Archive for the ‘Wintervale Ranch’ Category
Prototype Blend
Between the thundering copious downpours yesterday —which by this morning have dropped a 24-hour accumulated total of 5 inches of rain on us— I began production of our first prototype mix of custom horse-manure-fertilized growing soil. It was an extension of my working on the rock pile we received from a neighboring farm field last spring.
That dump-truck-load of field rocks included a significant amount of dirt that surrounded and buried a lot of the stone. Slowly, but surely, this summer I have been prying out rocks and moving them down near our Rowcliffe Labyrinth Garden. As I am getting closer to the bottom of that pile, it is becoming more dirt than rocks. I decided to shovel that rich field-dirt into bags for future distribution, and in so doing realized the opportunity to mix in some composted manure to create our first dose of Wintervale old souls super soil.
It’s kind of like harvesting our first crop! There is a different reward to mixing the composted manure with dirt, as opposed to just using it to fill low spots around our property.
This will be a long-term process, as I won’t really know how successful my concoction is until a season of growing passes and I can learn the results from growers who receive our initial distribution.
Not that I have any real doubts about the potential. I have seen how robust the volunteer growth was that sprouted out of this rock pile all summer, and I have ample evidence of the accelerated growth around all the places I have used composted manure for fill.
Together, I expect they will produce even greater results.
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Canine Assistant
It’s cute, really, the way she tries to help me. Some days our dog, Delilah, will appear to make a very conscious effort to participate in the task in which I am engaged. Her participation is usually counter productive, but there was a moment yesterday when she was right on the money with her support to me.
It wasn’t happening when I started the day, tending to our composting manure piles. As I dug down to the base layer in a couple of areas, I kept pulling up sticks that were in that location from before we started dumping there. I pull them out and toss them into the woods. Unfortunately, Delilah’s version of helping was to retrieve those sticks and bring them out into the grassy area so I could hit them with the lawn mower next time I mow.
After the manure pile, we headed down into the woods to put in more time clearing trails. Delilah ran all over the place in excitement over being in the woods. For a while, I figured I had lost her to the neighbor’s property, but she wasn’t gone long and came racing back to me when she did return. Apparently she had been off trying to remove all the burrs from the plants in the woods. What a wonderful helper.
She laid down right beneath where I was working. Normally, I would be extremely pleased to have her lying nearby while I work, but in this case, I was sawing a tangled mess of a tree that was about to crash down in some unpredictable manner. I tried tossing a stick into the woods. That trick worked wonders, earlier.
This time, instead of carrying the stick off to someplace nearby, she returned to lay directly beneath the hazardous branch.
I took a break from sawing and moved up the trail to trim branches with a pruner. I came upon a spot with a fair amount of common buckthorn, which is an invasive that I passionately strive to remove. When possible, I pull them up by the roots. As I tugged on one and the dirt began to give way, Delilah jumped in to help, clamping the little tree in her jaws and pulling along with me.
Finally, her effort to assist me was right on. It seems that she wants that buckthorn out just as bad as I do.
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Finally, Progress
The hardest thing I have faced since becoming a full-time ranch manager has been getting contractors to bid jobs we need done. In the last few days I have successfully communicated with three of them. Two actually showed up in person. The other has already been here. Even though no work has actually begun, just getting them to see and discuss the situation, and estimate a time when they hope to actually do some work, is rewarding enough to fuel my dwindling supply of hope to get improvements in place before winter arrives in full force.
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It’s a bit like seeing signs of the sun preparing to make its appearance over the eastern horizon.
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With that bit of inspiration, I found myself drawn toward a chore I have been neglecting all summer long. One of our main trails through the woods had been left untended since the snow melted and it had become overgrown to the point of being difficult to discern.
I was pleased to see how much growth had occurred in volunteer trees, most of them butternuts. Too bad they were growing in a path where they wouldn’t be able to remain. I used the power trimmer to do the bulk of the clearing, then made a few passes with a pole saw and my ratcheted pruner. There is much left to be done —I only went as far as one tank of gas on the trimmer allowed— but the part I did complete looks wonderful and inviting.
After dinner, where I devoured fresh-picked ears of gourmet sweet corn that Cyndie picked up on her way home, we took Delilah for a walk down that trail. It was a treat to experience all the “oohs” and “aahs” from Cyndie as she marveled over how great it looked. Then we arrived at the stretch where I had cut down trees on Monday to widen the southern leg of the trail. They still lay where they fell, all over the trail, in stark contrast to the section I had just trimmed.
It’s a work in progress. But, alas, there is finally some progress!
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Sobering Drama
With the arrival of cool, drier air to our region, we were able to sleep with our window open on Monday night. I must have been sleeping real well, because I didn’t hear the horrific sounds of a car crash at the intersection just south of our home at 5:08 a.m. What I did hear was the long wail of a siren at 5:13 that just kept getting louder and louder, finally stopping when it was at its loudest. To me, that meant it didn’t pass by. Wherever it stopped, it was startlingly close.
Seven minutes later, I heard multiple sirens tearing apart the early morning silence, all stopping equally close. Whatever it was, this gave the impression that it was something serious. It was time for Cyndie to get up and start preparations for her workday, and as her feet were hitting the floor, the sound of a helicopter flying incredibly low added an exclamation point to the predawn drama unfolding.
This was more than enough to rouse Delilah and she started whining to be let out of her crate. Cyndie said she could take her for a walk, but then would need to get ready to go. I took advantage of her offer and lingered in bed, listening to the helicopter idling. In minutes, the engine revved and I could see how close it really was, the lights appearing into view as the air ambulance rose up to set off on its hurried course.
I began to wonder if Cyndie decided to feed the horses early, it was taking so long for her to return. I should have guessed. When she got three-quarters of the way down our driveway, she could see how close the incident really was, and decided to walk Delilah down to check it out. The helicopter was perched in the middle of County Road N, and took off as she approached.
Her report matched what I later found published online by a local newspaper. A full-size semi truck had broadsided a car that had pulled out in front of it. Cyndie was worried about fatalities, but the paper reported ‘fair’ condition for the driver of the car. It listed the vehicle as a Mustang, but Cyndie couldn’t tell what it was by all the damage. It didn’t look like a driver could have survived in that wreck.
It was a startling, yet sobering way to start the day. In retrospect, based on the scene Cyndie described, I am glad to have not heard the sounds of the crash as it happened. That’s the kind of unsettling experience that lingers in a mind’s ear. The sirens and helicopter alone were enough to leave me a bit on edge for the rest of the day.
The incident has both of us wondering how the driver of the car could have failed to spot the threat of that oncoming truck, to pull out in front of it like that. The site lines are unobstructed, headlights at that hour would have been visible well in advance, and both drivers were in their 60s (presumably having years of driving experience).
Drive carefully out there, folks.
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A Fogbow
Before the heavy humidity broke yesterday, we had an extremely foggy morning. I was walking with Delilah after feeding the horses, and as the sun broke the horizon and burned its way through the fog, I spotted the distinctive arc of a rainbow. But it wasn’t a rainbow. It was a fogbow.
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Eventually, the dew point dropped and a glorious breeze picked up, making it a fabulous afternoon to be out working. The morning was another story. It was too wet to mow, so I started the day with a chainsaw. I headed down to the south trail that needs to be widened. Also, there was still one tree laying across the trail along our western border. After tackling those areas, I moved along to a string of box elder trees that need to be removed for installation of the new fence around the grazing pasture. The work had my t-shirt and pants totally soaked with sweat by the time I stopped to head in for lunch.
When I came out again after eating, it was like a whole new day. It made the mowing chore downright pleasant. By the time I finished, my shirt was completely dry. After a long day, during which I had confined Delilah to her kennel, we headed to the house for dinner and I happily turned off the air conditioning so I could open up the windows to the fresh summer air.
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Humid Sunday
Muggy. Tropical dew points muggy is what we are facing. I looked back in the archives to posts I made around this time last year and discovered a very similar theme. It is influencing our decisions about what to do and yesterday we changed plans several times, setting lofty goals about what projects we were going to tackle and then backing off to keep from fighting against the elements.
Just a walk around the property led to fatigue and clothing stuck to our bodies. I think both Cyndie and I share an equal dread for that feeling. It made it easy to jointly bag the plans of heavy labor and happily return to the geothermally air-conditioned comfort of our log home. Delilah also seemed uncharacteristically eager to return to the house. I sure wouldn’t want to be wearing her coat this time of year.
We wondered about what we could do to provide some comfort to the horses, settling on bringing two at a time for a walk up the hill of our driveway into some lush grass to graze where there was a bit of a breeze. We have decided not to leave their fly masks on overnight, supposing it may be interfering with their night vision, because they have been finding ways to get them pretty messed up or stripped off their heads altogether by mornings. Not that the flies have gone away. In fact, quite the opposite, as it appears the recent rains have fueled a robust new hatch.
While spending the extra time ensconced in the cool confines of indoors, we ended up taking on one of those cleaning chores that you don’t tend to do until it is absolutely required. Cyndie noticed the juices from a package of hamburger had leaked all over the place in the refrigerator. It started slowly, her working on part of one shelf. Then everything on that shelf was moved to the counter. I stepped in to get the glass of the shelf lifted out. Next, the fruit and vegetable drawers were emptied and removed. The farther into it we got, the more we decided to do, eventually making it to levels that we hadn’t bothered to clean when we first moved in.
Take that, humid summer Sunday!
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By evening, the predicted evening thunderstorms sporadically popped up around us, and occasionally, right overhead. In between a couple, I went for a walk with Delilah and enjoyed the spectacular sky views. It was a Sunday of making custom musical playlists, computer work, lollygagging, comfort foods, and judiciously distributed forays into the thick, hot air of outdoors. That’s about as close to a day off as I needed.
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Ultimate Homework
It’s been almost two months now since I stopped commuting to a day-job, having switched to the role of stay-at-home full-time ranch manager for Wintervale. I’m beginning to get a sense of how this new work environment has its own special combination of advantages and disadvantages for me.
(+) I cherish the fact that I no longer have to drive over an hour to get to my workplace. That commute dictated a lot of my activities during the week.
(-) I am always at my workplace. There is no moment of leaving it all behind at the end of the workday.
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(+) I don’t have to fill out a timesheet, punch the timeclock, fret over being late, or struggle with deciding if I should call in sick.
(-) There is no end of the workday. I don’t get to call in sick.
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(+) I get to be my own boss.
(-) I am my own boss.
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(+) I work in paradise. A beautiful outdoor environment with amazing vistas.
(-) My workplace is not a controlled environment. It’s often too hot, in winter it can get too cold, there are flies, wasps, mosquitoes, and there is, quite literally, shit everywhere.
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(+) There are no workplace personality conflicts …not that I was having any. I’ve heard it happens in some offices.
(-) I am suffering from a bit of withdrawal from human interaction. A workday devoid of talking with another person starts to feel a bit like solitary confinement.
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(+) I get to work with animals. Plenty of folks wish they could bring their dog or cat to work with them. I’ve got both, plus horses!
(-) It is a long known adage in show business to never work with animals. There are days when I can see why… “Delilah! NO!”
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Fertilizer happens
In about a month we will reach the point of having had our 4 horses for one year. No matter how much reading and planning we could do for manure management, it is nothing like actually seeing and dealing with the real thing. For the uninitiated, a 1000 pound horse can produce around 50 lbs of manure a day. We now have an idea of what that is really like.
The storage and distribution system I naively devised over time worked adequately for this first year, going from having none at all to a year’s-worth. Now we are approaching the point of starting the second year with a lot less open storage space. It is roughly half-filled with composting manure right now.
There are some refinements to my system of manure management that I hope to accomplish. My effort to thoroughly compost is forcing me to rethink my methods and may require some expansion of space to store ‘in-process’ manure. I like working small-scale, but the sheer volume produced might force my hand to take up the offer from neighbor George to use his manure spreader and my front loader to distribute a bulk amount all at once.
I continue to use the oldest, bottom level of partially composted material as clean fill in a variety of places around our property, but I’m guessing there might come a day when I run out of a need for that kind of use. Maybe by the time that happens I will have perfected a system that allows me to offer (sell?) bagged horse manure fertilizer to interested gardeners as a means of distribution.
The current challenge has been moving the pile around to provide access to that base level of compacted material I want to use. Yesterday, when I was doing so, it became obvious how quickly the composting dries out an inside layer. The pile always seems so wet to me that I haven’t been worrying about adding moisture, but the light bulb came on when I saw the dramatic difference as a result of trying to move the entire upper level to a new location. I got the hose out and watered the pile, and Delilah. She absolutely cannot resist chasing water from a hose.
Unfortunately, that meant she was trying to chase it through manure. Not a pretty picture.
Fly Masks
Sometimes I think the flies on our horses bother me more than they do the horses. Legacy approached me while I was raking up manure in the paddock yesterday, and my intuition told me it was about the flies. Lately I have been noticing increasing numbers of flies congregating around the eyes of our horses, so I went into the barn to get fly masks.
Even though Cyndie tried these last fall with limited success, I figured it was worth another attempt. I may be anthropomorphizing their behavior, but the way the mares willingly accepted the protection while the guys rebuffed my offer like I was offending their egos, seemed to match a common human gender tendency.
It took a lot of patience on my part to outlast Legacy’s hesitation about wearing one. Hunter never did give in, but of the 4 of them, he seemed to have the least problem with flies, so I let him be. I’m curious to find out if the masks will all still be in place this morning.
At one point while they were grazing in the arena space, I tried one last time to get Hunter into a mask. I had tucked a ziplock bag with carrots into my pocket to offer a treat as incentive and walked toward a position to address Hunter.
Legacy seemed to immediately read what was going on and approached me, cutting off Hunter from my attention. I walked around to rearrange my position, but it was obvious that Legacy was not going to give me any space. I walked away from him and he followed, closely. I decided to walk the entire perimeter to see how long he would keep this up.
I was surprised to see him put in so much effort while out in the hot sun, but he stayed right in step on my heels. I made a couple of diagonals across the arena space and he was still with me. As far as I was concerned, he had just earned himself a carrot snack. I wouldn’t try again with Hunter, unless he chose to come to me.
Later in the afternoon, I was sitting on the ground at the fence line of the grazing pasture, covering damaged insulation on an electric wire that had become tangled with my trimmer. While I was engrossed in my task, Legacy wandered up behind me. He nosed around some of my gear and then started eating grass right next to me. RIGHT next to me. He snorted his runny nose all over my arm. Next thing I know, I am being harassed by a cloud of flies. Legacy was sharing his flies with me!
If I still had the mask with me that I was trying to get Hunter to wear, I would have tried it on my own head at that point.
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Killer Instinct
Here is a picture of the fully functioning wheelbarrow with both tires holding air. It is an essential component of our manure management process. Next to it is my primary assistant/troublemaker. Delilah politely listens to me yammer away, occasionally looking right at me as if she is actually listening to the nonstop nonsense that is beginning to flow out of my mouth in the absence of anyone else to talk with around here during the week.
I haven’t quite mastered the non-verbal communication with her, yet. Unfortunately, the longer I work silently, the more likely she is to wander away from me when I allow her off-leash. That leads to her getting into a tangle of burrs, or wandering off property, or more likely, both.
Speaking of no one to talk to, I’d love it if a contractor or two would show up in response to the multitude of solicitations I have put out in the last few weeks. I was lucky enough to actually speak on the phone with one excavator to whom I had made a follow-up call to yesterday. I was so excited when he said he would stop out to look at what I needed done that I neglected to ask him when that might be.
I kept one eye out for him all day yesterday, while doing some heavy trimming on the far side of our property from the driveway. I guess he didn’t mean he would stop out that very day.
I had put Delilah in her kennel while I was working the trimmer and wearing ear muffs. After I finished, I drove the Grizzly ATV up to let her out and she looked at me quizzically, wondering what this meant for her. I hollered at her to come with me as I rolled away down the hill, and the game was on. She loves a good chase, and of course has an insatiable need to be out front.
Her killing instinct is still as strong as ever. I told Cyndie that I don’t think we will be able to have chickens with Delilah running loose. The other morning, I let her out first thing to accompany me in feeding the horses. She raced on ahead and dashed around the pine trees. I noticed a bunch of birds take to the air. When I caught up to her, it was obvious she had a prize. Delilah was in possession of an unfortunate winged creature that failed to evade capture.
Of benefit to me is the fact that she won’t wander away when she has a fresh kill. I didn’t need to worry while I fed the horses and cleaned the paddocks that morning. When I had finished and was ready to head back to the house, I found her in the same spot where I had left her, still treasuring her new obsession.
I sure wish she would show that kind of prowess with the moles and pocket gophers around here.
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Relative Something 