Archive for February 2015
Thinking Back
Yesterday we spent a little more time thinking ahead to what comes next around here and what steps we need to take to actually hold some training seminars. I shared a monthly expense worksheet I created a while back, and we were able to identify some critical items to add that I had overlooked.
Little doses of financial reality do wonders to moderate unbridled optimism, but our situation is not so far out of balance that we feel any reason to seriously doubt the possibilities of achieving our dream, eventually.
This morning I feel myself looking back to the day the horses arrived here. It was September 25th, in 2013. I posted my description of the occasion on the 26th, and you can read about it in the Relative Something archives by selecting the month in the drop down menu in the margin on the right.
No matter what we ultimately accomplish here, the experience of that day will be hard to match.
September 2013
February 2015
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Seriously, Horses
Not all that long ago I was living in a suburb of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, in Minnesota, where my wife and I raised our children, and I was driving a mere 11 miles to a day-job that occupied my weekdays. As often as I could, I would participate in team sports with a couple gangs of like-minded friends, playing soccer and floorball for fun and exercise. I can honestly say I had no idea about the changes that lie ahead for me.
Seriously. Horses?
Turned out, yes, horses.
Now I find myself spending each day tending to our herd of 4 horses. In a short time I have gone from having no experience with horses to having a personal relationship with 4 of them.
Last week there was one night when the temperature dipped below zero, and it felt even colder due to a brisk wind. I gave the horses a night inside the barn.
We usually move them in one at a time using a lead rope temporarily draped around their neck. I succeeded without incident with Legacy and Dezirea. As I attempted to bring Cayenne in, Hunter quick-stepped his way through the gate before I could push it closed behind her, getting past Cayenne as I held her in place with the rope.
She did well to remain calm and respect my control as he entered her stall despite my verbal objections. He went straight to the feed bucket in there and chomped up a mouthful. I stood at the opening to her stall with her on my right shoulder and tried talking him out of there. My mind raced through options.
It wouldn’t be the first time we swapped their positions because of something like this, if I just put Cayenne in Hunter’s stall. My intuition moved me to do otherwise. Risking potential disaster, I walked Cayenne into the stall along with him. She went right for her feed as if he wasn’t in there, basically wedging him against the back wall. He looked totally stunned.
Suddenly he went from the frisky little “I can do whatever I want” guy to looking like a confused child. Since Cayenne was ignoring him, I stepped in to push her butt over so he had space to exit, which he did without hesitation. Hunter rushed out of her stall and headed directly into his own, appearing very happy for the opportunity.
For some reason, I don’t feel a tendency toward panic when things don’t go the way I intend with the horses, which may just be a function of my relative naiveté. I give credit for some of my control to Dunia and Cyndie for the horse wisdom they have provided me. It also helps that I have the benefit of daily interaction with our herd. Our horses seem to recognize my contributions of serving up their input and cleaning up their output, and demonstrate total comfort with my presence in their midst.
Yesterday, Cayenne came to me as I exited the paddock through a gate while holding Delilah on a leash. Similar to the precious shared moment she gave me a while back, Cayenne pushed her cheek into mine and we lingered together, breathing in each other’s smell while Delilah patiently waited her own turn for my attention.
My life has changed a lot from 4 years ago, and I couldn’t be more honored to be doing what I do now.
Yeah, horses. Seriously.
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Consciousness Streamed
Never mind that there is no reason not to keep on going despite the obvious restrictions and hesitations that never cease to exist in every manifestation of whatever reality this is at the moment that is surging past unless it’s not and instead is totally stationary and we are the ones doing the moving at such high rates of speed that it becomes difficult to discern what has already happened and what hasn’t actually happened yet in the way we currently perceive things that happen based on the senses that we have relied on to get us here thus far in our lives as measured against the backdrop of the climate as we knew it from the past fifty-some years which someday might be compared with the next fifty as a way of detecting the possibility of there being a difference as in change which would be undeniable one would hope at that point in the proceedings especially since this stream of basically unconscious rambling seems to appear about once every year maybe as a way to scour the surface of residual order in hopes of restoring some reset of rote writing routine repeated in a cycle of day after day wording that tries to make sense regardless the random missing word or unintelligible thought splayed out in broad daylight for all the world to see in the rare situation they just happen to do and willingly hang on till the end with some morsel of curiosity or macabre fascination that there will be some pot of gold at the end of this rainbow of brilliance that reaches in an arc across the screen from one point to another with shapes to decode the message therein however frightening and disturbing the exercise may be but unless some magic or miracle arrives all we’re left with is what we had on when we walked in here plus the thoughts that we carry inside of our heads that we believe must be precious because they haven’t been forgotten and lost for forever like the ones that are gone which we’ll never remember and we live with that fact because we’ve no other choice and speaking of choice that’s something we do have when it comes to this thing called love which when all else has failed is one thing that remains and in this stream unconscious where very little makes any sense love might be an answer worth considering to solve what it is that is bothering your distressed countenance.
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Winter Comfort
Yesterday was the “day after” our little snow event and the sun was shining, birds were singing, and the chilling wind just didn’t feel all that cold. Much to my dismay, my little pocket camera only had enough battery power for a couple of pictures in the beautiful light of the rising sun, before it said goodbye and powered down.
The scenery was extra special with the powdery snow crystals glimmering in the early sunshine. Very few animals had ventured out yet, so Delilah spent most of our first perimeter patrol of the day fervently checking the scent of the tracks she had made in the snow the night before.
After breakfast, we headed outside to do some shoveling to tidy up the edges of the plowed areas I’d done in the dark Tuesday night, and then tackled the nooks of the shop and the barn that the plow doesn’t get. When I say, “we,” I mean that Delilah stands guard on her leash nearby while I do all the work.
She is a pretty sweet partner. Twice I looked up to discover that she had found a frozen mouse that I had unceremoniously tossed out of traps in the house garage and the shop, days or weeks earlier.
My “toss” is an attempt to get them to land well into the trees, but if you have ever tried flinging a mouse out of a trap without handling it, more often than not, somehow the motion of ejecting it counters the swing meant to make it land far away. It then flops down almost at my feet. Not my proudest moments.
The unquestionable highlight of the day came after I had finished shoveling and switched to scooping up manure in the paddock. By this time, I figured Delilah was on the brink of having had enough of not being the center of my attention, but I wanted to get the chore done before heading in for lunch.
The horses were out in the hay-field, soaking up the bright sunshine and Delilah had squeezed under the wood paddock fence from where I had hung the handle of her retractable leash, scouting out the poo piles. It was feeling about as comfortable as a winter day can get. Soon the horses began laying down for a nap.
They had moved into two groups of two, with a short distance between them. One horse in each group stayed standing while the other two lounged on the snowy ground. I love witnessing this routine. In minutes, I looked again and saw that a third horse had joined the two lying down.
Next time I looked up, they were all on the ground. My clomping and clanking of the wheelbarrow and tools didn’t seem to disturb them a bit. Then I spotted Delilah. She was joining them in a solar snooze, head down and eyes shut, sleeping on the snow in the paddock.
It was so serene I was tempted to lie right down and join them.
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Still Winter
Our general region has had it pretty easy as far as weather goes this winter, especially as compared to the heavy snowfall events that have occurred in the northeast of the US. We’ve had less snow and warmer temperatures than usual. But the past doesn’t define the future. It’s still winter, and yesterday we enjoyed a return of both snow and cold.
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With the temps low, the snow crystals were perfect and we received about 2 inches of wonderful powder snow that came floating down in a windless calm. The woods took on a mystical appearance with snow cradled in every “Y” of all the branches.
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As is typical for our horses, they stood out in the middle of the hay-field during the heaviest snowfall. I coaxed them back under the overhang by bringing some loose hay and putting it on top of the slow-feeder grates. It probably would have been wise to put their blankets on prior to the snow, but they aren’t showing any signs of having a problem with the relatively small amount of precipitation.
Poor Cyndie had to endure a prolonged evening commute as a result of the backed up traffic, but that gave me a chance to get the driveway plowed before she got home. Since the snow was dry and light, that chore was a breeze.
I was walking Delilah when I decided the precipitation had slowed enough to justify some shoveling and plowing. She sat calmly while I shoveled the front steps, walkway, and apron in front of the garage doors. Then she began to demonstrate an interest in moving on. I willingly accommodated her since it was already past her usual dinner time, setting the shovel down to head indoors.
I still wanted to get to the plowing, so I left my jacket on and rushed to put food in her bowl, before heading back out. I figured she should be fine on her own while I worked.
When I opened the door 45-minutes later, I found her laying right inside of it. She looked uncharacteristically subdued. Then I noticed food in her bowl. That is an anomaly. I worried that something was wrong with her and bent down to give her some love and attention. As I stood up to remove my outdoor gear, she got up and walked over to eat everything in her bowl.
To my great surprise, she chose to wait by the door for my return rather than eat her food! I had no idea. It does add meaning to a behavior I have noticed during our routine of coming in the door after a walk. I make her wait in the entryway with me while I remove her leash harness and blaze-orange vest. Then I tell her, “Okay,” as a release to run off and do whatever is tempting her more: chase Pequenita the cat or madly chomp on any available squeaky toy.
I’ve noticed that she doesn’t run off until she sees me taking off enough outdoor wear to feel satisfied I will be staying inside along with her.
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Gruesome Find
Eventually, all the clues began to make sense. Not a day goes by that Delilah doesn’t find something outside our windows that drives her into a barking frenzy. Nine times out of ten, it is beyond me to identify what has triggered her reaction. If it’s squirrels, they are long gone by the time I arrive. If it is gunshots or thunder, she hears it long before I am able.
Yesterday, Delilah began to go nuts with the barking. Attempts to distract and calm her seemed futile. Minutes later, Elysa and Anne stepped in the door announcing their arrival for a visit. Was Delilah barking at them? I was willing to believe it.
As the afternoon wore on, we headed outside to spend some time with the horses. We found them uncharacteristically jumpy. I tried several times to brush the remaining snow off their backs, but not one of them stood still long enough for me to finish. The wind was gusting a bit, so we thought maybe that was making them uneasy. It gave us an excuse to move on toward the pasture to toss discs for Delilah to chase.
Out in the open, the wind was cold enough to drive us onward so we headed for the trail in the woods. I had already traveled this trail earlier in the day with Delilah when we did our usual morning patrol after feeding the horses. We had enough snow overnight to just cover the ground, so it was easy to spot recent tracks along the trail. There were very few at that earlier hour.
As the four of us walked along with Delilah, it was easy to spot something laying on the trail up ahead. My first thought was that the wind had knocked down a tree branch, but what my eye was seeing looked larger than a typical fallen branch.
Yep. Not a branch.
It was the largest limb from a carcass that I had ever come upon. My guess: it was the leg of a cow and coyotes were likely to blame. Why one or more of them had dropped this leg in the middle of our trail is a mystery to me. Of course, it was a prize beyond Delilah’s wildest dream. It was too much for her to carry, so I picked up the frozen leg and carried it for her.
She didn’t know what to do. Walk in front of me? Walk behind me? Jump up and bite it while I walked? We made our way back to the house where I left it on the ground for her to gnaw on. She instantly morphed into one of the pack.
Based on the size of this limb, I’m expecting to see the local coyote hunters busy at work around here in the near future. Farmers aren’t very patient when their livestock are being culled by predators. For those with sensitivities about such images, I am including this shot as a thumbnail to give readers an option of viewing it or not. Click per your personal tolerance for the gruesome, but natural, cycle of life involving wild carnivorous animals.
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Hay Games
February has arrived right on schedule, showing up with a new frosting of snow for us. The horses have been doing just fine without blankets, but that meant this morning they are wearing blankets of snow that make them look like powdered sugar treats.
Makes them down right irresistible.
Until I find they have been behaving badly. I don’t know if it was intentionally malicious or just bad planning, but somebody’s butt dropped a pile of nuggets into one of the slow-feeder boxes overnight.
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I bet they can identify who the culprit is. Wonder if they chastise the offender. What would we say to a member of our family who contaminated our food? I think that person would catch a lot of flack.
We’ve got something of a new routine going for serving up the daily hay. Even though the slow-feeders are working like a dream, there is no denying a horse’s love of eating freely out in the open.
I have placed the feeder boxes beneath the overhang to keep the hay protected from precipitation. It is pretty clear the horses would prefer being out from under that roof.
Recently, I had cleaned out the bottom of both boxes of dusty remains and decided to dump it on the ground beneath the willow tree. Since Hunter, the youngest and lowest in the herd hierarchy, usually has to wait for a turn at the slow-feeder boxes, he came right down and started nosing around in the scraps I had dumped.
That got the attention of one of the other chestnuts and they left the box to come down and make sure he wasn’t getting a better deal. Soon the three chestnuts were doing a comical slow dance of rotation as they moved from the ground below and the box above.
The next time I was filling the boxes, I decided to throw Hunter a bone and dropped a whole flake under the tree for him. Oddly, it is right next to the old feeder, but they like the hay down low so much better, and I was still of a mind to move their focus away from the old feeders to the new slow boxes, so I am completely ignoring them.
Our hopes with the old feeder was to keep hay off the ground where it gets trampled, peed and pooped on, so as to reduce waste. That didn’t really work as imagined, because they still spilled a whole bunch anyway. 
Now with the new boxes, waste has been greatly minimized, and it is starting to feel like we enough hay that such a loss factor is hardly a concern.
Since one of the boxes had been soiled this morning, I threw out several flakes for them while I cleaned up and refilled the boxes. All four of them were quick to show me they much prefered the unobstructed ground-hay under the tree.
Sure, until one of them goes and poops on it.
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Relative Something 