Archive for March 2014
No Rest
We are now in the season of mud and ice. In the mornings, everything that was squishy and flowing the night before ends up frozen solid. Morning is the best time to get certain things done that require traffic in our wettest areas. After the sun shines on the ground for any length of time, travel around here gets pretty sketchy. I don’t know how the horses put up with it.
Well, actually, I do know one way they deal with it. They lay down and roll in the mud. Shortly after being brushed yesterday, 3 of the 4 laid down and massaged their backs with the manure laced mud. It does wonders for Legacy’s light complexion.
Yesterday was a day of chores for us, and we were blessed by a visit from Elysa and Anne, who helped out with several tasks. In addition to brushing the horses and helping Cyndie clean part of one paddock, they joined us up on the hill of the big field where we took early action on the recently exposed ground.
There were piles of manure that needed to be spread out and broken up, sticks to be collected and removed, weeds to be cut down, and pasture grass seed to be spread. We are hoping to improve the potential of growing desirable grasses, with less weeds, so we can cut it for hay.
The highlight of the day for me was getting water to flow off our property and into the drainage ditch along our southern border. We were getting little rivers of water running from everywhere as the snow melted, but toward the lower portions of our land, it was spreading out and pooling up in the slushy snow that remained. I took a spade shovel and headed down there with Delilah.
The water was almost over my boots in some places, making it quite a challenge to navigate digging a channel out of the slush to provide the water with a straight shot into the creek of runoff that was now flowing along our property border. Because of the way water-follows-water, I like to give it a path that creates enough momentum of flow that the uphill pools get pulled down to fill the void. It’s a lot like priming a pump.
But flowing water is fickle, and if the momentum is slowed by a dam of slush that collects, the water is more than happy to pick an alternate route, or it may simply stop flowing altogether.
The last chore we squeezed into the day was painting the drywall of our new storage room. It got a coat in the morning and another one after dinner to get ready for the finishing touches by our builder this week.
It was the kind of day that leaves you needing another day of the weekend, so you can take a day off to recover. The problem with that is, if we had another day of the weekend, we’d likely end up using it to get even more chores done. There is no rest for the weary.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Harsh Realities
In the last few days, we have come across a surprising number of animal parts that Delilah has collected from her explorations around our property. I think the melting snow might be revealing some carcasses that were preserved beneath all the white stuff this winter. At least, we hope that explains the dramatic increase in our exposure to the harsh reality of animal mortality lately, as opposed to the possibility that she has become that proficient of a predator.
Cyndie buys a lot of chew toys for our dog, but none of those come close to thrilling Delilah as much as something biological. Oftentimes, we are unable to recognize what she has in her mouth, but it is easy to tell from her behavior and body language that it isn’t one of the toys.
If we are lucky, we are unable to identify what it is. Somehow that is easier to stomach. I felt a bit nauseous yesterday as she chomped away on the very obvious body of a mouse. Then she comes inside and tries to lick our faces with her bad breath while we towel her dry and remove her blaze-orange vest.
Earlier that morning, Cyndie stepped in the house from feeding the horses and said, “I have a blog post title for you…”
“Headless Rabbit.”
I decided not. Cyndie described the unlikely scenario of lifting one of the horse’s feed pans which had been flipped upside down in the paddock, and discovering the carcass of a headless rabbit beneath. We can’t imagine how it ended up there. Maybe one of the horses came across the body and purposely covered it out of respect.
We also have a pile of feathers that Delilah has been working on, which I’m guessing came from one of the many wild turkeys roaming our land. In addition to the deer leg that has been a recent prize, she also is quite fond of chewing on a fair-sized piece of hide; both hoof and hide being something that a pack of coyotes might leave behind.
Another harsh reality we are facing this weekend, with temperatures soaring well-above freezing, is the mud and manure mess we have been anticipating in the paddocks. When the ground here is saturated, it becomes so soft that you sink to the point of losing a boot in many places. That means we don’t dare try driving the tractor into the paddocks now to remove the abundant accumulation of manure. It would sink past the axles. This will be a nasty problem to endure while waiting for the soil to dry out.
It is our first spring with the horses, and this worst-case scenario has us biding our time until we can engineer a remedy, which will likely be a combination of altering landscape to improve drainage, and adding some sand/gravel to a few key areas to improve their footing.
All this “reality” certainly does help to accentuate how far we have come in our move from the refined environment of our previous life in the suburbs.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Topsy Turvy
I don’t know what it is, spring weather, phase of the moon, tax return preparation, college basketball tournament upsets, or blog hosting sites putting their users through unwanted drama, but things seem a bit chaotic around here recently. It doesn’t help that I am once again on leave from the day-job due to another slowdown in business. Then, there are things like the commercial airplane disappearance, the massive mud slide, Chicago’s commuter train crash, and our dog and cats getting the throw-ups. At least the horses are fine, well… except we received a classic spring rain/snow mix that got them chilled and wet yesterday, so that we needed to move them into the barn for the night.
I captured this picture of one of Delilah’s toys recently, and when I opened it up for viewing on my computer screen, it immediately caused me to think, “That’s exactly what I feel like.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
New Room
My builder showed up on Monday and we finally have progress on the construction of a new storage room in the basement corner where the entertainment center used to be. In a few short hours they removed the old studs, decided on a location for the door, figured out a plan for the lighting, put up the frame of the new wall, and finished stringing electrical wire. Tuesday they got the drywall hung, taped, and a first layer of mud applied. It feels real good to have another of our imagined changes finally transitioning into actual progress.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Totally Unexpected
I have been using WordPress.com to host my blog from the time I started it in 2009, publishing one post per day from the beginning. Long-time readers will note that I make very few changes to the appearance of my blog. I chose a theme I liked, and I have stayed with it. I have been focusing my energy on content, not the vessel, which is/was supposed to be the advantage of WordPress.com. Now it appears that a change has been forced upon me.
Yesterday was an interesting day for me, as I monitored the forum activity on the topic of the recent WordPress update to the image editing option. I am not alone in my grief and frustration over the loss of control. Plenty of other people were struck with the same brutal discovery, a fair number of them trying to maintain multiple blogs and/or business blogs. All of us bewailing the unexpected and unwelcome loss of features.
At this point, the limited response from WordPress representatives has been distant, somewhat evasive, and pretty unsympathetic. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
It is like someone turning off a light while you are working, and you holler, “Excuse me, I was using that!”
Would you be satisfied with this response? “Well, we made some improvements in the way you can open and close the curtains. It is much easier now. You don’t have to walk over to the end of the window any more. Now you can just grab the curtains anywhere and move them. Many people have worked long and hard on this change. It may take some time to get used to this new way of doing things, but we’re confident you will enjoy it after you become used to it. We welcome constructive feedback, but we will not be going back to the old way of doing things, so if you have something constructive to offer, we will seriously consider it for future versions.”
“Um, what about the light I was using? Could you please turn it back on?”
From WordPress “Happiness Engineers” [yes, that is how some of the staff responders are labeled in the forums], the response we are getting to the equivalent question we are asking has been mostly silence.
Hmmm. What is up with that?
Dangblasted Updates!
Curses! Progress has foiled me once again. While trying to compose today’s post, I discovered I could no longer format the images I upload in the “advanced” way I have previously.
This is a view of the old editing tab that has been eliminated in the latest update.
I was very fond of the previous version and the control it provided me to make things look the way I wished them to look.
Thank you for “improving” your software, WordPress, by removing features I used. You have completely taken the wind out of my creative sail.
Dear Relative Something audience, please forgive me for my loss of interest in posting what I had in mind for today. I will be whimpering in the corner until I can compose myself enough to return and investigate my options. With luck, it will just require a short learning curve to master a different way of doing things to get the results I seek. If not that, I may need to pony up some funds to purchase the control I hope to gain, if that is possible.
Time to consult with my much more tech-savy son… Stay tuned, I hope to be back to regular programming as soon as possible.
New Hay!
Of the many blessings we have experienced in the time since we first learned about this place we now call home, the ones that involve our animals seem to have a special preciousness for us. Our horses have been with us for less than half a year, and every success we achieve in caring for them brings a welcome sense of relief, since we are pretty much figuring everything out for the very first time. Managing the hay to keep them properly fed has been one of our primary lessons.
Back in September, as complete novices in all things hay related, we didn’t have a clue about what we were looking for in a bale. Even after learning a few things, we are still humbled to discover that even “good” hay can develop some mold, or contain sections with undesirable contents. The bales we acquired from two different sources, and have been feeding to our horses all winter, turned out to have some of both problems.
A month ago, I wrote about the discovery that we had too much foxtail grass in some of our hay, which was giving the horses mouth sores. We ended up losing many large bales from our stash due to that problem. Our struggle with finding mold inside other bales has been consistent, showing up in hay from both providers. We eventually deduced that some of the hay we purchased from the unfamiliar supplier must have been what is called, “ditch hay.” The grass in the bales proved to be dusty, like grass beside a gravel road is dusty, and included bits of plastic refuse and many large sticks. 
The dustiness is not appealing to the horse’s keen sense of smell, and it confounds our efforts of identifying whether we are seeing clouds from mold spores, or not.
Recently, a reliable source surprised us with the wonderful news that they had some small bales they could make available. Their message was a blessing that couldn’t have come at a better time. Yesterday, to make room for the new bales, Cyndie and I removed the pile of moldy hay that has been tossed aside.
Within minutes of Jack and Joanie pulling into our driveway, we felt the thrill of connecting with good-hearted people and sensed the hay would be ideal for our horses. In our bliss over having good quality hay, we neglected to think ahead about how we stacked it. Chatting while we worked, Jack tossed bales almost faster than we could stack them, I tried to think about fitting the bales into the smallest space possible, and Cyndie placed them at every which-way orientation. Later in the evening, I asked Cyndie if she counted the bales.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
What that reveals is that neither she nor I felt any concern about trusting the quantity delivered. Unfortunately, our lack of concern about counting bales relates to our not having a logical pattern to the way we stacked them, which means we will never actually know how many bales remain on hand after we’ve used a bunch. Another lesson learned.
Happily, the horses seemed as thrilled with the new hay as us. I captured Dezirea and Legacy breathing in the delicious smell, while Hunter and Cayenne wasted no time in chomping away.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Will They?
One of our current spring dramas is whether our pine trees will recover from the stress they have endured from our dry fall that was followed by the most extreme winter we’ve had in 35 years. I’ve not consulted with an arborist yet, but our trees are definitely browning from the bottom up and the inside out. This doesn’t match the descriptions I find of how winter injury or pine wilt symptoms appear. Whatever it is that is causing the problem, it’s not affecting every single pine, but it is widespread throughout our property and not confined to one spot. We are hoping for the best, but I’m inclined to believe the prognosis is not good. The die-back on many of them is over half the tree.
That isn’t our only drama this spring. We are also anxious to learn whether the maple tree we transplanted to the labyrinth last fall survived the obvious shock it endured from its being uprooted and relocated. If we witness signs of life from that tree in the days ahead, my spirit will soar and we will have much cause for celebration.
There is also concern for the number of plants Cyndie worked so hard to get established in the rest of the labyrinth. This winter was hard on everything, so even if the plants survived the onslaught of snow and long periods of extreme cold, they will now face risks from animals that are trying to eat anything and everything available to recover from their own season-long deprivation. I don’t intend to erect a 10-foot-high fence around the garden to keep deer away, but I fear that is about what it would take to dissuade them from bellying up to our conveniently situated buffet down there.
We could ask Delilah to patrol the area for us, as she would be thrilled at an invitation to chase deer, but she would likely wreak her own havoc on plants, as she demonstrates amazing reckless disregard for all living things in her excitement to chase and dig.
One last drama we came face to face with yesterday is the question of whether we will be able to continue allowing Delilah to be both an indoor and an outdoor pet. This is the first spring that she has lived with us, so we haven’t previously needed to deal with managing both spring mud and a dog before.
When we step in the door, we can simply remove our muddy boots. I wish it were that simple for her. Yesterday, a day when the temperature was below freezing, but the sunshine was still melting exposed ground, she got legs and belly covered with mud and manure-cicles. When we came inside, Delilah was rubbed down with a towel in a cursory attempt to dry her off. Later, when we had time, she would get bathed to remove the residual grime.
So much for waiting. Soon we were seeing dark spots all over the floor. The mud and manure frozen to her underside, and which toweling did not remove, was now melting at a rapid pace. Everywhere she walked in our house was becoming a bio-hazard site. Poor dog was unceremoniously evicted and sent to her kennel outside do be dealt with later.
If I thought it stood a chance of working, I’d look into mud boots for her. I wonder if she’d let me wrap her torso with stretch-wrap to keep her belly fur dry.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Merciful Melt
Thus far, the spring thaw has been happening at a merciful pace. We get a day or two of melting, and then swing back to a solid freeze. Each day that it gets above freezing, larger percentages of snow cover are being peeled back.
The latest hazard to emerge is due to the fact that the routes most commonly tread around here are some of the first spots where the bare ground is being revealed and thawing. That means the places we want to walk are getting sloppy and muddy on the warm days. Suddenly I find myself trying to walk on the snow that remains, in an ironic reverse of the usual logic. It is a blessing when everything re-freezes and we can walk across the hard ground without the slurpy mess for a day.
Sadly, Delilah’s kennel out back is not ideally situated for optimal drainage. There is some work to be done there this summer to create a better grade at the spot we selected, so the water won’t pool as readily. There is a raised wooden house in there for her, but she seems to prefer the stuffed pad that is out on the ground, and it ends up soaking in the edge of a pool of melt water.
Yesterday we were blessed with a gloomy, cloudy day when the temperature climbed above freezing, so the melting was definitely happening, but at a measured pace. I was again intrigued to find how well my simple shoveled gullies in the gravel driveway by the barn and hay shed work to channel water where we really want it to go.
Just like priming a pump, when a puddle is given an outlet for drainage, it seems to all of a sudden pull water from above, and then flow begets flow. Soon the channels come alive with running water and the areas above visibly begin to dry out.
It works for the period of time when we are enjoying this eased pace of melting. In the days to come when the sun comes out in full and the temps really soar, I suspect my little channels will prove to be rather under-sized for the job. Long term, I am envisioning some larger-scale grade landscaping in a few areas to create the same effect for the full capacity of our entire acreage.
That’s my dream, in theory, anyway.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 