Sweet Harmony
Yes, Hunter and Cayenne sharing a hay feeder.
It’s hard to describe how precious it feels to now see Hunter side by side with the other horses grazing at the hay feeders.
When I first put those boxes out last year, I wasn’t sure how well the new setup would work. I wanted the horses to be able to feed at them, 2-at-a-time, but it wasn’t to be for Hunter. He was either not welcomed by the others, or just not comfortable stepping up to the “table” while someone was already there.
The signals are often so subtle that I miss them entirely, but occasionally I would witness a simple shift of position or nod of a head which communicated clear enough to an approaching horse that they should just stay where they are. My standing near, trying to invite a horse in, would not be enough to override whatever messages were being sent by the horse already at the feeder.
Hunter always got his turn, eventually, so I chose not to worry about it. I let the horses manage the routine of grazing at the hay boxes all by themselves.
It’s pretty sweet to see they have finally worked it out so they can all cordially graze together at the same time, no waiting. To me, it seems like such a dramatic change in their behavior, but they make it appear as if it was nothing at all. Looking at them now, you’d have no reason to assume it hasn’t always been this way.
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Hunter Changes
I’ve been meaning for some time to describe how much, and how quickly, our horse Hunter demonstrated new behavior after Dunia began training his attention and responses, upon which Cyndie and I then experienced the epiphany to re-frame how we had always perceived him.
Hunter, moving too fast for my camera positioning.
Within a single day we began to see a series of disruptions among the three chestnuts of our herd, but primarily between Hunter and Cayenne. Prior to Hunter’s new displays of confidence, he was subordinate to Cayenne. She would pin her ears back and he would submit to whatever direction she dictated.
All of a sudden Cayenne was finding she no longer had total command over Hunter. He was pushing back with emphasis. There were times during their little spats of positioning to send a message with a good swift kick, where neither would back down and the alarming dance would carry on 2 or 3 times longer than is usually needed for this sort of thing.
There wasn’t any sign of hesitation in Hunter’s decision to demand a new level of respect, despite Cayenne’s initial resistance to accepting his new assertiveness.
Giving me a bit of a smile.
Of course, such changes in individuals also makes an impact on those around them. Legacy’s leadership is usually rather subtle, but as the two younger horses continued to wrangle over their relationship, I witnessed him take some bold steps to put them both in their place and convince them to give their ongoing battle a rest for the time being.
Just as quickly as the disruptions among the herd started from Hunter’s new attitude, they settled back down. I was surprised to suddenly find Hunter and Cayenne congenially eating from the same hay feeder, at the same time! That was a first.
Soon, Hunter was doing the same thing with Legacy.
The herd is once again a “get-along-gang,” which has us very pleased. How could we think of Hunter as anything other than the champ that he is to us now?
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Broken Bolts
I would like to fix the problem that occurred when I was pulling the ABI grader/rake behind the Grizzly and came upon an immovable buried rock. The two bolts holding the hitch plate to the ATV frame sheared, leaving me to finish that round pen job by hand.
Now that project has been completed and I am left with a mechanical challenge of getting the stubs of the two threaded bolts out of the frame. Easy-peesy. Just get one of those “As Seen on TV” EZ-Out bits and spin the darn things right out.
Or not.
I am guessing that the bolts were a hardened steel and I haven’t had any luck trying to drill them. The challenge is compounded by the rust that is holding the threads tight.
One thing that Dad always said, after a stint as a repairman on Caterpillar tractors, “If that didn’t work, get a bigger hammer.”
I think I’m also going to need a bigger drill and different bits, and maybe a welder, too.
I’m hesitant to figure out what the shear strength of those bolts was, because I’d rather not know how far beyond the rated towing force I was during my carefree spin pulling that grader around the perimeter of the pen.
Instead, I will just remember next time to proceed in smaller increments and not try to dig to full depth right from the get-go.
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Autumn Hint
I could have comfortably worn a long sleeve shirt yesterday, but I chose to stay with a more summer-like exposed arms ensemble in denial of the possibility summer might be coming to an end soon. With our dew point temperature down in the ever-so comfortable sub-50° range with an October-like sky, it felt like the kind of day we should have a fire in the fireplace.
Two weeks ago we were celebrating summer with our gala bash of picnic food and live music on the deck. What a difference between then and now.
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The horses seem to appreciate the fact that a breezy and cool cloudy day helps minimize the relentless harassment from flies. Cyndie caught Legacy and Cayenne in a brief nuzzle, probably because the flies weren’t covering their faces, while Dezirea stares the camera down as if disapproving of the violation of her friends’ privacy.
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Carpal Punishment
After two days of wielding hand tools, I’m paying a price of numbness in my hands. Regardless the prescribed wearing of wrist braces while I sleep, the numbness that morphs into a pain that wakes me in the earliest hours of the morning broke up an otherwise fine sleep last night.
Takes a bit of a toll on the typing, too.
I pushed myself a little beyond my limit yesterday, because I was getting closer by the minute to completing the trench and berm around the round pen, and a storm was building fast on the horizon.
Holy cow, was that a lively thunder-boomer! Delilah was in a constant state of alarm over the flashing and crashing. Wind blew and rain poured, but we were spared the dangerously large hail listed as possible in the warning from the National Weather Service.
We figured it would be an excellent test of our efforts of the last two days, but had no idea whether we were going to be bombarded with epic amounts of water or something reasonable. It seemed last night like it was pouring pretty hard, so we prepared ourselves for any outcome.
Turns out, we were spared any extremes and received a reasonable 1.25 inches overnight. Cyndie took a picture of the minor amount of residual standing water in my new trench outside the round pen. Other than that, things held pretty well.
Good for those things that held. I wish I could say the same for me. I’m finding it hard to hold much of anything today.
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Group Effort
Under a strange sky on a day when rain wasn’t predicted, Cyndie and I planned to work on improving the landscape around the round pen to stop the sand from getting carried away in runoff every time it storms.
The passing disturbance in the sky overhead dropped some intermittent showers that were light enough that nothing became soaking wet, so it didn’t interfere with our efforts.
While Cyndie worked on the low side of the round pen, reclaiming sand that had spilled out when 7 inches of rain poured down on us last Wednesday, I prepared the soil on the outside perimeter by pulling our ABI rake/grader behind the Grizzly ATV.
It was working perfectly until impact with a rock sheared the bolts holding the hitch on the Griz. With towing done for the time being, I picked up a shovel and went to work shaping a trench and berm combination in hopes of preventing the water from flowing directly through the round pen.
If I got the slope shaped right, the water should meander around to the low side where it can make its way harmlessly into the drainage swale, minus our precious sand.
Obviously, this is effort that would have best been done before we brought in the sand, but we were in a hurry to get the footing in the round pen improved in time for the training sessions that had been planned.
With Delilah off-leash and the horses free to mingle, we had a lot of “helpers” that were keeping us company while we worked. Between her bouts of barking at the horses for no good reason and wrestling with their exercise balls that she thinks are her toys, Delilah took time to stop by and help me while I dug up the sod. I would toss a shovel-full to the perfect spot for building up the berm, and then she would grab that piece of sod like it was a piece of steak, carry it away, and tear it apart heroically before coming back for more.
Seriously, she took three of the best pieces I had placed in a short span of time, but I didn’t have the heart to dissuade her, as she seemed to think she was doing the greatest job of helping me. That berm better not leak at that spot or she is going to be held permanently responsible.
The horses were also inspired to participate in their own way. Shortly after I got started, Hunter grazed his way so close to me that I didn’t have room to work the shovel. At that point, he was standing on the area I hadn’t dug up yet, so he was packing down the soil I had just churned up with the grader. At that proximity, he also ended up sharing the cloud of flies that were all over him.
They have my full sympathy about the flies. They went up my nose more than once which can really make one irritable. I considered trying on one of their fly masks, but figured the fit might not work out quite right.
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Legacy and Dezirea wandered over to inspect my progress and test out the trench. It confirmed for me that they would have no problem navigating the altered footing in the vicinity of the pen. I think it met with their approval.
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Stealthy Installation
This is a little embarrassing. Presumably, while Cyndie and I were sitting on our couch Wednesday night, conducting a quarterly meeting for Wintervale Ranch, LLC, 4 guys from the gutter company showed up and completed the rework of the gutter on the barn. We didn’t have a clue.
Thursday morning, while at the day-job, I texted Cyndie to find out if the crew had showed up yet. After she replied that they hadn’t, I suggested she call to check on their schedule. She did just that and received the startling news that the work had already been completed. How?
They needed to saw off about 3 inches of the overhanging metal roof. That had to make a racket. Delilah gave no indication of any kind. I think we better not rely on her as a watchdog.
They installed blocks in all 70 troughs of the metal roof. They worked right where the horses congregate, and must have spooked the horses to some extent.
We remained oblivious. I don’t understand how this could be.
I would have appreciated a call from them to report when they would be working. At the very least, it would have saved the embarrassment of our phoning the office to ask when they were going to show up to do the work, after it had already been completed.
I sure hope this crew never strays toward using their skills of stealth for nefarious purposes. They could have cleaned us out of all our valuable possessions while we sat idly by, clueless.
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August Rainsaster
The predicted October-like storm, with potential for record-setting low pressure for this time of year, unleashed the greatly feared torrents of flash flooding rain on us yesterday.
It revealed several areas where we need to improve our water management if we hope to withstand the ongoing onslaught of gully-washing downpour events that keep happening with increasing frequency.
When I got home from work and went outside to check on things, there was 4.5 inches of water in the rain gauge. I knew from that amount that the round pen would not have fared well for losing sand, so was prepared for the worst.
In spite of the heartbreaking mess of runoff sand, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. I could see where some of the worst spots were for the water running into the round pen, and quickly went to work with a shovel to dig channels for draining water around, instead of through.
I also dug several pathways to encourage water to more quickly flow out of the paddocks, before it pooled up and drained toward the round pen.
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Back up at the barn, where our gutter upgrade has yet to happen, the old system was failing brilliantly. I needed to pull the downspout to clear an obstruction, soaking myself in the process, and then discovered fixing that just transferred the overflow to the bottom where the downspout enters the buried drain tube. Something, either the recent dump truck activity or simple horse traffic, appears to have impeded the flow down the buried tube. That will be a doozy to fix.
While walking down to check whether anything was flowing out of the bottom of the buried tube (—it wasn’t—), I saw that an old drain channel I had created to entice flow out of the small paddock was flowing like a raging river. Yay! A success!
But when I reached the fence line, where the ditch opened to my main drainage swale (I thought), I found that the water was curling and flowing back into the paddock, traveling along the inside of the fence down to the bottom corner by the round pen —just the area I was trying to avoid.
It was now raining hard again at that point, and I was about as wet as could be. I was tired, saddened, and feeling entirely defeated. Dragging my sorry soaked self up toward the house, I checked the rain gauge again to see that an additional inch had fallen while I was out.
I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
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Sad Quiet
Last night when Cyndie stepped out to walk Delilah before bedtime, I became aware of how empty and quiet the house seemed, despite the whirr of the overhead fan and the evening drone of chirping insects resonating beyond the screen door. It was far from silence, but it had a way of pointing out how otherwise silent it was.
Monday afternoon, our friend Dunia departed for her home in Guatemala, ending our stretch of what felt like a 2-week vacation adventure, even though most of it happened at our house. The long-distance separation from our dear friends causes a real bittersweetness when it comes time to say goodbye.
The sky was a cloudy gray when I got home from work, as I took Delilah down to the barn to feed the horses and linger with the herd. I got the sense they were missing Dunia, too, even though it had only been a matter of hours for them.
Delilah and I moved on after a while and walked many of our trails, coming upon a few photo opportunities. Despite her lack of interest in my pausing, she politely occupied herself while I worked the angles and light.
Over dinner, Cyndie and I watched a rented movie and then sat together in the quiet, puttering away on separate projects, surrounded by the void of missing companions.
I’m guessing there was also an element of fatigue lingering in the aftermath of the busy weekend filled with the activity and people here for training sessions. We’ll catch our breath and absorb all that’s happened recently, in hopes of conjuring up plans for the next offering sometime this fall.
I hesitate to face it, but fall is so close it is beginning to impact our weather already. My favorite weather blog is predicting an October-like storm moving in today.
It’s probably a good thing that Dunia got out of here when she did, even though her departure has left us with that sweet sorrow of parting. I wonder how much it would cost to fly our horses with us to visit the Morales family in Guatemala again.
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