Unnecessary Roughness
I’m throwing a penalty flag on the weather for unnecessary roughness. I don’t know what forecast model Mia uses to make her decisions, but the ones I was reviewing last night looked unfairly brutal. When Asher and I headed out to feed the horses late in the afternoon yesterday, precipitation was just starting to fall. It was coming down mostly as snow, but very wet and sticky snow.
The bigger problem was the angry wind pushing those icy crystals sideways with gusts over 30 mph.
I tried three different times yesterday to sweet-talk Mia into accepting a blanket, but I failed every time. She wasn’t buying my sales pitch. I even tried enlisting the help of Mix and Light in coercing her cooperation, but Mia ran from their attention just like she did from me.
That picture above shows the typical fracture in the herd these days. Mia is the odd horse out, per usual.
As Asher and I were making our way back toward the house, I spotted that Mia had lain down for a rest at the top of the rise.
She certainly doesn’t show any signs of being stressed to be the loner. Instead, I’d describe her as showing a growing confidence in being independent of the others.
I just hope she knows what she is up against with these two spring storms barreling over us between last night and next Monday. There wasn’t a lot of snow accumulation by the time I went to bed last night, but the wind was pretty fierce. It sounds like that will be the easier of the two events.
Sunday will be bringing a lot more snow. Around a foot of accumulation is possible. Cyndie is currently scheduled to return on Monday, so I will need to prioritize clearing the driveway so she can get in. Deep snow is not a great welcome home when returning from Florida.
I imagine she might consider that a case of unnecessary weather roughness.
She’ll get no argument from me.
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Mia Wins
Looks like Mia won that round. We awoke to a moderate blanket of snow covering most everything, with temperatures hovering in the upper 30s (F). Mia was a little wet, but not soaking, and showed no sign of being too cold.
I couldn’t help sensing a bit of cockiness in her attitude, but I suspect that is pure projection on my part. She adamantly demonstrated she did not want to be covered, and the weather ended up being much less severe than what I had expected.
Touché.
The other thing I didn’t expect yesterday was for the sky to clear so completely and the sunshine to make the snow disappear from everywhere but the shadows.
Wednesday is the day we roll our trash and recycling bins down to the end of the driveway, so I collected all the trash I could find in the house and barely came up with half a bag. With Cyndie out of town for the previous week, there hasn’t been much activity in the kitchen. I haven’t made any purchases of packaged products. Didn’t need to replace the furnace filter.
I don’t know what we usually produce for garbage in a week, but it’s rarely less than a couple of bags. I took it as an opportunity to seek out some worthy items lying around that deserved to be jettisoned. Might as well take advantage of the available space.
The thought crossed my mind that I should contact the trash hauler to seek a discount for being conscientious customers who strive to minimize what we put into the waste stream. Figuring they would be unlikely to humor me and honor such a request, I went the other direction, digging up odd miscellany to fill the bin and make the driver’s trip worthy.
I found an old, practically ancient bicycle helmet with styrofoam so long out of date it was not safe. I emptied the trash container in the shop and also the one in the barn.
Leaving the bin by the road, I had mixed feelings. The decluttering urge was rekindled and gave me a sense of satisfaction to be getting things tossed that don’t warrant being kept. At the same time, it did feel like a loss to be arbitrarily increasing trash that goes into the waste stream just because there was space in the bin.
It would sure help if the trash hauler charged less for those of us who hardly fill the bin.
This morning, I plan to offer Mia a chance to wear a rain sheet before the next round of predicted precipitation starts to fall later in the day. If she accepts, I’ll take it as a sign she understands the coming weather better than I do.
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Mia’s Resistance
It’s hard to help a horse that doesn’t want to be helped. In this case, it’s our sweet little mare Mia who repeatedly shunned our attempts to provide a little extra protection against the elements. For some undetermined reason, Mia is becoming something of a diva, despite continuing to be firmly established at the bottom of the herd hierarchy.
Last Friday, when we were haltering horses for their session with the farrier, Mia held out until the very end and even then, resisted with aggressive gestures of biting and posturing for a kick before Maddy got her haltered. Well, she behaved the same way again for us yesterday afternoon when we were attempting to put rain sheets on all of them.
With Cyndie gone, I asked Maddy for help figuring out which sheet would best fit each horse. She made short work of covering Light, Swings, and Mix, all of whom stood calmly while getting blanketed. Light even patiently allowed the process to happen twice, after Maddy changed her mind and switched to a different sheet.
Mia stands alone on the hill of the hay field while the others are eating the afternoon servings of feed under the overhang.
After those three were done, all we needed to do was convince Mia that she should be covered, too. Historically, she is the one most needing a blanket when conditions get wet. She emphatically resisted our every attempt.
Despite patiently trying to outwait her objections and ply her with treats to coax her cooperation, we ended up leaving her to fend for herself against the coming precipitation because she never ceased her aggression.
I wish I could understand what her gripe is.
Still feeling like there might be some hope, I tried on my own one last time after Maddy left. Mia’s attitude didn’t change a bit.
There was one more trick up my sleeve, though. I called our friend, Michelle, who lives relatively close and has a special relationship with Mia, thinking she might get through to the stubborn mare.
Nope. Michelle reported that she had briefly visited on Sunday to see Mia and was treated badly with those same aggressive behaviors —and she had no agenda at the time other than to say hello.
After dark, when I took Asher out for one last chance to pee for the night, I decided to give Mia one more opportunity to accept a rain sheet, more for my sake at that point than for hers. She immediately walked out into the hay field. I went so far as to walk through the muck of standing water at the bottom of the paddock to follow her, in case being out in the open, away from all the other horses, might soften her resistance.
It didn’t.
I hope she doesn’t suffer as a result of her decisions. It’s heartbreaking to be unable to help, even though I tried so many times.
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Muddy Mia
In the middle of my housekeeping task under the barn overhang yesterday afternoon, I suddenly heard great splashing sounds. I had to step around the three horses surrounding me to see what was going on. It was Mia. She decided to go swimming in Paddock Lake before their dinner.
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She came right up afterwards, but oddly showed no patience for eating feed out of a bucket. She wandered out into the back pasture. She has always been sort of the odd horse out of the herd, but lately, Mia is behaving like quite the loner. The other three appear to be just fine with that and show little stress over her frequent solo departures.
I left her bucket hanging in the usual spot and went about my business. Eventually, I spotted her back to have a bite or two, but she didn’t stay. It has me missing the days when they voraciously gobbled every last morsel of their servings. There is something unsettling about animals choosing not to eat food served to them.
Mia’s mud bath appears to be just the beginning of the messiness awaiting us in the days ahead. We’ve enjoyed two days without new precipitation, and while many areas are wetter than ever, the high ground shows a hint of drying out.
I’ve grown fond of being able to see where we are stepping on walks recently, but the next few days look like the ground could be covered with snow again. Slushy snow, one source predicts. That hint of drying out will soon be a thing of the past.
Oh, joy.
Look at that! John is showing signs of losing his passion for all things snow-related.
I must be getting old.
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Poplars Aging
Even though we walk our woods every day, I still find myself surprised by how the view can change from time to time. We often find ourselves asking whether something catching our attention is new or different from the last time we passed that way.
I suppose that reveals how tenuous our memory for such detail is. That doesn’t bode well for measuring how much our aging mental capacity is fading. Somewhere in my future, I hope there is a way to tell the difference between my current memory lapses and whatever diagnosable level of degradation there is that earns a medical term.
It seems to me that any of our declining capacities that fail to meet a doctor’s minimum level for diagnosis can all be lumped into the general category of simply getting old.
So, the thing that caught my eye yesterday in our woods is that a large number of our tallest trees in a section of mostly ash and poplar are looking rather old. And the ash trees that aren’t old are showing signs of failure from the dreaded emerald ash borer insect.
I fear that the fate that has befallen one particular poplar is likely to happen again to quite a few others in the general vicinity.
At least I haven’t forgotten that this hazardous situation has been looming for almost three years. I don’t always remember the exact location, but knowing it’s out there somewhere, a brief search usually is all it takes to find it.
It’s a heck of a lot easier right now with the tree trunks clearly exposed.
Which is precisely why I noticed how many look as if they are approaching the end of their natural lifespan.
The break in that tree is so high up, and the top so thoroughly tangled in the tree it fell into, that I am not planning to interfere with what nature has in store for it. I’m guessing that the next big wind incident that impacts that portion of our woods will create several more snapped trunks just like that one.
It will be a great day when we find that something has knocked that widow-maker to the ground, especially if it happens when we are nowhere near it.
Until it falls, I will continue to use it as a check on my memory. If I come upon this busted tree trunk and don’t remember having seen it before, it will be time to have that talk with my doc.
Unfortunately, the less obvious situations –or should I say, less unique– like a tree completely down on the ground, tend to confuse either Cyndie or me on a regular basis. I blame it on the changing angle of daylight during our walks. We frequently find ourselves asking one another whether a certain tree down is new or one that’s been there for a while.
One of the blessings of the forest becoming filled with the green growth of summer is that it becomes hard to see what’s going on with the trees that aren’t right on the edges of the trails. Out of sight, out of mind.
It gives us less to worry about in the woods for a few months each year.
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Ice Outed
The persistent puddle that I light-heartedly refer to as “Paddock Lake” is ice-free this morning. I’m afraid that judges were unable to conclude whether the ice-out date was March 6 or March 7 due to the dangerous lightning conditions last night, keeping intelligent people indoors during the thunderstorm that rolled through.
At 11:21 a.m. yesterday, it looked like this:
I found Swings and Light soaking wet when I came out, so I gave the puddle a closer inspection and discovered evidence that they had been playing their splashing game. Surprisingly, they hadn’t destroyed all the ice.
By 4:35 p.m., it looked like this:
The silt the horses had stirred up had yet to settle out, but it was an overcast day, leaving plenty of ice still visible.
I don’t know how much rain fell with the storm that arrived around 10:30 p.m., but it was audible on the roof and left things wet this morning. By the time I dragged myself out of bed to walk Asher, light snow was beginning to fall.
At 7:31 a.m., this is what I found:
While we were down at the barn, the snow got so heavy that we received an inch in less than half an hour.
The ice is gone, but now snow is covering everything again. It won’t last long. The forecast indicates we could reach 60°F tomorrow. Spring-like weather around these parts.
Anyone want to guess when we will lose another tree due to violent weather? Michigan sure got a gut punch yesterday with the surprisingly early tornado this far north. The storm chasers had their eyes on Texas and Oklahoma.
It gives me an uneasy feeling about the odds of increasingly intense storms unleashing damage to our paradise.
Every day that we escape negative impacts is a blessing to be celebrated. The quick March snowstorm this morning was rather adorable.
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Sounds Matter
Of all the night sounds reverberating throughout our woods –coyotes howling, raccoons arguing, rabbits getting caught– I cherish the conversations of owls more than anything. Last night, I took Asher for an extra walk in the dark because he had patiently slept through the entire length of the documentary, “Cover-Up,” about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
Asher deserved a last bit of exercise before entering his crate for the night. We probably walked right beneath the owl that began loudly revealing his presence after we got back inside the house. I like to think they are using their night vision to supervise the goings on of all the nocturnals around here.
Asher is not particular about where he decides to rest his head. The height of the bottom shelf of the coffee table worked out just fine the other night.
More often than not, he demonstrates that no pillow is required for slumber.
Asher was incredibly patient with being confined to the barn and the limited space under the overhang yesterday, while I worked longer than normal to tidy the grounds of accumulated hay scraps dropped by the mares. We are anticipating a visit from Maddy and the Farrier, Ralph, sometime this morning.
From Florida, Cyndie texted Maddy to share concerns we have about how Mix is doing. I had sent Cyndie a picture of the fence post Mix was biting as if it were an apple.
It’s possible she’s just bored, but her stiff movement and other behaviors might be signaling Mix is dealing with some pain. We are already suspecting she has some arthritis in her joints, and are giving her a daily pain med to treat that.
I don’t see how they can be bored with the ice on Paddock Lake shrinking right before their eyes.
Lost in my own thoughts yesterday, I startled all four of the horses as I was rolling the empty trash bin back from the end of the driveway. They mostly ignore the familiar sound of the plastic wheels rolling on the asphalt, although Mia still always picks her head up to stare as if she’s unsure whether it’s a threat or not.
My normal behavior would be to roll the bin on the pavement beyond the hay shed and then park it there while I walk to the barn to deal with chores. However, my mind was somewhere else when I reached the gravel on the front side of the hay shed and followed Asher toward the barn.
The quiet rolling wheels suddenly changed to a raucous clamor on the gravel that sent the horses scrambling in an emergency response drill. I was so distracted that it was the reaction of the horses that jarred me back to reality, and not the sudden noise the bin was making.
Horses provide plenty of opportunities to help keep us attuned to the present moment. Always remember, sounds matter.
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Some Miscellany
On our morning exploration through the woods yesterday, one of our weird trees caught my eye. It’s kind of hard to photograph, but I tried anyway.
There is a tree right behind it that complicates the view, but if you focus on the closest large trunk, you will find that it snapped off, but a limb pointed toward the ground did a 180 and started growing upwards.
It’s gotten tall enough to compete for sunlight in the overhead canopy. I can’t imagine the success of that wild U-turn growth is going to last indefinitely. Try to picture if it could live long enough that the trunk of the post-incident growth grew as wide as the base portion.
Trees can do some amazing things. Not that I’m still bitter about it… Well, yeah, I’m still bitter that the maple tree I transplanted into the center of the labyrinth gave up without warning after 7 years of promising growth. Why couldn’t it have shown the fight to survive that this tree exhibits?
The big barn doors were frozen solid again yesterday morning, but I wrestled them loose once more around noon, and the delivery of feed happened about an hour later.
When Asher and I arrived to work on the doors, I had left the small door open to indicate we were expecting the driver. Inside, we surprised a pigeon and a squirrel that had taken advantage of the opening.
I didn’t see the pigeon’s exit, but I saw the squirrel trying to hide way up high in the eaves. Poor Asher whined over knowing it was there but not being able to do anything about it.
When the delivery arrived, I left Asher in the house, and when I got to the barn, it appeared empty of intruders.
I paused to capture the state of melting ice on Paddock Lake in the afternoon. I’ll be surprised if it lasts two more days at the temperatures we are enjoying lately.
The horses will likely be holding a splashing party very soon.
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Thawing Happening
The most significant sign that we are making progress on breaking loose from the icy grip of winter is that I was able to wrench the large barn doors free and slide them open yesterday afternoon. That’s just in time for the next delivery of feed bags scheduled for today.
I bet I’ve taken this picture many times over the years, but it always fascinates me when the ground thaw process causes rocks to drop away from the surface. Later, when everything is equally thawed, the moss will be back to flush against the rocks.
I watch it happen every year, and I still don’t completely grasp how it works.
The footing is very treacherous in the woods where the blanket of leaves is thawing, causing each footstep to slide upon the slurry of mud on the still-frozen ground below. That layer between the leaves and frozen ground acts like ball bearings.
When I walk in the paddocks, I strive to place my boots where the surface looks like it will support my weight. If I make enough trips back and forth, I can pave a smooth path. At the same time, any ground that is thawed where a horse places a hoof becomes a deep crater. A 1,300-pound body can sink its feet more than half a foot into the soil.
However, if they decide to lie down, they can pack the surface smooth over a wide area. I found four spots where Mix had lain down and left behind a significant mat of shed hair. I gotta believe the other horses are doing the same, but their hair is harder to spot unless there’s a lot of it.
They are all taking advantage of rolling to scratch their itches as the winter coat is beginning to shed.
When the mud stays on their coat and clumps their hair together, we try to brush them out. Cyndie was able to do a cursory pass over three of them while they ate their morning feed, but Mix was very expressive about not wanting to be touched.
Cyndie leaves today for a couple of weeks to visit her mom in Florida, so grooming may not happen until she returns. I’ve never enjoyed much success in enlisting their cooperation when I’ve tried brushing them out. Luckily, Maddy will be here on Friday with the farrier, and I’ve seen her accomplish great things when brushing the mares.
Of course, there is a chance of rain on Friday, so any mud they’ve rolled in won’t be dry for brushing if that happens.
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Relative Something 