Archive for September 2014
Daily Companions
First things first: Dezirea is hanging in there. I don’t think she is quite herself yet, but at least she didn’t return to the condition in which we found her on Thursday morning. She’s on a restricted diet and seems to be satisfied with it. She tends to move off by herself, but before long, one of the herd will wander over to check on her. Sometimes she responds by coming back to the group, other times she stays put.
We want to have her drink as much water as possible, so I filled a bucket and brought it to her where she was standing. Soon, each of the other horses wanted to get their drinks from the bucket. I guess it was something novel. I wonder if the water tasted better.
I decided to intercede on Dezirea’s behalf and motioned a boundary to prevent the other horses from disturbing her. The boys quickly lost interest and returned to the hay feeder. Cayenne stayed nearby. Slowly but surely, almost politely, she navigated her way around behind Dezi, pausing several times, until she was eventually positioned within reach of the bucket of water. I didn’t have the heart to chase her away after that effort, and she got her turn to drink from the bucket.
Delilah continues to improve as a companion dog while I am tending to chores around the property. She will appear to be totally engrossed in hunting in our hay-field for anything that moves or that has a scent, but when I finish cleaning the paddocks and head toward the upper gate with a full wheelbarrow, she comes running.
Yesterday, after I dumped the wheelbarrow and began turning some of the composting piles, she gave me a good laugh. I turned around to find Delilah had taken a position in the shade, laying right in the middle of a knocked down pile of manure, looking all regal and poised. She looked to be the queen of her castle, oblivious that she wasn’t laying on a silk-covered bed.
The thing is, when she is dry, she can stand up out of that pile and look as composed as if we had just brushed her. She will smell as wonderfully dog-sweet as she always does, not taking on any aroma of the composting manure. Having her lay in the manure pile is preferable to collecting burrs in her fur from all over our property.
Those are my primary work-day companions lately, Delilah and the horses. I am a very lucky man to have them.
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Special Day
September 19 is doubly special to Cyndie and me. Today is our 33rd anniversary, and it is also our son, Julian’s 26th birthday. Happy birthday, Julian. Happy anniversary dear.
We had a bit of a scare yesterday with the discovery that Dezirea was ill. Coincidentally, or if you believe in the power of energy connections, not a coincidence at all… Cyndie woke up with gastrointestinal upset that kept her home from work. That was a great relief for me, in that I wasn’t alone in trying to deal with the situation.
I sensed something was amiss after I served the horses their ration of feed first thing in the morning. Dezirea didn’t appear to have eaten, and was standing with her head down. It wasn’t a normal look for her. I felt that something was wrong.
Back at the house, I checked on Cyndie to see if she felt able to go down and assess Dezi. Luckily, that was within her ability. By the time she got there, Dezirea was down on the ground. Cyndie made a call to our veterinary office and waited for them to call back. When I made it back down, I was shocked to see Cyndie standing over Dezirea and Dezi flat on the ground with her head down and legs straight out.
Looking in the horse’s eyes, I saw a total vacancy. There was no stress or anxiety, she just looked gone. It was a very stressful few minutes, contemplating the possibility that this was going to be her time to go.
Then suddenly she reappeared. While I was looking right at her, I saw life return to her eyes and she sat up again. I had to run to the house for something and when I returned, Dezirea was up and walking. Cyndie said Hunter came over and started biting her neck and pulling her mane. Legacy had been nudging her and gently mouthing her hind quarter, but Hunter’s actions were more insistent and that is what she responded to.
The vet arrived and provided something for pain (she required a second dose), an anti inflammatory, a sedative, and about a half-gallon of mineral oil to treat colic.
There are a variety of possible causes for colic, none of which are glaringly obvious probabilities for our situation. Maybe she wasn’t drinking enough water. Maybe she found a little too much clover in our pasture. It’s hard to say.
There is also the possibility that there is a twist in her intestine, which will seem more likely the cause of her problem if she doesn’t get better today.
I took this picture while the vet was asking if Legacy was her companion. Looking back into the paddock, Legacy was standing at the gate, closely watching us, while the two younger horses were ignoring our activity and giving each other back scratches.
After the vet left, I got a chair for Cyndie to sit in and Dezirea put her head down in Cyndie’s lap and took a little nap. Her snoring made me giggle. We were supposed to keep her from eating, but after the short duration meds wore off, she was behaving as if nothing had ever happened and she wanted to join the herd in the pasture and eat.
By evening last night, she was looking a little off her game again, but nowhere near the severity of earlier. We are hoping for the best when we get down there to check on her this morning.
The alternative is not something we want. Thank goodness I had Cyndie home to help yesterday. I tend to believe that wasn’t a mere coincidence.
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Waiting Games
My patience has been tested the last few weeks, waiting for three different contractors to make appearances on our property. Unfortunately, nature isn’t going to delay the onset of winter just because my projects weren’t completed. Completed seems like a humorous concept, since I can’t even get people here to start. They all claim the reason they can’t make it is that they are too busy and behind schedule.
Yesterday, I received a token visit from landscapers who will put in drain tile to route water around the paddocks, in hopes of keeping them from becoming such mud pits. It was “landscapers” plural, because the first one was so over-busy through the end of the year he needed to contract it out to a friend. They took some final measurements and said work should be able to start next week. I can only hope.
It felt a bit like the experience I often have in a visit to the doctor. I check in to let them know I arrived at the time of my appointment, and take my place in the waiting area. After what seems like way too long to be waiting, I start getting agitated. When that feeling starts to morph into anger, a nurse pops out and calls my name.
That resets my angst, and I am happy my turn has finally arrived. Except, it hasn’t. I eventually discover that all they have done is move me from the outer waiting area to an exam room to continue waiting. It’s a great system, because I tolerate a lot more waiting when it is broken up by little moments of faux progress. It would have been an intolerable wait, had I spent the entire time in the outer chairs. Broken into two stages —the second one feeling like actual progress— helped me accept the overall total wait-time without making a fuss.
It feels like the landscape contractors finally made an appearance yesterday to reset my angst and make me feel good about them telling me the work should be able to start next week sometime.
Once again, it works wonders for me. My previous anxieties have been reset. I’m happy with their latest promise.
Here’s hoping they are able to live up to it.
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Versions
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Delilah Games
One night last week, when I was taking the memory card out of my camera to download the day’s photos to my computer, my finger slipped when I pushed on the card to eject it. The card popped all the way out and went sailing past me to the floor below. Delilah scooped it up the second it landed. I could hear the sound of the hard plastic clicking against her teeth as she checked it out.
In a panic, I scrambled from my stool and pushed my fingers around her jaw and into her mouth. I wiped off the saliva and inspected it for teeth marks. There were none. Disaster averted. Thank goodness for dogs ‘soft grip’ ability.
What a drama one slip of the finger can create.
You know, that gentle touch with her teeth reminds me of the amazing prowess that horses have with their lips. I was watching Legacy yesterday, while he rushed to graze some clover greens from which he seemed to anticipate I would pull him away. We were on our way over to the north pasture, but I was in no hurry, and actually was happy to have him trim the growth along the side of the gravel driveway loop. So, I let him have at it, and studied his technique.
There was a dead cottonwood leaf that seemed to be right in the way, and at the rate he was going, I expected it to get sucked right in with everything else. With an impressive combination of motion between his head and lips, that leaf was manipulated out of the way several times as he gobbled up all the greens on every side of it without ever slowing down. Talk about having touch.
Anyway, back to Delilah; Miss Quick. She’s a dog. She likes to chase and retrieve. She is also very fond of playing keep-away with us. She will keep bringing whatever the toy of the moment is for us to grab, so she can shake her head to pull it away. Even more, she loves to be chased and shows off her incredible athleticism with dodges and direction reversals rivaling an NFL running back.
The problem with this is that her game of keep-away wrecks the game of fetch. I throw something once, and she brings it back for an instant game of keep-away.
Having neglected to properly train her to drop things on command and play the game I want, when I want it, I instead devised a work-around. I bring two, or sometimes three objects for the game of fetch. Her compulsion to chase, overrides her desire to play keep-away. If I have another object to throw, she is more than willing to drop the one she has in her mouth.
Of course, that simply led to her upping her game a level so that she drops the first item farther and farther away from me, hoping to pick up the second thrown object and then beat me back to where the first lies. It was funny watching her struggle to fit two balls in her mouth at once, until she eventually perfected that skill (thus my solution of bringing a third…).
To mix things up, sometimes we throw discs for her to chase, instead. She loves leaping for them, when we get the throws right. She makes us laugh when she scrambles to try to pick up both discs at the same time. I expect she will hone that skill, too. I might as well start looking now for a third one of those, as well.
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Almost Day
Some days just don’t flow the way we hope they will. Our Sunday turned into an “almost” day for me. I guess almost can be looked at as being better than not at all. I discovered that I almost read all of the text on the big green sticker on the box of the solar-powered fence charger I bought on Saturday. I saw the words, “mounts on t-post” and figured I was good to go.
If I had read the whole thing I would have realized it was a separate bracket to be purchased that allowed it to easily mount to a t-post. Instead of making another trip to the store, I took that time to rig my own solution.
It probably would have been quicker to make that trip and buy the dang bracket. I almost got the project completed by 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I had planned to do other things, expecting this to be an hour-long task. I almost didn’t let it bother me that the day was over half gone at that point.
I almost sprained my ankle when I stepped in a divot in our lawn made by a mole. Adrenalin shot! Felt very lucky to have not been putting too much weight on that foot at the time. Pesky moles. I know that balance in nature is a good thing, but I sure wish we could do without the moles.
We almost put up the posts for the wood shed, version 2. Made some progress, then had to undo that and start again. After several attempts, I came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t try to robustly attach all the legs and expect the roof to align properly. We need to find a way to get the roof up resting on the back posts, and then place other posts beneath, line everything up, and fasten it all together.
Cyndie was a fantastic help all day, and kept me from giving up altogether. There was no “almost” in her day. Between coddling my fragile attitude and lending her assistance wherever she could, she did laundry, made meals, tended to the horses, and helped me scoop up manure. It was one of her weekend days off and I think she did more work than me.
Saturday she helped me with my lumberjacking and we cut up the huge downed limb and then more trees near the south border where new pasture fence will be installed. Over the weekend, she also finally put saddles on the 3 horses that will be ridden, and had them do some walking exercises to remind them what wearing a saddle is like. It gave her a chance to check out the equipment she purchased, and to give the horses some exercise with the saddles before adding the weight of a person to their load. It’s been over a year since they have been ridden, so they are a bit out of shape at this point.
Speaking of points, I almost had one when I started writing this ranting post. It is only fitting that now I don’t really have a conclusion to offer about my “almost” day.
If Cyndie were available, I bet she would take care of that for me, too.
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Peaceful Morning
One by one the horses buckled their knees and settled down to rest in the relative warmth of the climbing September morning sunlight. Cyndie and I were working nearby to put up a little barrier around trees we want to protect in the new pasture. I noticed we unconsciously dropped our voices to a whisper.
While doing some cleanup of some dead wood in a patch of scrubby growth, we discovered desirable trees previously unnoticed. The more undergrowth we cleared, the more surprises we found. The first one to catch our eyes was a fabulous oak that was about 10-feet tall and had deep green leaves, a course bark, and some bushy looking acorns. After clearing the tangled growth that had been obscuring it from view, we felt a thrill to know it was there and looking so fine.
We continued to cut back weeds and eventually uncovered a different kind of oak, a couple feet tall and with much more yellow-green leaves. After that, a maple appeared, along with a frail looking elm and a single sprout of a poplar. It looks so much better with all the suffocating weeds cut back. 
It only took one day for the horses to take interest in that spot and I realized we would need to do something to protect the trees. We created a perimeter with step-in posts and hung a green mesh fabric around the circumference.
Today I will mount a solar charging battery to electrify the fence around that pasture. It will be time for the horses to rein in their energies and mind their manners over there.
On that subject, Cyndie reported that while I was out last night, she went to collect the horses from the arena/pasture grazing area for the night and found only 3 of them there! Cayenne had slipped past one of the barriers and ventured out into the hay field for a few unauthorized bites.
A little electricity does wonders to keep them from testing the fence boundaries.
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Pattern Change
We woke up with a hint of frost on our deck this morning. It is a clear validation of what we have been sensing the last few days. There is a change of season in process, and with it, our patterns of routine. I had to hunt down a long-sleeved shirt the other day. Of course, at this time of year the extra shirt comes on and off a lot, depending on activity.
I came in from outdoors and headed to the sink to wash my hands. Ah, there was my old peeve, back again. The cuffs of my shirt get wet when I wash my hands. Sure, I pull the sleeves up, but they slide right back down. Now I am able to appreciate what I have taken for granted all summer long, that I can scrub up without a care when I wear short sleeves.
A couple of days ago I asked Cyndie if she was comfortable in the house. She said she was, and I pointed out that the indoor temperature was 62 degrees (F). In the winter, Cyndie is quick to report her discomfort if the house temp drops below 70.
It fascinates me how our bodies respond differently to the seasons. What feels refreshingly comfortable now will be irritatingly chilly in the days to come. In 5 months, a temperature just a few degrees above freezing will feel refreshingly comfortable outside. This morning that temp tightens muscles and causes a wince. It has a bit of a bite to it.
Soon it will be time for me to find my winter gloves. I have no idea where they are.
For some reason I have a difficult time parting with old gloves. The finger on these opened up way too soon, so I patched it and got a good few weeks more out of them. Then the palm opened up and I decided it was time to retire them.
Just throw them away, John.
I looked over the right glove and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Maybe I can use the right glove around the fire pit. I already have one by the living room fireplace, but come to think of it, I never use it.
Maybe I can use the leather for some other purpose. I could cut off the fingers and…
Just throw them away, John.
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Big Surprise
During the afternoon on Wednesday, when the gales of “Sept-ober” were blowing, I heard a crash while I was out scooping manure in the arena. It sounded to me like something very large had tipped over in the barn. However, I couldn’t think of anything in the barn that would have made that sound. I began to question my perception and wondered if something could have fallen up in the shop garage.
As I walked back toward the barn I had the thought that I probably shouldn’t leave the doors wide open on such windy days. I like getting fresh air moving in there, but the place sure is a dust factory as a result. I couldn’t see anything amiss, so I wandered over to the garage for a look. Nothing out of place there, either. It didn’t make sense.
Something about the sound brought to mind metal shelves, or the metal roof and sides of the barn and garage. With no evidence available to match what I heard, I promptly forgot about it.
Yesterday was a completely different day, with a stillness that exuded peace and tranquility. I walked the horses, one-at-a-time, over to the north pasture for a couple of hours after my lunch. They were exceptionally well-behaved. While they alternately grazed and raced around, I busied myself in the vicinity by trimming the scrub growth that looks decades old along our north property border.
Can you see Hunter positioned alone, away from the other three?
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The wild plum trees are producing a bumper crop this year.
I don’t remember this much fruit last year. Heck, we didn’t even figure out they were actually plums until a few weeks ago. Now we are all excited for having trees producing fruit we can use.
Well, more trees, that is. We do also have a rather tall apple tree that looks like it grew wild in the woods between the back yard and the barn. It dropped a lot of fruit last year. This year’s crop looks to be a bit more subdued.
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The horses were cute when I got them back into the paddock. All four of them settled into a late-afternoon nap after all the excitement of the new grazing pasture. It was so calm and quiet that the few isolated bird calls came across as being extraordinarily loud.
I sat down on the arena grass, which in no time led to laying down, and just watched them looking so peaceful. Then I realized one reason it was so tranquil. I still had Delilah confined in her kennel.
I hiked up to let her out and started tossing balls for her to chase. She was thrilled to have the attention, and was being as playful as ever. I walked down the hill to get one of the balls she had dropped and that’s when I discovered a BIG surprise.
I know what the crash was that I heard on Wednesday afternoon, and it wasn’t anything metal.
We lost a huge limb off a big old maple tree.
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Joyous Horses
We are currently experiencing an outbreak of ‘October’ around here, as our temperature has dropped 20 degrees, the clouds are hanging low, and the chilly north wind is gusting mightily. When this kind of weather strikes in September, Cyndie and I always think back to the year we were married and how cold and wet it was during the week before our outdoor wedding. We figured our plans were doomed, but luckily our special day was classic September with warm temperatures and a crisp, clear blue sky. Just the type of day we envisioned when we chose the date.
It always gives me hope that we can still have some spectacular warm fall days even though conditions may have drastically shifted toward the coming winter.
Yesterday afternoon I spotted the horses cavorting around the arena at high speed, kicking up their hooves and romping around. It occurred to me that they might be feeling the chill and wanted to generate some internal warmth. I finished the fence on the north side of the driveway, and I’m pretty sure they were growing anxious to get over there, so maybe they were venting some of that energy, too. They have spent a lot of time in the last two days grazing and standing as close to the direction of that new gate as their usual confines allowed.
Even though it was after 6:00 p.m. when Cyndie arrived home, I had patiently waited for her before giving the horses their chance. It helped that Cyndie had decided to put a pot roast in the slow cooker in the morning, allowing us to eat a rushed dinner as soon as she walked in the door. Minutes later we were marching to the barn for halters.
I mentioned to Cyndie that Legacy and Cayenne were hanging out together most of the afternoon, so we selected them as the first pair to make the short trip over. All four of the horses were still pretty amped up, and the dance to get two horses out of the gate —the two who had been selected— and only those two, was a bit precarious. Hunter and Dezirea went a little nuts over being left behind.
The heavy gusting wind was feeding their nervousness, so introducing them to this new space involved a bit of jumpiness. They seemed a little conflicted over the desire to be cautious, the ample supply of lush grazing, and the urge to check out the full breadth of their new pasture. We left those two and returned for Hunter and Dezi.
When the four of them were safely reunited in the new space, we were presented with a beautiful parade of prancing joyous horses, Legacy leading the way. They alternated between grazing and running for a brief time before settling down to mostly grazing, while Cyndie and I decided to do some tree trimming.
As darkness was about to descend, I headed over to put some hay out for them in the paddock, hoping it might provide some small consolation when we ask them to leave the pasture. It wasn’t needed. As I walked back toward them, Legacy and Dezirea were standing near the gate, ready to return ‘home.’
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Relative Something 