Never Sure
Every time I come upon a view of our horses and find one or more of them lying completely flat on the ground, there is a moment of apprehension. I’ve grown accustomed to the sight of them resting off of their feet, but the number of times when they drop the entire body, including their heads, flat to the ground, are few.
Yesterday, I was turning a pile of composting manure and could see them in the distance in the hay-field. One of the chestnuts was sitting on the ground and the other two were busy grazing. Legacy appeared to be on full-time watch.
They were on a ridge of the hay-field, which is not a spot where I usually find them resting, although it is a place where they have a good perspective to see in all directions, without obstruction. More often, when I find them lying down it will be inside the additional fence that defines the arena, or in a lower spot where they are less visible to passersby.
The next time I looked up from what I was doing, I found the horse that had been on the ground had risen to his or her feet and Legacy was the one lying down, …all the way down. He was so flat, I wondered if he was still alive.
It is jarring when they lay so flat. There would be no difference in position if they were dead.
Being unsure, I watched the scene for a while to get a read from the other horses. When I moved to get in position to take a picture, Dezirea honed in on me and stared. She was definitely on watch duty.
After about 5 minutes, Legacy picked up his head and dispatched my apprehension. He sat upright for a bit before eventually getting back on his feet. He hadn’t napped for very long, but he was all the way out when he did.
Horses really know how to power-nap when conditions allow. Whenever I am fortunate enough to witness it, it brings me joy that our herd demonstrates a feeling of being safe enough to get the sleep they need, even though I go through that initial phase of not being sure about the dramatic scene.
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Well Supervised
When the rain finally moved beyond our location yesterday, I headed out with the intention of spreading the rest of our composted manure.
Since the horses were in their stalls overnight Friday, we now have several wheelbarrows-full of soiled wood shavings to be removed, and need to have the space to dump them.
Cyndie needed to make a run to the drug store, so I took Delilah with me and meandered toward the barn. The piles of compost looked a little wet, so I decided to delay digging into them and turned my attention to the uninvited sprouting trees that show up in the hay-field.
What transpired next is something that I wish could be experienced by everyone who comes to Wintervale to see our horses. Delilah and I entered the paddock through one of the gates, clanking the chain on the metal in the process, which inevitably draws the attention of the herd.
I had no intention of disrupting the herd from whatever was occupying their attention at the time, as I was focused on seeking out the sprouting trees. Delilah and I walked out into the hay-field where I released her to roam and then set about my task.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the horses made their way over, in the process of their grazing. Hunter led the way, eventually becoming the most obvious. It took probably around 15 minutes, maybe more, of me ignoring them while focused on my project, for them to close the distance and make their intention transparent.
They wanted to be with me, to check on what I was doing, to engage with my presence.
It’s an amazing thing to experience. Four horses grazing peacefully, but purposefully in your proximity. Occasionally, one will break from eating and step right up to smell me, share an exchange of breath, and invite me to scratch them.
It is a slow process that happens silently and takes both time, and lack of expectation on my part. That is the primary reason it is so difficult to make happen on demand when visitors stop by. It is a priceless experience.
After I had dispatched all the volunteer sprouts, I turned my attention to spreading the compost. This time I remembered to pause to take pictures of the ATV and tipped trailer ready to go in the field. As soon as I stopped, Legacy stepped up to inspect my activity.
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Horses In
Last night we brought the horses inside the barn overnight for the first time this fall. It was a decision we struggled with a couple times, because the conditions weren’t extreme enough to help make it an obvious choice. In the end, we tried giving the horses equal say in the decision, and their timely arrival and behavior at the door of the barn helped to seal the deal.
When Cyndie came back from turning them out this morning, her report cast some doubt over the satisfaction of at least the elder two horses about being confined all night long, regardless the chilly, blowing precipitation that fell.
Yesterday started with us moving the horses inside to their stalls first thing, before even serving them the morning feed, because they had a date with the veterinarian for their annual fall check up. It is a time when their teeth get filed, if needed, and the geldings receive some assistance with personal hygiene. Both procedures involve a bit of sedation to facilitate cooperation from the patients.
After enough time passed for the horses to recover their full senses, we put them back out in the elements. It wasn’t exactly cold out, but the thick grayness of the October sky and periods of rain and wind were enough to put a chill on Cyndie and me. It sapped most of our motivation to do anything constructive outside and tugged on my eyelids all afternoon, begging for a nap.
When darkness fell, it was 50/50 over bringing the horses indoors overnight, but Cyndie felt it was something the horses would want. We puttered in the barn under lights, to prepare for the possibility, and when the horses hustled up to the doorstep out of the damp darkness, we brought ’em in.
At dawn this morning, Cyndie found the two younger chestnuts, Hunter and Cayenne, happy as could be. Legacy and Dezirea were another story.
The elder two showed every sign of wanting to be back outdoors immediately. Cyndie said that Dezirea almost ran her over in her haste to be out of that stall. No surprise though, as it sounded as if she had made a complete mess of her space.
The weather this morning isn’t any more inviting than yesterday was, but the forecast offers hope, and at least the temperature is well above the freezing point at the start.
We’ll be spending some extra time doing barn stall cleaning today, and I (and a couple of horses) will be gladly looking forward to having them stay outdoors overnight again, and hopefully for a long spell before the next dose of cold overnight rain.
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Dream On
I recently had one of those dreams where I awoke with the feeling that it had actually happened. When you dream about someone you know, do you find yourself inclined to tell them about it?
“You were in my dream!”
I struggle with that urge. I usually want to tell the person. It was so real!
But they weren’t involved. It was my mind conjuring a depiction of them. I could just as well imagine a scene with another person while I am wide awake, and then go tell them the details. Seems rather creepy when considered like that.
At the same time, we are all connected. When we think of others, we can strengthen connections with them. Spending time with someone in our dreams creates a strong feeling of connection, but I figure it probably is a lopsided one.
When I experience a dream connection with someone, it ends up commanding my attention for a long time. When I am able to recall the details of a dream that involved a perception of a person I know, it will seem no different to me from memories I have acquired about experiences while awake.
It is not surprising to hear someone questioning themselves over whether they are remembering an actual event or something they dreamed. People have even come up with the generally accepted and universally understood phenomenon of pinching, to establish whether an experience is a dream, or not.
At this point in my life, I don’t usually want to know.
Why spoil the unlimited possibilities of a dream state by checking for reality?
Dream on, I say.
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Kicking Cats
If you own a cat, and you walk around, you probably already know about this phenomenon. I don’t like doing it, and I don’t do it intentionally, but I kick our cat, Pequenita. Seriously.
Just two days ago, she stealthily slipped between my stride as I headed down the hallway from the bedroom and I caught her like football. I think she even let out a grunt as her body lurched sideways, but that may just have been an echo of the sound coming from me in a burst of surprise and remorse.
Much as I wish to avoid the unpleasantness of booting our favorite feline, her stupendous cat-like movements exceed my ability to track her location. In the time it takes me to move my gaze from where she was behind me, to where I intend to walk, she can easily (and frequently does) overtake me, so that I find her already present in the bathroom when I arrive.
She was behind me, and then in a split second, completely undetected, she is around the corner ahead of me. If that were always the case, it wouldn’t really be a problem. However, for some strange reason, she occasionally chooses to not race all the way ahead, and instead elects a pace closer to mine, with a route that crosses my path.
I am inclined to envision it as her playing a daredevil game to see how close she can come to the threat of impact —giving her the benefit of the doubt that she is oblivious to the risk of tripping me she poses in so doing. She would never choose to put me in danger while seeking her thrills.
Except maybe the times when she lets her claws inadvertently meet my flesh during her frenzied escapades of pretending to defend herself from imagined enemies, foreign and domestic.
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Contagious Contentment
There is no way to adequately describe how amazing the ambiance can be here on a calm and sunny morning. Last Saturday, I wandered toward the barn and found the horses luxuriating in the warm October morning sunshine. Their contentment was mesmerizing and contagious.
I stopped and gazed at them for a good long while. There were no sounds from automobiles passing or from farm work around us. Occasionally the sound of a bird accented the otherwise silent atmosphere.
It was priceless. And I was there to experience it.
This is what I saw…
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Spreading Manure
After I finished cutting up the fallen tree, I talked Cyndie into helping me see if we could spread our composted manure on the hay-field by way of our ATV trailer. It occurred to me that I had moved similar amounts with this trailer when previously using manure for fill around our property. The only difference would be spreading it thinly over a wide area, as opposed to dumping it all in one place.
We tried a couple methods of unloading the trailer, but they were a bit cumbersome. I tried pitching forkfuls to and fro. We took turns trying to drive slowly while the other person used a rake to pull manure off the trailer.
It was getting the job done, but it felt like we were working harder than the mediocre results warranted.
On my third trip back to the hay-field with a trailer full, it struck me that I could simply remove the tailgate and drive fast enough to bounce most of the contents out. I figured doing so would spread it thinner than we were achieving by hand. What’d I have to lose?
It still wasn’t very precise distribution, but I was definitely able to lose the entire contents of the trailer, simply by driving wildly around the field. It was less work, so we deemed it an acceptable method.
I was thinking that I should have Cyndie take my picture while I caromed past her with the trailer tilted back and manure spilling out, but she headed in before we had that chance.
As I was taking the picture of the filled trailer, I decided I could stop out in the field after dumping half the load and at least snap a picture of the ATV and tipped trailer, but then completely forgot about the plan while bouncing the Grizzly and trailer over the rough terrain of the field.
There’ll be another chance for that shot. We probably got about half way through the amount that is available to spread yesterday. I would like to get the rest of the composted manure cleared out so that we will have the maximum available space open for the winter season.
We end up with a lot more material when the horses spend nights in the barn during wet or extreme cold nights of winter. Also, the composting slows down a bit, and it is hard to keep turning it when it gets buried with snow. The end result: we store more “product,” and therefore need all the space that we’ve set aside for this purpose.
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New Incentive
This time of year, when trees and bushes drop their leaves and we can suddenly see things in the woods that were previously obscured by greenery during summer, the number of standing dead trees becomes much more evident.
Last week, just to make the point more dramatically clear, one of them gave in and toppled over before I could get around to cutting it down for firewood.
It is giving me new incentive to get out and prune the forest of these potential threats to the health and well-being of those who may be traversing the path at such an unfortunate time.
Cyndie says she didn’t hear it fall, but noticed the startled horses running away and Delilah’s barking in reaction. I’m particularly happy that she hadn’t been walking the trail at that particular moment…
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Fortuitous Failure
The plan was to get one load of gravel, one load of sand for the round pen, and two loads of lime screenings —one to spread around in the paddock, and one to keep as backup to fill washouts as they occur. In order to receive all these deliveries in the time while weather is good for doing so, we plotted out the order and location for dumping the piles.
The primary concern was to avoid having the heavy truck drive into the paddock, because the previous time we allowed that, it led to problems from the extreme compression straining buried electric fence wires between gate posts. I was also concerned about collapsing the buried drain tube we had installed from the barn gutter downspout.
The truck driver always seems more than willing to drive anywhere, leaving the responsibility on us to restrain the choices in protection of property. He long ago demonstrated complete disdain for the well-being of our asphalt driveway.
By my figuring, if we got gravel first and spread it out before the next delivery, the truck could drive on the new gravel and dump the lime screenings at the entrance of the paddock. I would spread them inside the paddock. The sand could then get dumped beside the barn, where I could move it by loader scoops, driving over the new lime screenings through the paddock to the round pen.
That would be a lot of tractor hours, but it was worth it to me to protect the paddock from the heavy truck.
Then Cyndie received word that they currently had no stock of lime screenings. The driver delivered gravel on Thursday with a plan to bring the sand on Friday morning. I had a short window of time after work on Thursday to spread the gravel, so he could drop the pile of sand the following morning in the spot where we wanted it.
In the middle of that task, as I tried to back up in order to spread the scoop of gravel I just dropped, the tractor lurched forward. I shifted again. This time it wouldn’t go backward, or forward. Tractor fail!
That wasn’t in my plan.
I struggled to remove a cover plate to see the mechanism of the gear shift lever. That didn’t help much, because even though I could then see it, I didn’t actually understand what I was looking at.
The options rattled through my mind. Call my very knowledgeable neighbor? It was getting late. Call the implement dealer? That would have to wait until morning. What about the sand delivery? Where would I put that?
Well, this failure caused me to rethink the possibilities and opened up a new willingness to have the truck drive through the hay-field. He would only need to pass through gates in which there was enough turf to limit the compression that happens from the weight of the load.
In the end, I have a new appreciation for the inconvenience of that shifting failure, because it has saved me a lot of work. The dump truck placed the sand in the center of the round pen. The hay-field held up well under the load, but the driveway has some new wrinkles where he made the turn on and off it.
The service man from the implement dealer made short work of the tractor repair by afternoon, replacing a pin and snap ring at the base of the shift lever, and I finished spreading the gravel.
That shifting failure is one I will remember fondly for the better outcome that came as a result.
There may be a life lesson available in all this.
Ya think?!
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