Archive for July 2016
Sand Box
After work yesterday, I went outside to play in our sand box. It wasn’t pretty. There were a few expletives expressed in the execution of the task.
We had an extra load of lime screenings dumped beside the hay shed for use in filling low spots and rills in the paddock. The horses kick constantly in response to flies on their legs and their doing so digs out the area around their hay boxes. The rills on the slope are created by water runoff from heavy rains.
Both issues require trying to get the tractor up the incline to the barn, with a heavy bucket load of lime screenings. I have yet to acquire the skills and knowledge to efficiently navigate the 12 forward gears of the New Holland to get it to go where I want to go and do what I intend to achieve without spinning the wheels and creating almost as much damage as that which I am trying to mend.
It’s crazy-making.
It should be fun, playing in sand with my big tractor. Problem is, it is also a bit dangerous and can be costly.
Right off the bat, with the first scoop of screenings, I got stuck at the bump built up to divert water runoff at the gate into the paddock. I didn’t approach with enough momentum to get over it, and since it is downhill from the driveway, I suddenly couldn’t back up, either. The rear tires just spun when trying both directions, digging me deeper into being stuck with each attempt to coax out some progress of escape.
I ended up dumping the bucket right there and using the hydraulic loader to pry my way out of the predicament, as I have learned to do from my farmer neighbors. It would be nice if I took it as no big deal, but it pissed me off something fierce and set the negative tone for all my subsequent struggles of getting up the slopes to where I wanted to drop loads of screenings.
I couldn’t figure out the right combination of speed and power to make it up the hill with all the weight in the bucket. Halfway up the slope the rear wheels would start to lose grip and I would try to solve it with cursing.
Okay, cursing isn’t an attempt to solve the problem, it is a venting of frustration over having the problem and not succeeding in achieving a solution. But it feels like it helps.
Eventually, enough material was moved close enough to areas where it could be tossed by shovel to the spots most in need. The divots created by spinning tractor wheels were filled in and smoothed. The tractor didn’t tip over or smash into the fence, the barn posts, or the tree.
I got “back to grazing” pretty quickly and shed the negative vibe.
I suppose it’s not all that different from any kid playing in a sand box. Sometimes fun is mixed with frustration. The trick is learning how to deal with it constructively and come out ahead in the end.
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Alarming Rise
In one of the many ways I feel lucky, it is my great pleasure to be able to awaken easily when it is time for my alarm to go off. For that matter, I also enjoy the good fortune of falling asleep relatively quickly, without any trouble at all. It was not always so.
During my years of greatest depression symptoms, sleep was problematic for me. Having that for comparison makes my current pattern of blessed slumber that much sweeter.
The radio alarm clock that I have at my bedside has been my companion for decades. It doesn’t get very much interaction from me, so it has grown a little persnickety about responding to button pushes. I fear that the years of dust it has endured have led to some hesitation of electronic connections.
Recently, I have experienced a recurring pattern of waking just before the time that would trigger the radio alarm to come on. One day last week, in exception to that rule, I snoozed a full 6-minutes past the alarm and decided the volume should probably come up a little bit to better get my attention.
I never tested that because the next two days I was up well before the alarm time. Since I am able to leave it off over the weekend, Sunday night I needed to reset everything. It balked over multiple attempts, but eventually I thought I had it.
Whatever song that was on when I tested it in the evening did not prove to be a good reference for the song that was on Monday morning at the appointed hour. Like usual, I had woken up before the alarm, but it being a Monday, I decided I should linger in comfort for the remaining time before the alarm.
It didn’t take me long to fall back asleep, and it didn’t take a second for me to startle awake to the volume of music that came on the short time later.
Oops.
Maybe it’s time to download a fancy newfangled app for my phone to gently increase an alarm until I wake up. I usually am charging the phone at my bedside every night anyway.
I don’t know if I could do that to the old Sony Dream Machine. It’s like family after all these years.
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Storm Results
I haven’t covered the entirety of our trails yet, but in a partial survey near the house and barn yesterday, I found more trees fell victim to the storm winds than Cyndie noticed on her morning walk with Delilah.
The first thing that caught my attention was a significant branch lying beside the trunk of the large poplar tree near the shop garage. I asked Cyndie if she had moved it there, but she said she hadn’t even noticed it.
Apparently, that is where it landed when it snapped off the very top of the tree. Pretty good placement.
I’d liked to have seen how that worked.
The next thing I found was on the way to the barn. Several dead trees that I should have cut down already had snapped off or simply leaned over into the branches of trees around them. They are now labeled as “widow makers,” a term loggers use to describe, among other things, felled trees that get hung up in the limbs of other trees.
I will probably resort to trying to pull them down with the tractor. I’m not interested in trying to chainsaw a tree that is under tension such as these are.
Beyond that, the most visible evidence of Saturday night’s drama is the amazing number of leaves, sticks and small branches that litter all surfaces that were downwind of the trees.
Upwind, you can’t see any disturbance whatsoever.
We had our bedroom window open when the ruckus happened and I awoke to the forceful sound of the wind. I was prepared to hear a snapping sound at any minute, but never detected one.
It was intense enough to cause me to pull up the radar image on my computer to see if it was just the beginning of something that might get worse, or whether there were any storm warnings for our specific location. We were actually under one of the less intense looking areas, north of the most significant portion of the storm system.
I elected to go back to sleep and let the storm pass without further worry, but not without noting the sound of those gusts.
I’m hoping to combine the intensity I heard with the visual evidence collected of the aftermath to use it as reference for risk assessment in the future.
This won’t be the last time a high-wind storm pays us a visit, that’s for sure.
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Unchecked Growth
It had been a while since I made it down to trim the fence line along the south border of our back pasture where it runs through a grove of trees. Some of the weeds were as tall as me. Yesterday, I made it back down there to finish what I started on Friday, before being interrupted to get hay.
The task was made a bit more tedious than I wished by the presence of some monster thistle stalks, which defy the nylon line whipping away at it. More times than I can count, I had to stop and remove the spool from the trimmer to re-feed the line.
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When I made it through to the end of those trees, it was time to mow the lawn. I didn’t want the growth in the yard to get out of hand. However, there were other influences at play which hampered my completion of the job. The mower engine began to balk. Instead of trying to analyze that situation, I parked the mower and returned my attention to the unchecked growth along the far fence line.
I pulled out the diesel tractor with the brush mower to cut down pasture weeds and then moved to the stressful task of mowing between the fence and a drop off to the drainage ditch, a space that is barely wide enough to fit. I also needed to navigate driving down into that ditch without tipping the tractor in order to knock down the growth that can obstruct the runoff we have worked so hard to facilitate.
Succeeding, with only a couple scares where my weight was shifted to the brake when what I really wanted was the clutch under the other foot, I had the worst of the runaway growth on the far fence line knocked down and the ditch opened up just in time for last night’s wild, windy and rainy thunderstorm.
There are leaves and tree parts shrapnel scattered everywhere this morning!
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Another Source
The air is completely still outside this morning. Maybe that is why my internet connection is more stable today than it was yesterday. The signal is not being disrupted by waving tree leaves.
The calm is in contrast to the disruption swirling in my mind. We have been stretched into another batch of new experiences over the last two days, taking us places we’ve not been, introducing us to new people, and giving me an opportunity to pull a flatbed trailer behind our sometimes trusty old pickup.
I’ve never done that before.
Luckily, I didn’t need to do any backing up.
We own horses. We need hay. Over the now several years that we’ve been on this equine adventure, that’s the key priority that pushes me into doing tasks for which I have no previous experience.
Last year I was feeling pretty smug over having found hay to purchase and hauling it myself in small batches with the truck, and augmenting that with bales from our own field. Now I have come to understand that what we purchased wasn’t considered prime quality fodder by our horses, and we’re admitting to ourselves that our field isn’t yielding much better.
Cyndie checked with new acquaintances and then made a connection with another hay grower. Grass hay is the term used to clarify what we are after for our horses.
I was on the far side of our property yesterday, trimming the 4-foot tall weeds that have grown along the southern border of our back pasture, when Cyndie and Delilah appeared and interrupted me. The new hay source was available immediately and leaving town for a two-week vacation tomorrow. We had to act now.
Suddenly we are checking maps and venturing down dead-end roads among farms that don’t get many visitors, looking to connect with someone we won’t know when looking at them. Kids on bikes check us out immediately, when we pull in a driveway and try to figure out where to go.
We are not surprised to discover Lonnie is friendly guy, and the kids are his grandchildren who live across the road and they love to help with hay. Mostly, they like to talk while we toss and stack bales. Lonnie offered up his flat-bed trailer to allow us to haul a hundred bales in one load and off we dove into another of my firsts.
I relied on his method of stacking and strapping to secure the load. He generously offered to come rescue us if any of the tires went flat on the trip there or back. How reassuring. I noticed he put a registration sticker on the trailer before we hooked it to the truck. I guess it hadn’t seen any road use for some time.
We made it most of the way home before a middle bale worked loose and dropped off the front. I had just turned off Highway 63 onto a rural road, so the drama was moderately reduced. I know now that we should have used that 3rd strap he considered putting across the load, but didn’t.
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I’m Trying
Really, I would love to have a post loaded here today, right now. The universe is not supporting my effort.
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Everyday Adventures
Yesterday afternoon, I was walking from the shop toward the barn on one of my favorite paths when I felt a wave of heightened appreciation for the daily adventures we enjoy as a result of Cyndie’s and my decision to move to the country and become horse owners.
After feeding the horses and cleaning up under the overhang, I lingered among them for an extended visit. They each took turns approaching me for some physical contact. Dezirea was the most persistent about moving in so close that I had to watch my feet to keep my toes out from under her front hooves.
They all wanted scratches, each in their own special spots. They spend a lot of time all day long trying to fend off bugs and I imagine the lack of having a hand to swat and scratch must make it a real chore. They swing their heads, stomp their feet, and snap their tails, but none of that is the same as a good scratching with a hand that can reach all the difficult spots.
Hunter tends to favor his chest and neck, Dezirea definitely prefers the middle of her back, Legacy has lately accepted head scratches, and Cayenne will take anything we offer.
It is a thrill and a privilege to have the adventures of horse ownership available to us every day.
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Fly Away
There are days that I would if I could. Fly away, that is.
I recently moved our trail cam out into the open for a change, aiming it at the upward slope of the driveway in the direction toward the road which is out of sight over the hill. I wasn’t expecting to see too much in the way of wild life at this location, but instead was curious how it would do to record vehicles coming and going.
When we are in the house, cars and even delivery trucks will come and go without us noticing.
After a few days of photos, I declare it does okay for capturing auto traffic, but it is not very consistent about when it picks up the motion. Varying speed of the vehicles would make some sense as one explanation, except the speed is probably pretty similar at that point. I know I was driving very slow when it almost missed my car arriving home from work yesterday.
One thing we have noticed about putting the camera out in the open is that we get a LOT of empty, or almost empty shots as a result of bird activity. At the same time, capturing a bird at just the right moment of flight can be a real treat.
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Rare Specimen
Last night as I was coming down the stairs from our loft, I stepped over something that I most often ignore, but this time it snagged my attention. I felt it deserved to be recorded for posterity.
There lie before me the rare brown-spotted, long-armed yellow monkey, bandaged with flower print duct tape, face down in peaceful repose.
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Relative Something 