Archive for August 2015
Stealthy Installation
This is a little embarrassing. Presumably, while Cyndie and I were sitting on our couch Wednesday night, conducting a quarterly meeting for Wintervale Ranch, LLC, 4 guys from the gutter company showed up and completed the rework of the gutter on the barn. We didn’t have a clue.
Thursday morning, while at the day-job, I texted Cyndie to find out if the crew had showed up yet. After she replied that they hadn’t, I suggested she call to check on their schedule. She did just that and received the startling news that the work had already been completed. How?
They needed to saw off about 3 inches of the overhanging metal roof. That had to make a racket. Delilah gave no indication of any kind. I think we better not rely on her as a watchdog.
They installed blocks in all 70 troughs of the metal roof. They worked right where the horses congregate, and must have spooked the horses to some extent.
We remained oblivious. I don’t understand how this could be.
I would have appreciated a call from them to report when they would be working. At the very least, it would have saved the embarrassment of our phoning the office to ask when they were going to show up to do the work, after it had already been completed.
I sure hope this crew never strays toward using their skills of stealth for nefarious purposes. They could have cleaned us out of all our valuable possessions while we sat idly by, clueless.
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August Rainsaster
The predicted October-like storm, with potential for record-setting low pressure for this time of year, unleashed the greatly feared torrents of flash flooding rain on us yesterday.
It revealed several areas where we need to improve our water management if we hope to withstand the ongoing onslaught of gully-washing downpour events that keep happening with increasing frequency.
When I got home from work and went outside to check on things, there was 4.5 inches of water in the rain gauge. I knew from that amount that the round pen would not have fared well for losing sand, so was prepared for the worst.
In spite of the heartbreaking mess of runoff sand, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. I could see where some of the worst spots were for the water running into the round pen, and quickly went to work with a shovel to dig channels for draining water around, instead of through.
I also dug several pathways to encourage water to more quickly flow out of the paddocks, before it pooled up and drained toward the round pen.
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Back up at the barn, where our gutter upgrade has yet to happen, the old system was failing brilliantly. I needed to pull the downspout to clear an obstruction, soaking myself in the process, and then discovered fixing that just transferred the overflow to the bottom where the downspout enters the buried drain tube. Something, either the recent dump truck activity or simple horse traffic, appears to have impeded the flow down the buried tube. That will be a doozy to fix.
While walking down to check whether anything was flowing out of the bottom of the buried tube (—it wasn’t—), I saw that an old drain channel I had created to entice flow out of the small paddock was flowing like a raging river. Yay! A success!
But when I reached the fence line, where the ditch opened to my main drainage swale (I thought), I found that the water was curling and flowing back into the paddock, traveling along the inside of the fence down to the bottom corner by the round pen —just the area I was trying to avoid.
It was now raining hard again at that point, and I was about as wet as could be. I was tired, saddened, and feeling entirely defeated. Dragging my sorry soaked self up toward the house, I checked the rain gauge again to see that an additional inch had fallen while I was out.
I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
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Sad Quiet
Last night when Cyndie stepped out to walk Delilah before bedtime, I became aware of how empty and quiet the house seemed, despite the whirr of the overhead fan and the evening drone of chirping insects resonating beyond the screen door. It was far from silence, but it had a way of pointing out how otherwise silent it was.
Monday afternoon, our friend Dunia departed for her home in Guatemala, ending our stretch of what felt like a 2-week vacation adventure, even though most of it happened at our house. The long-distance separation from our dear friends causes a real bittersweetness when it comes time to say goodbye.
The sky was a cloudy gray when I got home from work, as I took Delilah down to the barn to feed the horses and linger with the herd. I got the sense they were missing Dunia, too, even though it had only been a matter of hours for them.
Delilah and I moved on after a while and walked many of our trails, coming upon a few photo opportunities. Despite her lack of interest in my pausing, she politely occupied herself while I worked the angles and light.
Over dinner, Cyndie and I watched a rented movie and then sat together in the quiet, puttering away on separate projects, surrounded by the void of missing companions.
I’m guessing there was also an element of fatigue lingering in the aftermath of the busy weekend filled with the activity and people here for training sessions. We’ll catch our breath and absorb all that’s happened recently, in hopes of conjuring up plans for the next offering sometime this fall.
I hesitate to face it, but fall is so close it is beginning to impact our weather already. My favorite weather blog is predicting an October-like storm moving in today.
It’s probably a good thing that Dunia got out of here when she did, even though her departure has left us with that sweet sorrow of parting. I wonder how much it would cost to fly our horses with us to visit the Morales family in Guatemala again.
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Incredible Focus
Horses are experts at paying attention. That is one of the reasons they are so good as facilitators of our learning exercises. They don’t miss a thing.
During preparations for an exercise in the round pen, all 4 horses stood in close proximity to the participants, whether they were involved or not.
At one point during the afternoon, I spotted 2 of the horses turned around and facing the other direction. There was something in the distance, not visible to us, that the horses had alerted on from two different positions. Their heads were positioned identically, and moved together as if they were connected.
While they stood watch, the other two remained calm and kept their attention on our activity, feeling safe to entrust their well-being to the two sentinels. Whatever it was that had gotten their attention must have disappeared shortly thereafter, and they rotated like a compass needle, to point back at the round pen.
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Training Happens
This is what it’s all about. Yesterday we hosted a training session led by Cyndie and Dunia that was the closest thus far to the type of teaching we long ago envisioned happening here. The 3 of us probably experienced as much learning as the people who came to participate in the session. We discovered a few minor details that can be improved upon for subsequent sessions.
Happily, the hot and humid weather we are experiencing did not spoil the activities outside involving the horses. Legacy was a rock star endurance athlete during round pen exercises, doing laps with each participant as if it was a comfortable day and each time was his first. The rest of us slowly became fatigued (and we had the shade of the canopy!), but he showed no signs of having had enough of the work out in the hot sun.
It is fascinating to watch how the process works with these lessons. Different people have different things to learn, and the response from the horses changes accordingly.
While Legacy was putting on his command performance in the round pen, we experienced a little sideshow of the other horses mixing it up in the paddock, as the newly emboldened Hunter let the other two mares see his change in attitude.
With ears pinned back, hooves flew during agitated negotiations over changes in the pecking order that previously existed. Later in the day, after guests had all departed, I wandered down to feed the herd and witnessed Legacy step into the fracas, essentially telling them to put a lid on all the bickering.
They don’t question his instructions, but it was cute to see Hunter take up a strategic position on the far side of Dezirea, where he felt safe from reproach, but could still taunt Cayenne that she wasn’t the boss of him.
Kids.
We are going to do it all over again today, with a new group of participants, hopefully in more comfortable weather. It is incredibly energizing to see this phase of the dream coming to life and witness the horses sharing their wisdom. Together, Cyndie and Dunia have put incredible effort toward preparing the horses and making this all happen.
I have a sense that, with all the support we have received recently from the Walkers and the Morales family, we are as ready as we’ll ever be to take this to the next level. Lookout world, Wintervale Ranch and Retreat Center is getting ready to go viral.
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Re-framing Hunter
Before our horses arrived here, we received a description of them that included details about Hunter having been kicked in the head after he was born. We were told that it had caused him to be a little slow to learn and that he tended to get picked on by other horses in their herd.
It is my intention that this will be the last time I ever make mention of this.
After our 4 arrived here, we sensed that Hunter had his own way of doing things, but it didn’t come across as him being slow to learn. Still, every time we noticed him askew of the other horses, we imagined the story we had been told, and assumed that it was a likely justification for his unique behavior.
Every time I introduced our horses, or talked about them when away, I found myself repeating that story we had been told. It was who Hunter was to me.
Not anymore.
Hopefully, never again. We are going to tell a new story of Hunter. For me, the first incident that spawned this change happened the last time George was trimming the horses. He had one of Hunter’s front legs up in the air and Hunter seemed to have a problem with a fly or something. Hunter picked up his other front leg and reached up over George’s back with a scratching motion.
The image of a horse rearing up on its hind legs is a normal thing to picture, but Hunter wasn’t “rearing up.” Picture a horse standing horizontal and lifting both front legs.
George said, “Don’t let this horse ever make you think he can’t do something. That took a lot of athletic ability. Most horses would fall over if they tried that.”
While Dunia has been here these last two weeks, and when Rachael spent a day with them working the horses, Hunter has proven to be a very capable student and has responded well to their direction. He has needed some extra attention, because of his usual pattern of avoidance to being haltered, but that behavior is one to which Dunia has been training.
We tended to accept his avoidance behavior as understandable, given “the story.”
When I think back to the memorable interactions I’ve had with Hunter, of which there are plenty, not one of them ever seemed like he was reacting to any sort of disability.
This week, Cyndie and I had an epiphany about our perception of Hunter. There is no reason we need to perceive him through the filter of that story we were told. We are going to re-frame Hunter to the horse we have direct experience witnessing. He will now receive a new vision of himself from us.
Hunter is an athletic, intelligent, beautiful, awesome, and truly capable horse.
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What For
I don’t always know the reason something catches my eye for a photo, but similar to the way I assemble words in a poem just because they come to me, whether I understand or not, I tend to take pictures on a whim. I have no idea whether the resulting image will appeal or mean anything to others, I just do it because a scene catches my attention.
Here is one that I took while at George and Rachael’s on Tuesday. Does it trigger anything for you?
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Mutual Support
We have received a lot of support from our neighbors, George and Rachael Walker in the time we have been here. They have provided us with meat and eggs from a share in their CSA farm, cut and baled our hay, George trims our horse’s hooves, and Rachael has provided riding lessons. We welcomed an opportunity to finally offer support to them in return.
Yesterday, we went over to learn the details of feeding their variety of horses so that we can “farm-sit” while they are away for a few days over the weekend. Most of their animals will be set up with enough food for all three days, so it is just horses that will be our primary responsibility. Still, I found the process of feeding some of the other animals equally fascinating.
The pigs eat anything and everything. Rachael found a stash of eggs that had been secreted away in some nook, so she tossed them to the pigs. Mixed in with the pulverized corn that had already been served, it looked like a baking accident had spilled in there. The pigs took to it like… pigs.
I didn’t see the ducks getting fed, but they put on a nice show of their dark colors, strutting their stuff in the yard. It had me wondering how we might ever condition our dog, Delilah to accept the presence of poultry on our property without assuming they were put there for her to eat.
I’d like to have some ducks and chickens as assistants in controlling the fly populations around here.
After animals were all fed, and George finished cutting one of their hay fields, we joined them for dinner at the nearby El Paso Bar & Grill. I ate fried cheese curds, and other ill-advised choices at an unusually late hour, and stayed out way past my bedtime. It was wonderful.
George and Rachael are a joy to be with, and we feel ever more connected to community as we grow more familiar. Being able to offer them some support contributes greatly to that feeling of connection.
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Relative Something 