Archive for February 2018
Other News
While Delilah and the horses have been getting a lot of attention lately, the chickens and Pequenita haven’t been entirely neglected.
When it gets extremely cold, the chickens tend to stay put all day in their coop, but some days they surprise us and venture out anyway. This week, Cyndie reported, one day it was the Buff Orpington making the trek to the barn overhang, and the next, it was the two Barred Plymouth Rock hens.
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They have us wondering if there might be some issue between the two breeds, that they are doing less commingling lately.
Last night, Pequenita was ferocious about getting some attention from me, so I decided to put a video designed for cats on my laptop screen. She went nuts for it.
A little mouse keeps darting across the screen. She quickly moved her search to the back and sides of the computer to see where the critter was going when it disappeared from view. We were both highly entertained.
It was a nice distraction from some of the dreary news of the day. Have I mentioned how sad I am over the deplorable political situation in this country? And now the thawing permafrost is going to release noxious Mercury gas into the atmosphere.
Although, on the subject of news, one item was out of this world fantastic. If you haven’t seen video of the Falcon Heavy Test yet, I hope you will make time to absorb the ramifications of this spectacular feat while witnessing the amazing footage of a new milestone in space exploration.
That Tesla Roadster with a space-suited mannequin in it flying through space is one spunky escapade. I love it!
“To infinity, and beyond!”
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Test Results
Our veterinarian called with results of Hunter’s blood work. High levels of glucose and insulin suggest equine insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome. I have a feeling we have slowly been building to this over the last few years of under-exercising and over-feeding our horses.
We’ve had hints of the situation before and made some loose attempts to moderate things over the years, but it appears our efforts have fallen short. The prognosis now is calling for a shift to an extreme that we are struggling to reconcile.
There is a high likelihood that Hunter will need to be confined to the paddock and fed a tightly measured amount of hay that needs pre-soaking to reduce the sugar content even more. It is no way for a horse to live, as far as I’m concerned, but it may be what we have to do.
I can’t imagine what it will do to Hunter’s spirit to confine him to the paddock, surrounded by acres of lush green pasture in the summer.
Honestly, our heads are not in a good place right now to frame this with oodles of positive possibilities. In fact, this news just serves to expose how little I have moved from the cloud of grief that descended upon us on the day Legacy died.
This week the horses are spending most of their time in the barn. Well, Hunter has spent ALL of his time in the barn, and the mares get a little break outside each day while Cyndie mucks the stalls. Even this routine feels so wrong, but it is the immediate treatment required to get him beyond this situation of extremely painful hooves.
They are tolerating it well enough.
Everything here seems to be hanging in limbo. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t just let Wintervale have a break for a year, like we did with our hay-field last summer. Let things rest while giving it a chance to become re-energized for a new season of unseen possibilities after some reflection and re-planning.
We are seeking peace with all the new developments, and making time for reflection is going to help. Despite my inclination to want to immediately escape it all in order to put the challenges behind me, I am trusting in the logic of staying put to discover where this all leads.
For our own good, it is best that we not make any rash decisions in the midst of grief and uncertainty.
Now would be a really good time for me to practice some of that procrastination I’m always bragging about.
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Desired Result
Got what I wanted! The quality of results for most of my picture-taking is a function of luck since I don’t spend any time on technical details, choosing instead to settle for whatever the “auto” setting conjures.
On Sunday, the combination of sun, snow, shadow, red paint, and reflection caught my eye. If you look close, I even got a selfie out of the deal.
I love how the snow looks so much like paper or felt. The roll of the lower left reflection that flows similar to the broken edge of the snow. The compliment of the contrasting black trim. How the shadow reveals the space between the snow and truck surface.
Most of all, I like that the camera actually captured what intrigued me enough to take this picture.
All too often, I don’t even bother pulling out the camera when scenes around here are too big for a photo to do proper justice. Nothing works as well at interpreting a complete landscape as a pair of eyes perceiving it in real-time.
For my vague impressionistic compositions, the little point-and-shoot I use has provided me with enough lucky outcomes to keep me giving it a go.
Every once in a while, I get a satisfying reward.
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Monday After
News reports warned that MSP airport was going to be a busy place this morning, as Super Bowl attendees from out of town would be flying home in droves. I wonder if workplaces are going to be quiet this morning. I was up past my bedtime last night.
Before becoming a major couch potato for too many hours around the actual game time yesterday, I spent a lot of hours outside in the brilliant sunshine plowing and shoveling.
There is something really satisfying about a freshly plowed path. I enjoy it while I can, because in no time, there will be another snowfall and it will lose that just-cleaned look.
Even though it was single-digit cold, the sun showed its power against the snow on the window of our truck.
I prefer watching the environment slowly clean off the truck as opposed to sweeping the snow off all at once. Silly me. It’s just the opposite of how I appreciate the good clean look of the driveway after it’s been plowed.
Congratulations, Philadelphia Eagles fans!
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Super Sunday
It’s finally here. The big NFL game is happening in Minnesota this year and the hyped up media have whipped things into a frenzy for the last few days. I will be glad when it is all just a memory and we can get back to normal around in the Twin Cities.
Visitors were treated to a day of beautiful falling snow yesterday, and this morning, below zero cold with dangerous wind chills. This is the way we do winter.
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I gave Delilah a workout yesterday, making her leap through deep snow in an off-trail walk across some of our fields. I tried to capture the beauty of the falling flakes in the shot back toward the barns, and ended up getting one little blurry flake to show up.
At the time I pulled out the camera, we were out on a wind-swept slope covered by hardly any snow. Delilah took great fascination with some scent that grabbed her attention and scratched at the frozen ground, layed down and rubbed her fur against it repeatedly.
Now I need to go out and plow.
That’s another way we do winter.
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‘Nother Day
It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning here on the ranch, with snowflakes flying and a fire dancing in the fireplace. Wish you could be here to take it all in with me, but since you are not, I’ll try to enjoy it enough for all of us.
I’m afraid Hunter is going to see this as another day of imprisonment. Despite our belief in an equine sense of the world that is heightened beyond our perceptions, I all too often fall back into a common thinking that we are outsmarting him.
The doctor’s orders are for full-time confinement in the stall with extra bedding for at least a week, plus daily doses of an anti-inflammatory. Whether or not Hunter recognizes our efforts are aimed at relieving his pain, he is not accepting the regiment willingly.
The way Cyndie describes the relative futility of injecting medicine into the mouth of a horse who doesn’t want it reminds me of raising kids. However, there is a big difference between imposing your will on a helpless little baby and a 1000-pound horse.
Watching Hunter battle his forced confinement by biting on the top board of his stall that is just barely out of reach for him breaks my heart when comparing this option to the acres of rolling open fields he is longing to gaze upon.
Our exercise becomes one of searching out a flavoring agent that might loosen his clenched teeth when medicine is delivered, and testing all manner of gimmicks for him to “play” with that will pass his time within the four walls.
We bought a two-burner heat fixture that is mounted atop a small propane tank in hopes of throwing a little heat into the barn during the veterinarian’s visit. Only one of the burners worked. The valve on the second one wouldn’t feed gas unless the starting button was held in.
The instructions said to hold it for 30 seconds. I tried, 3o, 40, a minute, two minutes. Yeah, I’m that patient.
No, it wouldn’t work.
At least the below zero cold is on hold for the days this week, and we are at a balmy 15°(F) with all this snow flying today.
We don’t need no stinkin’ heater.
Luckily, Hunter has received a room upgrade at the inn. Due to a recent vacancy, he has moved from a stall with no window to one on a corner that has two windows.
Here’s hoping he is enjoying the view of the current snow-globe landscape and not wasting his energy gnawing on the top board.
Send our sorry pal your love!
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Bold North
There’s a new slogan in town that arose from the committee responsible for landing this year’s Super Bowl game and coordinating all the related local events around it. The motto being brandished everywhere we look is, “Bold North.”
I like it. It speaks of the harsh reality we face in carrying on with our everyday lives regardless the extremes of weather our northern location dishes out. I take pride in being able to tolerate the ridiculous cold or the stifling heat which we face, both happening within a span of mere months from each other.
However, and I really hate to whine about this, there are times when the bitter cold can really become an excessively excruciating pain in the butt, …and the ears, toes, fingers, nose, and even eyes.
We haven’t even received a bill yet for the last time the vet was here when the extreme cold contributed to ending Legacy’s life, and now we need the doc back this morning to take a look at Hunter at a time when it is again so cold that the tools of an equine veterinarian barely function.
It’s hard on the horse and hard on the doctor trying to help him.
That makes it hard on us.
We ran an errand last night to pick up a propane heater in hopes of taking a little of the edge off for the vet while he is working in the barn.
I don’t think I was as grateful as I should have been for the relative luck we had in the prior four years of being first-time horse owners. I basically had no idea what I was doing when it came to being responsible for the ultimate well-being of our herd. Some days I would return from feeding them and realize, if asked how they were doing, I hadn’t really even looked them over all that closely.
I guess that set me up to have a sense that problems were few and far between, and I came to see that as normal.
This past year it feels as though it’s been one issue after another.
Instead of things getting easier with time and experience, we are in a phase of experiencing just the opposite, and it seems to be reaching peaks of difficulty that coincide with drops in temperature.
It’s got me feeling not so bold, after all. In fact, I caught myself having thoughts last night of the type that snowbirds express, like wishing to be somewhere warm during winter.
It’s a blaspheme of what I hold sacred!
I’m from Minnesota! The bold north! I love winter!
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Just Thinking
I tried thinking and thinking but no thinks ever came to me. Where did they go? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, because with an absence of thinks, comes a propensity to not care. At least, I don’t think I care, if that’s what it’s like to not think any thinks.
What I mean is, I don’t care that I can’t think of any stories to write.
The other day I found myself telling Cyndie that I felt an urge to be preparing for a new expedition. Obviously, life with animals and 20 acres is its own expedition, but I think I was longing to escape to some other remote adventure.
I would not be surprised if this were a way I am manifesting my grief. Escape.
Conveniently, today I have an opportunity to begin planning for one of my favorite annual adventures. Today, registration opens for the Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week. My adventure awaits.
It is not lost on me that one of the things that I love the most about the Tour of Minnesota is that I don’t need to do much thinking throughout the week. The route is determined and mapped in advance for us, the camping locations are established, the meals are set.
I just show up to ride my bike, and go with the flow.
No critical thinking required.
I think I can manage that.
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Relative Something 