Coop's Corner

Saturday, August 18, 2018

One More August Weekend

The weather folks are telling us bright blue skies but the smokey silver grey haze says otherwise.

A different sort of grey I suppose but related; early Friday I was on my way up to retrieve my aunt's Death Certificate. Funeral Director Dave seemed a bit reluctant last weekend to put them in the mail and it didn't take much for me to offer a pick-up ride instead of The Post.

Our valley this morning....

On the way.....

A breakfast stop at AJ's Northside in Baldwin, coffee poured and patiently waiting on my stool for the food when who should drop in but Annette and Charlie. It was nice to see them again and get a chance to share stories over breakfast.

On their way to Duluth for another Very Boring Rally they hadn't started Friday morning from home, instead they'd enjoyed Thursday evening's Rock Elm Methodist's Ice Cream Social. Charlie shared that if the Rum Raisin is your preference, be early. We had a chance to discuss 'dirty' riding in the Four Corners area as well as areas south of there. Riding that involved Adventures sometimes larger than planned (dark and too far back to camp) came up and Charlie referred me to his website as an example. Take a look.

After stopping at the funeral home, I went back out to the cemetery.

Friday afternoon it was time to take delivery of my 'new' van. The trailer hitch is ordered and the rig will be Motorcycle Towed Camp ready pronto.

Saturday morning's nice early start had me on my way to Wabasha for coffee.

Arriving a bit early for my rendezvous with Dom, fellow blogger from Colorado. In Wisconsin visiting family, it was decided a few days ago that we'd meet somewhere between. I found a nice table on the patio; we were two sidecar rigs at the Eagle's Nest Coffee House. I've got to tell you, it was a fast and wonderfully pleasant hour and a half of coffee sipping and story sharing.

Dom's Award Winning Blog has been one that I've been following since I started mine; his full of content for the past 12 years compared to my short 6. Prior to his arrival in Wisconsin this weekend, he's been gently working his way east, highlighting each evening's long shadow beauty across our fantastic Great Plains. Dom knows how and where to aim a camera.

On my way home, I decided to give our local Minimum Maintenance road a go. I noticed the other day that it looked as though it had not only been graded but that it had also received a new top coat of gravel. 335th has never been so nice and a far cry from the humongous ruts that were there this spring. Now Dave and Dan would be able to do it with their road-only, low riding sidecar rigs.

Just over my right mirror, the yellow designating sign and on the horizon, the Wisconsin bluffs beyond the river.

John was raking our hay this afternoon, anxious to get it baled this evening but willing to take a few minutes to have a few words. We discussed the newly established alfalfa/orchard grass stand, he pleased with how it "took" but we both agreed that the need for some rain was getting serious.

But then, "who painted the wall on the back of your barn?"

I said, "what?"

He said, "you don't know??.....it's been penciled in and then painted....it's beautiful!"

Obviously we've had trespassers; neighbors for all intents and purpose are none. Looks as though there's a fresh white patch to the right, I may be able to catch them at it their graffiti apparently not finished.

This evening, I was in need of root beer. I'm not a soda drinker but I needed root beer.

Already a more than satisfying weekend, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Dom and I will be exploring some of my favorite roads in his family's neighborhood. I'll shoot after pointing, Dom will be taking the photographs.

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)