Archive for October 2018
Temperature Driven
Some chores don’t wait for a time when I actually feel like doing them. Draining hoses is one of those chores. Of course, who decides to coil up their garden hoses when it is warm and sunny outside? Not me.
It would be a treat to do it while the hoses were still pliable. That’s never been my experience. More often than not, I let the chore wait until the forecast suddenly predicts sub-freezing temperatures for the coming night.
Yesterday, that led to my needing to wrestle stiff coils in the damp and chilly fading daylight after I got home from work and tended to the animals.
Can you say, long day?
Delilah was very patient and stayed out with me while I worked, even though it pushed back her dinner to a later than normal hour. It demonstrates how much she treasures being out with us on a task. It is distinctly different from going for a walk.
She totally understands we are ‘working’ on something. We walked to the different locations where the hoses were being used, and after dragging each one back to the shop, she would look up at me to determine if it was time to go in the house, or if we were setting out after another hose.
After letting her in the house to have dinner, I stepped back out before it got dark to bring the air compressor up so I could blow out the buried water line that runs down to the spigot at the labyrinth garden.
With that chore accomplished, the only task left in preparation for serious freezing temperatures is to pull the pump and filter out of the landscape pond. I’m not worried about that for this first freeze tonight, because that water is moving and is unlikely to lock up with this first, brief dip below 32°(F).
For this night, we are now prepared to experience the possible freeze worry-free.
I think I’ll be a little disappointed if it doesn’t end up actually happening.
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Following Up
Picking up right where I left off yesterday, the story is rain and more rain, and a raccoon that needed to be dealt with once and for all.
Tuesday was a crazy day for Cyndie at home. First, she had to move the horses into the barn for an appointment with Marcus to trim their hooves early in the morning. After cleaning up from that project, she started calling around to see what interest our local authorities might have in our ailing masked bandit.
Since no humans had come in contact with the raccoon, Public Health referred Cyndie to the DNR. They said they didn’t have anyone who could come out, but gave out the number for their biologist. They also suggested she could call the Sheriff.
The Sheriff’s office suggested she call the DNR. Figures.
Eventually, the dispatcher offered to pass on the issue to a Deputy who would call Cyndie back.
Cyndie said she was finally trying to have some breakfast around 10:30 when Delilah started a barking fit at the front door. It was a Deputy Sheriff.
The officer asked if we had any firearms. Nope. Then she offered to shoot it for us.
In her estimation, there was a good chance the coon was suffering from distemper. Regardless the affliction, ailing wildlife is not something you want around for other predators to eat, so she assured Cyndie that it was the right decision to call.
The Deputy elected to use a shotgun, so she could keep a distance. Cyndie said the weapon was almost as long as the petite officer was tall. After several warnings that the shot would be loud, the results possibly messy, that it would startle our horses, that it would be very loud, and that Cyndie didn’t have to look if she didn’t want to, the deed was done.
By the way, this was all accomplished in the rain.
The very kind and helpful officer stayed around to give Cyndie a hand triple-bagging the body and putting it into a closed garbage can for storage until our trash gets picked up.
One good thing about the rain is that it washes away any residual mess that might appeal to our dog on her many walks past that spot in the days ahead.
Delilah is more interested in the sound running water makes as the mini-waterfalls pour over the edges of washouts in the drainage ditch cutting across our fields.
Seems like that water is going to be flowing for days, so she’ll have plenty of distraction.
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Soaking Wet
A flood watch has been issued for a wide area around us through Wednesday because they are expecting we could receive between three or four inches of rain. It’s not that big a deal except, we are already saturated beyond belief. There was an inch in the rain gauge when I got home from work yesterday.
The trails are like soup and the drainage ditch is flowing like a spring melt.
At least our trees are going to be well hydrated heading into winter this year. That’s a bonus I’ll be happy to take.
I don’t think it’s rain that is bothering the raccoon that has become a permanent fixture in the grass beside our north loop trail.
We are leaving it alone because we aren’t sure if the problems it seems to be having might be related to rabies. There is an outside chance it was hit by a car and made its way from the road to that spot, but we are keeping our distance and letting nature take its course, regardless.
The first time we took notice was because it was out and about during the day. It was walking, although not in a completely normal way, and never moving very far away from that area on our property. After three days of seeing it out during the day, we surmised it was not healthy and started giving it a wide berth.
We are careful to keep Delilah on a very short leash because she is very interested in checking out the mysterious visitor.
I’m half hoping some other nocturnal predator might show up to carry the raccoon away so I don’t have to deal with it. If it stays in sight, I’m eventually going to need to check to verify it is no longer living. I’m under the assumption it will not suddenly recover, based on what I’ve witnessed thus far.
I’d like to relocate the body far from our trails so Delilah will no longer be tempted to investigate.
While researching to find out if our local authorities would want us to report possible rabies in wildlife, Cyndie came upon an announcement from September that reported a dead crow was found to have West Nile Virus in our county.
The concerns all seem to focus on actually being bitten, either by a mosquito or a rabid animal. We didn’t come across anything that indicated concern for the possibility of sick animals or a need to report on them.
Maybe all the rain will wash away any germs.
I bet that giant crayfish Cyndie saw a few weeks ago is pretty happy with the moisture. Do crayfish get rabies?
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Every Box
I learned something this weekend. If I store something in a cardboard box in the shop or garage, it is like building a new luxury home for a mouse.
Every box I opened while cleaning out things that have been stored for far too long looked the same.
The front door was a perfectly chewed opening that seemed to open right into the kitchen. Obviously, mice don’t bother sweeping.
In the case of the old tractor seat in the photo above, the bedroom was another level down, through the cracked vinyl shell to the comfy foam inside.
The scene was identical in the box of Tiffany light fixtures I opened up on Saturday.
Less fortunate mice have to be a little more creative. In the pile of leftover lumber that has been neglectfully ignored in the shop for the two years since construction of our chicken coop, I uncovered a brilliantly packed residence constructed out of insulation pilfered from the shop walls.
It was only a one-story home that looked like the kitchen and bedroom were a shared space. I wonder if there is a mouse hierarchy that determines who gets the cardboard boxes.
Obviously, the four mousetraps I have distributed throughout the shop are something that mice have figured out how to avoid.
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Keep Going
I’m on a roll and enjoying the fact that momentum from my recent decluttering success has me suddenly expanding the effort to reach items that have sat untouched for almost six years.
With my closet in the bedroom clean, and the drawers in my dresser unstuffed, I went on to tackle the pile of papers and odd collection of pocket leftovers that get dumped on the inviting flat expanse of the dresser top.
Included in the stack was the form for renewing my passport that I had filled out four months ago. That form was awaiting a headshot photo that met the specific requirements for dimensions and quality. It took a little while for Cyndie and me to find the right background to take the photo ourselves. Once that was done, I needed to print it on photo paper. That provided another easy opportunity for delay.
Friday, that renewal form finally made it to the post office and all that dresser top debris has now been dispatched to logical organized locations.
That accomplishment helped to fuel continued momentum that took me back out into the shop where there is now a glorious new open space where the foosball table top once stood. On the right side of the image above, there is a box against the wall that has been sitting there since we settled in here back in 2012.
We had removed three hanging light fixtures from the basement and I packaged them up to sell or give away. It’s just one of those things I didn’t get around to finishing that the box sat there untouched all this time.
Yesterday, I opened up the box, removed all the mouse-chewed bits of cardboard and packing paper, threw away the stash of acorns the rodents stowed, and laid out the light fixtures to take pictures for an ad.
They’re out there in the Craigslist universe now, hoping to find a new home.
And I am going to keep going.
I think I will finally throw out that old tattered seat I replaced on the lawn tractor that sold last month. I had placed the ripped vinyl seat back into the same box the new had come in. The tractor is gone, but I still have the throw-away seat left over from it. Really?
Boy, I gotta say, this decluttering progress is a real feel-good endeavor.
No wonder I’ve become so inspired to keep going.
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Still Learning
It’s been five years of horse ownership for us now, and we are still coming upon situations that baffle us. Yesterday, it was a fresh wound on Dezirea’s flank near the point of her hip. There was a dramatic vertical incision, and then a broad area on either side where the hair looks cleanly shaved.
I can’t imagine what it must have looked like when she got cut. Best guess is that she was rubbing up against something with a long, sharp edge. It’s possible that it was even something in the ground and she was rolling around and came in contact with the sharp edge.
We have yet to identify anything that looks like it might be the cause.
I would guess it probably gave her a bit of a jolt when she got cut. It seems likely to me that she would have recoiled or startled in some manner. Must have been a scene in the moment, but by the time we discovered it, she was as calm as if nothing was amiss.
Except for that gaping wound on her side.
We spent most of the day inside, out of the non-stop wetness around here. Dew point and air temperature have been hovering close together and the moisture doesn’t so much fall as rain as it just hovers in the air in a perfect mist.
The ground is thoroughly soaked. Our neighbor and part-time mail carrier told Cyndie that he was still planning to do a second cut and baling of our hay-field, but that was before this very persistent wet weather pattern settled over us. Next week is looking like repeating days of more rain, so I don’t expect there’ll be any activity in the fields for quite some time.
Since we chose to remain indoors, the opportunity to continue our momentum on decluttering was well served. Cyndie had already been through her closet, so I dug in on mine to catch up with her, and then we both went through dresser drawers.
Time to release some perfectly useable clothing back out into the world for the purpose it was designed to fulfill. I’m done storing these shirts and pants for years on end.
It is truly an exercise that rewards doubly. Our drawers and shelves change from over-stuffed to a much more functional order, and we give others an opportunity to actually wear this clothing again.
So, not only are we continuing to learn what is involved with owning horses, we are also still learning how rewarding it is to live intentionally aware of our surroundings and how rewarding it is to practice the art of reducing clutter.
You could call it the very definition of a continuing education.
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More Weather
Weather was the center of attention on the ranch again yesterday afternoon. During my hour drive home from work, I heard the announcement that our county was included in a tornado watch until 11:00 p.m. I checked the radar when I got home and found there was nothing to indicate a storm was imminent.
During the short time I was catching up on my daily reading on a handful of web sites, the radar screen rapidly changed from nothing of interest to “better take cover soon!”
That came up really fast. In the image, there is a marker indicating our home, southeast of River Falls. I figured there was plenty of time before the main event would get here, so I stepped outside to see what it looked like in real life.
The change in atmosphere from when I left the workplace to when I walked out the door to look at the sky was remarkable. The dew point temperature had soared to a tropical 70° (F). The air temperature was in the high 70s.
I don’t know how much the sudden return of warmth might have contributed, but yesterday also happened to mark the return of our annual Asian beetle infestation. It is striking how specifically the environment changes in a single day, going from nothing at all, to thousands of bugs swarming all at once.
Somewhere nearby, a soybean crop has been harvested from the field, triggering the mass migration of beetles to some source of water and shelter.
Getting out in the air provided a feeling that there was more than enough fuel for a rip-roaring thunderstorm, but the reality I encountered didn’t look bad at all yet.
It was actually a serene scene of calm horses in front of a backdrop of fall colors in the trees. Low clouds were sweeping by at a pretty good clip, mostly obscuring the higher and darker wall of the approaching storm.
A short while later, while we were eating dinner, the sky opened up to dump an inch of rain in a relatively short-lived outburst. Oddly, there was little in the way of lightning and thunder. Maybe it was moving by too fast. The sky turned a little green, but that was probably more a function of the low angle of the setting sun than it was the measure of threat from the storm.
It didn’t even blow that hard during the peak. That actually came later. Once the storm had passed, the sky cleared, stars shined bright, and strong gusting winds blew in to fill the void.
It was just another day where the weather served up the equivalence of several days of action –or several seasons even– all in a single afternoon.
We measure that in WPMs around here. That is, Weather Per Minute.
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Crazy Things
I have finally seen the first egg laid without a shell. On Monday, Cyndie came from collecting eggs at the coop and showed me the crazy thing. The shell-less membrane was sturdy enough to be gently handled without rupturing, and as visible in the image, looked full-sized and held the shape of a regular egg.
We had read about this happening, but I could never picture what it would be like. Now I know. Very interesting.
I experienced another first yesterday, and it was a crazy thing, too.
Cayenne bit me on the shoulder while I was scooping poop under the overhang. That is a very uncharacteristic behavior from the sweetest of our three horses. My startled response and yelp made all the horses jump, but my amped up angry energy directed unmistakably toward her chased her out from under the overhang and pushed her trotting down the slope toward the waterer.
We all quickly went back to grazing, but I was much less generous about sharing space with them while I worked. None of the three were subsequently allowed the usual close quarters they are normally granted while I do the housekeeping chore.
I’m not sure what message she meant to send with that nip of my shoulder, but I get the impression that all three of the horses are feeling a little out of sorts lately. Don’t know if it might be the changing weather, or their continued uncertainty about a herd leader, or accumulated frustration over their restricted diet.
A diet which, by the way, has produced noticeable results in their weight this summer. Maybe they are feeling ornery because of the cooler temperatures and shorter days, and as a result they want to bulk up a little before it starts to get really cold. Cayenne may have been trying to urge me to stop with the clean up already and get on with serving some dinner.
I finished the evening with one last crazy thing just before bedtime. I went out in the dark and worked with Cyndie to load the foosball table top into the back of my car to deliver to a buyer who found it on Craigslist.
I’d actually forgotten about the listing that I put up the same time as the lawn tractor that sold in a few days. The one and only call of interest in the foosball table came around dinner time yesterday, and the proximity of my workplace in Plymouth turned out to be a convenient meeting place.
Pretty lucky for an ad that reported River Falls, WI as the location.
You might even call it, crazy.
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Noticing Privilege
I stumbled upon an article yesterday that gobbled up my attention and hung on to it for much longer than I usually allow most politically charged stories to occupy my mind.
While I was being held prisoner to traffic on Interstate 94 last Thursday, I passed some of the mind-numbing, slow-rolling-brakelights time listening to Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement and a few Senator’s worth of questions and his responses (“responses” because sometimes they weren’t answers).
Some of what he said, and the raw emotion with which he said it, seemed pretty compelling. Having not had the opportunity to hear Christine Blasey Ford’s session, I had nothing to compare to his version of the issue. I figured he had a lock on the needed votes to be confirmed for a lifetime term on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Despite what I figured, my gut and my intuition were providing me with an alternative take.
Methinks he doth protest too much.
Reading Nathan J. Robinson’s very long and excruciatingly thorough Current Affairs exposé, “How We Know Kavanaugh is Lying” was incredibly validating of my suspicions.
One of the reasons this article was so compelling for me is that most of the evidence presented is taken directly from the words I heard spoken live on the radio. When analyzed in the way Kavanaugh’s statements are laid out in the article, his own words seem to sabotage his defense. Combined with how often he avoids answering potentially harmful questions, frequently with bizarre redirecting responses, my first impression of his pretty compelling argument was completely dashed.
I just don’t know how anyone could in good conscience vote to confirm his nomination at this point. However, given the state of this country’s political situation, I won’t be surprised if those intent on furthering their agenda will do anything to get him seated on the nation’s highest court.
Pondering that possibility yesterday riled me up something fierce. How could they?! It would be a travesty! We can’t let this happen!
That was when I received an insight that privilege was framing my outrage. In my moment of upset over the possible injustice of this man being allowed to serve despite the preponderance of likelihood he is not worthy, it occurred to me how often similar injustices have been thrust upon groups of people throughout this country’s history.
Over and over again. So often that they come to expect it. Why would it be any other way? Why would indigenous people of multiple tribal nations ever trust the US government? Why would women be surprised to find out they weren’t being treated equal to men? Why would people of color be surprised to find out voting district boundaries had been gerrymandered to influence election results against their best interests?
If the outcome of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination doesn’t go the way I think it should, I hope I am able to contain my outrage and maintain some dignity, despite the injustice.
Generations of good people have endured far worse for far longer and continued to hold their heads high and carry on with hope for better days.
I’m all for better days. I’m even going to hope for sooner than later.
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Relative Something 