This is my brother. He’s a great guy. But once in a while, he’s an idiot. He doesn’t ever read this, so he won’t know he should be offended. About this, anyway.
Okay, so it’s the first day that’s really after the holidays, and G goes off to work in the studio, and I get to start out my new life in the new year. I sit down with my first hot breakfast in normal life, but the phone rings. Honestly, the eggs are, like, half way to my mouth, and the bacon smells – (I close my eyes) – like bacon.
But I answer the phone, and it’s my brother. Who says to me, “How far are you from the Marina?”
I blink. What kind of an opening gambit is that? Bit I remember there’s that boat place down at the lake. So I tell him, sounding puzzled, “Two miles?” The upshot is this: he and his buddy have just ridden bicycles across the wide, dangerous lake that sits in the bottom of this valley bowl. Miles of lake – between his house and mine.
I immediately remember the story Guy’s grandfather told me about how he and his buddy tried that stunt on ice skates – and how his buddy had hit a hole, slipped through it and was frozen to death under the ice in seconds. That lake is no joke. And just as Mike and Dan, naive little bikers, got safely close to our shore, Mike’s bike chain broke. Which meant that they couldn’t turn around and make the made ride back across. Which may have been divine intervention. Mike later posted video of the two of them, evidently biking across a wild tundra – and posted it on Facebook. To which I added the caveat: Do NOT try this EVER.
“It’s all right,” my brother says to me. ”We were on snow bikes.” Which meant nothing to me until I had driven down to said marina in our tiny truck that would be better on these roads at this time of year if we replaced the tires with blades. I had to collect them, bring them home and call Mike’s wife to come get them. Two huge, freezing men shoved into that tiny cabin with me as I tried to shift gears. But we were safer in the tiny truck for all that extra weight.
These are the very bikes. Brand name: Surly. Yep. Took one look at those bikes and felt much better; I mean really, a bike that can double as a flotation device?
Part of the fun this winter: keeping the water system at the barn alive. Horses have to drink about twenty-two gallons of water a day. Especially important as we have to keep all that chewed-up hay from turning into a cork right in the middle of the equine digestive system. Normally, this is simply a matter of turning on the faucet. And, in the winter, draining it every time we use it so that the pipes don’t freeze. Which we evidently forgot to do one day a coupla weeks ago.
Once there is ice in the pipe, unless you get a warm enough day, you’re cooked. YOU try hauling eighty-eight gallons of water in two-gallon buckets on a day where the high temp is eleven degrees. On top of that, somebody – some four footed person with a two foot long nose – stuck it into the frozen-solid pipe assembly, snapping it right off. Big Trouble in Horseland.
But brilliant Guy to the rescue. He digs up a dead hose and turns it into a whole new system! You see the hose in the shot up there.
Only trouble is, to drain it, we have to use a quick release connection, take the hose off, and let the extra water shoot across the middle of the barn. The quick release has to be unfrozen every single morning – with – a hair dryer – before we can connect up the hose. Still – beats the bucket brigade. YAY!
G, hauling out the holiday recycling. You see that red sun setting back there? That’s the light, filtered through the inversion-poisoned air.
This is the pile of ice I have made, taking a shovel to the horse trough each morning. I have to break the ice, then I lift out the chunks with a hay rake and toss them over the gate onto the snow. We call that: a workout.
See how thick it gets? And the pile grows and grows till you can’t open the gate. And THIS was the metaphor I meant to write about when I took these pictures. Most winters, we go through a period of time when the pile gets about this big. But it only takes one chilly (rather than freezing), sunny day to reduce that literal ton of ice into nothing. Nothing at all. Gone.
That’s a little how I feel today. Like winter has lifted a bit. Like spring actually might come back. Maybe not soon. But still – all this gray that’s been piling up on so many levels – all it takes is a little warmth, good sense and color to put most things right again in a jiff.
A couple of weeks ago, I got up, went out to the car on my way to throw hay for the guys. I actually thought the windshield was wet – it had been raining half-heartedly for about half an hour. But this turned out to be a freezing rain, and the windshield was totally encased in ice.
By the time I got home, the driveway and the street were total ice rinks. My boots had no traction. Neither did my shoes. Going out to get a package from UPS – across the front deck, the stepping stones across the yard – it was insane. I got as far as the little slope the driveway makes to the street – and slid down to the UPS truck like I was surfing.
This snow is actually weeks old. It was so cold, the snow never got to looking old and dirty.
This was just as the weather tried to break – it warmed up to about 33 degrees and the snow started to look strained.
Inside the house is another story. Gray at the windows, but pretty rosy inside. The tree is un-decorated, but still keeps our spirits up, with all it’s tiny bright bits of color.
This is what we see out the windows – most mornings, then again in the evening. Fog is one thing – but this is lake effect moisture mixed with smog.
A better exposure. Like living in London, it was.
A couple of mornings, when the wind got the gumption to blow a bit and the sun broke through at dawn, we looked out our window and saw this lovely rosiness rise on the wooden wall.
I made one of these. I made up about a dozen ponies over the weeks, then tried this guy. Mostly, I am still doing genealogical research and doing a couple of family history books – Mom’s and another. I can’t stick to anything. Just kind of wander from one question to another.
Even so, it’s still beautiful out there. I think the planet is having just as hard a time figuring out what should happen next in the story as I am.
The beautiful Chaz
I thought about you and the horses often. Worried about all of your little feet and hands and noses. Our winter has just been average…snow on snow off 20 degrees 50 degrees….
Love your little elephant. He looks so huggable!
I have learned about inversions from you guys out there this year.
And, oh, Stevie and I got in big trouble for skiing across the lake where she lives one winter…oops.
My little hands stung quite a bit, but my boots kept my feet toasty. Nose – pink. Horses’ hands and feet – HOW DO THEY NOT FREEZE OFF? The elephant was an interesting challenge. And YOU BETTER NOT TRY THAT LAKE TRICK AGAIN, MY GIRL!!!
Don’t worry…much older and a little bit wiser than I was when we did that lake skate! I want to get a new sewing machine or get the old one to work, but then I have so many ideas that want to be tried….
house building is at a standstill….little husband lost his job….soldiering on, but not with much purpose, I’m afraid.
Sometimes the soldiering has to be its own purpose. When you think about it, though – life is really all about the effect you have on other people and the way you behave – just in general. The whole job and money and finishing the house thing – it’s not unimportant, because it’s about keeping the body alive long enough to learn and serve. But it’s not the real purpose. I HATE jobs that disappear, even so.
I guess that is what I believe, too. Soldiering with joy and finding ways to be of service and spread joy…
I hate that my husband is sad when he can’t find another job…jobs he is qualified for, but ‘too old’ for what they are looking for….
It will all be alright….he loves me, I love him and we love God….and we are healthy….
That’s what we’re running into also. My brother-in-law, too, who was very good at his job, and has experience that is vital in that profession – but even though his last interview went very well and he came away sure they wanted him, they went for a younger guy with less experience but was more hip –
The world has changed – most of its population is older now, I think, than has ever been true across the planet – but the perception that young and vital is more effective than old and experienced will probably never change – it’s built into the body/brain/natural man need to survive. Who’s going to tell youth that something it hasn’t experienced yet might actually be BETTER than itself?
Brian and I were just talking about people who cross that lake on foot, bikes, snowmobiles, etc. and thinking they are IDIOTS!! When you have plenty of ‘solid’ ground to do those things on….. why would you risk it? I suppose it is because we all think, “It will never happen to me” excepting it would happen while I was growing up to people we knew on our lake a few miles from our home. Every year some idiot would fall through and then others would have to risk their lives looking for their bodies……… search and rescue having to do dives in a frozen lake. People don’t think about that. They don’t think about those that have to risk their lives to come and get them……..
Your elephant is delightful! I wuv it!!!
I don’t think Mike had any idea how dangerous that was. Though he did mention that people had said, “You’ll hear noise all around you of the ice cracking and expanding – sharp reports and groaning.” He was amazed that it was so silent out there. They had no trouble at all – and it was utterly smooth and flat, which means they were TOTALLY lucky. I am the “it’s gonna happen,” kind of guy, not the “it’ll never happen to me, kind of guy. And you watch, a meteor the size of a horse will fall on my house –
He’s a dang cute elephant, that one. Next, I’ll try to make him up the way he’s SUPPOSEd to be done.
That freezing rain was scary! I almost ate it a few times.
Did you see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwbFWq2YLb4
?
I KNOW. I saw that – and that’s EXACTLY what it was like. But what did those guys do when they hit the downward SPIRALs? That ramp scares me on a good day. I can’t imagine what it was like going down two stories on that smooth spiral with the ice like that.
Yeah. Scary.
And then there’s me on those foggy frozen mornings, grumbling as I chip the ice off of my windshield, cursing the solid grey wall of the heavens–and wondering how far I’ll make it before I spin out, lol.
Yeah, and when I wake up praying – “Watch out for CHAZ.”
Eldest LOVES freezing rain. Because the school buses get cancelled and she gets to kick back at home. However, the rest of the non-school-going world is miserable about it. Freezing rain is rain gone terribly wrong. Lethal. Still, I kinda chuckled at the image of you surfing down to the UPS truck, but only because I know you survived it without injury.
Snow bikes. Imagine! The things that I learn when I come visit you!
And your elephant is DARLING! He makes me think of…soft things…like babies. I dunno. Is he your pattern? I love the curve of his trunk. And that wee tail. And big ears. And soft colouring. He looks quiet and content. I want to be him.
Oy – yeah. “I want to be him.” I don’t say that much, but I mean it when I do. Not my pattern. I think the story of the thing is this: Burda did a magazine with a design like this years ago. After a while, they did a website with some of the magazine patterns on it. But this one, they ceased to publish. So some girl in Russia, having loved the design, messed around with a pattern of her own and put her pattern up on line. Which is all well and good, except her pattern is in Russian. I translated the site (thank you, Chrome) and she said, “This is my own pattern – have fun with it.” So I downloaded it, changed it some more, re-sized it. Thus, I think I am safe to share it. I mean, you can’t copyright the concept, sitting elephant, and you can’t copyright “typical elephant truck position,” either. I respect copyrights, being a person who understands the need to define intellectual property, but I always end up changing something about any pattern I use. So if I can make my own pattern, I will. There is nothing new under the sun.
Can’t copyright “sitting elephant”. Hee hee! Someone tried to copyright the words “urban homesteading”, I believe, and the whole thing went very badly for them.
I make patterns my own too. I’m a bit stick-to-the-pattern averse. I can’t even bear to cut the lawn in neat, disciplined lines. To do so would just leave me screaming. I am much more sensible about baling the hay, though – but then that’s entirely different, isn’t it? There are others’ whose welfare depends on the outcome. Not so with the lawn and sewing.
I used to cut wild, intersecting paths in the lawn so the kids could play a game of follow-the-path tag. My sister and I used to do that with raked leaves. Rake paths through them. Why have I always loved paths? But only windy, secret ones – evidently not well-beaten wide ones. Hay is, indeed, another thing. Fun to play with eventually, but a bit heavy for whimsy. I always change patterns. Sometimes I get myself in trouble. But there’s something antithetical about following exact orders. Like what in nature is exact? That’s a human concept. Evidently God likes US to be exact and not dithery and lawyerlike – but when you get into the scripture with narrowed, thoughtful eyes, you see that those paths intersect, too – and that he expects us mostly to use our heads and be creative and react with flexibility (which is what love is, I think?) – in doing no harm and in doing good continually. Gonna be interesting to see what this was all about some day -
I’m so happy! I always cut designs in my yard….way to tedious just going in straight lines! And patterns? Always just a place to start! Wonder about people who don’t feel a need to make ‘it’ their own….
And then there’s G who, with his brow contracted and a look of determination on his face, puts his shoulder to the wheel and drives that mower in very straight, efficient lines. All diagonal.
I know. And sometimes you can get this almost plaid thing going, if you go upstairs and look down at the grass -
Sigh………. Me and Guy. Part of my OCD. How ever are you all friends with me?? I have to mow in straight lines and make it all purdy…… I didn’t as a kid! But now that it is my lawn………. rats!
You know what? It’s the clean lines. The cleanliness of the yard. Maybe it is because I feel like so many other things in my life are a mess and out of control (7 kids, things are going to be messy, we live here…….) so I want SOMETHING to look neat and orderly……… I dunno…………
The yard looks clean even when you cut it diagonally. I think it’s the orderly ninety degree angles that you like. They seem very stable and solid. Like you wouldn’t build a house with slanted walls =
I’ve seen your house. I know you don’t have OCD. HA!!! Remember when I built the barn and Geneva went nuts because I put the barn on a slant?
Oh, I love the elephant! That is so cute. : ) Your brother…..yikes, that would scare me. I’m glad they made it safely across the lake. It sounds so cold where you are, but your home looks nice and cozy.
Probably no colder than you guys are. This has been SUCH a fun winter (said with terrible irony). That elephant – he’s pretty dang cute. One mom who made him did him in a solid, light color and let her little son draw his face and wrinkles in with a marker. It was pretty cute.
We haven’t even had snow this winter! I don’t think it has been below 40 all year. It has been gray, wet and very dark though, so the sunshine that we enjoyed for a brief afternoon, a couple of days ago, was most welcomed.
G says the air gets colder after it hits you-all and comes down to us. We must be in some slip stream with Canadian air. Interesting. 40 degrees, huh? So you probably live in your shorts and bathing suits. (I’m kidding, but not by much).
Be safe out there cousin and try to stay warm. Those bikes are interesting and they are brave souls. You would not catch me crossing frozen water because I would be afraid of falling through. Have a great week! Much love and hugs from MO.
If “brave souls” actually is meant to read “big idiots” then yes. And I have not written anything about them that wasn’t the first thing that came out of my mouth when I picked them up. They’re over fifty. Patti – OVER FIFTY.
LOL
Well I’m glad to read that there were no calamities in the freezing weather and that your brother was lucky – like you say perhaps that broken chain was divine intervention! I can’t imagine the work it takes to keep your horses safe and cosy in such conditions – we only have the chickens but their water was frozen solid many times over the winter and I griped like mad about that! The picture of the rosy wooden wall is enough to cheer any winter weary soul and the little elephant, well he just provokes a big smile and thoughts of snuggles.
Now I worry that the horses, chasing each other with the exhilaration of the higher (in the 40s) degree temps, might slip in the mud and break a let. Feeling responsible for every living thing that you feed is a BURDEN. Especially when they don’t seem to feel at all responsible for their OWN well being.
Why do you have horses that must be fed and watered, majorly watered, when you create such dear cozy creatures with your crafty hands and vivid imagination? I love the elephant ALMOST as much as I love my dear horse with the fanciful saddle and colorful reins!
I’ve always wanted to cross the lake on ice skates. I really wanted to be an idiot like your brother. I used to take my VW bug out there for some joyful rides on the ice, slamming on the brakes and spinning around wildly. So, I guess that’s as close as I got.
Because the things I make have only the eyes I give them. The living things have their own eyes – and that’s where I learn things. And yes, you are nuts – did I write that G’s grandfather’s friend died that way? Carefree and young and never imagining there’d be a little slit in the ice that would swallow his life. At least the whale kept you safe. Isn’t that what you called that bug? It had a name -