Another First
It’s been a while since we tried something for the first time at Wintervale, so I guess we were due. Last night we started the 21-day incubation period toward hatching our own chicks. I never had this one on my list of things I wanted to try.
We have set our expectations low, but are striving to meet the specific parameters laid out [hee… laid] in the instructions as closely as possible to improve our odds. Since we weren’t planning ahead for this, some of the eggs spent time in refrigeration, which isn’t recommended.
If any of them hatch, we’ll have even more appreciation for what Rock contributed in his short time with us.
Candling to see if they are viable is scheduled to occur in seven days.
Yesterday, Cyndie gave the horses a new first by opening the gate to the front hayfield for them to explore. The four of them have already chomped the back pasture grass down so much we need to give it a rest.
Looking at how crazy-fast the lawn grass is growing around here during the latest series of rainy days, I expect regrowth in the back pasture shouldn’t take long. The first lawn mowing of the season is definitely imminent, pending the next dry, sunny day.
.
.
Because Again
Revisiting a “Words on Images” from the archive, back for an encore performance, just because…
.
Words on Images
Because September 2020
.
.
.
Thinking Positively
It makes simple sense to me. Repetitive thought develops paths and synapses in our brains. What we are thinking grows pathways and releases chemical reactions in our bodies. When something difficult comes to us, we can simply be with the experience, but we don’t need to hold on to it. We can let it go and replace it with something positive.
We had a wonderful time with our chickens. Rocky was a great addition to our experience. Cyndie and I are working on filling our minds with the best memories of our hens and the challenge of finding their hidden eggs. We hear their calm chicken conversations and Rocky’s blustery crowing still in our ears.
We have eggs and plans to incubate some of them.
The sooner we release the tragedy of the dramatic losses that happened in such a short span of time, the better. We are noticing the flowers blooming across our forest floor. We are growing pathways in our brains with visions of a world we want to bring into being.
We are thinking positively.
.
.
Today’s Lesson
Today, Cyndie and I are trying to process what lesson we might learn from the ultimate demise of our entire brood of 14 chickens over a span of two weeks when previous years have allowed us so much more time. Whether the most likely threat was coyotes or possibly hawks, we feel completely outsmarted and helpless against these forces of nature.
Yesterday, when the last four birds were taken from us, a leftover pile of feathers in the middle of our back yard, just steps away from where I was obliviously lounging on a recliner beside the fireplace, provided a particularly harsh stab of our inability to protect them.
Should we have changed something about our routine after the first attack? After the second?
It’s a moot point now. Except, there remains the probability we won’t give up trying. After the second attack, Cyndie decided to order an incubator to hatch some of our own eggs. If predators are going to keep taking our birds, we might end up just raising even more.
Evidence pointed to the latest attack playing out in uncomfortably close proximity to the horses whom we are striving to make feel safe and welcome. For now, our focus of attention shifts much more in their direction.
They provide both solace and distraction from our grief over the decimation of the chickens. We are learning how to frame our recent experience losing chickens and trying to soothe the angst of relocated rescue Thoroughbreds.
It may be today’s lesson, but I sense it is going to take a lot more time than a single day to fully absorb.
.
.
.
Building Antibodies
Not being one to wait around for possible illness symptoms to show up, yesterday I joined Cyndie in a significant landscaping project just minutes after receiving my second vaccine shot. The amount of physical exertion we undertook pretty much guaranteed we would feel sore joints and muscles today. It makes it difficult to discern what percentage of my achiness this morning is due to my body being busy developing protection against COVID-19.
The slightly elevated temperature provides a clue that my stiffness isn’t exclusively confined to the contortions I put my body through to dig out a drainage ditch yesterday and move the dirt to the far side of the barn to fill an area that showed renewed settling this spring.
The surface grade between Cyndie’s perennial garden and our driveway had risen every year due to soil flowing downhill from our neighbor’s cultivated field. It had reached a point where runoff wasn’t making it to the drain culvert anymore and would instead flow across the driveway.
I devised a plan to cut into the sod and roll sections back, allowing us to dig the level down multiple inches. We could avoid leaving a dirt swale that would require seeding by simply rolling the sod back down after lowering the level.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The methods changed and evolved as we took turns digging, hauling, dumping, shaping, and cutting sod, but the end result was wonderfully effective.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This project provided one of my favorite rewards in tasks around the property in that we achieved two goals simultaneously. Ticked two lines off the to-do list all at once. Being able to pass these two locations as we go about our activities and notice the ditch beside the driveway is fixed to provide flow to the culvert and the dip in the turf above the paddocks is filled up again brings recurring joy and satisfaction.
Compare that to the ongoing grief of seeing the problem growing daily for the last few years. I finished the day giddy with delight.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
By removing the high spot in the drain path beside the driveway, we are building “antibodies,” so to speak, to fight off water flow problems on our land.
I have no concerns if it rains today. The drainage ditch could use some washing of leftover dirt and I plan to give my body the day off to rest. We got two things done at once yesterday. We deserve a day off!
.
.
Sickle Feathers
Well, it happened again already. Predators paid another visit in broad daylight, still ghosts to us, but deathly real to the chickens. This time we know that Rocky was right in the middle of it. Once again, chicken feathers were spread far and wide around our property. Rocky’s were close to the coop.
Tail feathers on Wednesday.
Minus tail feathers on Thursday.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Cyndie found the intact bodies of two Light Brahmas. We lost the last Domestique, the two-year-old Golden Laced Wyandotte, and one of the Barnevelders. Another five down, leaving Rocky and three hens as all that remain to keep flies at bay, just at the time we brought horses back onto the property.
We can only hope that Rocky dished out as much abuse as it looks like he endured.
Cyndie picked up Rocky’s sickle feathers. We can only imagine what the fracas must have been like. I was at work and Cyndie never heard a sound. Most likely the horses would have been unsettled by the energy of predators on a killing spree. When Cyndie came out, everything was calm and collected.
I guess we should find solace in the fact our animals don’t appear to fret over the past. Everyone seemed just fine when it was over, albeit short some feathers, in Rocky’s case. Wish I could say the same for us.
.
.
Steaming Pile
The new manure pile is already cooking! Given the near-freezing temperatures we have been enduring of late, the heat from the pile of composting manure was clearly visible in the form of steam wafting up out of it.
It’s not completely obvious in the image above, but there’s a little fogginess around the upper edges. The composting process is underway. We’ll have more fertile soil for Cyndie’s vegetable garden in about six weeks if I studiously work this pile. Not that we have a critical need.
Based on previous experience, I tend to miss a few key time intervals when it comes to composting, so I don’t think we ever achieved getting useable compost in the shortest possible time. Since we don’t have our compost area covered, I can’t protect the piles from getting too wet when weather is rainy. I am also prone to missing a day or two of checking the piles, so they can become too compacted or over-dry before I finally notice.
As a result, my composting has usually been more of a stuttering on-and-off process that ultimately falls short of locking in maximum nutrients and thoroughly killing weed seeds and fly larva. That is the promise when paying precise attention to detail, or so I’ve read.
The horses are doing a fabulous job of grazing the back pasture to make sure we will have no shortage of manure. They continue to look increasingly comfortable with their new surroundings. Cyndie and I reinstalled one gate yesterday afternoon that allows us to break the paddocks into two during the short period when we set out pans of feed. This served to prevent the horses from chasing each other off their pans.
With two horses on each side, they settled down and ate with no fuss.
On my way down to the barn from the house, I stopped off to check the unauthorized nest Cyndie found. No eggs for one day. We’ll keep an eye on it and see how long that lasts.
.
.
Fifth Nest
Cyndie finally found it. The location where our hens have been laying eggs beyond our coop. Eighteen eggs, to be exact.
We’d had our suspicions about the general direction for some time, but were mistakenly searching between the trees around the area when all the while they have been sneaking behind some rolled up fencing stored right beside the outside of the shop.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Based on the variety in colors of eggs, we suspect between three and four hens have been taking turns laying there. They aren’t all laying there every time, as we have usually found six eggs per day in the coop nest boxes from the eight hens.
Yesterday, Cyndie spotted the Domestique running from the shop area which clued her in about refining her search location.
The chickens have been taking advantage of the horses being out in the back pasture, returning to their old stomping grounds under the barn overhang to scrounge for goodies. Since the horses tend to make swift sprints back into the paddocks at random intervals, the chickens occasionally find themselves alarmed.
Cyndie captured this image of Rocky standing tall over them as they closed ranks during one such incident yesterday.
When the horses aren’t racing back into the paddocks, they were thoroughly enjoying the comfort and open space available in the back pasture.
It was another glorious day in paradise.
.
.
Hay Delivered
One of the best parts of our relationship with This Old Horse is that they provide all the support needed to care for the horses, and the greatest relief for us is that we don’t have to find and transport baled hay. Yesterday was magical in that a trailer full of small squares was delivered right to our hay-shed door.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Since I was conveniently an hour away at the day-job when it arrived, the work of helping to unload and re-stack it in the shed landed on Cyndie. [monotone fake concern…] Too bad I wasn’t able to be there.
Despite the fact it was wintery-cold outside, all I wanted to do when I got home was go hang out with the horses. They were out on the back pasture, so Cyndie and I picked the chore of clearing out two years of overgrowth from within, and around the outside perimeter of the round pen. We were standing where the horses could clearly see us.
Our previous herd would quickly move their grazing to get very near wherever we happened to be, but these mares are much less connected to people at this point. They randomly appear to adjust their positioning with respect to us, though it usually involves maintaining a distance that reflects their understandable caution.
We look forward to showing them plenty of reasons to develop a special connection with us over time, starting with the fact we will be the primary ones serving up their rations of hay.
.
.
Racing Memories
On their second day with us, the horses showed another side of themselves. After they had their morning feed, Cyndie sat with them as they took some naps and generally lounged around the paddock.
There weren’t many signs they were having any trouble with the amount of green grass available in the paddock, and areas that hadn’t been munched yet were dwindling fast. They had already communicated interest in getting onto the back pasture by demonstrably posing at the gate, staring into the field longingly, so we decided to open the gate.
We anticipated the possibility they might frolic into the field with enthusiasm, since our previous herd of Arabians often did, but we had no idea how much of a transformation back into racehorses we would witness.
.
They raced hard around the perimeter and then raced back into the paddock so they could race out again and take another lap. They raced so much they worked up a sweat that they then tried to wipe off by rolling on the ground. Then they raced some more. The video above was the third blast of about five, broken up with pauses to roll or go get a drink.
It was thrilling to witness how they came to life and appeared to revel in the freedom to go full speed again for a little while and to stop whenever they wanted. It was also a little bit scary to stand somewhat exposed to the thundering herd when neither we nor they knew for sure where they were going to go next.
By the time my sister, Judy, and husband, Scott, stopped by to visit, the horses had calmed considerably. When we opened the gate a second time to let them see some of the excitement, the entrance was entirely subdued in comparison. I suspect the mares may be feeling their age. I worry about the body stiffness they might be feeling this morning.
Taking extra caution while we are getting to know each other, Cyndie responded to Mix’s invitation for a little post-workout brushing by reaching from our side of the gate.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
She turned around so Cyndie could get her neck, too. None of the other three have shown more than the briefest of interest in being touched by us yet.
They have shown total acceptance of the chickens, who are slowly closing the distance of proximity with the new tenants.
Since the mares seem to remember how to race, we are confident they remember how good it feels to be groomed, too. It gives us plenty to work with as we slowly, but surely, warm up to each other evermore.
.
.
