Distinct Difference

What a difference a few hours and a little over a hundred miles made in our day yesterday. Asher and I started our day yesterday under a dramatic blanket of fog.

We could barely see Mia out in the field all by herself. When we came around the bend in the back pasture fence line, it looked like the other three horses were expecting us.

They quickly repositioned themselves as if to appear more nonchalant than they actually were. Having their sightlines reduced so significantly makes the horses a little more apprehensive about their situation. Showing up at the usual time to serve them nourishment went a long way toward easing their tension.

With the horses tended to, the only other assignment for the day was to drive up to the lake. Asher was all in for a long car ride. We were rewarded handsomely with lots of blue sky providing an ideal backdrop for the colorful trees glowing in the bright sunlight.

We arrived just a few minutes before John and Pam. Cyndie had prepared a lunch for us to enjoy before taking a walk to show them all of the Wildwood properties.

Asher seems pretty pleased to have all four of his favorite caretakers available for attention at the same time. That’s a big difference from the routine he is used to, where he only gets Pam and John when we have gone off and left him behind.

If today and tomorrow turn out gray and wet like the weather service has forecast, we will be even more grateful to have been blessed with the gorgeous day we were able to enjoy yesterday.

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Lake Bound

After a weekend of sports spectating, Asher and I are packing it in, and I’m driving us north this morning to join Cyndie at the lake. Our friends, Pam and John, will join us– a twist from the usual, since they are normally our animal sitters when we spend weekends at the lake. We wanted to share the lake experience with them for once and enjoy each other’s company over a leisurely few days.

Another friend, Michelle, will tend to the horses while we are away.

It was a heavy gray sky for much of the day yesterday. When the clouds broke open for a short time, the sunshine changed the energy dramatically. As much as I wanted to get out to enjoy it, I was in the middle of folding laundry while watching the end of the Vikings game. By the time the game ended, the cloud cover had thickened back up again.

It was just damp enough that I didn’t try to mow, but I wish I had anyway. The grass is still growing enough that it’s going to be longer than I like by the time we return home.

I’ll be mowing in October again. That shouldn’t be a surprise anymore, with the planet warming continuing unabated, but a lifetime of experience still lingers in my head. Our weather didn’t used to be like this.

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Sad Looking

Interestingly, two of our saddest-looking trees out in the open happen to be next to each other on either side of our driveway. We’ve been watching the first one die slowly for several years.

According to one of the arborists who has done work on our property, it is some hybrid version of a maple. I’ve long been suspicious of the looks of the tangle of roots at its base. It is possible that it is choking itself. There is a seam up the trunk where I believe it cracked open during one of our extreme cold snaps. A large portion in the middle that was all dead wood has been cut out.

Even though it’s not pretty to look at, I am in no hurry to cut it down. I’ll let the portions that are still living continue to show off their tenacity. I suppose it aligns with my idea of appreciating imperfection.

The other candidate for saddest-looking is the remaining 25% of the big, old willow tree.

At just a fraction of its old self, the gaping wounds on the trunk from the three large sections that collapsed really make the tree look like it is doomed. However, given my experience with the neighboring willow tree that should be long dead in the small paddock, I won’t count this one out.

Do you see where Asher is in that picture? He and I had a little extra excitement yesterday. On a walk along the path around the hay field fence, he ventured off the mowed trail to take care of some business where we don’t need to pick it up. He started to return to the path after he was finished, but something caught his attention, and he was soon rustling around in the very thick, tall grass in the middle of the drainage swale.

Suddenly, there was an eruption of angry small-animal screeching as Asher and some critter got into a battle. Not being able to see anything through the thick growth, I hollered commands at him to leave it and come to me, but there was enough noise coming from the fracas that my shouts proved fruitless. It took me a few seconds to ramp up the level of his shock collar to where I got a response, but it worked to perfection.

He let me know with a yelp and an instant sprint from the scene to beside me on the trail. He struggled mightily with a pressing urge to return to the scene, requiring constant verbal redirects from me until we got back to the house. Even then, I was highly suspicious of him taking off to check it out again if I failed to pay close attention.

I’ve found reasons to choose alternate routes on our walks for the time being. It’s a good thing we have plenty of squirrels up around the house to hold his attention. Yes, squirrels in the trees, moles tunneling in the ground, and mice hiding in stumps are his usual targets. I’m inclined to guess it was a raccoon he found in the grass, and I’d rather he not tangle with critters that can put up a fight like those masked bandits do.

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Appreciating Imperfection

With autumn comes that classic transition from a range of greens to rainbows of yellow/orange/red/purple hues. It’s beautiful and a joy to watch day by day as it happens.

There is still a green path in the woods beyond the portion already being covered with fallen leaves.

Our romantic mental image of spectacular fall colors is an amalgamation of all the greatest scenes we’ve enjoyed in person or through photographs over a lifetime. It’s a legitimate picture even though reality can be less idyllic.

It’s still a little early in the season, but the version of fall colors that we are currently seeing at Wintervale is lacking in the splendor that truly inspires wonder and awe.

For now, our treasured autumn vistas are best experienced from a distance.

That’s not to say there aren’t still some dazzling colors to be found across our landscape. This hollyhock is displaying one last gasp of vibrancy.

I’m working on my appreciation for imperfection in the changing leaves that are unlikely to make the cover of fall publications this year.

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Running Hot

With the cooler mornings lately, I don’t need to use a temperature probe; I’m getting visible evidence that the manure is actively composting.

It looks like there is a fire burning in there. By using the pallets to hold the piles into a cube shape, it’s pretty easy to get the manure to reach or even exceed the optimal composting temperature. When it starts getting too hot, I stir it up to bring the middle of the pile up to the top, and that calms things down a bit.

At this accelerated rate of composting, I need to move the pallets to a new spot after just a few days and toss the entire pile back in again because it gets too dense and dry, which interrupts the process. The outer six inches don’t compost, so stirring it up again adds air and mixes the edges back into the active middle.

The mares do a great job of making sure we never run out of raw ingredients for our compost operation.

In the afternoon, while I was waiting for the horses to finish all the feed in their buckets, I took Asher into the woods where I wanted to cut up a small tree that had fallen across one of our trails. He didn’t show up by the time I had finished, so I had to backtrack to find what was occupying him.

I’ve seen this drill many times before. He could smell critters inside a hollow, dead stump. With no need to interrupt his fun, I stood back and watched him work. He’d already been at it the whole time I was cutting up the fallen tree. To help him, I pushed the stump over, giving him full access to both ends.

Then, as he was busy on the top end, a big mouse zipped out the bottom and scampered up the trunk of the tree visible in the picture at Asher’s hip. He completely missed it. Unfortunately, the lack of a mouse didn’t end Asher’s passion for trying to get inside that stump. When my patience ran out, I called him off the stump to join me in returning to the barn to bring in the empty feed buckets.

It’s just Asher and me for the weekend, as Cyndie is up at the lake with friends. This means John will be having the sound on for weekend sports broadcasts without irritating anyone else in the household! Yee-haw!

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