Archive for October 2014
Legacy Captured
Looking toward the fall sunshine when I captured this image of Legacy led to a great combination of light-streak and shadow. It’s as if his inherent horse wisdom is beaming out into the world from his eye. I’m particularly fond of the motion captured in his reaching leg, mid-step, and flow of mane and tail. Alternately, the bold shadow is able to make a strong statement, yet also works in a sublime way to offset him being the center of attention.
It is a great representation of our herd leader.
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Work Friends
Other than feeding our animals in the morning and again when I got home, yesterday was not a Wintervale day. I drove into the cities to spend a little time at the old day-job, allowing me the chance to again be with the fabulous people with whom I was previously employed. As wonderful as it has been to spend my full-time days managing our property, I suffer a great loss by no longer being able to work with the people who, in many ways, had grown closer to me than family.
Working 8-hours a day together for many years, through thick and thin, sharing responsibilities toward a common goal, has a way of bonding a diverse group of people. I wish I could bring them all home with me to help manage the ranch.
When done right, a healthy response to problems becomes a work of art. During my visit, an issue was discovered during final inspection, which was calmly investigated, and a solution devised. I watched the activity travel seamlessly from person to person, with ease. It was a joy to behold.
In the end, I don’t feel that I contributed any tangible value to the output of product. I served as a second set of eyes to review a completed new project. In fact, I was more of a hindrance to getting things done with all my chattering and catching up. They ordered pizza and we had a company gathering for lunch. (Don’t tell Cyndie, but it was her favorite from Gina Maria’s.) What’s not to like about a ‘work day’ like that?
It means a lot to me to not have to drive that long commute anymore. Despite the stop-and-go afternoon traffic coming home yesterday, the trip wasn’t annoying at all, because seeing them again had been such a rewarding pleasure.
They are no longer my work-mates, they have become friends from that place where I used to work.
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Several Spectacles
This morning we were up early to view the lunar eclipse. When I ventured to the bathroom, I was surprised to find our front motion light was on. By the time I returned to the bedroom to see the moon, the back motion light was on. It seems we were being circled. As I stood at the window, watching the fading moon, I eventually spotted the culprit creating all the light pollution. It was a local barn cat, out on his early morning prowl. I hope he was catching mice, or better yet, moles.
Cyndie stretched to reach behind my dresser to flip the obstructed switch that turned off the back light so we could get back to the lunar spectacle.
Yesterday there was a another spectacle around our place. I finally had both contractors underway at the same time. Fencers were fencing and landscapers were landscaping. It was invigorating.
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I hovered around each, occasionally intruding on their activity to consult. As pleasing as it was to be enjoying this progress, I kept finding myself dwelling on the fact that both activities were initially sought to occur 5-months ago. Better late than never is the way I’m framing it now.
Regardless, we are extremely grateful to have these folks providing their services. Wintervale Ranch is another step closer to becoming the place we imagined when we found this beautiful property.
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Rockin’ Now
I rescheduled a planned work day at the old job in order to be home Monday morning for the confluence of both landscaper and fence contractor arriving to work on our long-awaited projects. As Cyndie headed out the door for her work, I made some passing comment about my high anticipation, and the number of other mornings I had suffered disappointment for similar expectations.
After rising promptly to eat an early breakfast, and getting outside for chores that would make me conveniently available to greet the crews, I received a call from my fence guy. They were hit by a few “Monday issues” that would delay their arrival a day. Why was I not surprised?
Luckily, the landscape crew arrived and saved my day from being a bust. They started quickly and had the ditch created so fast that I thought the project was going to be a cinch. Then, the process of adjusting the slope of the ditch, with a laser as reference, slowed things considerably.
It didn’t help that the end they needed to make deeper was through thick clay soil, which made for very difficult digging. The upper part of the run involves an easily visible drop, but the lower portion levels out. That created something of a challenge for them to achieve an evenly descending slope.
When the drain tube was finally dropped into the channel and covered with pea gravel, I felt a sudden urge for more rain, so we could see how well it works.
Boy, if that isn’t an unlikely thing for me to be writing… an urge for more rain.
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Helping Hands
We are feeling a new level of satisfaction today, after an afternoon of long sought progress yesterday. Sure, it was Sunday, but our fence contractor showed up and made quick work of removing the old section of fence on the south side of our hay-field. At the same time, Cyndie and I worked together on clearing overgrowth in the main ditch just beyond that fence line.
With the advantage of having more people than just me out there toiling away, a lot more was accomplished in a short amount of time than I ever achieve on one of my home-alone days. While Cyndie was using the power trimmer to clear some brush, I cut out some small trees with a hand saw. After a short amount of time, I switched to the chainsaw and went after one of the large trees.
It was already dead, and there was nothing around it to worry about, so I may have been a little casual in my attempt to bring it down. My wedge cut wasn’t deep enough and the tree leaned back away from it. Luckily, I pulled the saw in the nick of time to avoid the pinch. On my own, I would have started devising some laborious attempt to pull or push it over, but with the fence contractor right there in a skid loader tractor, the solution was a breeze.
After he pushed it down, he asked me where I wanted it. I would have needed to cut it into small pieces and drag it away. He scooped up the entire tree with the forks of the skid loader and placed it on top of my brush pile. Done! I asked him to push over two other trees.
If I cut down a tree with the chainsaw, there is a stump left over. Tom would push a tree down, drive the forks under the roots, and pop the whole thing out of the ground. After he carried the entire tree to the pile, he returned to fill the hole and drive over it to pack it down. It was magical. It was incredibly quick. Tree gone, in an instant.
With obstructions out of the way, Cyndie encouraged me to go get the diesel tractor and mow the ditch with the brush cutter. I hesitated, not used to moving this fast, then allowed the momentum to carry me away. By the time we wrapped up our afternoon efforts, the majority of the ditch was cleared and mowed.
It was wonderfully satisfying. For me, it was a great chance to enjoy a day’s work with the support of helping hands.
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Mucky Misstep?
I’m having some doubts about part of the solution we settled on for improvement of the footing in our paddocks. The water is not draining through the layer of lime screenings we added. We did not focus on packing it down immediately, thinking the process would occur naturally over time. We weren’t granted that gift of time by mother nature before the heavy dose of rainfall put our efforts for improvement to a test.
The wet screenings have taken on a consistency very similar to fresh concrete.
I’m not so sure that the water would run off the top of the surface if we had packed it anyway. It is discouraging to see standing water in all the divots left where the horses have stepped. Maybe I am expecting immediate results where the reality is that the ultimate improvement will not be perfection, but a reduced duration of muck. We can hope.
What I found to be even more demoralizing yesterday was, one of the bad spots is located above the main area that the drain tile installation is intended to help. Even after the drain tile is in place and working as designed, my impression is that the high ground just beyond the barn overhang won’t be greatly affected. I’ll be thrilled to find I am wrong about that.
On a more positive note, we are entering the winter season in a completely different situation than we experienced a year ago. Last year it was dry, dry, dry. I firmly believe that the dry fall of 2013 significantly contributed to the loss of many of our pine trees when the winter that followed was so severe. This fall the conditions are almost too wet, if that is possible. Our growing flora look healthy and happy, and should be ready for whatever winter dishes out this year.
Our animals appear just as ready. Delilah was so vibrant yesterday morning, sprinting around at full speed with a gleam in her eye and a smile on her little doggie face, looking as if the temperature had finally reached a comfortable range for her thick coat. I think her preferred seasons of the year have arrived.
Winter has always been my favorite season. Now, if I could just find a way to be as ready for it this year as our plants and animals are. First priority will be new muck boots. My two main choices of footwear have both developed leaks in them. The recent rains have been good for making that known to me.
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Same Story
It’s the same old story around here lately. We’ve had three days of rain, totaling over 2.5 inches for the period, and the paddocks are a mess. It’s ironic to have the loops of drain tile tubing and the pile of pea gravel here, but it has been too wet for the landscapers to do the work of getting it installed.
They now hope to start on Monday. I am wary of what they will run into when they start digging. If they dig a scoop out of the ground and the hole fills with water, like happened to me when I recently tried to dig a post hole, will they be able to proceed? Since they are ultimately digging a trench, maybe they can dig all the way to the drainage swale and see if the water flows. It would be a good test of the concept, I expect.
If we have to wait much longer, the ground is gonna freeze. We were already threatened with snow overnight last night —which I slept through if it actually happened. It was sure cold enough. For the second night in a row, we let the horses spend the night in their stalls in the barn. The rain, wind, and cold temperatures are too much for them this soon, as they haven’t yet fully grown their winter coat.
Cyndie moved them in late, after we finished watching a movie. She reported that they were eagerly staged at the barn door, waiting and hoping to get inside.
I have been spending my time between rain showers the last few days cleaning up the last of the old hay-field fence in preparation for its removal. Doing so has affirmed my decision to spend the extra money to have this done when they come to install the fence we’ve been waiting for all summer that will enclose the pasture beyond. The posts of the old fence had really begun to lean. It is a metal fence and we hadn’t been able to electrify it because there was no isolation from ground, so Legacy had taken to messing with it, too. That’s behavior we prefer to discourage.
It will really clean up the look of that south side of our property. I’ll need to keep it clear of overgrowth, but that works to our advantage because we will then finally have a riding path available that we have long envisioned around the perimeter.
We left the horses inside this morning, awaiting the arrival of our neighbor and farrier, George, who will trim their hooves again. He tells me somewhere around 8-weeks is the period to shoot for. It always looks to me that they need it a little sooner than that. Probably because the nasty conditions they endure in our paddocks.
Here’s hoping their footing improves greatly out there in the near future. We’re tired of the same old muddy mess, over and over again.
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First Test
Yesterday we received a steady rain that coincidentally arrived on the day work was supposed to begin to install drain tile above the barn and paddocks. 
Instead of making a muddy mess by bringing in digging equipment, they limited their effort to delivering the tubing and pea gravel. It was a bummer that the project I have been pining for all summer was delayed one more day, but it was great to have our water problems vividly visible in real-time for the guys who are about to install a system to mitigate the flow.
Meanwhile, although it was a bit sooner than I hoped, I witnessed the first real test of our newly defined drainage swale. The grass seed I planted at the end of last week has barely had time to germinate, so I fear a good percentage of it was probably set in motion down stream by the flowing water.
There are some wispy visible sprouts making an appearance at the far end, so I’m hoping all is not lost. The good news is that, despite some of the minor undulations that concerned me, the water appeared to make a nicely controlled flow the full length across the pasture into the ditch on our south border.
I declare that we successfully passed the first test!
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Relative Something 