Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Making Contact
With Cyndie home doing a fabulous rendition of healing and rehab, I have plenty of distractions keeping me from my appointed rounds. I have bent over to pick things up off the floor for her more times than I can count, but her increasingly joyful energy around here is so precious I am more than happy to do it.
It doesn’t take more than a whim for me to give in and loll around the house for a few extra hours, sometimes at Delilah’s expense. Our poor girl would much rather be outside chasing anything that moves, but since we aren’t letting her run loose, she has to wait for me to take her walking.
Cyndie captured this image of us on the floor making eye contact as we negotiated our next plan of action. Delilah didn’t win the stare-down, but I still gave her the reward she ultimately wanted anyway. We walked, played catch with discs in the pasture, and then she supervised me working on building the second slow-feeder in the shop.
She has become a very willing assistant in the shop, quickly picking up cut pieces of wood that fall from my saw, chewing them up to make sure I don’t get them confused with useable material.
Unfortunately, I haven’t taught her to avoid walking through my swept piles of sawdust. Her intense fascination with what I am doing means I end up sweeping my pile several times before getting it into the dust pan, as she walks through it in circles around me so she can be close enough to wipe her tongue all over my face when I bend down.
She has a way of making contact equally well with her eyes and her tongue. How awesome it is to be the recipient of both.
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Design Issues
While our temperatures are above freezing, the horses are tolerating the sloppy conditions just fine. They seem to have no problem with the lime screenings we added as new ground cover in their paddock. 
When I went down to feed them in the late afternoon yesterday, I found that Hunter had laid down in the wet screenings and painted his entire side and face with them. Looks like he is getting a spa mud bath. It’s no surprise that it’s him, out of all the horses. He has a history of putting on mud masks since he arrived here.
I’m happy to report that they are making good headway on the bale in my slow feeder. I’ve decided to stay with the same dimensions for the second box, yet to be built. We will just need to put a bit less than a full bale in when we restock it, and loosen up the flakes before placing the grate on top.
I really should get the second box completed as soon as possible, so all 4 horses can enjoy equal access to the new grazing system. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough wood scraps to use the same exact plan I did on the first box. If I am going to succeed in building both out of materials I already have on hand, I will need to put it together differently. I’m thinking this one might end up with plywood sides instead of the 3 rows of treated 2×6 boards I used for the first box.
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Big Meltdown
The weather has taken the predicted turn toward warm, foggy, and wet. I didn’t take a picture this morning, because it would just turn out gray. Our visibility is at about 12 feet. It’s not like we lost a lot of snow. November brought us a couple of plow-able accumulations, but we never had more that 4 or 5 inches on the ground, excluding a few drifts that made it to twice that depth. But there isn’t much left in the way of snow anymore.
The mid-40s (F) all day yesterday and overnight last night have softened the once-frozen ground and turned the paddocks into their classic spring mud messiness. It is hard to judge the effectiveness of our drain tile with the current situation, because the ground seems frozen in some places and not so in others. I’m confident that our changes have helped to some degree. Ultimately, what the drain tile is expected to improve is the time it takes to dry out after the source of moisture ceases.
This situation is temporary, as it will return to freezing in a day or two. That will give the horses a break from the sloppiness. I don’t know if it bothers them as much as it does us, but it sure looks and sounds miserable when they trudge through the muck.
This morning they seemed particularly jumpy, I assume from the thickness of the fog, and it had them doing some dramatic running with gusto. When it is muddy, that kind of running kicks up quite a mess. Maybe they actually like that effect.
I took a picture of the drainage swale doing its thing yesterday. Here’s a before and after view of the big meltdown:
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Slowly Learning
I finished my first slow hay feeder box for our horses yesterday. I wish they had been around when I was placing it under the barn overhang and loading it with hay. The herd was on the far side of the hay-field at the time, happily grazing in the warm winter fog. Later, when the time came for them to come up for the afternoon serving of their feed supplement, surprise sightings of the new box in their space startled the heck out of each one as it came into their view.
If they had been there while I was working on it, they would have been putting their noses all over it in curiosity about what I was up to. I didn’t have time to linger with them, because I had a date planned to get Cyndie to a movie and out grocery shopping for the first time since her surgery. We even ate out at a burger joint to make it feel like a real event. It was a grand success, and she surprised me with her endurance traipsing the food aisles on her feet for the long duration.
I figured the horses might completely avoid the foreign object, but this morning discovered one or more of the brave souls figured out there was hay in there. Overnight there was enough activity to leave scraps on the ground around the box and create divots in the bale beneath the metal grate. Looked to me like one or more of the horses had spent enough time there to get comfortable with it.
We don’t want the horses to become frustrated by this obstructed source of hay, so I will continue to provide it in the existing feeders for now to allow them options. The hope is that this new system will be easy enough for the horses to accept as a pleasing source of grazing that is always available to them.
In that regard, I felt there was something wrong with my method after inspecting the results of their progress after one night. It appeared they were only able to make limited headway into the bale, leaving the grate resting high on spots they hadn’t pulled apart. My initial intuition was that I had designed the whole thing wrong, based on the bale positioned with the cut edge to the side.
If I turn the bale 90° so that cut edge is up, it resembles the appearance of growing grass. The ends all point up. It will be easier for them to pull a bite from between the squares, and the grate will be more inclined to drop down as they consume the bale. It seemed to me that would be less frustrating for them. So I tried it.
I immediately discovered a problem in that the bales aren’t symmetrical. When dropped in there on its side, the bale is too tall for the box! Back to the drawing board. That is why I only built one to start. I laid the grate on top and stood there for a while as Legacy took to the sideways bale right away. Eventually Cayenne joined him and they seemed to be having a fine time with it, until the loose grate laying on top suddenly shifted as she pulled aggressively at a bite. It banged the wall and they bolted away in a panic.
The thing is, I may be jumping the gun. I have a couple of thoughts about it now, after giving it some time. I don’t know for sure that the first way wouldn’t work, given enough time. Also, I put an entire bale in there, and maybe it was too tight that way. If there was just a portion of a bale, maybe they could make better headway.
I’m not sure how I will proceed. Maybe if I give them more time, they will teach me what to do. I am slowly learning.
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Gift Remembered
My sister, Mary, commented that she likes when I write about my early years growing up in our fabulous family. I always feel a little unsure about writing my version of the past for an audience that includes others who were present at the time and enough older than me that they probably were able to form more dependable memories of the actual events.
I have an impression of our holiday gift giving involving a certain amount of shenanigans. I’m sure my siblings will be able to clarify, but I have a vague recollection of someone needing to follow a trail of yarn that had been fiendishly “spider-webbed” around the furnishings of the room, to get to the prize at the end. Maybe that was just a party game. We had a fair amount of those events, too.
There is one gift I remember in particular that I was fooled by, that went on to become one of my prized possessions. I’m guessing it was the Christmas of 1967, because November of that year is when the album, “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd.” was released by The Monkees.
That year I would have been 8-years-old. For a kid that age, the usual assumption is: the bigger the box, the better the present. Well, the length and width of this box were big enough to fit a record album, but it was deep enough to hold something much larger. It was thrilling. I unwrapped the present, removed the cover, and found nothing but tissue paper inside the box.
They had taped the album to the cover of the box. I think it was a little frustrating for me, but that was definitely diminished by the excellence of the gift. I don’t recall actually putting the album on the old hi-fi, but I remember studying the front and back cover of the album while listening to the songs, over and over.
I still have the 3rd cut on the second side memorized. It’s the lead-in to the song “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and it is titled, “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky.”
Peter Percival Patterson’s pet pig Porky ate so much pie that do you know what he did? He popped.
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Progress Marches
One small step for Cyndie, one giant leap toward mobility without chronic joint pain. Yesterday, the visiting physical therapist rather quickly had Cyndie leaving behind the walker and using a cane to stroll around the house. Moments later, she was caning her way up and down the stairs to our basement.
It was fascinating progress to witness. What a blessing to have the guidance of the therapist to keep our patient moving forward with exercises and activities.
With a nod to the title of this blog, progress is relative. From an overall perspective, there is not a lot happening at Wintervale lately. I find myself repeatedly struggling with the decision of what I want to write about. At the same time, the progress Cyndie is experiencing toward recovery and rehabilitation seems huge. I’ll take that.
Whether we notice or not, progress is marching along.
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Luxury’s Lap
I have to admit that genuine moments do actually occur when Delilah settles down on her day-bed for a nap under her own initiative. I find it a bit startling to come down the hallway and find her so elegantly settled in. I was so impressed last night, I took a picture.
She is livin’ in the lap of luxury around here, I tell ya.
Dog ownership is not something I have done as an adult, until we got Delilah almost a year and a half ago. My knowledge and experience are still rather limited. I’m learning on the fly, or walk, as the case may be.
Back at our old house, where we subscribed to cable tv, I used to watch Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer program where he trains people to handle dogs, and his methods all seemed like common sense to me. Common sense is what I have primarily relied upon for my interactions with Delilah.
I do regret throwing out Cesar’s basic rule about not letting the dog lead a walk, pulling me along behind, but that is how we operate. Ever since we changed to keeping her leashed (since she began to regularly run off to visit the neighboring properties around us), we have needed to take her for walks.
Let me just back up a moment here and point out that this is something I said I would not do —keep a dog on a leash. I guess that was before I was being paid to take care of her. When we created the position of Ranch Manager, the responsibility of caring for all our animals shifted to me. Right now, she doesn’t get free-run privileges, so I walk her on a leash, chewing on my words all the while.
I used to also diligently avoid ever tending to the cat’s litter box. Funny how things change over time. I picked up more cat litter at the grocery store yesterday (grocery shopping being another thing I once shunned with gusto).
Who am I? I don’t have any idea any more. Don’t bother asking.
But I digress. Back to walking Delilah and learning about her by simply living with her. I decided to let her walk in front because it feels like a simulation of how she would behave without being leashed. I have been letting her choose the route (unless I have a more pressing agenda), and allow her to stop and investigate enticing scents. I let her practice hunting rodents and wait patiently as she pounces on some grass and then listens to see if anything moves. She works feverishly to pursue the source of some scent that must be fresh, based on her reaction.
I call it “practice” because she almost never catches anything. I’ve watched plenty a critter scramble away while she remains oblivious to its departure.
I have been pretty vocal about her passion for eating other animal’s poo. It drives me nuts. She works way too hard to break loose frozen poop she finds on the trail during our walks. I have recently gained new insight on this behavior, but I don’t know what it means.
There appears to be an animal, or something an animal has eaten, to which she has quite a different reaction. Several times I have watched her sniff a pile of scat and then leap sideways and make a conscious effort to give it a wide berth.
Apparently, it turns out our dog has discerning taste in animal poo.
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Just Acting
It’s not that surprising to me that simultaneous to the “routine” I described yesterday, I am also feeling a bit of chaos around here. There is no longer a clear reference for what day of the week it is. With Cyndie not leaving for work Monday through Friday, there is no reference for week or weekend anymore.
We have pulled out the holiday clutter, …I mean, decorations; covered counters and table with baking supplies and delicious final products; and rearranged furniture to accommodate Cyndie’s recovery period. I am trying to keep up with my usual duties while also filling in on tasks normally provided with unparalleled style by Cyndie, and I find it getting more frustrating as time goes on.
It is easy to act as the head cook for a day or two, but keeping up the charade for weeks on end becomes rather daunting. When I write “act,” I don’t mean as in doing the work, I mean literally pretending to be a cook.
Luckily, beyond my escapades in the kitchen, we have had a lot of support from Cyndie’s mom, who has cooked meals and prepared food I can simply heat and serve.
Yesterday, we were blessed by a visit from Elysa and her friend, Anne, who provided a very excellent meal on a day their visit was a surprise. It was the first day I had planned to be away from Cyndie since the surgery, without having provided cover during my absence. It didn’t feel right to me.
When I received a message from Elysa that they decided to come, I was able to relax and enjoy a movie and meal on the far side of the Cities with my precious cycling friends.
By the way, I highly recommend the movie, “St. Vincent,” with Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and the young Jaeden Lieberher who does a fabulous job in his role. Moved me to tears.
It was nice to see some actors who could really pull off the job convincingly.
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Stitches Out
We traveled to the big city yesterday for Cyndie’s follow-up appointment to have the surgeon’s nurse inspect the incision and remove the two stitches in the long wound. The way modern medicine closes surgical wounds in this day and age amazes me. Everything looks good and Cyndie says she is a lot more comfortable having that sticky bandage finally removed. Her movements have improved visibly as a result.
This morning our farrier, George, is coming to trim the horse’s hooves. It was scheduled on his calendar after the last appointment, but I had completely lost track of it. Luckily, he sent a text alerting me. Suddenly my morning routine is squeezed a bit.
The horses were in good spirits when I showed up to serve their a.m. feed and put out hay. I’m hoping they will be cooperative for me in an hour, because Cyndie will not be able to do more than offer moral support as I take on the role of chief handler for George as he works.
Delilah is another challenge. She has been hyper-focused on critters out the window and doing her worst to destroy glass and window trim to claw her way after them from inside. We have tried resorting to instant “time-out” when she loses control and jumps at the window, bringing her back to the spiral staircase and leashing her in place for a spell. After the second instance in a row this morning, instead of lying down in acceptance of her fate, she took to boldly barking her defiance.
I tried the “ignore” technique, because I was busy trying to write, but that didn’t help Cyndie. She couldn’t stand it. I understand that totally. There are plenty of times when I absolutely can’t tolerate the bark. It’s interesting that I was determined enough to try to finish my task with the looming appointment in the barn creating a tight deadline, that I was fine in this instance with letting the loud bark float in one ear and out the other.
The dog will unfortunately be restrained in her kennel during the hoof trimming today, since we don’t have enough hands to tend to everyone at once. Sadly, I think her time in the kennel while we were gone yesterday is the reason for her rambunctiousness today. It just means I will have to give her extra attention this afternoon.
I have taken to letting her run off leash inside the pasture fencing, while I toss discs for her to chase. The fence has worked well to keep her from giving in to the urge to dash off into the woods after some tempting scent, even though she can finagle under it if allowed. The lowest strand is not electrified, and I think she has figured that out.
Time to go prepare the horses for their hoof-icure appointment!
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‘Tis Seasonal
I am truly living a storybook life here, folks. The season is upon us when decorators of the world pull out everything they have saved for years that has anything to do with December holidays and inundate their surroundings with color and lights.
Our place looks like Christmas magic all of a sudden. The only thing missing is little kids in footsie pajamas running around with eyes like saucers, over-anxiously waiting a visit from the guy in red who travels by reindeer.
We were blessed once again with a visit from Cyndie’s mom who worked tirelessly for the entire day yesterday to provide her exquisite skills in bringing the spirit of the season to life in our home.
She went beyond the call of duty before even arriving by taking time the day prior to shop for baking supplies and accoutrements like garlands with lights. With barely a pause to catch her breath, yesterday she cooked and baked and decorated, then helped me run an errand to drop off a car for service, then helped get Cyndie down to the barn for her first visit with the horses since the surgery.
She is a superwoman!
The best highlight of the day —among many— was having Cyndie get bundled up to be outside, her walking part way down the driveway with crutches, then hopping in the back of her mom’s car for the rest of the distance to the barn, and finally communing with the horses that had come up to the barn to see her.
They were a little freaked by her crutches and walker, but very happy to see her after all this time she has been away.
Back in the kitchen, Cyndie and her mom moved into full production mode for a while and cookie smells were mixing with the home-made caramels and Chex mix snack that had just come out of the oven.
What could I do? You can’t fight this kind of momentum. I went upstairs and put on the holiday music, came down and set about testing the goods coming out of the oven.
I told you, it’s a storybook life I’m livin’!
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