Archive for September 2013
Fruit Trail
Here is a shot of the trail that passes beneath our apple tree. I don’t know what kind of apple tree it is, but it is very tall, surrounded by other trees, and has been dropping its fruit for weeks. I have yet to find an apple that doesn’t have a bad spot or worm in it. The fruit that is left on the tree is now pretty large, but it is up so high, we can’t reach to pick any.
Dog Day
The description of our hot days of summer as “dog days” is supposed to be in reference to the hottest days, or a period of inactivity or sluggishness. It was particularly hot here yesterday, but nothing about the day was sluggish, especially for Delilah. She had a day that pushed us to our limits of tolerance. It all started with an unplanned visit to the vet, for which we certainly don’t hold her at fault.
Last Monday, we were down at the labyrinth, with guests, and had been attempting to keep Delilah occupied by tossing a “frisbee”-type disc for her to catch and return. As we visited, I somewhat absent-mindedly gave the disc a fling and as Delilah bolted after it, she caught a hind leg on a short wire decorative fence that Cyndie had placed to mark part of the labyrinth border. Delilah let out a yelp and briefly panicked as the multiple linked sections of the fencing appeared to be chasing after her.
At the time, we didn’t realize the degree to which it had punctured her leg. Five days later, Cyndie noticed the wound was looking worse, not better, and called the vet. Delilah earned another round of antibiotics and this time, did come home with the “cone of shame” to keep her from chewing at the spot of the wound.
By the time they got home from the vet, Julian and Allison had arrived, with her dog, for a visit. Having another dog here as a guest provided a good opportunity to work on socializing Delilah with other animals, but it takes a fair amount of attention to manage the interactions. No surprise to me, since Delilah has yet to calm down when our cats show themselves, Delilah demonstrated over-excitement and a fair amount of aggression toward the unfamiliar canine presence on her turf.
After those guys departed, we closed a door to keep the cats in our bedroom and provided Delilah a chance to move around the house, off-leash. She eventually found her way over to the spot on the carpet where Allison’s dog had been, and promptly peed. I guess I don’t blame her for behaving like a dog, but it didn’t win her any points for having house privileges. Out the door she got tossed.
We headed down to the barn, where Cyndie had been watering the seeded dirt along the new access around the building. Unfortunately, the water pooled in a couple of low spots where the new gravel had been spread. It was good to learn, though, and I set about raking the area to correct the situation. Now, instead of a pool of water, I had a soupy area of muddy gravel, graded just right. We went around the other side of the barn and put up boards in the high heat of the late afternoon.
When we finished with the boards, and were headed back up to the house, we turned the corner to find Delilah lounging in the cool of that muddy gravel soup.
Then Cyndie decided to try sprinkling some additional seed on the high side of the dirt slant above the gravel, around which she had already constructed an impromptu fence to keep people and dogs off the new seed. Of course, Delilah got in there and dashed to and fro, chasing some invisible enticement. Cyndie hollered, I scolded and commanded, Cyndie threatened, and Delilah thrilled at the excitement. What a circus.
To top it all off, Delilah then wandered off our property, into the neighbor’s field. I was up by the house when I heard a gunshot –a frequent sound around here, but this seemed closer than others– and then noticed Cyndie calling for the dog. I grew alarmed, because we keep talking about wanting to introduce Delilah to our neighbors who own the woods that surround two sides of our property, since we know they hunt and shoot guns a lot, and because Delilah has a distinctive profile that appears wolf-like, and coloring that matches some of the fox around here. We don’t want them to mistake our dog for a wild animal, if Delilah happens to wander into their woods or fields.
After several frantic calls, I spotted Delilah through the trees that form the border between their field and our property. She had an old mummified carcass in her mouth. I have no idea if the gunshot was related to her being over there, but it sure feeds my grave concerns about her lack of response to our commands. With a dead animal in her jaw, she seems to switch off her “pet” mode and cares nothing for our alpha role.
She’s the one with the prize.
Muddy, and hoarding her smelly dead prize, Cyndie left Delilah on the front lawn, to chew her grotesque carcass, vowing to leave the dog out all night alone.
It didn’t last. By the time dinner was almost done, when Delilah took a break from gnawing on her find and showed up at the back door, Cyndie was moved to go out in the dark and give Delilah a bath. They finished the night, both freshly cleaned, cuddling on the floor.
What a dog day!
Roots Respect
Toiling away on the chore of raking the ground in one of our paddocks yesterday, I had plenty of time to think about roots. I have a whole new respect for roots since I’ve moved here. Last year we had our fencing company begin the project of changing fence lines by clearing out an area that was left as a water drainage route, but which had been neglected and allowed to become a thicket of junk trees and accumulated debris. They cut down the trees, removed old barbed wire fence, and dug up the stumps to the best of their ability with their skid-steer tractor.
Much of that area they cleared became enclosed by our new paddock fences, so we are working to transition ground that was uncontrolled tree growth last year, into smooth footing for the horses. Trying to rake it is a constant battle with root remnants that continue to poke up out of the ground. Sometimes you pull and find it is completely loose. Other times, it comes easy, but is a long piece that travels quite a ways, churning up dirt. Too often, I’ll grab and tug, but the root doesn’t give at all. Then it’s time to dig and cut.
Those roots are so tenacious, I can’t help but feel increased respect for all they accomplish.
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This is some of the tangled mess that raking turns up.
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There are also rocks.
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And weeds.
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After I grew weary of raking, I took a break to check on our recently transplanted maple tree in the labyrinth. You really need to respect roots when you transplant a tree. We did our best to be careful to save as much of the root structure as possible, but I fear we ended up being rather ruthless. We cut the tap-root pretty short. I 
wish I could see what is going on under the dirt, but from the look of the leaves above, it doesn’t seem to be drinking up the water we are providing. Obviously, the tree is in shock over the experience of having its roots severed and then being transported out into full-day sunshine.
I’m really hoping that the tenacity I witness when trying to remove old roots in the paddocks, will manifest itself in the remaining portions of the severed roots under this little maple. It may be too late for the current batch of leaves to provide any indication that the root system is absorbing and transporting moisture, but I would sure be thrilled if we could find some hint that we aren’t continuing to water something that is already a lost cause.
Rafters Reign
This is an image that I am going to let speak for itself. Maybe I need a category called “Wordless Images” to offset my other efforts of combining my poetry with pictures I have taken…
Not Yet
It’s not done yet, but we are getting close. The crew building our hay shed worked Saturday and Monday of the three-day Labor Day weekend, finishing all the work that would require the rented lift bucket. All they have left to do is attach the steel panels to the back slope of roof, and then the finishing trim. Since they have volunteered their weekend time to do this job, it is never certain whether they will be available the next weekend or not. They all have families with kids. ‘Nuff said.
Once that work is complete, we need to have some fill dirt delivered and graded around the base board, and a culvert buried across the driveway loop. The finishing touch will be one last load of gravel on that loop.
After that, all we need is hay!
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Tree Transplant
We took a break yesterday from focusing totally on the barn and paddocks, and put our energies toward furthering the creation of the labyrinth garden. The big milestone that we finally achieved is the planting of a tree in the center. This is something that I have been visualizing for a long time. Originally, we talked about choosing a young tree from somewhere on our property, but then Cyndie brought home a couple of trees from a nursery and we considered using one of those.
At the last minute –in fact, just as we were setting one of the purchased trees in the hole we had dug– we both decided we’d rather try one from our property. I’m very happy we had the same thought about this, because it would have been a challenge to navigate a difference of opinion on the subject. Selecting and digging up our own tree did mean a fair amount of additional work, but with both of us equally invested in the decision, it became a joint labor of love.
Hoping we wouldn’t end up with a “Charlie Brown-style” tree after we extricated it from the woods, we set about trying to find and save as many roots as possible, navigating around some much bigger roots of surrounding trees, and one huge rock that was buried directly beneath the specimen we picked. About two-thirds into a project like this, I start wondering if we bit off more than we could chew, but that adds good drama to the adventure which brings greater euphoria when success is achieved.
Together we triumphed over the extrication, getting ourselves covered with dirt, and rushed the patient to the waiting hole just behind center of the labyrinth. In about a hundred years, I hope this little tree looks as gnarly and noble as the giant maple tree that towers over the spot from which he was moved.
With the new tree in place, we had fresh incentive to finish off creating definition of the center space and placing rocks to clearly mark the rest of the pathway. We changed some things around the perimeter, found a new location for the purchased trees, and mowed the entire length of the path.
We spent almost the entire day down there, and I got the impression that we could do the same, every single day, adding the touches we have in mind, and never get around to doing anything else around here. Like most art projects, it is hard to decide when it is done. Happily, this project will always be an ongoing one, growing and changing, so I won’t worry myself with the decision of whether it’s done or not.
It will always be growing.
Big Bone
Over the weekend, Cyndie reported that Delilah had dragged a carcass out of the woods. I was in the shower when she came in the house, looking for a camera. I asked what it was, but Cyndie said she couldn’t tell.
“It’s something big!” she announced.
It’s funny how our minds quickly conjure up images of what it might be. I stood there, washing my hair, imagining a variety of gory scenes of dead critters with dangling legs being dragged by our dog. A possum? A porcupine? How big was Cyndie’s “big?” How badly decomposed was it to be unrecognizable by Cyndie?
I offered her my camera, when she couldn’t locate her own, and continued to ponder whether it was something Delilah killed, or the remains of some other wild circle-of-life event that took place in our woods.
Delilah has a big fondness for bones. Cyndie has purchased several chunky bones, like pig knees from Fleet Farm, that Delilah carries around, often burying them, and sometimes crunching them to pieces. There was a time, a few weeks ago, when Delilah showed up with a long bone that looked like a leg bone, that she had found in our woods. That became a prized possession for several days, beating out all others for her attention.
When Cyndie returned with the camera, I got my chance to see what she was talking about. Yeah, it was big, but it isn’t what I’d call a carcass. My guess is that it came from the same source as that leg bone. I believe it is probably from the skeleton of the same deer that I discovered in our woods last fall.
That skeleton made quite an impression when we found it last year, and it’s still having an impact to this day. I’m actually a bit relieved that it wasn’t a new carcass that showed up. This one seems familiar, and we have made our peace with the loss of life that occurred.
Patience Practice
Slept in today, on the first day of September. Nine hours of slumber last night! Woo hoo! Even though I didn’t accomplish everything I would have loved to yesterday, what I did do, wore me out. By the end of the day, Cyndie gave up on her idea of going up to the lake, too, so I guess we were both beat.
I spent more time than was productive for me, just watching the guys working on the hay shed, and even that seemed to contribute to making me feel exhausted. Unfortunately, their progress was much slower than I anticipated, and I think slower than they hoped. By the end of the long day, the only sheet metal attached to the frame was across the front of the roof.
Cyndie worked the ground in one of the paddocks to level it out, pulling out weeds and raking up dead grass, whenever she wasn’t helping hold boards for me. I was framing and hanging boards on the wall of our barn under the overhang, to protect the steel siding from horse activity. We continue to upgrade the infrastructure from what had been set up for mini horses, to become a full-size equine facility.
It’s all good, just not as much progress as we’d hoped.
What can we do but be patient? We are discovering opportunities to practice patience over, and over, again. The process of refining our patience will serve us well when we finally are caring for horses here. So, even before they arrive, we are learning from our horses, through the process of getting prepared for them.
Relative Something 