Posts Tagged ‘barn’
Sneaking Treats
I’m feeling a bit of a sugar overdose this morning after a day of too many treats. I told Cyndie that I kept sneaking cookies and caramels as if I was trying to hide them from myself. I don’t think I successfully fooled me.
We had a bit of a weather event move through the region yesterday. It wasn’t as bad as the tornadoes that proved lethal in the south, but it added a little drama to my double-commute. After navigating the snow to get home from work, we drove back into the cities through the heaviest snow for dinner and a visit with friends and family.
Yesterday’s precipitation started as rain. Cyndie had smartly moved the horses into the barn overnight, while they were calm and dry Tuesday evening. She described the horses as wanting to go outside Wednesday morning, even though the obvious reverberation of raindrops on the metal roof meant they would get a soaking once out.
By the time I got home in the afternoon, it was falling as all snow. It was a sloppy, sticky mess. Rolling slowly along the driveway, I inspected the herd. The two young chestnuts were in the back pasture, grazing normally. Dezirea was near Legacy, close to the paddock, but out in the hay-field area. She had her butt to the wind and her head down, in the classic pose of enduring the wetness.
It was Legacy who drew my attention. I felt a moment of alarm, wondering if he may have a serious problem, so I stopped to observe him for about three minutes. I couldn’t quite figure out his issue, because his uncharacteristic behavior included as many normal gestures as odd ones.
I decided he just looked uncomfortable and reported it to Cyndie immediately. She headed out to check and let them back in the barn for the night. Turned out to be accumulations of sticky snow balled up under his hooves that were irritating him.
After picking up my car that had been in for service— oh, that’s another story… The recent flat tire revealed that all my tires were pretty worn out. I authorized a full set of new tires and asked them to change the oil while they had it. I wasn’t surprised when the shop called to report the rotors of the front brakes were in bad shape. It was time. Nor was I surprised when they called again and said the calipers not working is probably what wore out the rotors. New calipers, too.
The repair of my one flat tire had escalated into a 3-day project that was in danger of costing a quarter of the car’s worth. When I called to see if it was ready for us to pick up, the tech answered and reported that, yes, the battery had come, and it was ready now.
Battery?
Oh, yeah. That, too. That one flat tire led to a very expensive visit to the shop. Merry Christmas, John. You just spent your holiday bonus and then some. I will say, I am very satisfied to have this much car, with its known history, for that amount of money.
I’m off work until next Monday and we now enter full Christmas eventing for the next 4 days. If I find time, I’ll write about it.
It’s going to involve a lot of driving in my “new” car, and I’m hoping a somewhat controlled amount of sugary treats.
Merry Christmas to you!
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Muddy Coat
We’ve had a wet couple of days lately, and it has severely limited my lofty plans to knock off a lot of projects over the weekend. It didn’t help that I spent over half a day getting my eye tended to. The lingering effects have also diminished my motivation to be productive.
I’ve enlisted Cyndie’s help to administer the antibiotic drops that have been prescribed, and every time she does, I receive a report that it is looking better. It helps, even though it doesn’t always feel better.
On Friday night, we worked to prepare the barn for the horses overnight, but since the onset of the rain was delayed, they showed no interest. Yesterday morning, the rain was falling steadily, and Cyndie found them waiting at the barn, desperate to be inside. She obliged them the chance to dry off and warm up.
A shivering horse is quite a sight and serves to motivate inspired action to remedy their discomfort, but it is tricky to safely navigate the process of gates and doors when they are so anxious to get in.
When Cyndie let them out yesterday afternoon, after brushing them out and drying them off, the two geldings immediately and simultaneously laid down and rolled in the wet lime screenings to become muddy wet again. Seems counter-intuitive to us, but they have their ways.
Historically, Hunter is the one who we find painted from head to hoof with mud. The others get dirty, but never with the thoroughness he demonstrates. The other day, Cyndie showed me a picture she took and my instantaneous thought was, “Hunter!”
However, the reason she captured the image was because of the surprise this time that it wasn’t Hunter. At a distance, she had thought the same thing as me, but turns out it was Dezirea with the lime screen coat.
Maybe she was trying to bolster her covering in attempt to hold just a little more warmth in a time of need.
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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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Name Withheld
Among the many things on the always-growing list of tasks we would like to accomplish, there was one that caught our attention before we even owned the place, during one of our early visits with the sellers. It grabbed my attention immediately when I first laid eyes on the barn. There was a bright green shamrock sign on the wall, and the name “Cleary” on the peak of the roof line.
I was so uninformed about Cleary Buildings that I actually asked the seller if they were Irish, thinking they had put their own name on the barn. He seemed embarrassed for me, as he explained that it wasn’t a name from their family.
Since the shamrock and name were both more prominent than Cyndie and I cared for, it became an early item on our list of things to be fixed. The shamrock was within easy reach on a ladder, and I took that down right away.
The name would have to wait. For three years.
I don’t know why some things take that much longer. For a while, I thought about swapping the end cap with one on the shop garage, since that one is all green. Recently, upon closer inspection, I discovered the roof pitch is different between the two structures and the parts were different sizes.
Plan B was to simply paint over it. When I finally took care of the project, it ended up being only a matter of minutes before it was accomplished, which only served to further confound the question of why it took so long to get it done in the first place.
No disrespect intended to the Cleary company. We are happy with their product. At the same time, we are even more happy to have the first impression of the barn come from the structure, itself, in contrast to the overly prominent company name that used to shout from its peak.
.Of course, we might feel a little different about something on the side of the barn if it happened to be the Wintervale Ranch logo…
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Barn Chores
During the previous weekend we finished creating the stone walkway out the back door of the barn. Looks good now, but I am wary of how well it will hold up to the ravages of changing seasons and expected usage. Most often, that is the route out of the barn for the wheelbarrow full of manure and soiled wood shavings, after the horses have needed to spend a night indoors during the coldest of brutal nights.
Maybe we won’t have very many severe cold nights this coming winter, what with the forecast of a super El Niño intensity unseen in 50 years. I wonder if the global climate is being impacted by human activity? (I just can’t help myself, putting a question mark at the end of my “I wonder” statements.)
I will be surprised if our stone placements survive their first winter of shoveling and freezing without needed some level of maintenance when next spring arrives, but for the minimal effort we put into the project, I think the path is adequate for now.
At the very least, it’s a heck of a lot nicer to look at.
With the stones all in place, the next task receiving our attention became the stalls in the barn. Taking advantage of some dry September air, we pulled floor mats out of the stalls for washing, and raked out the dirt floors so they could air out.
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While standing in the stalls, it occurred to me that I need to get to work designing new slow feeding hay boxes for each one. The current setup allows the horses to pull hay out freely, dumping it on the floor, where it goes to waste and leaves them with nothing to eat.
A smaller version of the two boxes I’ve already built will offer a perfect solution for that.
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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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Dust Busting
It’s funny how much clutter we tolerate, until we can’t. Or we don’t have to. Sometimes the tolerating is born of a necessary survival mechanism of prioritizing.
When Cyndie was working her previous day-job, her efforts often overflowed the office hours and consumed vast amounts of her time in the evenings and on weekends. Putting energy toward areas of personal interest became a luxury that she rarely had time to indulge. She has been home now for less than a month and in that time has begun to shake the dust off a surprising number of things and places.
The dustiest of them all is, without a doubt, our barn, with its sand floor and the lime screenings surface under the overhang, toward the paddocks. Daily, the horses kick up dry clouds of dust that waft into the barn, covering absolutely everything. Keeping surfaces clean is a losing battle in the barn, so I rarely bother trying.
Last Sunday, late in the afternoon, when I was winding down toward gathering my thoughts of returning to work the next day, Cyndie began moving things out of the barn. We definitely operate on different schedules of inspiration. The hose came out and the barn received a serious makeover for the next few days. 
All that remains outside the roof now appears to be objects she left as a hint to me that she’d rather we find a different place to store.
Last night, about the time I was considering turning in for the night, Cyndie began moving things out of the over-packed storage room in the basement. Dust and clutter are no longer safe around here. Cyndie is home!
It has been a rude awakening to me of how much I was comfortable tolerating during the time I was home full-time. I had no problem overlooking clutter in some locations while I focused on projects in other areas of my interest.
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Cold Care
Yesterday, while cleaning the horse stalls for the second time in two days, it occurred to me that keeping the horses indoors overnight creates a situation a lot like taking care of 4 very large bed wetters.
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It’s a lot of work to give them clean accommodations every single night. I’ve been spoiled by not needing to change their bedding when they stay outdoors, which is most of the time.
The last couple of days I’ve been bringing them inside at dinner time, and then before we go to bed, we walk down to the barn with Delilah to make sure they have enough hay and water for the night.
Even though it was starting to get pretty windy and the temperature had dropped below zero outside last night, the unheated barn felt pretty comfortable in comparison. It’s a nice thing to have this option for the horses.
On Tuesday morning, before letting them back outside for the day, I went to top off the hay in the slow feeder boxes. I discovered that the metal rods of my custom-welded grids that lay on top of the hay were so cold that things were sticking to them. I wondered if the horses were having problems with that. I sure wouldn’t want to put my tongue on that metal at these temperatures.
I decided to remove the grids for the coldest days, and let them have full access to the hay. Horses burn more calories to stay warm, so they need as much hay as they can get right now, anyway.
Pretty much like they did last winter, our horses seem to be dealing with the current extreme cold snap just fine. Their whiskers get a bit frosty, but other than that, they haven’t shown any negative effects from the frigid temperatures.
That’s more than I can say for Delilah. The pads of her feet bother her whenever it gets below zero. Despite that, she has continued to be exceptionally patient with me when I am working with the horses.
Here she is, politely waiting for me to finish so I can take her for an abbreviated below-zero walk.
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Theory Proved
Once again, we have added proof toward the theory that being prepared means you won’t find your preparations necessary. Our readiness obviously contributed to shifting the first major winter storm this year just far enough north that we didn’t end up receiving a plow-able amount of snow. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we didn’t face hazardous travel conditions. We received just enough sleet and freezing rain to make the road conditions downright dangerous. Heck, I almost suffered an adrenaline overdose just walking down to the barn, given how many times I slipped, causing my body to involuntarily panic in reaction.
I took Delilah for a walk around the property and spied plenty of tracks in the snow. Finally I can see what the heck she is reacting to when her nose picks up a scent and pulls her off course from the trail. We came across the foot prints of deer, squirrel, rabbit, cat, and probably raccoon, too. There were obvious soil disturbances from moles and a couple of well worn trails where mice left a snow-less path.
At one point on our walk, the woods burst to life with movement as we disrupted the largest flock of wild turkeys I have ever happened upon. Many took to the air, but plenty stayed on foot and made their way ahead of us to maintain a safe distance. I’m happy to report that Delilah didn’t over-react and pull my arm out of the socket in chase. She seemed a little perplexed with the sheer number of options, and after taking in the spectacle, I guess just decided it was too many from which to pick. Her nose went back to the ground and she carried on with her trail surveillance.
We walked up to the neighbor’s house to deliver a fresh-baked apple pie as a token of appreciation for the incredible effort of splitting firewood for me. I worked again this afternoon on moving more wood from the pile of recently split logs over to stacks in the woodshed, and still haven’t finished. My neighbor helped me split a lot of wood.
Delilah gladly accepted my offer to let her nap in the freshly tidied kennel while I worked. I think she adored the opportunity to be out in the fresh winter air. The horses weren’t so keen about staying out in the freezing rain. It is always fun to see how much they like coming inside the barn to get out of cold and wet weather.
What little snow we did receive created a good visual of the newly defined drainage swale through the pasture. Maybe the fact that we now have that feature in place will end up limiting the winter precipitation to an amount that the swale won’t be needed. Just a theory.
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Significant Soaking
For all those many days of last July through October that left our land under stress from drought, I wish I could capture the current thorough soaking and redistribute it later this summer. This is what spring is all about though, and all the growing things will be happily slurping this up, soon to burst forth with explosive growth.
I captured a shot of the rain gauge showing that we came just a fraction short of a full inch-and-a-half over about a 24-hour period. It was the perfect ongoing precipitation, able to soak through the top layer and saturate everything very completely. In fact, it seems wetter now than at any previous point during the recent melt of the full winter’s-worth of snow.
Another difference from then and now is that there are worms coming up out of the ground all over the place. If that doesn’t feel like spring…
We took a chance of leaving the horses out in the overnight rain on Wednesday evening, and it turned out to be the wrong choice. Cyndie went out into the soaking rain early yesterday morning to feed them, and found them all shivering drastically and begging to be let inside. They were crowding so tight at the gate that she couldn’t manage getting Legacy through alone, although he was the only one she had a rope around. All four horses came in at the same time, and with no hesitation or funny business, they each walked directly into their appointed stalls.
Message received.
I checked on them several times during the day yesterday, and they seemed as happy as could possibly be. I topped off their water and when the rain stopped late in the afternoon around their dinner time, I opened all the outside doors for them while I delivered feed and fresh hay. Not one of them gave a hint of being anxious to get out of the barn. It’s a good thing, because even though the rain had stopped falling, the runoff was still flowing and every last hoof print in the paddock was filled with water. There was not a dry place to stand anywhere outside.
I spent the rest of my day trying to be productive in the office of our house, organizing files and putting documents away in places where we just might stand a chance of finding them again should we need them. Delilah alternated between lounging around, napping, and demanding to go outside and get soaking wet in order to come right back in and get dried off so she could beg to be let back outside to get soaking wet so she could come right back in to get toweled off again. I started to wonder if she didn’t just want to be rubbed with a towel over and over.
Today should be a different day altogether. We expect to get some sunshine and reach reasonably warm temperatures. Will it dry up enough to mow? I doubt it, but there are other outdoor chores available. If nothing else, I can always get another kind of soaking, bathing in the warm solar rays while watching buds appear on tree branches. This is spring!
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Relative Something 