Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Fiery Sky
The horses were heavily harassed by biting flies yesterday, which made my session of scooping manure a lively affair. The biggest hazard, beyond unpredictable flailing hooves as they fling a leg out in response to a bite, is the nasty snap of their tails. They could take an eye out with that whipping action. At the very least, it stings when they get you.
I’ve noticed they will frequently align themselves to purposely have their heads in the wash of someone else’s tail for added fly management. There is no doubt they are thicker skinned than we are. I wouldn’t be able to endure the beating.
I worked well past the dinner hour last night, after a full shift at the day-job, to create added open space in the compost area for my approaching week-long absence from home. The effort now should pay off when I return, so I won’t come home to a disaster of overflowing piles.
Manure management is one of those jobs that is made easy by frequent attention. Let it go for a day or two between scooping and it can become an exponentially more significant project.
Last night, I opened up a gate to a section of pasture that still has long grass, to allow the herd a brief session of grazing. The first thing three of them did was pee. The second thing they took turns doing was laying down and rolling around.
When I looked their direction to see they finally got around to seriously grazing, the setting sun was illuminating the clouds to create the impression of a great conflagration. Photo Op!
One last day at the day-job today before vacation. I hope to try mowing the yard tonight and maybe doing a little laundry so I can pack clean clothes for the bike trip.
If I pack warm clothes and rain gear, maybe I won’t need them. We all know that if I don’t pack those things, it would guarantee that the week would turn out cold and wet.
If we see fiery clouds in the evenings during the bike trip, I hope it will mean, “sailor’s delight.”
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Successful Surgery
We are happy to report that Cyndie’s surgery was all good yesterday. There were no complications in the 4 objectives of cleaning out the arthritis, removing a spur, cleaning up the rotator cuff, and reattaching the ruptured tendons.
The outpatient procedure allowed her to be home by the end of the day, where she immediately began experimenting with our variety of chairs and couch in search of a favored perch. Pain management was easy last night, as the nerve block hadn’t yet worn off and the whole arm down to the hand was without feeling.
Today will likely be a bit more challenging for her, we presume.
They had her strapped into the brace before she even woke up from the procedure. She will wear it for the next 6-weeks, except for taking showers.
Quite a fashion statement, don’t you think?
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Animals Sense
This morning we are headed to an outpatient surgery center for Cyndie’s shoulder repair. The plan is for an arthroscopic procedure to reattach ruptured tendons and clean up any tissue tears, and then clean up arthritis discovered in the MRI done to assess the injury.
The silver lining in this incident is that she hadn’t previously realized the extent of arthritic damage in that shoulder that was contributing to a chronic discomfort she had come to perceive as ‘normal.’
Welcome to the world of chronic Lyme disease outcomes. Sure, she was treated extensively with long-term antibiotics back when her symptoms mushroomed to a level of undeniable evidence, but it’s an imperfect science. Even more so back in the ’90s when she experienced it.
A vast majority of health insurance corporations and plenty of doctors closely associated would like her to swallow the company lines that she is completely cured. We tend to feel the wild litany of afflictions picking away at our sanity every year since that initial treatment are unsurprisingly identical to the long list of Lyme related symptoms listed in medical research reports.
Her debilitating arthritis is just a fraction of the issues she experiences, but at least modern medicine offers clear surgical options to repair or replace arthritic joints.
As frustrating as it is to be going through this routine again, we are at the same time grateful to have this opportunity. We intend to focus on the potential for less pain in that shoulder, and the return of function of her dominant right arm.
I want to know if she will be able to hoist bales of hay again. Hopefully, even better than before.
Our animals seem to recognize she is in a world of hurt since the arm was yanked. Cyndie reported that yesterday Legacy approached her and uncharacteristically, with his head down, ever so gently rubbed up and down her afflicted limb with his nose, as if in acknowledgement of her discomfort.
Pequenita, who generally reserves the majority of her affection for me, has switched allegiance and has been sleeping on Cyndie the last few nights. I spotted her on Sunday, all curled up in a ball with her head turned over, sleeping just below Cyndie’s pillow.
We are all mustering our best Cyndie care-taking energies to guide her through today’s procedure, and then on to recovery and rehabilitation. We’ve had some practice with this. I’m pretty sure we know what to do.
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Silt Filtered
The new silt fence installation mostly worked, but it wasn’t quite up to the task of yesterday morning’s deluge. We received 2-inches of rain in a span of about 20 minutes. I made a quick reconnaissance trek to assess the worthiness of our installation in the moments after the downpour and found this:
It was a little deflating, but not unexpected. Interesting to see how easily the water pressure pushed away the bales as it overflowed the plastic fabric barrier. The good news is that most of the silt did remain on the uphill side of the fence.
The water will not be denied. When I pushed the bales back in place and stopped the overflow, the soil beneath my feet simply bubbled up with flow out of the ground like a spring.
Five and a half years ago when we started this property adventure, I had no idea what I was in for in terms of actual land management. If I have learned anything in that time, it is that whatever the design might be that we conjure up to enhance this land, it better fully keep in mind and will be wholly subject to, the whims of the changing climate and the water behavior it will unleash, from drought, to frost heaves, to flash flood and everything in-between.
With reverent reference to the classic thriller, “Jaws” :
We’re gonna need a bigger fence.
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DejaVu Again
With less than a week until I leave for my umpteenth annual Tour of Minnesota bicycling and camping week, planning is well underway. Surprisingly, we are also in the midst of planning for coverage to assist Cyndie with life and ranch chores while she recovers from a surgery.
With a totally unexpected speed usually associated with emergency procedures, the office of the orthopedic surgeon initiated an accelerated series of appointments leading to repair of Cyndie’s shoulder on Tuesday, just three days before I leave for my trip.
They got her fitted with a special sling to be used for days after the procedure, and on her way home she was able to squeeze in the requisite pre-op physical. Cyndie will be back on pain meds and placed on the disabled list for ranch management activities for weeks after her surgery.
And I will be on vacation for a week. Good luck with that.
It’s a bit distracting, trying to take a break from the routine, while faced with the knowledge my wife is unable to fulfill her own role, let alone cover for my absence.
The solution: Family and friends.
We wouldn’t be where we are today without them. Thank you, in advance, to all who are volunteering to take a shift covering our needs of Cyndie-care and animal care this week while I try to keep hours at the day-job and then leave for a week of vacation.
You’ll just love the chickens!
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Getting Scary
This is starting to get a little scary now. First, my wife gets her face bashed in by a relatively far-fetched event of stepping on a rake. Then, a few days later, her right arm gets yanked out of the socket, tearing her rotator cuff and tendons in two places.
She toughed it out for a day or two with ice and ibuprofen, until the pain and dysfunction became unbearable. That led to a visit to Urgent Care, where she was told to get an MRI and see an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shoulders.
He sensed a necessity to conduct a thorough interview to see if Cyndie feels safe at home.
“Stepped on a rake.” Yeah, right.
“My horse got startled by the chickens and her panicked lurch pulled the lead line I was holding in my right hand while attempting to secure the paddock gate with my other hand.”
“Are you SURE you feel safe at home?”
John might be getting a surprise visit from a social worker in the days ahead.
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Beating Heat
Although Arabian horses were bred to perform under harsh desert conditions, the humidity that we get with our high heat is enough to make all species a little irritated. In the summer, we offer our horses a warm dusty breeze that moves enough air to toss their manes and chase off some flies.
It actually seems like little comfort, blowing hot, humid air, but Legacy has taken a particular liking to it.
Delilah prefers to lay on the cool tile in the house. Her fur coat doesn’t allow for wind to be much help. Luckily, she is a big fan of sprayed water from the hose, so we can shrink her coat dramatically by getting her wet.
We are arriving upon my last weekend before the annual June biking and camping week. I will be looking for a way to spend some time on the bike seat without putting myself at risk of heat stroke. It would be really helpful if I could rig up a mount on my tractor instead, so I could sit on my bike seat while mowing the lawn.
Speaking of mowing, I will be picking up the old Craftsman rider from the shop this morning. Now I can return the borrowed John Deere and get back to my own rig. I’ll be able to find out if it runs well under intense heat, that’s for sure.
The summer heat has brought out the lightning bugs. With the strawberry moon glowing brilliantly last night, the neon green flashes dancing above the tall grasses made for a glorious nighttime walk with Delilah as I rolled the trash and recycling bins down to the road.
George has come back for the weekend while he is serving his farrier clients in the region. I tended to the horses while he trimmed our herd after dinner. Cayenne is making good progress. He removed her shoes and left her bare foot again.
It may be hot, but things here are actually running pretty cool.
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Battling Growth
Sometimes it does feel a little like a battle against a siege of growing greenery. The lawn grass that I cut with the borrowed mower the other day now looks like I’ve neglected it for a couple of weeks. Now imagine what the areas that haven’t been cut at all look like.
The two pastures we refer to as “back” and “north,” are over two feet tall. I was just starting to mow the back pasture last Saturday when the sound from the brush cutter caused me to stop and check on the gear box. There’s some serious mowing left to be done back there still.
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie laid down some pool noodles in the arena space to do an exercise with the horses. She said it didn’t work very well because the grass was too tall and it was hard to see the noodles. I decided to get that cut before resuming work with the brush cutter.
First, I needed to sharpen and adjust the blades on the reel mower for Cyndie so she could use it on the labyrinth. Seriously, there is nowhere that doesn’t need mowing right now, pretty much on an every-other-day basis.
We try to keep the arena grass as short as possible, usually mowing it with the rider. I ventured in there after dinner last night with the borrowed tractor and quickly discovered the grass had grown a lot longer than was noticeable from a distance.
It was so long and thick in places that I needed to make a first pass at a high setting, to enable mowing it a second time at the lowest one.
While I did laps on the rider, Cyndie worked the fence line with the power trimmer.
A couple of soldiers fighting the good fight for order and scenic well-being against the growing chaos and unwelcome infestations.
Seriously, it’s like landscape warfare.
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Objective Achieved
Obviously, we have many objectives, and quite frankly –due in many ways to my lack of bringing projects to fruition– we have not achieved a great majority of them. However, if we were to focus on the dream of having chickens to scratch and spread piles of manure while eating bugs to help control pests… Objective achieved!
After dinner last night, Cyndie and I made a hay run to haul another pickup-load of bales from our latest supplier. We marveled over the phenomena of cultivating social capital to foster good will with the many service providers we have come to know in the area.
We are both intent on making the most of our limited time and work to maximize productiveness of the short hours available when I get home from the day-job. I squeezed in a couple of errands on the way home, including a stop at the repair shop that couldn’t identify any problem with the Kohler engine in my riding mower [grumble, grumble].
We settled on focusing his attention on the carburetor.
After squeezing in a very quick meal, we hustled to reach the hay farm at the appointed hour. Our new friend, Scott, entertained us with story after story while rolling bales perfectly into place for me to load. As I attached straps to hold down the bales, Scott tried a quick-fix to screw the rusted step-bar on the passenger side back onto the rusted frame, alas to no avail.
Then we chatted some more while half of me wanted to hustle home. The other half of me wanted to stay as long as he offered to visit. There have been very few, if any, interactions with folks that don’t involve some extended chatting. It’s really pretty precious.
It generates a social capital that we highly value. Projects can grow to take a fair amount of additional time, but the benefits of our interactions are always worth it.
The other errand I ran on the way home from work was to the implement dealer to see if they had any advice regarding the leaky gear box on our brush cutter. The last time I added gear oil, it seemed like it disappeared surprisingly fast. Then I spotted the dark wetness on the flywheel below and concluded the seals were bad.
An internet search on the subject was very entertaining. In classic form, I found multiple discussions where opposing views alternated with every other comment on discussion boards.
Corn Head Grease seemed to be a common recommendation. There were farmers who switched to grease over oil and hadn’t had a problem in 40 years. There were as many advisors who said absolutely don’t use grease, as it will move away from the friction points by the force of the spin.
Some wrote that they mixed oil with the grease to get the best of both worlds. The lubrication manufacturers strongly state one should never mix the two.
After twice scanning the offerings at the implement dealer, the clerk at the parts desk asked if he could help me find anything. At that same moment, my eyes landed on the answer to the question I was about to ask.
Farm oyl makes the very product I was hoping existed.
That’s one of those mini objectives, achieved.
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Okay Already
I’ll tell. I’ll tell. Enough time has passed that she’s gotten over the shock and trauma and has been able to have a few good laugh-till-out-of-breath moments over her escapade on Saturday.
Cyndie stepped on a rake.
There. I said it. It’s true. Yep. A rake.
I’m pretty sure OSHA would not approve of the unsafe work practice of letting a rake lay on the ground with the tines all pointing at the sky, but she somehow let that happen. How many times can you do that and not suffer any consequences?
Doesn’t matter. All it takes is once…
I gotta clarify, though, this was no standard namby pamby garden rake. She was working with the dreaded level head bow rake. Yeah. Ouch.
It wasn’t a slow roll up to her noggin’ it was a lethal instant THWAP to the head.
Cyndie was under the willow tree at the time of the incident, and a gust of wind blew the wispy branches in her face. In her (probably somewhat out-of-balance) reaction, she planted a foot to catch herself and stomped on the business end of the rake.
The sound made by the handle smacking her skull was frightening. Then, that was followed by equally frightening sounds of her pained reaction.
Thank goodness that’s behind us now and we can laugh about it.
We celebrated her birthday yesterday by installing a silt fence uphill of her garden of flowering perennials which was inundated by the flash flood a few weeks ago. If the bizarre laws of “the way things go” plays out, now that we have this in place, it won’t rain again for months and months.
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Just in case it does, and comes in one of those all too frequent 4-inch-at-a-time hundred-year events that happen multiple times a year now, we think we have a better chance of controlling the flood.
Time will tell.
Moral of the story, be careful out there. And always lay your rake with the tines down.
Yep, just like the cartoons. WHAM!
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