Archive for May 2014
Mommas
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from the moment
she conceives
mom carries her child
in a way
no one else
could possibly match
something about
that maternal bond
through the years
every day
she will always be mom
like a lion
when need be
she will fight to protect
yet gives love
at the times
children least expect
from this dad’s view
it’s a magical thing
far beyond my ability
to grasp
for what mothers convey
let’s pause on this day
sending love momma’s way
mom means the most
to those she gave birth
there is no formula to measure
how much that is worth
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Disappearing Act
It is that time of year again when piles of brush get burned into oblivion. This pile was on the top of the hill on the north side of our driveway. There was a moderate collection of fair-sized branches that had been there since before we arrived. A couple of days ago, I tossed on some cuttings I recently cleared that were leftover from when I mowed this area last fall.
That created a collection that was half-fresh-cut and half-long-dead. I wasn’t sure how it would burn, because the old wood was damp from the recent rain, and there was a gusty wind that could help, or it could possibly drive it out of control.
I started daintily, pulling a small amount of debris off the pile to create a moderate fire, although, up wind of the rest of the fuel. I started on that side to take advantage of the wind, because I felt I needed it to cause the green wood to burn.
Progress was ideal and I enjoyed a fine afternoon by the fire. Cyndie made the trek all the way out on her crutches, and kept an eye on things while I took a break to walk the horses, one-at-a-time, off that damn muddy paddock and out where they could graze for a spell on the grass. After that last storm and its additional inch of rain, the little spot of grazing I fenced off for them is too soft for their weight and they will tear it to shreds if we let them on it.
When I got back to the fire, I found Cyndie had outdone herself with the cutest little burn pile ever, all clean around the edges, safely pulled away from the main one, making me think I may have over-stated my concern that she do it my way. She was sitting on a chair, weaving a basket out of the vines that were growing all over the ground up there. Being forced to use crutches does little to stop her ambitions, it just redirects her energy toward more creative pursuits.
It had turned into an absolutely gorgeous evening for a bonfire, so we decided I should head to the house to feed dog and cat, and then bring back a picnic dinner. That meant washing the manure and mud off of Delilah, before letting her inside.
That done, I picked up my bag of food and headed for the door. Before I even opened it, I could see the flames through the glass. The entire pile was ablaze something fierce. I know the feeling of standing next to that. Elysa and I were present last year when one of our burn piles went rogue and roared alive with incredibly dramatic energy. I pictured Cyndie in that chair, hobbled by the healing hip, and my heart jumped a bit.
Luckily, this pile wasn’t quite that large, and although dramatic, it was not a catastrophic event. I arrived with the bag of food and prepared to make a joke about her little clean pile burning safely on the side. She asked if she could tell me something funny.
She was sitting there as the fire appeared to be burning itself out, and was fretting over having let it burn out while I was gone, by not adding enough new fuel to the side fire. Knowing I could just re-kindle the burn, she decided to stay seated. Without doing a thing, the core of the pile ignited!
Fire is not to be trifled with. Kids, don’t try this at home.
We dined by the warm fire on a chilly evening at sunset, lingering until after dark, when our shadows eventually appeared in the moonlight. A spectacularly magnificent experience for us once again at Wintervale. Cyndie used my camera to take a few more pictures after dinner…
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Acknowledged Risk
Yesterday was supposed to be the day I took Cyndie back to where her surgery was performed, for an appointment to get her stitches out. We ended up rescheduling, when the risk of severe storms loomed large for the time we would be on the road. It turned out to be a smart decision.
Our dog, Delilah, has been demonstrating an extreme anxiety over rumbles of thunder. Unfortunately, the thunder-booming storms started here on Wednesday evening, and her panic-barking kept me up until well past midnight. I was at the veterinarian’s office yesterday to pick up some new tick repellent, since our previous product isn’t doing the trick, and when I happened to mention Delilah’s anxiety, they asked me what we “give her” for it.
Hadn’t entered my mind to medicate her. Their first recommendation was Benadryl, but they also reminded me of the “thundershirt,” a hugging body wrap that calms dogs. Good idea.
Shortly after I returned from the vet visit, our predicted rough weather rolled in. I’ve been through worse, but we did receive a blast of wind, small hail, and heavy rain that more than convinced us we made the right decision to stay home. If we had gone, Delilah would have been trapped outside in her kennel during the worst of it. The folks at the vet’s office said dogs can, and do, injure themselves in their efforts to escape whatever is causing their anxiety.
That wind would have probably put her into a tizzy, especially when it picked up and rolled over my woodshed, which is located right next to her kennel.
Lesson learned on the heartiness of simply standing the structure on stones in the ground. That was the design I chose, even though I knew it was a risk. On the bright side, it gives me a chance to try building my second structure ever, using what I learned on the first one. I guess the next one will have posts buried well into the ground.
I’ve discovered an interesting fact about how I see our woods. No matter how familiar I think I am with the views, after a big wind storm, I have difficulty identifying what is new damage, and what is old. There are plenty of downed or leaning trees and broken branches. In the area near the up-turned woodshed, something doesn’t look right to me, but I’m not certain if it is damage from yesterday’s event, or something previous.
Actually, with another inch of rain increasing the saturation of our ground, it’s a wonder there are any trees left standing at all.
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Animal Images
We can look at these guys each day, but you have to wait for me to post pictures. Here are some shots taken in the last two days…
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Yesterday, when we put the horses out to graze on grass, Cyndie and Delilah and I had a little picnic lunch beside them. It was rather idyllic. Well, truth is, every day that we get to enjoy the views of these fine animals could be described as idyllic.
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Gaining Experience
It is not surprising that the horses experience a little anxiety about being surrounded by fields of fresh green grass they can’t access.
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We have to control the horses’ amount of time grazing on lush springtime grass to avoid the condition called founder, or laminitis.
For the second day in a row, yesterday we opened the gate to a small section of grass and let them freely graze for about 30 minutes. Cyndie had come out again to watch them, and I consulted with her about options for coaxing them off the grass and back into the paddock. I was hoping to avoid the panic response they demonstrated on Monday.
She suggested I try using a lead rope around Legacy’s neck to guide him, with the hope the rest would follow. Her idea was brilliant, because it worked like a charm. I figured it would be a challenge to even get the lead around his neck, so I brought a treat to encourage his cooperation. I approached respectfully, and he returned the courtesy by pausing his grazing and lifting his head. I rewarded him with a treat and he let me drape the rope around his neck. We calmly walked back toward the gate to the paddock, and without hesitation, the three chestnuts followed. Two of them came with us into the paddock, but Hunter stopped to get a few last bites of grass. I walked back around him and guided him the rest of the way through the gate.
They made me look like a pro, or at least, like someone who knew what he was doing. Obviously, I do know a little bit, it’s just that I have no previous practical experience to work from. I told Cyndie that my success with the horses is entirely based on confidence I gained from the one weekend of training I received at the Epona seminar where Cyndie, Dunia, and the other trainers did their “student teaching” at the completion of their apprenticeships.
It comes easy to me because the methods they taught for interacting with the horses make total sense to me and resonate with my intuition. The positive feedback of the horses’ responses serves to verify my perceptions.
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Grazing Gratefully
We seem to have turned a corner and there are finally areas starting to show signs of drying out. It is a very uneven process, and the spots that are still wet remain ridiculously saturated and a muddy mess.
We let the herd graze together on fresh grass yesterday! I pounded down the posts for our temporary fence to the desired depth, and when the ground around them dries out, it will be like they were cast in cement. 
With the posts ready, I was able to string up ribbon fence lines that will be electrified, but not before I first had to fix a connection on the existing fence.
I found a splice that wasn’t sufficiently crimped. While I was troubleshooting the problem, I had Legacy’s full support. I’m pretty sure he sensed I was on a project that would lead to him getting access to better grazing. He stood front and center on the spot where I focused my attention.
I wish I could have talked him into using his powerful bite to accomplish something positive for once, and get him to clamp down on that splice. My hand tools were all sub-par for the job. I achieved enough of a crimp to give me electrical contact for the time being, which allowed me to prove the concept and proceed.
Cyndie made a heroic journey on crutches, navigating the uneven and uncertain terrain, to provide moral support, showing up in time to witness the completion and testing phase. All that was left after that was to convince the horses that the gate was open.
It was late enough in the day that we needed to put out their afternoon pans of feed, and that had their undivided attention. It also seemed to temporarily satiate their appetite, so they lolled around in a just-fed stupor, paying little notice to the fact I had opened a gate to the grass.
Hunter was the first one to show some interest in why I was walking around in their paddock. I was able to entice him to come toward me, but only up to the area where the mud got thick. They will cross mud, but they need a big enough incentive to do so, and he hadn’t yet figured out why I was urging him to come across. Before long, Legacy wandered over to see what was going on.
I pulled out the trick that I learned from Dunia at the Epona seminar, walking an arc in front of Legacy until he took a step, and then I turned and lured him along by my energy. We pulled Hunter and Cayenne right behind him. I needed to go to the hay feeder in the far paddock to convince Dezirea to join the fun.
While they grazed, I wandered back to the paddocks to restock the hay feeders. When I returned, Cyndie had gone back to the house, so I phoned her to confirm how short a time they should be limited to on this rich spring grass.
“Now would be good.”
“How do you suggest I do that?” I asked.
I tried calmly coaxing them to head back into the paddock, but these Arabians move from calm to panic in a blink, and you’d think I had slapped them on the butt and fired a shot from a pistol.
Of course, they were all juiced up on fresh grass. They carried that sprint into the paddock far longer than was necessary, from my perspective, but who can blame them? They had finally gotten what they wanted for so long, and that quick, had it taken back again.
I will not be surprised if I find them lined up and waiting at that gate when I show up to put out their feed this morning.
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Special First
Yesterday was one of those days when I found myself saying, “I did not picture myself sitting here when I woke up this morning!” My day felt so full that I can’t believe I was able to fit it all in. We entertained new friends visiting for the first time, discovered The Roost, (check it out!) where we ate pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven, and then I went for my first bike ride of the year. But the highlight for me was time I spent with the horses in the morning before all the rest of that started. Let me tell you about it. It’s what I do.
After amazing myself with completing both a blog post and getting the horses fed, I was trying to clean up manure in the paddocks. Legacy had other priorities. He really wanted a chance to get out and have a taste of that sweet green grass growing up everywhere surrounding his fence line. Up to now, I had yet to even place a halter on one of our horses, but with Cyndie laid up, my time had come.
Legacy was so persuasive, with his calm and subtle closing of any distance I attempted to create between my nose and his. Finally, he stepped forward to stand on the pile I was working to create, and I realized that the task I was on would be impossible to complete.
While pondering whether I would be able to pull off what I was now considering, I stepped inside the barn and picked up a halter. After several tries to decipher which end was up, it fell into place and became exceedingly obvious. I looked up and found Legacy had been watching my progress and was positioned as close to me as he could possibly get, at the door. How could I deny him?
I climbed the fence to enter the paddock and showed him the halter, even though it was clear that wasn’t necessary. He was all in. He helped me get it on him and off we went, to my next and probably biggest challenge. I needed to manage his position, the opening of the gate, and the continued containment of the other horses, all at the same time. I’ve seen Cyndie do it, so I just followed that image in my mind. It helps that the horses all know the drill, as well. They behaved perfectly, and suddenly I had Legacy out on some grass, and he was almost as happy with that as I was for successfully getting him there.
In succeeding turns, I got each horse out on their own for some time grazing fresh grass, and then a short walk. While I was out with the last horse, Cyndie arrived on her crutches, clinging to a bag of carrot treats. She was able to see me survive Cayenne having a little panic attack, spinning around on me, toward the end of her walk on a trail.
This time with the horses was a significant milestone for me, a very special first time of managing that level of care. I am very lucky and extremely grateful to have this wonderful herd serve as my teachers in this adventure we are on here. Something tells me they feel the same way about having Cyndie and me.
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Nature’s Course
If you live on a river, or have ever paid attention to flood stages, you are probably aware of the time it can take for a river to crest. That phenomena is playing out in our paddocks now, as the first day of sunshine after the dreadful week of soaking rains produced wetness and mud that is the worst we have seen. There will be a time-lag before we get the drying for which we so dearly yearn.
The horses are beginning to show some impatience with not only the enduring mud, but probably more so, the wait to get on the fresh green grass they can see all around their corral. I began work on installing temporary fencing to allow them limited access to some grazing just outside their paddock, and was able to push the posts in most of the way by hand because the ground is so saturated. Even if I get the fence up, we can’t put them out there until it firms up enough to support their weight without them churning it into a mud bath like the sacrifice area of their paddocks.
After the rain finally stopped, and the temperature rose out of the 40s, I took the blankets off the horses. They really wanted to be brushed after that, even though a couple of them played hard to get and made us wait out a few dance moves of avoidance before settling down so we could go to work. Yesterday, I got a hint that we didn’t give them as much brushing as they wanted. Cayenne and Hunter took it upon themselves to cooperatively work on removing each other’s shedding coats.
When I first spotted them, I was amazed at the vigor with which each horse worked. It was so obviously a joint operation of sheer pleasure that I found myself mesmerized and wondering if I should maybe be embarrassed about peeping at their moment of shared passion. Hunter’s mouth was open, teeth bared, and he was grinding back and forth on Cayenne’s flank, bringing up vast tufts of hair that easily rivaled what our brushing produces. She was working with equal intensity on his back.
It was as vivid a presentation of “you scratch mine, I’ll scratch yours” as I have ever seen. It was such a classic scene that I figured I should take a picture, but I hesitated, figuring it would be over by the time I pulled out my phone. After staring at them with increasing fascination for a couple of minutes, it occurred to me that I could have long ago had my phone out for pictures. I snapped a few, but of course, none of them really do the scene adequate justice.
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Two Incidents
With Cyndie laid up in recovery for a while, I have sole responsibility for tending to the horses. After only one day, I already have two incidents to report. The common denominator for both situations happens to be our lovely dog, Delilah. If I didn’t keep letting her tag along when I head down to feed the horses, things would probably have come off without a hitch, but she needs to get out just as bad as I need to go feed the horses.
Most of the time, Delilah is getting along well with the horses. It’s similar to the way she is with our cat, Pequenita, in that there are still too many moments out of the blue when she works herself into a tizzy and begins barking and baring her teeth at them. Our cat is small enough that it appears that Delilah just wants to play when she gets all riled up and pouncy. The significant size of the horses appears to be more intimidating, and Delilah comes across as trying to establish some control and to prove her skills at herding. She is a shepherd, after all.
After I got Cyndie home from the procedure on her hip, I discovered that the straps that run under the belly of Hunter’s blanket weren’t connected properly, and it was flipped up over his back. He seemed calm enough to allow me to monkey with it, so I tried to quickly unhook and then re-hook the two straps. Off they both came, and then the first one clicked right into place, at which point Delilah went nuts and did some ferocious barking at Hunter. The horse lurched back and I lost hold of him and that second strap, which was now dangling precariously under his belly as he maneuvered in response to the canine troublemaker.
Our muddy troublemaker
I definitely have not succeeded in teaching Delilah what “No!” means. Apparently, she thinks it means she should keep doing whatever it is that she was doing when I suddenly burst forth with the word, repeating it in ever-increasing intensity.
Eventually, I fooled Delilah into approaching me close enough to allow me to grab her collar, after which she was dragged unceremoniously into the barn and tied up. It took a little patience, but after a short wait, Hunter allowed me back in position to reach under him and pull the strap through to hook it up properly.
Yesterday, I had finished filling the hay feeders at their dinner time, when I noticed that Hunter seemed to be following me wherever I went in the paddock. I allowed myself to linger longer than I really wanted to, finally choosing to just stand in his space when he repeatedly closed any gap that I created by my movements.
When I spotted Delilah beginning to bare her teeth and revving up to bark at him, I decided to intervene swiftly to alter her focus. I tried kneeling down and holding her next to me, soothing her anxiety as Hunter nosed around, taking in big whiffs of her scent. I was hoping to nurture a calm, close-contact interaction between them in hopes it might set a precedent for them developing a more congenial companionship.
Without warning, Hunter suddenly lunged forward and tried to bite Delilah as I held her. I felt awful that I had put Delilah in that dangerous proximity, despite her anxiety of the risk. In fairness to Hunter, he was only returning the treatment he has been receiving from her for far too long. Delilah wrenched out of my grip quickly enough to dodge any real harm, and we both decided it was time to hustle out of the paddock and out of Hunter’s reach.
Hunter went back to grazing.
I have added a couple of notches to my belt of experience managing our dog while in close proximity with our horses. I’m looking forward to my coach soon being able to use her crutches to come down and supervise my lessons, hopefully before any more risky incidents play out.
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Relative Something 