Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Feels Like
I don’t know if it is universal around the globe, but our weather reports include a “feels like” temperature along with the actual air temperature readings. Most people don’t need to be told what it feels like. We know when it feels like the gales of November even though the calendar indicates we are in the last week of April.
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There have been enough days of increased daylight, and a few early days of spring when the temperature climbed above normal, that plants and grasses have kicked off their growth. On Tuesday, when I got home from work, I mowed about 3/4s of our grass areas. It was so chilly outside that I needed a sweatshirt, but the growth of grass down by the road was enough that I didn’t want to wait.
I figured I would finish getting the remaining portions of yard cut when I got home yesterday, if it wasn’t raining. That didn’t turn out to be the case. There were a few random spatters on my windshield during the drive, and as I neared home, I could see the falling rain in the sky to the south.
The cool temperatures and falling rain were enough reason to let the horses have a night indoors. Cyndie headed out into the chill to prepare their stalls. When she invited them inside, she described Legacy, the herd leader, started toward her and then paused.
She said it was as if he was uncertain whether he was getting an afternoon chance for grazing the new green grass out in the pasture, or was just being offered shelter from the elements.
The other three horses needed to halt their advance while he sorted this out. Cyndie said they weren’t being very patient about it, circling around in anticipation of continuing on to the barn, but also trying to respect Legacy’s not yet authorizing the choice.
Cyndie described Hunter eventually showing a look indicating he was done waiting. He and Cayenne came up to the gate to get inside. Responding to Hunter’s initiative, Cyndie let him come inside first. Once inside and alone, Hunter called out over being separated from his mates. Cyndie said that Legacy immediately responded with an acknowledging whinny.
She brought Legs next, followed by Dezirea, and then Cayenne.
Back in the house, we sat in front of the fire and listened to the ferocious sound of wind and rain, pleased that the horses weren’t stuck outside where they could find out what the weather actually felt like.
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Springing Along
The season of spring is springing along nicely at Wintervale. The leaves have started making an appearance on a variety of shrubs and saplings. The raspberry bushes in particular have shown dramatic development in the last few days. It is hard to tell whether the recent rains triggered this, or it was just coincidental timing, and would have happened at this time, anyway.
It amazes me how quickly the initial sprouts of foliage obscure the view into our woods. Very soon, there will be so many green leaves, we won’t be able to see more than the outer surfaces.
I’m wishing I could remember this moment long-term in order to hold it as a reference for comparison with the other extremes of the stark bare branches of winter and the view-obscuring green leaves of summer. Every season seems to last just long enough that I mentally fall into a trap of perceiving views as if a present state is the only way it could ever be.
When the forest is fully leafed out, I find it hard to comprehend that just months earlier, it was the complete opposite.
Though most areas of our yard have yet to be mowed, I already needed to cut one section a second time.
I sense that summer is just a short blink away from replacing spring, and the expanding leaves on trees and bushes will be leading the charge in the days ahead.
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Growing Accustomed
I had a moment over the weekend when I became aware of just how much comfort I am developing with many of the things that were beyond my sphere of exposure just a few years ago. That’s not entirely a surprise. I expected to get the hang of things in time. But, there is relief in being able to notice the progress.
I changed the oil and replaced the mower blades on the lawn tractor on Saturday. Detaching and sliding out the mower deck has become so simple and routine for me that I laughed to myself over the change of perspective about the task.
When we got the horses, I didn’t have any experience caring for a horse. It was a daunting feeling to be responsible for their well-being when knowing so little about them. I’ve grown a lot more comfortable reading their general health in the ensuing years.
I have been composting the horse manure long enough now that I am getting much better at recognizing progress, both when it’s happening, and when it’s not. It was interesting yesterday to discover that I needed to add water to piles I was turning, even though we had been receiving rain showers throughout the preceding 18 hours.
The micro organisms that generate intense heat while breaking down the manure, do an amazing job of drying out the material at the same time. If I neglect to turn the pile often enough, the composting process doesn’t transpire nearly as efficiently as it otherwise would.
Luckily, I’ve grown accustomed to having manure management be a significant part of my contribution here.
What can I say? I’m good at shoveling it.
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Quick Transformation
I am so pleased with our decision to get a wood chipper attachment for our tractor. We have an unending supply of branches available for chipping and we have a need for wood chips on our trails.
In a rewardingly short amount of time, we were able to convert an unwanted pile of collected branches on the edge of a trail, into conveniently placed mounds of raw material for “paving” the paths.
It really feels like double dipping. Like having our cake and eating it, too.
There is even an added bonus of saving us from needing a gym membership to get exercise. Last night I could really feel the body fatigue from the constant motion of bending and lifting, done at an accelerated pace to keep the chipper fed while the diesel engine races along at optimal revolutions.
So, it has actually proved to be a 3-in-1 device! It’s a perfect model of efficiency.
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Springing Considerably
The forest floor is sprouting forth with an abundance of white trout lilies this week. It made me curious about the trillium that we transplanted from our lake place last year. I should have marked them better, because the complete transformation of the woods in a year’s time has me confused now over where I put them.
I planted the “borrowed” trillium in several small groups in a section of woods just below the house. Surveying the area late yesterday, it seemed like the only growth was trout lilies, but I eventually spotted a grouping of the distinctly different leaves.
In a few weeks, flowers will make the trillium much easier to spot.
Up north, it is obvious how prolific trillium is in naturally propagating to carpet the woods and create a dramatic visual. We are hoping to seed our spaces with enough starters to enable the natural process to do the rest.
After some passing gentle rain showers on Thursday, the pasture that I mowed last weekend is greening up nicely. I strung the webbing between posts yesterday to complete the divider fence that will allow us to rotationally graze the horses on that precious field.
The point where I connected the new webbing to electricity is right at the paddock, and the horses took great interest in what I was doing. I had the charger turned off to work, and while I experimented with several methods of connection, Legacy and Cayenne took turns putting their noses right into the business at hand.
I sure hope they are keen enough to sense the hazard of doing that when the electricity is on.
Even though they already had a stint on the alley grass earlier in the day, Cyndie talked me into letting them come out on the pasture with the new divider for a short nibble after so patiently watching me fix it up all afternoon.
I can’t really say whether they even noticed the new divider, because their attention was exclusively focused on the succulent green blades immediately available just steps beyond the opened gate.
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Garden Progress
Cyndie’s new garden is progressing nicely. We received a wonderfully timed rain shower last night, after giving the plants a final serving of composted manure fertilizer. With the robust effort Cyndie put in to protect the new plantings from marauding animals, the garden should now have everything necessary to thrive.
After my last wheelbarrow load had been delivered to her, I headed into the paddock to do a little clean up in the narrow end closest to the garden. In no time, Legacy arrived to closely supervise. He always wants to nibble on the wooden handles of the wheelbarrow, which I strictly forbid.
I repeatedly adjust the position so the handles point to where I am standing, meaning he would have to go through me to get to them. If I wander at all, he will step in for a bite. After he figured out I wasn’t going to let that happen, he turned his attention to Cyndie in the garden, on the other side of the driveway.
As I worked, the other three horses arrived to share in the excitement. Cayenne stood so close to me that we almost bumped noses a couple of times. I called over to Cyndie to show off my crew, hanging with me while I toiled away.
I didn’t know she was taking pictures until we got inside and she shared them.
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Overwhelmingly Loved
I am living a charmed life lately. Really. It’s a bit overwhelming. How do you adequately thank someone for loving you?
Pequenita has been dishing out so much affection for me that I am almost feeling smothered by her. At the same time, who can resist the charm of a cat who repeatedly seeks a perch somewhere on top of you?
She can be so insistent for attention when I get home from work that I have to pick her up to protect my legs from becoming her scratching post. If I make the mistake of choosing to lay down with her for a few minutes at that hour of the day, I usually become the victim of an unplanned nap.
She oftentimes finds a suitable spot on my legs and joins me for a snooze.
My lovely wife has been spoiling me with extra special attention by choosing healthy options for my goal of eating a reduced sugar diet, and tweaking her bread recipes to incorporate more diverse grains with extra substance. Lately I have a thing for millet in bread, along with a fondness for wheat berry and sunflower nuts, in addition to the usual whole grains.
Yesterday, Cyndie nailed it with a couple of excellent loaves, hot out of the oven at dinner time, while she was simultaneously whipping up some fresh homemade pasta to serve as a base under her delectable leftover beef bourguignon that was recently pulled from the freezer.
It certainly feels like being loved, to be fed like that.
My mom gave Cyndie some special training on how to make the bread I grew up with. Talk about love!
Last night, while looking at the beautiful loaves she created, I suddenly noticed an insight about how my father must have felt about the bread mom baked for him throughout their life together. Mom told us stories about how she first learned to bake bread when they were newlyweds stationed in a fire lookout tower in Glacier National Park.
By the time I was born, over 10-years later, she had definitely mastered the craft. Her homemade bread was a staple in our kitchen. Dad was a stern scolder when we didn’t cut straight slices. We toasted it and fried it, and I recall Dad used a slice to soak up the juice on the meat platter when the menu involved steak.
My parents weren’t very demonstrative of their love, but looking back, those years of homemade bread reveal a pretty good version of it.
Now I am blessed with the same. It is overwhelmingly lovely.
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Much Improved
One of the first things I notice when I come up our driveway is how the temporary fence around the arena space is holding up. I’ve figured out that it is in a spot that is particularly prone to a beating on windy days. Logic would suggest we could solve that issue with a permanent fence, but we aren’t ready for that level of commitment yet. This location is growing on us, but it was far from a certain thing when we chose to mark off the dimensions.
It was refreshing to discover Sunday that we could fix, and even improve the current set up without needing to spend a lot of money. We already had most of what was needed to accomplish adding better anchor posts and getting it connected to the existing electric fence.
Now I don’t need to use the solar-powered fence charger that the horses had taken a liking to nibbling on last fall, and I can still keep them from messing with the plastic posts.
I pulled the webbing tight when I finished on Sunday, and it was still looking great when I got home yesterday, despite a reasonable breeze.
Now all it needs is Cyndie and a horse out there doing some dressage routines.
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Green Alley
I didn’t start the day Sunday with a plan to spend the entire day reworking the fencing around our arena space, but that is pretty much how it played out. We thought we were going to make a run to purchase parts that would allow us to finish the new divider fence in the back pasture. After that, we hoped to take a crack at turning some brush piles into wood chips for our trails.
Instead, I started fixing the sad-looking step-in posts we had used to mark out space for an arena, most of which were heavily battered by wind and soft spring soil. That spawned an idea to also put up the short barriers to the hay-field. This creates an alley between the paddock and the arena space, which we can then give the horses access to, saving me the chore of needing to mow it.
The grass in that space is actually further along than in the back pasture, so we adjusted plans and focussed on getting that space ready first. While I toiled away on details to electrify all the new fence webbing, Cyndie made the run for parts that would allow us to finish both the pasture divider and the arena area.
When she got back and I had the barriers done on each end of the alley, we decided to give the horses their first few minutes on fresh grass right then and there, while we finished up a few details on the arena fence. They stepped through the gate in a very mannerly way, spending a few minutes nibbling the first blades available. In no time, they were wandering well into the space, Legacy hanging close to us, and the three chestnuts moving the other direction.
We needed to limit their time on the grass, which involves the challenge of asking them to go back into the paddock. That’s not always easy, but they demonstrated impeccable self-control last night and headed back inside of their own accord, when Cyndie was preparing to set out their evening feed.
Of course, they subsequently showed great interest in both of the main gates we tend to leave open for them later in the season. They were cooperative about coming in, but they were obviously interested in getting back out again soon. They’ll get that chance today, and for twice the time. We add 15-minutes a day during their transition times onto spring grass, up to about 4-hours. At that point, we can leave the gates open all the time, allowing them free choice all day and night.
Lucky for them, the alley grass is plenty green and growing fast, so they have that to start with while we wait for the back pasture to catch up.
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Anxiously Waiting
We knocked off a good number of satisfying chores yesterday, taking full advantage of perfectly summer-like weather. In fact, it was so summery, I found myself mowing grass. We also put fence posts in to split our back pasture, so we will be able to rotate the horses back and forth, allowing us to provide the turf occasional rest from the voracious foursome.
The herd spent most of the day lined up at the gate, anxiously awaiting access to the new green smorgasbord that is sprouting beyond the confines of their paddock. Cyndie captured a wonderful shot of them eyeing her as she walked past, sending their message of bewilderment over being neglected all this time.
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They won’t have too much longer to wait. We have shut them in for a few weeks to give the grass a head start, protecting it from both their heavy hooves while it’s wet, and their devouring ways.
While I was getting machines prepared for the day’s work, Cyndie drove the truck down to one of the older rock piles at the edge of our woods and selected perfect specimens to create a border for a new native wild flower garden that she is creating in the spot where we recently removed all the old barbed wire, stump, and brush.
Visitors will be greeted by a colorful splendor as it comes into view over the crest of the first rise in our driveway.
Cyndie has some of her own anxious waiting to do, for her vision of new growing flowers to become established and in full bloom on this wonderful spot she is creating.
It seemed like more additional work than I saw a need for, but once again, her ability to make things happen is bringing about another enhancement to Wintervale that will add even more charm to an already precious place.
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