Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale’
Not Funny
…edited shortly after 7:00 a.m. to add additional image from this morning. ( jwh)
Curious, yes, but not funny. Before sunset last night –not that I was able to see that happen– I took a picture of the progress of our umpteenth springtime winter storm event of the year, just getting underway, on the 1st day of May. The joke’s on us, but who’s laughing now?
Here we go again… It’s beautiful, and terrorizing, all at the same time.
And this was how it looked in the pre-dawn light this morning…
Water Tight
Our fencing crew made a couple of discoveries yesterday. The first one wasn’t much of a surprise: the ground is still incredibly wet here. I found the second discovery rather enlightening.
One of the holes they drilled for a fence post, filled with water soon after. The noteworthy thing was, the way the hole filled with water. It was flowing in from just above the clay layer, not soaking in from the bottom up.
One of the reasons it is taking so long for the land to dry out here is, because the clay keeps it from soaking down. Water needs to flow through the topsoil, where there is a downhill grade, or evaporate up, from places where there is no out-flow.
Our patience is being tested, but we are just going to have to wait it out. We could sure use a few consecutive days of sun and wind. Yes, that would help, greatly. Unfortunately, what we have in store is more rain, and even some rain/snow mix. In May! It’s almost comical.
The fence crew was successful in driving about 20 more fence posts yesterday, despite the muddy mess. Now, they are on hold again for a number of days.
Luckily, Cyndie got some laundry done while it was still dry yesterday. The new clothesline is put to immediate use! At least one task has come to fruition in a timely manner.
Too Much
When there is no snow on the ground, a whole lot of work becomes available, all at the same time. It is a mental challenge to figure out where to start, and what to do next. It is a physical challenge to do it all. There is too much to do, but that doesn’t stop us, and we are loving it.
We ran into one hitch, though, yesterday. The snow may be gone, but the water isn’t. The ground here is like a saturated sponge. Our plans for the day changed early, when our fence contractor arrived to see the area we had hoped to work, was still too wet. However, it turned out really sweet for us. Since they couldn’t do any work on our property, they were headed to buy maple syrup from a local farm, and they offered to pick up some for us.
On their way back, they stopped in the road at the end of our driveway, and I walked down to collect our prize: Two quarts of pure maple syrup in unmarked Ball Jars. What a treat.
Then, it was back to work. We did some burning at both of our brush piles, then Cyndie worked on cleaning the barn, while I mixed up some concrete and put in a base for a removable umbrella style clothesline. I greased the tractor, and put in another shift on the burning brush pile.
At every turn, there is something additional that deserves attention. We have definitely neglected some organizational tasks, as we haven’t yet figured out where our preferred places are to store some of the common use tools. We want some things near the house, in the garage, and others belong in the shop garage, or the barn. We know full-well that wherever we leave a rake or shovel, we’ll inevitably need it next, in one of the other locations.
Ultimately, I’m hoping we don’t just end up getting three of everything. That just seems excessive, like a bit too much, to me.
Looks like a great conflagration
…but it’s just a drop in the bucket.
Doubly Tipped
Saturday we woke to an unpleasant surprise. Peering out our bedroom door to the deck, I discovered one of the pine trees at the bottom of the hill was leaning severely. Closer inspection revealed that there were two trees tipping over.
My first thought was that it might be the result of deer pushing on them, mainly because of the fact it was more than one tree. However, when I stepped near the first tree, I decided it was more likely a function of the soil being completely water-logged. Those tree roots were trying to hang on to ground that was like a thick soup.
We tried pushing them back as close to upright as possible, and then tied them to some T-bar fence posts that we had from the old fence that was pulled out last fall. It was a little tricky, because the posts have to get pounded down into the same soup that wasn’t good enough to hold the tree roots. I started at an opposite angle with the fence posts, but once tension was put on them, they moved to almost straight up.
It seemed to work for the time being, so we wandered off to the next project. We started the pile of tree roots on fire again, and raked out the ground on about half of the labyrinth. We wrestled with trying to move some boulders by hand, using pry bars, but we weren’t very successful. Lastly, we did a little work on the spot by the barn door where today we plan to host our fence contractor and his skid loader, to dig out the berm and open up a driving lane behind the barn.
Ironically, we need to uproot a perfectly happy pine tree, and relocate him to clear the way. I expect we will be staking one more tree, before the end of the day.
Finally Warm
Now we’re getting somewhere. The weather pattern has shifted, …finally. More importantly, no new snow has fallen for two whole days! It feels remarkable.
The first thing I did yesterday morning was, walk out to check on the water rising from the ground at the spot I discovered the day before. It had stopped flowing, but there was still a small pool of standing water there. I guess the next thing to watch for is, how soon that water disappears.
I have no sense of how quickly the ground here is going to dry up, once we get a few consecutive days without new moisture falling. I hope to find out soon enough. With luck, we can spend a little time down by the labyrinth this weekend, doing some more design work. Walking around near the spots where the soil has been turned up (left from last fall’s roots and brush removal in the areas of previous fence lines) will tell us very quickly if the ground is still muddy.
Yesterday, we committed to the purchase of a geothermal heating and cooling system, to replace the old, existing furnace and air conditioner, so it appears the ground around here will continue to be in a state of disturbance in the months ahead. We are challenged with trying to get some pasture grass planted in a few key locations, so our hope is to get the essential excavating projects completed in time to hit the ideal growing season.
We have a lot of activities to choreograph now that we are snow free, not the least of which involves being on our deck, soaking up the warm sunshine, and watching the forest finally burst forth with leaves of green.
Snow Again?!
We are three weeks into April, and still, this morning, it is snowing. I called our fence contractor yesterday, to check on his status, since it was predicted to be a clear and sunny Saturday. He has enlisted a crew to build our hay shed, and they were going to work weekends. I wasn’t surprised there wasn’t anyone here, since we had just come out of a blast of a winter storm on Thursday and Friday, which kept both Cyndie and me home from work on Friday.
He confirmed that it was just too wet to do anything down there now. He knew what he was talking about. Cyndie and I wanted to continue on a project to move the eagle statue, and the rock landscaping beneath it, in preparation of digging out a berm next to the barn. We need to create a path to drive the tractor around the back side of the barn, now that the front side is being fenced off with paddocks.
It was both too wet, and too frozen, if that makes any sense. Snow from above was melting, and running down around the area we were tromping, and the further we progressed in moving rocks, the more rocks we came to that were still frozen in place.
We changed plans. Next on the wish list was creating a labyrinth. We had a general idea where we wanted the labyrinth to be located, and had reviewed a variety of layouts. Next step was to physically measure the area, and see if we the idea in our heads would fit the reality of the place we want it to be.
Last fall, when the fence guys were ripping out the old barbed wire fencing that existed when we bought the place, they also cleared out a lot of brush, and turned up a few boulders. We asked them to move the rocks back to the area where we were thinking the labyrinth might be created.
The spot where they put them ended up being about 12 inches off of the center point we calculated yesterday. We used some of the metal fence posts they had pulled out, to create a circumference, placing a final one at the center point. Cyndie ran a fluorescent pink string around the circle. We plotted and measured, and are feeling very confident that our joint vision is viable. The project is a go.
That is, it will be a go, if it ever stops snowing, and dries out enough to navigate our property without fear of stepping into a bottomless sink-hole of muddy soup.
Hurried Tidbits
I’m short of time, and seem to have just bits and pieces of news and thoughts, so I’ll take a shot at just tossing them out for today…
• Worked a 12-hour shift at the day-job yesterday, and thus had a chance to drive home after the daily rush-hour traffic jams. There was noticeably less traffic than I commonly face in the mid-afternoon time slot I usually target. That’s not a bad option.
• Minor, but exciting, progress on fencing yesterday. The area is too wet to work in, except up near the barn, so that is where they confined their efforts. They installed fences that create a channel out of the door, which will lead to gates at the entrance of the two paddocks.
• I got a call while I was at work, from the fence contractor checking if it was okay to put all their equipment in the barn, as more precipitation is predicted for the next few days. Rain and/or snow. There is a possibility for heavy rain. Due to that, and the snow that has yet to melt, our region has been put under a flood watch.
• After a brief period where our two cats seemed to be getting over their unexplained spat with each other, they resumed the hostile animosity a couple of days ago, and have us rather confused. Also, the wee one, female, Pequenita, seems like she doesn’t feel well. She doesn’t always keep her food down, and seems to have less of her usual energy. It may or may not be related to their relationship troubles. A check up with a vet is in the plans.
• My thumb pain continues to debilitate most of my actions. I bought a brace, which has helped to protect from exacerbating the problem, and I am eagerly awaiting an appointment to have a specialist look at it on Thursday morning.
• Thursday’s weather could make the driving to the appointment a little challenging. I’m going to do everything possible to get there. I sure hope the specialist has a similar level of determination.
• In light of the recent terror bombings in Boston, I want to echo something that I read, credited to actor, Patton Oswalt: (paraphrasing) “There are more good people than bad. We outnumber you, and we always will.” For every tragedy that bad people unleash, a much greater number of good people respond, giving care, soothing others, spreading love.
Those are my bits for today. Stay warm and dry, and do something good. Spread some love.
Plowed Slush
Every once in a while, I end up with a picture I really like, which I figure will probably work as a “Words on Images” piece, but later, when I get it opened up on my screen, I can’t bring myself to interrupt the image with text. This is one of those images.
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I think the close-up shot looks a bit like the super-magnified images created by electron microscopes.
Dangerous Beauty
The spring weather has been one storm after another this year. I think the last two have overlapped each other. Sunday turned into a day-long rainstorm, with temperatures hovering just below freezing. That meant ice buildup on tree branches and surfaces.
In the middle of the afternoon, I tried stepping out to see how our trees were holding up. Unfortunately, it was very windy, which had to have been putting extra strain on the branches that were getting heavy with ice. At the time, there were only small branches that had begun to accumulate on the ground, but the ones still in the air were definitely becoming shimmering beauties.
I almost didn’t get our front door to open against the ice that had formed along the bottom. The handle was covered, and dripping icicles. Luckily, though the rain seemed to be pouring down, the icing of limbs didn’t appear to growing at an equivalent rate. I can only hope that our luck endures through the end of this weather event.
Seasonal Dyslexia
Yesterday’s unwelcome weather event did not turn out to be one of the ominous “top-10 historic April snowfalls” that was being touted as highly likely, but it still scared me away from trying to negotiate Thursday’s traffic. I didn’t go in to the day-job. Both Cyndie and I stayed safely off the roads and tucked in our home, protected from the elements.
Thus far, we have experienced heavy rain, then sleet, then sloppy wet snow, then falling temperatures, and then wind-blown snow, out of this winter storm. It is still going strong, continuing to ply its wrath over us this morning.
Winter storms that occur in the springtime can be rather exasperating, especially when they cause postponement of an already delayed fence installation project. Doesn’t do much to accommodate our brush-pile burning project, either.
We have an important meeting in the cities this afternoon, with our tax accountant, so must bite the bullet and get behind the wheel, regardless the conditions complicating the morning rush “hour.”
The things we do for love.
We are head-over-heels in love with this place we now call home. It easily makes our driving hassles worth the trouble. Even when it is covered with snow in the middle of April, it is a wonder to behold.
Relative Something 