All in a day

I often get sidetracked by so many things. Does that happen to you?

Yesterday, walked out back to check the mules. Siera and Sundance are now buddies and their fences were all okay.

The sunrise was gorgeous. Good thing I had thought to bring a camera.

And then the fog moved across the meadows.

I came back to the house and checked on the pups. Hannah was sound asleep.

Since it was cool out, I started weed whacking. 

I did it until I ran out of fuel for the thing. I didn't want to go to town and get more, so I decided I'd done enough and went on to hand pulling weeds and pulling out my big scissors. I use them to trim places around the porch.

It does a great job getting the grass super short around the edges of my crazy porch gardens.

While trimming, I noticed the hummingbird feeders were getting grungy so I grabbed them and soaked them. Ahhh, I needed to make more hummingbird 'juice'! To make the hummingbird food I had to put away last night's dishes. 

I dropped something and noticed that some little dogs had blessed my floor with dog hair and sand so I decided to shake some rugs and clean up the dog hair, clean my craft table, and the mini split filters.

When I went back out to hang the feeders I realized I still had trimming to do as well as sweeping the porch and getting the trash ready for the dump.

[I use a little leaf blower to 'sweep' the porch, it does such a quick job!]

I loaded the car, checked the time and realized that it was only 7am. 

Huh, I couldn't go take care of the trash until 8am.

I did weed pulling and garden work while I decided what the day should look like. I seem to be able to relax and think better when my hands are busy. 

I went inside and made a to do list. If I didn't, I would just wander about doing random things all day. 

Mow the yard
Wash the rugs
Dump the garden weeds
Trash to Dump
Little Richard water tub-clean
Mules water tub-clean

Side yard when seeded

Hark! The side yard can now be mowed! 

Off to the town dump to sort my trash, then on to the gas station for mower gas. While at the gas station, I noticed a little pop up farm stand. I picked up veggies for stir fry for $3. Kohlrabi, tomatoes, and zucchini. At least I think it was Kohlrabi. 

Back at some weeding until the grass was dry enough...oh, and talking to Hannah in a stern voice because she was rearranging my outdoor shoes on the porch and putting my gloves in various places.

Mow mow. I do a combination of the little mower and the rider. I didn't want to be cutting grass during the expected 'heat dome' affect this week. 

I was finished by early afternoon so the dogs and I took a small siesta. I actually sat down to read a book and crashed for a wee bit.

I'm no foodie but tossing the tomato, kohlrabi, zucchini, and some Kale in a pan and sautéing them in olive oil sounded like a good meal to me. Next time, I'll add an onion.

I was going to ride Siera to see if all this time off would cured her of her ailment but remembered that the moon would be 99% full. 

I took the pups out to the 'campground' or what I call, my quiet place.

We had a small fire just because I like little fires.

The dogs both wear beeper collars when we are way out back. They are both hunting/chasing dogs at heart and I would rather they not get in the habit of chasing deer. Hannah isn't supposed to be tearing about for another week anyway.

....and

...and...

I waited for the nearly full 'Strawberry' Moon. In the campground I was amazed at how cool it felt with the light breeze and even better. No Bugs.

I was going to stay up and see if I could catch some fireflies, but...my eyes grew heavy and off to slumber land I went.

--Not looking forward to the Heat Warning that was issued for Monday.
Heat index values for Monday. 108 F or 42 C.

Night of the Fireflies

Miss Ariel came to visit for a short weekend. We went out to lunch, then decided to 'do' downtown Viroqua. The vinyl record store, used book store, second hand stores, and a couple of other downtown shops and the crazy old mall that was once a car dealership.

I picked up a couple of things and fell in love with a gypsy type skirt of wild colors and a pair of gypsy pants. I don't know why I needed something like that, but I did.

I found a t-shirt I couldn't pass up.

Happy me! A new store is opening downtown.

It will be buying and selling used Legos! 

Also other games and of course a gaming club I think!

Yes!!

We spent our downtime teaching Hannah the ins and outs of fetching and 'leave it'. Hannah was entranced with Ariel [Charlie loves her also]. So I had her doing some of the repeat work with her.

Hannah learned that you get a treat once in a while when you 'leave it'  or drop the ball in a human hand.

We did multiple doggy walks and enjoyed the cool air. Ariel wanted to get her steps in. I wanted to exercise the pups. 

When the sunset started I ran inside and grabbed a camera. The colors were incredibly intense.

The pine trees are in front of the house which you might be able to barely see in the bottom right corner.

It wasn't so dark that we couldn't see around us and as the color faded from the skies we started seeing hundreds of fireflies.

I set up the camera during the blue hour and started to use a computational thingy on the camera called LiveComp which records any change in light every 4 seconds or whatever you set it too.

I was super happy with the driveway photo. Ariel watched with some amazement too. I doubt she ever stood and just let nature flow over her like that in the semi dark. I pointed out that the lighting bugs often stayed off the gravel and stuck to the long grasses on each side of the driveway and in the forest.

I turned the camera to the neighbor's meadow which hasn't been grazed or mowed in over 10 years.

I let the camera go on for 20 minutes compiling flashes of light.

Long exposure with moving clouds...

30 seconds of the same area.

It was like the insects were doing a special dance just for us and all we had to do was watch. One even landed on my hand and another in my hair.

You could say I was immersed in it.

As was Ariel.

The pups were sleeping in the house when we finished.

Busy day

The other morning, before my appointment, I went to feed the girls and they were in a place they weren't exactly supposed to be in. All I had to do to get them back was rattle the feed bin and bring out their hay. 

[BW shot with my Infrared Camera out the door]

I just shut them in this large paddock until I could get out to check fences.

The culprits of fence wrecking showed up the next morning.

We did end up counting over 30 deer congregated by the place where our fence and two other neighbor fences intersect.

Well after breakfast, I went out and fixed about 500 feet of hot wire. The barbed wire fence that belongs to the guy west of me is bent over and mostly broken. He knows it is a mess, but he sold his cattle and so he basically doesn't care. 

That said, I don't mind either because I use a hot wire on the inside of his barbed wire. Hot wire was the only way we could keep our jumping mules in our pasture as they were taught to jump fences. That is a competition with a history of hunting behind it. 

The mules I have left don't jump fences. But keeping them out of tangled barbed wire is my goal.

Winter Pasture

The winter pasture looks flat, but it isn't, there are a lot of trees, nooks, and crannies to go around.

Below, my fencing supplies.

It wasn't that hard to repair the fence since I use a fence product that is easy to put back together. By the time I finished in my chore boots, my feet were chilled.

But I had a couple of more spots to take care of before quitting. You know, once you start a job, you finish it before having to put all the supplies away again.

I'll just have to keep a closer eye on the deer. 

After lunch, I decided to get outside as it was so warm! 22 F or -5 C. I'd been bummed about the 'order' not to 'go' hiking so Charlie and I decided to go for a 'walk'. Semantics, it works for me. 

I dusted off my Infrared Camera and thought it would be interesting to see how things looked in a different light. 

Finally an hour to myself to relax! No phone calls to answer, no appointments to work out, no deliveries of meds that need to be signed for. Just me and my little dog.

We went down the good part of the trail to the creek.  It looks quite different with the snow on it. I like to try and get out to 'shoot' this trail before the critters mark it up with footprints. 

That little black dot is Charlie watching 8 deer running up the hill from the valley below.

I turned around and hot straight up the trail. Yep, one isn't supposed to do that with a camera, it causes a lot of sun flares especially when you are using an Infrared Camera. I didn't care, I liked the footprints.

I checked my watch, time to get back and make sure someone had their meds on time and prepare for the 100 questions about "What is for lunch?"

I wanted to take an IR shot of this oak leaf stuck in the snow. Yes, the leaf looks blue as the light spectrum I chose to shoot in reflects anything that has chlorophyll in it a shade of blue in camera. It just looked pretty.

As we walked back home, I kept looking for interesting shapes and shadows in the snow. I like a solo branch sticking up out of the snow with a cool shadow. But our snow is not deep so I was stuck with little weeds. 

Back under the large oak, I found a small spot that did not have animal tracks in the snow and had interesting shadows from the tree above.

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning house since I hadn't really done so since I'd been sick over a week ago.

Weekend Wrap up....

The past few weeks have been insane...right? Or do I just get too excited over stuff???

Maybe I need to go sit in the forest for a day and just not think or do....

Sometimes things happen in succession and drive a person up the Crazy Wall.
When I got home from CrossFit Friday morning I parked the 'Ru, then walked out late in the afternoon to see this....
By the time I had the 'fake tire' on, Ariel arrived. 

Ariel cooked Grandpa his absolute favorite meal on Friday night. Liver and Onions. She pretty much knew how to make it and I assisted. 

What a cool young lady. She wanted to celebrate her birthday weekend by cooking a meal she knew Grandpa would love.

Very thoughtful.

Saturday was to be a shopping spree for books that Ariel had in mind to add to her collection. She is a bibliophile. She had spent 3 months working overtime and extra hours to save up for some specific books she had in mind.

With a flat tire and no repair shops open over the weekend, I let her do the driving while I navigated to the stores she wanted to go to.

We wandered Barnes & Noble for hours.

We found a series of books that we both thought would be fun to read--- The Little Old Lady Behaving Badly! 

Next she took me to Chick fil A for a late lunch. 

We sure had a laugh over this sign-->

We made another stop at Michaels to browse yarn and crafty stuff.

When we turned into the last isle we found Dragons! We both think dragons are cool mythical creatures and Safari makes some really fantastic dragons. Ariel admired one in particular. I picked up one myself and told her to pick 2 as an addition to her birthday gift. I got the white snow dragon...

Having a driver was so nice. I didn't have to do much other than help Ariel get around unfamiliar territory. 

Monday was all about getting the car fixed [again], calling in medications, talking to the Palliative Care Nurse, talking to the LP company, and fixing the land line phone issue. 

Some days I miss my previous life where I was busy with work and other interests.

These past couple of weeks were wonderful. I had so many things to look forward to.

...

Out and about

Charlie and I went for a nice long hike on Saturday. I took my converted Infrared Camera but took the filters off from it.

I thought it would be interesting to see how it photographed without the nm spectrum filters on it. I used the snow to get a white balance. I like how the snow is white and the shadows are cool while the trees, bark, and foliage has a slight red tint to it.

That said, the lighting was different too. The camera was able to take in much more light than any normal camera.

Parts of the creek were frozen. These little strange holes were in the ice. I have noticed them several times in parts of the creek. I looked up Ice Stars and got a lot of different information about them. I know they appear in the creek after rain/snow/freeze/and more rain and snow and freezing. I always assumed it was because this part of the creek had water flowing up from tiny springs below.

These little ice stars only form in this section of the creek. Odd but interesting!

The water flows pretty easily a bit further downstream as more tiny springs add to the small creek.

I enjoyed just walking along and looking at the shadows on the snow and the reflections on the water. The wild life hadn't been moving across the area much and most of the snow was still pretty smooth.

I imagine on Sunday, that will change and the wildlife will be out feeding before the next weather system moves in Sunday night.

We are to get up to an inch of rain Sunday night and Monday. Heavy rain on top of the snow and ice we have will create some flash flooding and a hard run off of melting snow.

Thankfully, I don't have to go anywhere and I can hike down to the creek to watch the run off.

Charlie enjoyed our Saturday hike.

Backwards

I'm going to start with the end of the Saturday and work backwards. Sunshine has been coming to the gate and giving me the hard stare. So I thought we'd go for a stroll. She is just a riding mule, nothing special about her except she has a good brain and rarely gets wound up any more. 

Her favorite part was when I pulled over to the side of the road and let her graze on all that nice ditch grass and weeds. We saw a lot of deer.

You almost can't see the deer in the upper left side of the photo. Sunshine is watching deer on the other side of the road eating in freshly cut hay.

Since she is in the forest often with deer I don't think they bother her any more. Only when they pop out of tall corn as a surprise do they startle her.

Such a great way to end the day. When we went past the Naughty Dog house, the dog barked like crazy and after we passed she came out on the road. 
Have you ever seen a mule walk with her ears tilted and one eye looking back? I have. It is how she kept track of the dog. Mules can see behind them with very little effort.

Before supper...

Well, it was bound to happen. I wondered when Rich would kill the riding mower. He always trims things too close and whips it around. He did that yesterday next to one of his junk piles and a hook on a dangling chain ripped out the 'thingy' cord/wire that is used to start the mower. 

Looks like I'll have to call the shop and have someone pick it up and repair it. I think I'll have them replace the belts and blades at the same time and tune it up. I have NO idea how long that will take but I do know I have a LOT of walking behind my mower to do for finishing up this week's mowing.

The guy we purchased this from is usually pretty slow on things like this. But we've bought good machines from him including chain saws for the past 25 or so years.

Going backwards more to the morning. It was foggy and wet. Another one of those amazing mornings we have here in the Kickapoo River area.

The first shot is on the ridge overlooking crops and the second is what was once a pasture we used that belonged to the family to the east of us.

The morning was spent checking fences and enjoying the coolness before the sun burned through the fog.

I really enjoyed looking for insects that were held still by the cool morning and the heavy dew. Or those straggling flea bane flowers. 

The world is filled with a certain kind of wonder on these early summer mornings.

Make an Adventure

To say that I have a 'normal' life would be somewhat of an exaggeration. What is normal?

In my mind's eye a normal person of my age and stature putters around in the morning and then has some coffee while reading the news.
Then she should prepare breakfast for her guests and set the table.

Later on, this nice little hostess would get a proper noon meal planned and sit on the porch and visit with her guests and husband.

The day would drag on to supper, chores would be done. The nice hostess would whip up an exotic supper and present it to the guests. Some nice conversation would occur around the table with cups of coffee.

Later everyone would go to bed and slumber.

Not
how it
happens
here!

I get up pre dawn and make coffee, let Charlie out and pretty soon my company starts to drift down the stairs. First comes Daryl and Scout, followed by his youngest daughter and Amanda. The dogs start to wrestle and play in the living room, so they are taken outside for a potty break.
Coffee is passed around along with some Kringle that was brought from the Racine Bakery.
We all look out the window and decide to go for a walk to look for spiders and dewy webs in the meadow.

Rubber chore boots go on over PJ pants for some...no need to dress fancy. The dogs chase each other around and around in the yard with dew drops spraying up from their legs.

We go walking in the tall weeds and grasses of the meadow and begin to spread out each person looking for webs and we begin to find many of them.

It is a bit of a fuzzy shot but then again...HOW close do I want to get to these guys or girls??? Not close!
We wander the meadow brushing up against weeds, and keeping an eye out for Charlie who is so small that he seems to disappear in the wet grasses.

Daryl gets close up and personal with the Spiders and we find dozens of small or 'baby' spiders.

We are like excited children, calling out to each other each time we find an incredible specimen.

Finally, soaked with dew, we all head back to the house for more coffee and to visit with Rich.

The kids do the chores and drag out Mt. Tank and fill it. The dogs are toweled off and we visit with Rich and have coffee and conversation. We discuss the meteor showers and decide we'll go on the ridge to try and watch them around midnight.

And that is just the start of our morning.

To be continued....