A Pause
Winter took a little pause yesterday and gave us a break from cold temperatures. After I got home from work, Cyndie invited me outside for a walk with Delilah.
You know those trails I packed with snowshoes last weekend? The warmth made them pretty mushy. It took a lot of slogging along to make our way around the perimeter of the pastures.
It won’t last long, but every little pause in the harsh cold deserves our full attention, especially because we know it will be short-lived. By absorbing the energy of a momentary thaw, we bolster our endurance for the rest of what winter will throw our way.
Sounds like we won’t have to wait long for the next dose of snowflakes.
Can you say, “Messy Monday?”
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Not Logical
For all the changes we have put in place since moving to this property in the fall of 2012, there are still plenty of things that we have left the same. One of them is totally illogical if you know anything about my penchant for clearing snow with almost neurotic precision.
The sidewalks from the driveway to the front and back doors of the house have a layer of river rock and stone slabs on top of the original smooth cement, providing an attractive rustic appearance.
We love how they look, but I gotta tell ya, they are the absolute worst when it comes to shoveling snow. It is illogical that I have kept them through the years, don’t you think? But here’s the thing: earlier in my life I would not have tolerated the difficulty of sliding the shovel to clear snow, yet in our time here, I have overcome that need for perfection.
It is unquestionably a hassle to shovel, but I have devised a technique that works well enough to get the job done. Basically, I turn our shovel over and sweep the snow out into a pile I can toss away.
The most significant thing about this really is that I have decided to accept it as not being a problem. It’s not logical.
That’s something of a milestone for me.
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Cabin Fever
On a sunny weekend afternoon in the middle of winter, when it hasn’t snowed for a few days and there aren’t a lot of projects demanding attention outside, too much time inside can be a little crazy-making.
I took some pictures.
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It’s a good thing we have plenty of glorious snow-covered acres right outside the door providing the perfect antidote for spending too many hours indoors.
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She Survives
Much to our surprise, our Buff Orpington appears to be functioning normally after enduring a dangerous encounter which drew blood on Saturday in a fracas with our Belgian Tervuren Shepherd, Delilah.
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie witnessed the hen drinking water and eating food in the coop, and when I peeked in on the chickens, our hero was in one of the nesting boxes, cooing.
I don’t know how she does it.
Looking back over the whole experience of deciding to make the blind leap into having chickens, despite knowing we had a dog who would do everything in her power to foil our plan, I am in awe of these three survivors who have endured every calamity of our inaugural year.
We thought it would be good to have chickens to help control flies, but we didn’t have a coop. So, I built a chicken coop. Then we just needed to get chickens. Cyndie ordered three each of three breeds from an online site.
Therein started our crash course in caring for chickens. Absolutely every challenge that arose was a first for us. Cyndie learned how to clean baby chicken butts when several of them developed problems.
We gambled on moving them to the coop before the weather had really warmed up consistently. We basically guessed our way through training them to free range, yet return to the coop. Finally, we left them completely on their own to avoid any number of potential passing predators.
Unfortunately, the losses started with Delilah, who ended up producing our first fatality when she broke free and grabbed a Rhode Island Red by the neck. Then in June, we lost six birds all in one horrible evening to an unseen attacker.
Somehow, the three that have survived all the challenges are closing in on their first birthday next month. I feel like they are doing it almost in spite of us.
After what the Buff has just been through, she has earned the bragging rights as toughest of them all.
Here’s hoping they all channel the survival skills gained in their first year into long and prosperous lives, and more importantly, that they might teach any new chicks that happen to show up, how to do the same.
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Please No
Not again. This morning, we are wondering what we will find when the door to the chicken coop is opened. Yesterday, Delilah once again broke a hook holding her leash and this time attacked the Buff Orpington hen.
I was up on the other side of the house splitting wood when my phone rang. Cyndie’s voice immediately revealed something was wrong.
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Intent on making my way through the entire pile of logs stacked at the base of the big oak tree, which first required sledge-hammering them out of the frozen block they had become, I had already fought off several urges to take a break and do something else.
I couldn’t deny the urgency implied by Cyndie’s call.
Rushing down to the sunny southern end of the barn, I found Cyndie standing with the chicken in her arms. She wanted me to hold the bird so she could search for visible injury that would explain the blood on the ground. Finding nothing, she took the Buff back and asked me to look.
I suggested she give the hen a chance to stand on her own and we could watch her. The Buff stood just fine, but that is when I noticed blood on the beak. It appears the injury was internal.
We are hoping maybe she just bit her tongue. She was breathing and swallowing, with some effort, and the bleeding did not appear to be continuing more than the initial small amount.
If she survived the night, the next goal will be to witness her drinking water and eventually eating food.
As soon as Cyndie had reached the dog and saved the chicken, she marched Delilah up to the house and shut her inside. When we came in for lunch, it was pretty clear the fiercely carnivorous canine was aware she had displeased her master. Her body language was all about remorse.
It was hard to not continue being extremely mad with Delilah for hurting the chicken, but that moment was now in the past.
I decided to take her out for a heavy-duty workout. Strapping on snowshoes, I headed off to pack down a path on our trails that hadn’t received much attention since the last few snowfall events.
Since Delilah has a compulsion to be out in front and pull, that meant she was breaking trail most of the way and expending more energy than normal, which worked right into my plan.
Much to Delilah’s surprise, I also had a plan to double back in the direction from which we had just come, giving me a chance to pack several of our paths a second time.
Each time that happened, Delilah would race to come back toward me and then pass by to get out in front again, pulling against the leash to which I gladly added drag.
I’m pretty sure any energy she got from engaging in the attack was long gone after her unusually intense afternoon walkabout, but I doubt she fully grasps that our earlier displeasure was because the chickens hold protected status.
We’re not confident, but we hope we’ll still have three chickens to continue teaching Delilah to leave alone, despite her irresistible canine instincts.
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Describe Feeling
The winter Olympic Games are underway again. Skaters and skiers, sledders, curlers, and boarders will be competing for that pinnacle moment when a broadcast journalist points a microphone at their face in search of the next version of what it feels like to win.
Before we even get to that, during last night’s US taped broadcast of the opening ceremony, NBC provided appetizers in the form of athletes trying to describe their feelings before stepping into the stadium for the parade of nations.
I love watching athletic competition. Seeing people struggle for words to describe how they feel isn’t as entertaining for me.
Sometimes I wonder more about the broadcast journalist who is popping the question. Think of the effort they put in to reach the subject of greatest interest, battling camera-yielding athletes in their own right who are jostling for position with all the other microphone-holding reporters eager to ask.
What must the journalists be feeling at the moment they try to concisely summarize what just happened for the athlete, setting up the big question? How did the journalist train for this? How long have they wanted to be the person to ask an athlete how it feels in the seconds after victory? What is the journalist feeling right after they hear the answer and offer a closing tidbit to send the broadcast back to the booth?
The NFL Super Bowl just happened in the Twin Cities, and of course, the de rigueur post game athlete interviews were right on schedule. With team sports, the journalists have multiple chances to mine for that elusive articulation of the winning feeling.
While that was happening, the fans in the stands were breaking the seats.
I want to hear the vandal-fans put their feelings into words.
“Your team just won the championship and you are destroying property. Describe how it feels to break things when you are this happy.”
Last night, I would have been happy to watch the struggle for feeling-descriptors from the person who was piloting the world-record 1,218 Shooting Star drones that were electronically added to the ceremony. It doesn’t matter that they weren’t able to do it live during the cold and windy opening event, the feelings were probably still awesome.
Amazing. Probably hard to put into words. Unbelievable.
The biggest question in life isn’t, “Will you marry me?” More important than that is, “How does it feel?”
Maybe there should be college courses where athletes can enhance their perception of what winning feels like and hone the art of assembling mere words to convey the ethereal essence of unspeakable emotions.
Competitions could be created where the interview to describe how winning feels is the event.
Imagine trying to describe what it would feel like to win that medal.
Enjoy the PyeongChang winter games and winning athlete interviews.
I will. It will be amazing.
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Other News
While Delilah and the horses have been getting a lot of attention lately, the chickens and Pequenita haven’t been entirely neglected.
When it gets extremely cold, the chickens tend to stay put all day in their coop, but some days they surprise us and venture out anyway. This week, Cyndie reported, one day it was the Buff Orpington making the trek to the barn overhang, and the next, it was the two Barred Plymouth Rock hens.
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They have us wondering if there might be some issue between the two breeds, that they are doing less commingling lately.
Last night, Pequenita was ferocious about getting some attention from me, so I decided to put a video designed for cats on my laptop screen. She went nuts for it.
A little mouse keeps darting across the screen. She quickly moved her search to the back and sides of the computer to see where the critter was going when it disappeared from view. We were both highly entertained.
It was a nice distraction from some of the dreary news of the day. Have I mentioned how sad I am over the deplorable political situation in this country? And now the thawing permafrost is going to release noxious Mercury gas into the atmosphere.
Although, on the subject of news, one item was out of this world fantastic. If you haven’t seen video of the Falcon Heavy Test yet, I hope you will make time to absorb the ramifications of this spectacular feat while witnessing the amazing footage of a new milestone in space exploration.
That Tesla Roadster with a space-suited mannequin in it flying through space is one spunky escapade. I love it!
“To infinity, and beyond!”
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Test Results
Our veterinarian called with results of Hunter’s blood work. High levels of glucose and insulin suggest equine insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome. I have a feeling we have slowly been building to this over the last few years of under-exercising and over-feeding our horses.
We’ve had hints of the situation before and made some loose attempts to moderate things over the years, but it appears our efforts have fallen short. The prognosis now is calling for a shift to an extreme that we are struggling to reconcile.
There is a high likelihood that Hunter will need to be confined to the paddock and fed a tightly measured amount of hay that needs pre-soaking to reduce the sugar content even more. It is no way for a horse to live, as far as I’m concerned, but it may be what we have to do.
I can’t imagine what it will do to Hunter’s spirit to confine him to the paddock, surrounded by acres of lush green pasture in the summer.
Honestly, our heads are not in a good place right now to frame this with oodles of positive possibilities. In fact, this news just serves to expose how little I have moved from the cloud of grief that descended upon us on the day Legacy died.
This week the horses are spending most of their time in the barn. Well, Hunter has spent ALL of his time in the barn, and the mares get a little break outside each day while Cyndie mucks the stalls. Even this routine feels so wrong, but it is the immediate treatment required to get him beyond this situation of extremely painful hooves.
They are tolerating it well enough.
Everything here seems to be hanging in limbo. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t just let Wintervale have a break for a year, like we did with our hay-field last summer. Let things rest while giving it a chance to become re-energized for a new season of unseen possibilities after some reflection and re-planning.
We are seeking peace with all the new developments, and making time for reflection is going to help. Despite my inclination to want to immediately escape it all in order to put the challenges behind me, I am trusting in the logic of staying put to discover where this all leads.
For our own good, it is best that we not make any rash decisions in the midst of grief and uncertainty.
Now would be a really good time for me to practice some of that procrastination I’m always bragging about.
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Desired Result
Got what I wanted! The quality of results for most of my picture-taking is a function of luck since I don’t spend any time on technical details, choosing instead to settle for whatever the “auto” setting conjures.
On Sunday, the combination of sun, snow, shadow, red paint, and reflection caught my eye. If you look close, I even got a selfie out of the deal.
I love how the snow looks so much like paper or felt. The roll of the lower left reflection that flows similar to the broken edge of the snow. The compliment of the contrasting black trim. How the shadow reveals the space between the snow and truck surface.
Most of all, I like that the camera actually captured what intrigued me enough to take this picture.
All too often, I don’t even bother pulling out the camera when scenes around here are too big for a photo to do proper justice. Nothing works as well at interpreting a complete landscape as a pair of eyes perceiving it in real-time.
For my vague impressionistic compositions, the little point-and-shoot I use has provided me with enough lucky outcomes to keep me giving it a go.
Every once in a while, I get a satisfying reward.
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