LLZ Ranch

Rush Before Leaving

Spring is out there somewhere south of Nebraska. I’m going in search of that elusive season on March 1st. There has been and continues to be a flurry of events to organize and/or attend, appointments to keep, and chores to do before I leave.

I like to keep early morning set aside to work on poems and short stories, but today, find my head full of lists to be checked, bags to pack, and arrangements to make before I leave. The trip will give me a chance to recharge and reflect.

Pickles the sheepdog will stay in town with family, the house and barn cats will rely on kindness of others to come by and feed them regularly. Horses will get their hay and oats while I’m away. The automatic waterer is a wonder for all.

If planning for a week’s vacation is a major undertaking, I’m trying to imagine how to plan for retirement. How do I capture all of the details in my head and transfer them to paper for the next person, or will it matter? Will supervisors re-write my job description? Will the organization decide not to replace my position? How will I manage my time without a daily schedule? Many questions, but few answers.

The closer it comes to my self-imposed decision time, the more difficult it feels to know what to do. After a successful student-planned dinner last weekend, the club officers have selected dates for the next three years of dinners. This group of students are a lot of fun. I will miss them. However, I can’t base my retirement decision on them alone.

A week away will help me review my options.

Antiques

I learned sad news about two of my favorite antiques stores when I met a friend for lunch recently. One store was already closed with all the merchandise gone, and another posted Going out of Business signs in the window. These stores had their heyday ten or fifteen years ago when everyone wanted to own a piece of the past. The past was defined as eighty to one hundred years old. Shoppers were mid-fifties and older.

We collected furniture, dishes and doodads from our grandparent’s generation. I rarely see unique items to add to my collections anymore. This scarcity tells me that all the good pieces are already sold or no one cares about that type of miscellany today. I’m also more selective about adding items that will be difficult to sell or give away later.

There aren’t many estates of that era left to re-sell as antiques. As the antique store owners have aged, the shoppers have aged with them. Many folks downsize into smaller houses or condos at retirement and stop collecting.

Collectors today are in their thirties and forties and what they seek is mid-century modern furnishing or stylized patterns. The mid-century items remind them of their grandparents.

My near-retirement age dates me more like an antique than some items for sale.

Valentine’s Day Dreams

This year for Valentine’s Day I’m dreaming of sunshine warm enough to melt the foot of snow covering everything, and the much taller drifts covering flower beds and breaking fences. I want the ice to melt to make walking easier for all of us. I want my frozen Nebraska backyard to turn into green grass and spring flowers. I’m dreaming of days filled with sunshine and warmth, although there is peace and beauty in sparkling snow.

I’m looking forward to early tulips, daffodils and lilacs. Its 10 degrees outside today

so I may need to go on a southern vacation to find spring flowers this early. However, I can take a mental vacation from winter by leafing through seed catalogs. It’s time to plan the summer vegetable and flower gardens.

Yellow Gold Has Fur

Cell phone May 2017 099

Yellow cats have been part of my life for forty years. One escorted me across half the country three times. Colonel Mustard (pictured) is the latest bit of sunshine in my life. His yellow fur flies in tiny helicopters when he shakes, covers chairs and tabletops. He offers kitty kisses to the tip my nose if he thinks I need cheering.

Yellow cat number one pressed his nose against the bars of a Syracuse, NY shelter in 1974. He purred when I stroked his fur though the cage. He came home with us that day. We called him Morris after a cat food commercial on TV that featured a golden kitty. We thought Morris was too ordinary a handle, too common, so his name evolved to Moshe, and finally to Mos. He lived with a houseful of adolescent boys in a Syracuse group home with us, moved from New York state to Nebraska three times, and settled in to help parent when our kids arrived.

Mos greeted a cadre of international students when they picnicked on the ranch in the early 1980’s. He treated students from Japan, China, Finland, Malaysia, and Iran all the same. He allowed each student a chance to give him one stroke, before he moved on the next, taking his ambassadorial duty very seriously.

Col. Mustard cheers me on to help the latest group of students from Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria and the Island of Curacao. He’s a bit shy and doesn’t want to meet any of them, prefers me to see the students at the office, but not bring them home to disrupt our golden naps.

What’s Next?

The list below was conceived during a blue moon. It includes things to do to get ready for retirement and those that aren’t such a good idea. I’m in the party planning stage, but haven’t quite set a date. I’ve made several mistakes along the way and will probably make some more.

Throw yourself a” goodbye to the old” and “hello to the new” party.
Don’t use one’s breastbone as a one side of clipper to trim bushes.
Don’t second guess yourself when you are ready to write the letter of resignation.
Do make plans for some meaningful activity to replace the daily job’s structure.
Do plan a vacation.
Don’t stay home and mope. Get out of the house often.
Spend time with family and friends.
Take a class. Learn something new.
Read the books you didn’t have time for while working full-time.
Watch all the movies in your Netflix queue.
Start a new career.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are indispensable. Most businesses and non-profit institutions will replace you in a heartbeat.
Enjoy sunrise and sunset.

Winter Break

It’s nearly the end of my between-semesters break. I was in Arizona for the first week (when the weather in Nebraska was still mild), and back to Nebraska for the second week just as the weather turned cold. Arizona offers mountains, desert, and dams on the Colorado River. I visited the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Sedona (pictured in the heading), and beautiful Lake Havasu.Copper Canyon on Lake Havasu

I felt a little homesick by the end a week away from home, and was happy to get back. The winter solstice opened the door to a blast of artic air over much of the upper half of the country. The New Year weekend is too frigid to appreciate for many people, including me. Fifteen minutes outside a couple times a day is enough at minus four Fahrenheit. Minus fourteen is expected overnight and tomorrow’s high will be minus six. As schools resume in the New Year, we all hope for temperature moderation.

This extended weather discussion is part of every conversation this week. It’s also part of my retirement consideration. I never wanted to be a snowbird spending a month or more in the south, but this cold spell is enough to cause me to rethink my prejudice about going south during the coldest part of the year. Hoover Dam

This week I watched movies during the afternoon, finished a novel, read several magazines, and even finished a sewing project planned months ago. The unstructured days of retirement begin to look a lot more desirable.

Butterflies

Flowers are covered with Painted Ladies and Monarchs in August and September. They stop to drink their fill before moving south. Many linger through October’s warm afternoons, but are gone, like the flowers, before November’s chill. I envy them. I often wish I could migrate south during the cold months, too. Maybe someday…

Autumn is Turning

October’s last day started as a raw 19 this morning, and only warmed to 35 by trick-or-treat time late afternoon. Little witches and space rangers were wrapped in winter coats and stocking caps. The last of the autumn sun shone on falling leaves and porch swings.

It’s the last day of employment for a counselor laid-off from my office. November will bring more work for those of us who remain. Autumn turning colder, daylight lasting fewer hours, and grieving our losses go hand-in-hand.

Administrative fiats are occurring in education, government, and business. The powerful consolidate control, eliminate those with seniority that might challenge their techniques, and try to undermine others. I believe my employer has lost its ethical center. I’m also surprised that I’ve become so cynical.

In my work, I’ve always tried to see the good in others, and encourage their best efforts. Insights about myself as well as others’ actions help me to make retirement decisions.

Frost Expected

I harvested almost everything from the garden this past weekend. Beets, squash and onions are stored in the barn to dry. They can remain in the barn until the nights are consistently in the mid-twenties. One or two nights will not drain all the summer warmth from the building.

My houseplants have summered outside for years. The brighter light and humidity outdoors always gives them a growth spurt. The first frost is expected tonight, in the second week in October, later this year than usual. The first frost has historically occurred at the end of September in this location. My garden has been located in Agricultural Zone 4 as long as I can remember. I haven’t moved, but the weather is warmer and this is now listed as Zone 5, with a longer growing season.

I planned to bring the remaining house plants inside last evening, but it rained again and the pots were covered with mud and wet leaves. Early dark and a 40 degree cold rain encouraged an early finish to the task. I covered the remaining pots this evening and hope they survive tonight’s frost.

Completing this task at a more leisurely pace is appealing. When I retire I’ll spend daylight hours clearing the garden.

Peppered Peace

I’m not a religious person, but come from a long line of God-fearing folks, and often misquote, or half remember Bible verses. This year my bell pepper crop is outstanding. I harvested a five-gallon bucket of huge green and red peppers and spent several hours chopping them for the freezer. It seems only right to sit a few minutes on the porch with a glass of cabernet to toast my garden’s largess. It’s a very quiet evening without a hint of wind.

Philippians 4:7 “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (I only remembered part of this and looked it up.) However, a misquote popped into my head and won’t leave me alone. “Peace that peppers understanding.” Most people misunderstand half the messages they hear.

The idea of peppered peace fits our world. In the past year, there’s been a murder every other hour in Chicago. The US has been bogged down in war in Afghanistan for more than 10 years, having learned nothing from Vietnam, except not to draft people.

It feels like a war zone at my place of work. People are layed-off, fired outright, or, if lucky, given a chance to resign or retire with dignity. The targeted folks are hurt and angry. The injured randomly fire vocal tirades toward those of us who have no power to change anything, leaving us with peppered understanding, and little peace.

I began this blog before the mass killing in Las Vegas. To continue and follow my analogy, the killer peppered the crowd with rapid-firing bullets, murdering and injuring as many as he could. People search for an understandable motive, and pray for the victims. Our society must move beyond this predictable response and make actual changes in the legal system. Do we, as a nation, have the collective will to resist gun lobbyist?