Reunion

Two weeks ago was my 40^th (that’s right kids) reunion from college. It is in an idyllic town whose motto is “Home of cows, colleges, and contentment.” At the edge of the prairie sits this small, Lutheran-oriented institute of higher learning.  I was not the greatest student, but I muddled through. The military draft was still in place, but ended during my senior year, so I didn’t have to go off to Southeast Asia to kill people for some political reason or other. 

From "The Hill" to the Prairie.

Note the symbolic goal post on the football field. Reminds me of the song, "Drop Kick me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life".

 

It was fun to see that many of my class had good and productive lives and some happiness. Unbelievably, 37% (about 255) made it back to “The Hill” forty years after we graduated. There were doctors, lawyers, preachers (I did mention the Lutheran thing), data processors, housepersons, salespeople, artists, musicians, writers, and just about anything you can imagine. Marriages, divorces, children, out of the closet, cancers, aches, pains, surgeries, and a couple of dozen didn’t live this long. Several had achieved great humanitarian things, but overall someone thought we blew it. There was a great opportunity to make this world much better. We had the world by the short hairs, it seemed, but the entrenched culture and human condition was more than we could move. Sure, we made some advancements and eased some of humanity’s suffering, but we thought we could do so much more for the improvement of the species. Maybe we were just young idealists whose bubble was burst by the harsh realities of the world.

On the other hand we still could party pretty well for a bunch of people approaching geezerhood. Even I, who usually conks out by 9 or 10 in the evening, managed to stay out and up past midnight for two nights in a row! Downtown and Bridge Square were rocking all weekend and they even did a reenactment of the Great Jesse James Bank Robbery. The music was good and the beer was expensive and some of us regained that spring in our step. The next morning that was followed by the proverbial hitch in the get-along. 

Bridge Square

 

Our friend Ellen came with her father who was there for his 70^th year class reunion. Unfortunately, only about 6 or 7 were able to make it to that one. He was a great guy with more hair than I have.  

The campus was even more spectacular with the addition of a few things. Here is a chime tower, the timber framing coming from my own local Folk School.

For a while they had me fooled as I thought they had actually grown these basaltic columns right in there own rock garden.

 Yes, colleges and universities are amazing places. Many important things have been discovered at research facilities. I was always told that if they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can make something out of you. I know they tried.

Where have I been?

Now that Spring is finally here the busy season has started. Everything outside is nearly a month late and so am I.  I have been planning to go to my 40th reunion of my college graduation, a trip to Europe with my friend Andie, and converting the farm to summer mode from winter mode. I am only gone 10 hours a day for the day job, but still it gets busy during waking hours. Luckily I got to an ortho doc to inject my knees and get rid of some chronic discomfort, so I could do all this with less distraction. They need replacing, but we will put that off for a while. I will fill you in on these events soon, I want to show you our regular visitors who, so far, only show up at night.

It has been an interesting month as the seasons change. The transitions can be fascinating and frustrating at the same time. Sometimes you get the red sky at morning.

Yes, I am an early riser. The big lake still has its off days, but fewer of them in the warm months.

Then there's the farm work to be done. This is a shot of Manure Mountain which is in a growth stage as I clean the paddocks. There is no soil up here to speak of, so this is a highly prized commodity where people actually seek it out in order to grow food and flowers. Made fresh daily!

I reached a milestone last weekend as I headed back to the campus of my alma mater where I received an education all those years ago. It was very cool. Stay tuned. Note the symbolic goal post.

 

Geekiness

I never thought of myself as any kind of geek. First of all, I am not smart enough to be one. If I was that smart I would be a lot wealthier than I am. Really, though it all comes down to definition. I find the weather to be a fascinating thing and maybe that's why I like to be out in it passing judgement on whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. I can dress for all of it except heat. You can only get so naked in order to cool off, although the pale, white, untouched by sunlight skin reflects the light for a while. Until it turns red. Before I go out I check my little weather station to see what to expect. Today it looked like this.

The good news is that the precipitation wasn't white although the texture was quite firm.

I gently glided across the deck to the stairs to go feed things and take dog for a walk, but grabbing onto the railing was a challenge. If I hadn't had gloves on I would have dug my fingernails in for traction.

Neil Young said "Rust never sleeps", but as a Canadian he should have known it will freeze. Maybe he's lived in California for too long. This is Stitch's former transportation that hasn't found a "forever home" yet.

Of course the horses were happy about breakfast (some things you can always count on) but Beezer said "That was delicious, when is lunch?"

Eventually, it will all thaw out and dry up. Maybe by July.

Spring, sort of

April is almost over. And after over four feet of fresh snow this month alone I am glad to see it go. Last Saturday morning I woke up to 2F (-16C) which was damned chilly. A week later here I am at 55F on a cloudy morning. I know, bitchin' about the weather is nothing new, but I was able to take advantage of the situation and do something destructive. The last several, well more like five or ten, years I have wanted to get rid of the olde chicken coop between this house and the olde farm house. It looked like this.

Of course it is still surrounded by over a foot of snow. I looked inside yesterday evening after feeding everyone and saw a dead fox inside. It hadn't been there long, but probably starved to death as it appeared to be young. I decided it needed a proper funeral and so did the chicken coop. This is how it looked.

So much for the olde chicken coop. I believe it was from the 1930's judging by its construction. There was still a little smoldering this morning and now I have to find a home for the corrugated metal roof that is now lying on the ground.

As the snow melted this week it exposed some of the carnage of the highway from the winter. Road killed deer are plentiful. There are those who can take advantage of the situation and find some nourishment. I'm talking about that intrepid carrion feeder and national symbol, the bald eagle (they don't know bald, I know bald!).

There are usually adults as well as immature birds at these open air restaurants. How can I tell they're immature? By the way they act! It's pretty obvious. The one on the left has done something juvenile and is fleeing the scene. There are things one can learn on the daily commute to work.

We've had a number of Spring birds showing up, but the snow and frozen ponds have got them doing some strange things. The snow buntings have usually gone north by now, but they have found our feeders instead.

The Cooker and Stitch took two of our geldings down to the Great Minnesota Horse Expo at the state fair grounds this weekend and left me all alone to fend for myself. A friend suggested I spend some time naked in this circumstance. I took that advice to heart yesterday morning. I got out of the shower at about 6 a.m. and looked out the bathroom window at a raccoon heading for the back yard and climbing over the fence. I quick ran outside to scare it off (the chickens were still locked in their coop, thankfully). Hearing me come out the front door was enough to send it scurrying. Had it turned and seen me naked on the deck I am sure it would have had a fatal heart attack. It was smart enough not to look. I have heard they are clever beasts.

As the snow slowly melts into the Great Lakes basin I bid you adieu for now.

One more time

Did you ever feel like you had been trying hard to do everything right and after some real progress you were about to take a major step forward? All of a sudden something comes at you out of nowhere and hits you so hard it knocks the breath out of you. This time I am speaking figuratively, although it has happened in a more literal sense before. I am talking about spring. There were big patches of brown grass starting to show, the driveway was clear, and everyday a little more was melting was lifting my spirits. This morning negated all those good feelings with just a couple inches of snow. It's later now and at least 6 inches have fallen with no sign of letting up.

Not that this hasn't happened before.  You see, about this time of year, as the days grow longer, I wean myself off my winter "happy pills." Not too abruptly, mind you, but I really don't like taking any medication that isn't totally necessary. Forty years ago that was not the case. It used to be "I wonder what will happen if I take one of these?" Or, "what if I smoke a little of this?" Of course I don't think it had any permanent effect on me effect on me effect on me, but I don't know of any definitive studies done to determine the long term results of this short term behavior. I guess we make our choices and learn to live with whatever the results are, but it was awesome being indestructible, at least for a while.

So as a diversion from this April hell I got out the camera and took hints from my contented, well mostly, creatures in my immediate vicinity. My buddy, Orange Ruffy.

Then there is our token dog, Mandy who we adopted last fall. She adores me although it was not the intention for me to be her person.

Cotton is our furry version of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti western character or Dirty Harry. "Go ahead punk, make my day."

Then there is Cotton's sister, Princess Puffy Pants, doing something she does very well. God, I admire her ability to sleep through hell and high water.

Then there is Bella. She is the most confident cat in the house (there are 12 of the little furballs). We adopted her last year. She is diabetic and requires insulin twice a day, but deals with it very well as she gets special treatment that she obviously deserves. Here she is in her cube giving me "stinkeye" for invading her space.

The real reason I stayed indoors for most of the day is this stuff. Not that is as unexpected as I make it out to be, but damn, it gets annoying. While it is beautiful in some ways, it is not always welcome. It reminds me of an old Star Trek episode where the women of the planet, who ran it  BTW, were referred to by the men as "the givers of pleasure and pain". Nothing new under the sun, is there?

I guess we'll see what happens when daylight comes tomorrow morning. I may have to get the tractor out to clear the mess as I doubt it will melt fast enough for my liking.

I hope spring springs eternal for all of you.

  

Closer to the end

Did I say the end of winter is near? I lie like a rug! Just look outside on any given day since I said so the last time. My optimistic outlook is dwindling almost as fast as the temperature drops on a clear March morning.

It started out like any other Saturday morning, getting the chores done at a leisurely pace while sampling various breakfast goodies. Other than a little digestive disorder everything was fine. I was filling the water troughs, but feeling a bit weaker than usual. That in itself was a little disconcerting as I felt I had finally regained the strength I lost a year and a half ago after surgery, but that's an old story. I decided to come back up to the house and do a little r&r. When I got back to the house I took off my coat and hollered as best I could to the ladies about needing some help. The next thing I know I am on the bathroom floor looking up at Stitch who is repeating my name and the Cooker is calling 911. Well, as they say, the lights were on but there was nobody home inside my body for a minute or three. Apparently I threw a head and shoulder block into the door jamb on the way to the floor (yes, it left a mark). Shortly thereafter we started receiving company in the form of neighbor first responders and the ambulance crew from town. Having been an EMT and knowing these people it was a funny feeling being on the receiving end of an assessment. Since I hadn't had a heart attack or stroke I got to leave the ER after about 5 hours of replenishing fluids. Oh yes, they did get to see what I had for lunch, lucky them. We blamed some flu-like bug, I guess.

The next morning I was not up for getting up so the Cooker did the morning feeding of the horses. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was 11 degrees below zero. She figured it out by the time she got back in. Stitch would have done it, but she flew off to San Diego for a work-related trip after she knew I would live.

Do you ever find unidentifiable science experiments in your refrigerator? We don't very often, but now and then we just can't figure out what it was, but this is what it looked like.

Aliens may have left it in there when they stopped by last time, because none of us can figure out what else it could be. The Cooker is known to experiment with foods, but vehemently denies any knowledge of this particular item.

On a slightly less disgusting note there has been a lot of talk of saints lately. St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland and St. Urho drove the grasshoppers from Finland (saving the grape crop). Now there is a new head of the Catholics naming himself after a pretty well known saint. Those are pretty big red shoes to fill in light of all the evil that has come from that institution in recent years. Can't say as I have ever known a saint,but I have known some fine people.

One the way home a couple of weeks ago I stopped just downhill from work at the harbor and caught this moment around sunset.

We have also been having a few visitors of the avian persuasion that we don't see very often. There have been some Hoary Redpolls at the feeder for example, but I spotted a hole in the snow that indicated a larger visitor had been hunting in the back yard. Sure enough, just before I decided to be sick the ladies said I should see what's in the back yard. So, I grabbed my camera and saw this guy. I think it's a guy as the females are usually a bit larger, but he was just trying to catch some Z's in a tree.

The next day it was snowing and he decided to try a different tree. If you're not looking for them they can blend in rather well, especially on a gray and snowy day.

We do see these Great Grey Owls occasionally in Winter, but hopefully he will head north as the spring approaches. It's one of those harbinger things, ya know.

The end (of winter) is near

Somehow finishing with the depths of winter has been much busier than I remember. Maybe the mind whirls with the expectation of things to come. An eclectic mix of activities seems to occur. My Norwegian friends have gone back to Norway after a rousing time in the upper Midwest. They even did a blog entry about me. The blizzard when the pictures were taken was just shy of painful to be in, but the horses didn't seem to care much. See it here at  http://www.lutefiskhotel.com/blog/  and read about their project, as well.

Then a friend  asked me to list some stuff on eBay for him, so I did. Some radiator valves and a couple of bronze Tibetan Buddhist Phurbas. I had to figure out exactly what they were in order to describe them. The things I have to learn on the way! Sheesh!

I buy, sell, and trade some photographic equipment in order to finance the stuff I really hope to get. Sometimes I get to "meet" some interesting folks from all over the world like Malaysia, India, and that exotic paradise to the north, Canada. I have been really lucky with my dealings as I find that most people are very honorable and decent. Then I wonder why there is still war, hunger, and curable disease all over the planet. Maybe all of our "leaders" are not very impressive at all. Who knows? 

Got out on the horses a bit. Its like riding a merry-go-round in deep snow as the horse steps high in knee deep snow. Here is Stitch on my horse, Draugen. She and the Cooker will be taking Draugen and Mirage to the Minnesota Horse Expo at the end of next month.

I stopped by one of our local trout streams on the way home from work the other day. The ice barely got a hold of the big lake this winter, but the streams are pretty well locked up. I missed the shards of ice blowing up to the shore, but the next day there was still some interesting, slippery piles to look at.

Sunrise can be a nice time of day on the farm. Especially the quiet and colorful time a few minutes before the sun peeks through the trees. It looks a lot like this right out the front door.

This morning looked a lot like that and it is still a little crisp outside with a morning temperature of 0F. Better days are coming!