Posts Tagged ‘Delilah’
Coming Around
A day later, I’m coming around to the idea that I will be able to figure out a modification that will sub-divide the coop into two smaller apartments. I guess I just need to whine about it first. Upon further review, I’m pretty sure we can come up with something that can work.
Maybe my knee-jerk reaction of pessimism is a way of balancing Cyndie’s unbridled optimism on projects like this. If I don’t think I can do it, she will take care of it herself, regardless her rather unreliable spatial relations perception, and currently, her limit of only one available arm.
Don’t for one minute assume her having only one useable arm has stopped her from accomplishing anything. It slows her down a little bit, but she still has managed to do way more than seems possible around here.
I felt a little like the questionable photographer when I kept snapping shots of her struggling to scoop piles of grass that we had raked up. Sure, I could have set the camera down and helped her, but she was actually doing pretty well without me.
As soon as I finished raking, I took over the scooping chore from her and she wandered away to a different spot to pull weeds.
We opened up the back pasture to the horses so they could keep us company while we worked, but they weren’t our only companions. Delilah, who Cyndie had tethered nearby, alerted us to the appearance of chickens. How nice of them to come help.
I had just been thinking of them a few minutes earlier when I spotted a big juicy bug pop out from a pile of grass. I figured that would appeal to the chickens. Maybe they picked up on my thinking.
They happen to be about as good a helper as the dog has proved to be when I am working. If I move something, Delilah likes to move it back for me. The chickens checked out our raked piles by kicking them to smithereens in search of a snack.
We think the three survivors of the great chicken massacre of June 16 may have a little PTSD over the event. They no longer put themselves to bed in the coop at dusk. Many nights I would find one of the Barred Plymouth Rocks up on a branch in the same tree where I found her that fateful night.
Now she has lured the others to join her. At first, it was just the Buff Orpington, but two nights ago, it was all three of them up in that tree as the sun disappeared. Cyndie just alerts me, the one of us with two useable arms, and I come out to pluck them from the branch, one at a time, unceremoniously returning them to the coop for the night.
Last night, retraining to the coop started anew. We round them up before they take to the tree at dusk and herd them over to the coop, to be enticed inside with treats.
And we want to get more of these birds?
I’m coming around to the idea.
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Beating Heat
Although Arabian horses were bred to perform under harsh desert conditions, the humidity that we get with our high heat is enough to make all species a little irritated. In the summer, we offer our horses a warm dusty breeze that moves enough air to toss their manes and chase off some flies.
It actually seems like little comfort, blowing hot, humid air, but Legacy has taken a particular liking to it.
Delilah prefers to lay on the cool tile in the house. Her fur coat doesn’t allow for wind to be much help. Luckily, she is a big fan of sprayed water from the hose, so we can shrink her coat dramatically by getting her wet.
We are arriving upon my last weekend before the annual June biking and camping week. I will be looking for a way to spend some time on the bike seat without putting myself at risk of heat stroke. It would be really helpful if I could rig up a mount on my tractor instead, so I could sit on my bike seat while mowing the lawn.
Speaking of mowing, I will be picking up the old Craftsman rider from the shop this morning. Now I can return the borrowed John Deere and get back to my own rig. I’ll be able to find out if it runs well under intense heat, that’s for sure.
The summer heat has brought out the lightning bugs. With the strawberry moon glowing brilliantly last night, the neon green flashes dancing above the tall grasses made for a glorious nighttime walk with Delilah as I rolled the trash and recycling bins down to the road.
George has come back for the weekend while he is serving his farrier clients in the region. I tended to the horses while he trimmed our herd after dinner. Cayenne is making good progress. He removed her shoes and left her bare foot again.
It may be hot, but things here are actually running pretty cool.
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Coming Together
I was keeping Delilah tied close to me while cleaning up around the paddock, partly to keep her out of trouble with the horses, but also because I don’t want her venturing to the full reach of the leash, scouting chickens. She seems to understand the drill.
After retrieving her from the kennel located behind the house, we walked along the back pasture fence line toward the chicken coop. I had already checked on the chicks earlier, so knew where to expect them. Keeping myself between the chicks and Delilah, we strode parallel to the coop where I stopped to put the memory card in the trail cam for the night.
She was appropriately curious, but not frantic over the presence of the birds. I doubt she will ever reach a point where she would let one of the birds walk into her space without attempting to grab it, but it feels nice to have her practicing a respectable level of calmness with them in view.
In the paddock, I had my attention on the task at hand, letting Delilah explore the immediate vicinity around me. When she stopped and stared, I looked up to find the chicks making their way over from the coop to join the horses for some short grass grazing.
Although separated by safe distances with Delilah restrained on the leash, it felt good to have us all coming together in the paddock. It was a hint of the ideal we wish could somehow come to be.
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Joking’s Over
Last weekend, while spending extended time with friends in our home, I came to realize from some comments that I tend to paint an unbalanced portrait of Delilah, which leans toward the harsh. As recently as two days ago I posted a picture that I intended as humorous, giving her a thought bubble that played on my tendency to trumpet her carnivorous nature.
By frequently referring to how ferocious she can be, I have been neglectful of her gentle side. Our little pooch presents with a happy-go-lucky gentleness more often than not. In fact, it is probably why I don’t tend to write much about it. Her good behavior is so common as to become overlooked. We take it for granted.
It’s the exceptional moments of craziness that grab all the headlines.
Well, it’s hard not to write about the exceptional moments.
Today, I am feeling some regret about my attempt at humor over Delilah’s interest in our chickens.
Yesterday morning, while Cyndie was cleaning up under the overhang of the barn, Delilah could hold back no longer. She lunged hard enough against her leash anchor to break the handle and bend the hook it was hanging on. The handle banged against the siding of the barn and caused the horses to jump, alerting Cyndie to go check on what happened.
In that flash of seconds, we lost our first chicken to a predator. A domestic predator.
We knew all along that having free-ranging chickens around Delilah was high risk, but we simply hoped for the best. It seemed that our gradual controlled exposure to their presence was being accepted with surprising calmness, between bouts of excessive interest.
We knew she wasn’t to be trusted yet, but there were enough moments when she was demonstrating appropriate acceptance of the chickens that we felt hopeful about the chances of further improvement.
We don’t fault her for acting on her natural instinct. Delilah has given us a chance to more closely consider the delicate balance of predator/prey relationships. She is also forcing us to renew our attention to directing her exactly in the manner we need her to behave.
It’s not the dog that needs the most training. It’s her handlers.
To her credit, Delilah’s choice of victim turned out to be the extra Rhode Island Red from the batch of 10 we received for our purchase of 9 chicks. We are now down to three each of the 3 breeds we ordered.
Maybe yesterday’s incident will help me to think twice about joking over Delilah’s carnivorous ways in the future, but I’m guessing my writing will still highlight more of her wild behaviors than her quiet moments. It’s the nature of this beast.
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Chicks Exploring
I have no idea whether the raccoon Delilah alerted us to outside our sunroom in broad daylight yesterday afternoon had anything to do with the new presence of our 8-week-old chicks roaming the property. It was certainly a surprising and uncharacteristic sighting.
Daily, our chicks have expanded their excursions from the coop, and yesterday achieved milestones that gave me great satisfaction. Cyndie found them marching along the edge of the woods toward the compost area where they quickly unleashed their best chicken behavior on the piles.
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Later, after running with Delilah to follow the scent of the raccoon, we moved behind the barn to check on the birds. When they spotted us, they scooted from the paddock over toward the coop. The paddock is the other spot I hoped the chickens would frequent. My two primary goals realized in the same day. Huzzah!
While I am grateful that Delilah is attentive enough to call out the presence of a raccoon threat in our yard, I’m not yet convinced her concern for the chicks is as altruistic as we would wish. While Cyndie was cleaning the barn, Delilah held an uncomfortably intense focus on the compost area.
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Different Day
Saturday was calm and Delilah was afraid to touch the water. Sunday the wind was directly out of the south and blowing strong enough to create rolling white cap waves. That was enough for Delilah to get over her trepidation about the water so she could charge in to bite at the broiling waves.
It was a wonderful sight to behold. I rushed to get my phone out so I could record a video. I held the camera for a long minute and then reached up to touch the screen to stop the recording. What I actually did at that moment was touch the screen to start recording, after having held it up while the phone was doing absolutely nothing during the best action.
Curses!
After chomping the white water multiple times, she alerted to the two ducks floating calmly past. I think they reminded her of chickens.
In another way Sunday was different from Saturday, there was activity in the eagle’s nest over the tennis court. On Saturday, I looked and looked but saw no sign of anything up in the big nest that has been home to an eagle family for years.
Sunday we were standing directly beneath it with Delilah when I realized the sound we were hearing was very likely newborn eagles. Looking straight up, I quickly found an eagle on a branch beyond the nest.
It is possible the nestlings just hatched. They were making quite a ruckus and we wondered if it had anything to do with our presence. When the eagle on the branch flew off, we began to speculate about the possibility the noisy eaglets were reacting to feeding time.
While one parent stayed seated in the nest, keeping a keen eye out, the other one spread its wings and flew away, presumably in search of another meal.
After a trip back to the cabin to get binoculars, we returned to find the nest calm and quiet. Having recently witnessed how quickly our chicks could fall asleep, we pondered the possibility the babies had already gone from shrieking hungry to full nap-mode.
By the middle of the day, when we had the car packed for the trip home, Delilah made every effort to clearly convey her preference to stay right where we were. It was funny to watch. She definitely recognized the cleaning and organizing preparations inside and kept a close eye on our movements.
When it came time to put on her leash to head outside, she balked big-time. Upon ultimately succeeding in getting her outside, Cyndie tried to get Delilah to pee before going in the car. Delilah’s only desire was to walk in short loops that always returned to one of the doors to go back in the cabin.
I like the way she thinks.
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Laking It
Happy Mother’s Day all you moms out there! We are starting the day up at the lake with Cyndie’s mom and dad. This afternoon, we have dinner plans with our children and whomever can make it from her brother’s families.
It feels like the middle of May.
Plants and trees up at the lake place are a week or more behind the growth that has popped at home. I find the perspective it offers points out the end of opportunities for easy access to our wooded areas. Up here, we can still walk easily in among the trees, while at home the explosion of leaves is quickly closing down views and avenues of travel.
On the plus side, we have the return of a shade canopy over our forests. That makes Delilah much happier.
With her thick coat, she is quick to seek out shade when we have her outside on sunny days. I assumed she would be thrilled with the opportunity to cool herself in the chilly water of the big lake this weekend, but she has surprised us with a distinct timidity at the water’s edge.
She has behaved totally non-fazed by the new confines of the cabin, and seems to adore exploring the grounds on her leash. Alas, the water holds no allure, even with the added excitement of spawning fish splashing about in the shallows.
I think it’s a good thing there are no signs the turtles have been burying eggs in the sand of the beach yet. She would be very pleased to dig for such treasure.
Between walks, she naps nearby during our card games, with only occasional startles or barks over the squawking crows and rare boat traffic happening by.
It’s been a soothing, calm getaway for us, nicely described by the term, “laking it.”
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Just Dandy
A morning stroll through the dew revealed some artistic specimens of the most prolific flowering plant around. Some folks put in a lot of effort to eradicate dandelions, but I look at the numbers and figure it’s a fight I’d rather not join.
Might as well enjoy the beauty.
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This morning we are a couple of hours north at Cyndie’s family lake place, thanks to George, who is watching over our animals for the weekend. Well, not all the animals. For the first time ever, Delilah joined us on an outing to Hayward.
We folded up her crate and laid her bed on top of it in the back of the Crosstrek. She was a willing traveler and seems thrilled to be up here. The only thing that is troubling her sense of logic is the occasional appearance of these bizarre vessels that float slowly by on the water.
She can see them moving, but with no legs or wheels, I think it spooks her a little bit. Best to growl and bark at them, just in case.
Beyond that, everything is just dandy!
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Chicken Catching
We are getting close to opening up the netting and giving our chicks a chance to do some exploring. They are currently confined to a small courtyard at the foot of the ramp out their door, as well as the space beneath the elevated coop.
Cyndie tossed a little food as I was preparing to take some pictures while they were out and about. That resulted in most of the heads being down and the butts up.
I didn’t make it out to see the show when Cyndie moved them back into the coop for the night, but she said it was quite a spectacle. She had read one suggestion about training them to come in for the night by regularly using a unique call and shaking a little container of food for enticement.
I asked her what her call was going to be. She didn’t have anything specific worked out yet. I think it might be, “Here chicks.”
Sounds like they were unimpressed with her offerings.
At first none of them wanted to go in. Then one headed inside on its own accord, but when it realized it was alone in there, it came back out.
After Cyndie got a couple of them inside, one chose to lay down right in front of the door, obstructing the opening.
With the food offering failing to impress them and Cyndie’s call not inspiring action, it was time to resort to the long hooked stick to pull them in by their feet.
All this was accompanied by Delilah’s unwelcome barking, which did not contribute one bit to Cyndie’s calm demeanor.
In fact, from the house, it sounded like there was some cursing going on down there. At least, from what I could sense between the barking.
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Trying Hard
Our wonderfully sweet and incredibly carnivorous Belgian Tervuren Shepherd, Delilah, was trying so hard to be a good cooperator yesterday for Cyndie. There is currently nothing more enticing to her than the scent of chicken manure and she has quickly figured out there is a really good supply of it around the chicken coop.
I suppose the presence of flittery feathered figures darting about enhances the allure quite a bit, but honestly, she seems almost more interested in the scent they leave behind. (I wish.)
In attempt to train her to better control her urges, Cyndie restrained Delilah a short distance from the coop while the chickens were romping in their courtyard and Cyndie was cleaning the coop. Delilah’s job was to practice staying calm while observing the action.
I think maybe she was closing her eyes in attempt to overcome the powerful drive revving inside her.
Sounds like it went well for a little while, but over time the urge would become unbearable. Delilah would get all wound up and let out a yelp. Next would come the nervous yawn.
After a little calm assurance from Cyndie, the exercise would resume for another round.
We are hoping to keep up a regular dose of exposure to the chickens for Delilah, while closely supervising her state of increasing excitement. In time, if we last long enough, she should become bored with the situation. When that happens, we ratchet up the exercise to bring her another step closer to the chickens while working to help her maintain a state of calm submission.
I am inclined to think we will get bored before she will, but I think the only alternative involves risks to the chickens that we don’t want to take.
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Relative Something 