Coop's Corner: December 2022

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

December snows - 2022/12/28

They we received the 'wet and heavy'. Snow barely colder than water and out there on the end of a guy's shovel, almost heavier.

An organic world in geometric shapes...

5:32 am, December 22nd....Tractor plugged in

And then it started to blow...the Blizzard Warning weather had arrived.

Road closures Southwest Minnesota....

Road incidents in the Twin Cities Metro....

After the blowing but still very cold! Bare ground in many spots but drifts, very hard drifts in others to make up for the bare spots.

Solid chunks, overwhelming the capacity of the full-sized scoop shovel....and my back.

To give the chickens breakfast....I could almost stand on top of it. Motocross boot deep by the fence post.

Very tough on solar production...

The 'wave' toward the coop is thigh-deep.

Mid-afternoon today, December 28th. 39-40 degrees today, by this evening the panels were clear. No one, no thing was hurt as the panels cleared themselves.

Today's kWh's........

And this afternoon...I counted 9 deer coming back for their fermenting apples.

I cleared off the parking area, likely a couple inches of hard packed snow, now it's down to the gravel. It's a good thing the snow is covering the landscape, it's gentler on everything resting beneath. I don't want temperate ground on the driveway, that's supposed to freeze good and hard so that I can keep the gravel clean with the tractor. The snow chains were adjusted and tightened up.

Knock on wood, we're ready for the next one.

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Merry Christmas - 2022

The Cooper Christmas Letter 2022

Trying something different this year so instead of sending out cards w/letters inside I'm going to send our Holiday wishes right here. Not as many cards are being sent as in year's past, so this will have to do as the season's letter.

As always, those of us that have been around awhile will likely all agree that last December must have only happened a few months ago, at least it feels that way. A lot has happened since then but that old rascal Father Time wasted none of it flipping through our calendars, seemingly barely letting the pages flatten out before the next turn.

Anecdotally, based on memory only and no facts, it was a late Spring, a hot (windy!) dry summer, lovely autumn and until only very recently, a patient winter start. I'm stating all of this from my point of view based in rural Red Wing.

Peg started all sorts of garden plants early, they thrived both indoors and out, our garden a huge success. Not everything turned out as planned or as we'd hoped but we're using the excuse that "it was an experiment" and for the most part, that is an accurate statement. We really don't know what we're doing out there around the raised beds but it's been a fun adventure seeing what we can learn.

Both Peg and I are still working, she normal and proper full week's. I'm on a Tuesday-Thursday program and it suits me just fine. Working from home in Peg's case, when I'm not out visiting 5 States-worth of customers I'm home as well. I spend far, far less time on the phone or in online meetings than Peg does and for that I'm very thankful.

A quick update with the other 4, Katlyn and husband James live and work in Mpls, not far from Tangletown. Lauren's doing her best to travel the world's waters working/playing chamber music on the cruise ships. Ben (soon with to-be wife Bri) hopes to return to Ft. Campbell once he's done with deployment near Budapest. Hanna and Dr. Nich are working their music together in Minneapolis. All happy, healthy and living good lives. We couldn't be happier or more proud. Little dogs and little kitties are as close to being grandparents as Peg and I have come....so far.

It was a good year for motorcycling, of that you can be assured with volumes of proof near by.

Wishing all of you, family, friends and visitors as well a Happy and Healthy Merry Christmas season!

Doug and Peg

Thursday, December 15, 2022

The Pretty Kind - 2022/12/15

How it looks where daughter Lauren is...

But here in SE Minnesota, we've got another kinda lovely.....check out OUR azure blue!

Big apples....two Does visit us each evening anxious for desert.

Crab apples.....the turkeys will be here for these by and by.

Wet and heavy, we've still got power....not everyone does.

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)