the driveway with the plow in the late afternoon. The township plow on the road left quite a thick mess I needed to hand shovel because it was too much for the Grizzly to push. At least the driver was nice enough to be cautious around our mailbox this time.
Looking back toward the barn, you can see by the snow line in the trees how that hill protects from the north wind. The whipping wind had cleaned all of the upper branches, but the lower half of all the trees still held snow.
I won’t be surprised today to find blowing snow has drifted into the driveway again. I’d like to head up north before dark, so I intend to do the absolute minimum of additional plowing or shoveling with that in mind. Best laid plans, and all that… Wish me luck.
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Friendly Visitor
We knew instantly that there was a visitor on our deck by Delilah’s reaction. I spotted the good-looking Siamese running by the door in our bedroom as Delilah bolted to the living room doors to fire up her most ferocious outburst at the scary beast threatening her sovereignty.
The cutie had a collar on which differentiated it from the multitude of other roaming cats that regularly cross our territory, so I stepped outside to get acquainted. Cyndie is a day away from knee replacement surgery and under quarantine since testing clean from the possibility of Covid infection, so she missed out on all the affection.
The lovely blue-eyed kitty was instantly passionate about rubbing against me. Surely, someone should be missing this feline companion. Cyndie brought some water and a serving of dry cat food for me to offer. Water isn’t hard to find outdoors around here, but the crunchy morsels drove the cat wild. I worried that eating too much too fast would risk not keeping it all down long enough to digest. The cat did not share my concern.
Cyndie posted pictures on Next Door but I assumed the stray must be from one of the immediately surrounding properties and haven’t seen any of those neighbors using the app. I set the friendly visitor up with accommodations in the shop while we waited and pondered our next move.
On one of my visits to check on the kitty it made a leap up to my shoulder and cuddled me as if begging us to let it stay forever. That helped to nudge me toward surveying the surrounding properties sooner than later. The only valid phone number I had was for the neighbor to our immediate south.
It wasn’t his and he wasn’t able to get me the phone number of the folks across the street from him. I was going to need to put the kitty in a crate and go for a drive. The woman across the street from him feeds cats outdoors and on the one occasion we traveled up their driveway ten years ago we spotted ten or more cats wandering their yard around the house upon a hill.
They are a particularly recluse couple so making my second trip up their driveway since we’ve lived here felt rather intrusive. It took several minutes to get a response from my knocking. I was making my way around the house to a different door when I heard a man’s voice calling out.
Wasn’t their cat. They don’t put any collars on the cats that show up to be fed. He suggested I check the property up the road and around the corner.
Another driveway I’ve never entered. Folks around these parts tend to keep to themselves. If we didn’t interact with them in the first year or two, we’ve pretty much never talked with them since. No response from that house.
As long as I was already on that street I decided to check the next driveway up because that farm’s land stretches all the way to our woods on the north and west property lines. Thankfully, he was already outside talking with someone in a pickup.
Twas their collared Siamese.
We stood and chatted at length amidst his excess of pickups and farm machinery while dogs, cats, chickens, and ducks all circled around us. There were goats inside a fence, more dogs in a kennel, and a couple of geese honked as they took flight. The very scruffy-looking Pyrenees guard dog took immediate notice of the possibility the geese needed protection and headed in that direction.
That very same dog seems to get along with all the farmyard tenants except one beautiful Siamese cat. I witnessed a chase around the obstacles that left me thinking I understand why the cat might be interested in getting away.
Something about that ever so affectionate and beautiful cat seems to stir a similar reaction from both Delilah and their Pyrenees.
By the way, he got the dog because foxes were getting his chickens.
Hmm.
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Relative Something 