Posts Tagged ‘welcome home’
Pretty Pleased
Traveling from -11°F to +19°F in the hours required to drive home to Wintervale, and from a weekend of too little sleep to a full night’s slumber, has left me feeling dizzy.
I found the landscape at home to be confusingly reduced in snow cover, regardless of the temperature remaining well below the thaw point. Did it all evaporate? The snowfall threat for our county didn’t happen as predicted on Saturday. Cyndie had the horses all blanketed in advance, then needed to remove them first thing the next morning.
I’m not unhappy that it didn’t snow. There was no shoveling required. It was a relief.
Alas, the one who greeted me right inside the door when I got home was Asher, wagging his tail, making sure he saw me before Cyndie did. In short order, it was time for me to commence with my first-of-the-month tasks. The month of March has arrived. Spring is on the way soon. I guess this qualifies as March coming in like a lamb.
I am mentally preparing for Cyndie’s departure in a couple of days for Florida to visit her mom for almost two weeks. That means I will not only be in charge of all the animal caretaking, but I will also become the head cook, as well. That will align well with my new diet. I ate so many cookies and coffeecake she provided for the weekend that I would like to use her absence to return my caloric intake to reasonable levels. I need to offset my recent excess and stem the tide of my expanding middle.
How quickly my mind has jumped out of “vacation” and back into reality mode. Granted, it was only three days, but it felt more like an epic adventure. Partly because it’s been so long since the last time I went fishing, and partly because I have spent very little social time with these schoolmates before.
It was a blast, but fun as it was, I’m feeling pretty pleased to be back home once again.
Usual Elevation
Home again at an elevation my lungs are more accustomed to, my mind lingers in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the priceless fellowship of precious friends sharing an affinity for bicycling.
Yesterday, I drove from sun-up Mountain Time to sun-down Central Time in a completely different muscle-stiffening endurance exercise than pedaling nonstop for hours on end. I crossed most of South Dakota and Minnesota to get back to Beldenville in Wisconsin, where Cyndie and Asher were awaiting my return.
It’s good to be home.
The wide open expanses of South Dakota offered a stark reminder of how small our little rectangle of fields and forest really is. The massive hay production underway for mile after mile was remarkable to see now that I know a little more about the process.
The horse ranches are just as impressive. We saw real cowboys wrangling cattle as we whizzed by at over 80 mph on I90.
As I made one of the last few turns around a cornfield toward our driveway, the clouds looked busy in the sky. When I pulled in, I came to Cyndie walking in my direction. She was looking for Asher, who was chasing after a cat that appeared on our property.
He came running to me soon after in a special “welcome home” that only dogs excel in performing to such a degree.
This morning was a treat to reconnect with our horses. I smirked to myself while cleaning up their manure after a week of dodging cow messes on the trail. I’m glad I don’t have to clean up after cattle herds.
I’ll be thinking a lot about the previous week while I am mowing the overgrown grass that grows so thick at our much lower elevation compared to where I huffed and puffed while pedaling that marvelous gravel Mickelson Trail.
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Relative Something 