Posts Tagged ‘Delilah’
Disaster Averted
Not my eyes again! Why did it have to be my eye?
We use a retractable leash for Delilah and yesterday’s wet snow was sticking to it something fierce, occasionally plugging the return function. When I took her in the barn on my way to feed the horses, I hung the leash on the hook I use every time we go through this routine.
From that distance, Delilah can wander out far enough to see the horses while I do a little housekeeping under the overhang, prior to serving their feed pans. Before bringing out the feed, I stop to temporarily lock the retraction on the leash, after shortening the reach to a point where Delilah can’t disturb the herd while they eat.
Her past performances have dictated her fate. She can sit by herself in the barn while they munch.
With the retracting feature off, the extended wet leash was laying on the sand floor of the barn. When I was done with horse duties and ready to take Delilah for an extended walk, I grabbed the leash with an instantaneous thought that I should run it through my gloved hand to scrape the grit off it before it spooled up.
I didn’t quite think it through all the way.
With my right gloved hand, I grabbed the leash between Delilah and the ground. Leaving the spool on the hook, I reached up with my left hand to release the lock. I don’t know if it is obvious to you as you read this, but I had grabbed the wrong side of the leash with my right hand.
The result was so fast I didn’t have time to blink as the spool spun and whiplashed the wet gravelly leash across my face in the ultimate insult.
WHAP! Take that!
My right eye closed in time, but the left eye got a rude stinging slap and enough sand to wreck a day. What happens when something touches your eyeball? You close it as fast as you can! I closed mine over some grains of sand that immediately lodged under my eyelid.
It hurt to blink. It hurt to leave it open. It hurt to hold it closed. It hurt bad enough to make me cry, but I think the tear ducts were plugged with sand, because there weren’t enough tears to wash it out and end my dilemma.
Delilah was kind enough to just sit there while I flinched and cursed and cried and stumbled around. When I knew it wasn’t going to self-remedy, I had to cancel Delilah’s walk and rush back to the house for help.
It’s always wonderful when the person convalescing suddenly has to step up and become the care-giver. Cyndie didn’t hesitate to rush her walker into the bathroom with me to start hosing the eye down with her saline solution.
I really don’t like getting squirted in the eye. That stung and made my eye try to close, which hurt tremendously because there was still sand under the eyelid. I wished I could fold my eyelid like some kids used to do when I was in grade school.
Cyndie worked heroically to clean it out as much as possible and added a drop of something to sooth the eye. I tried laying face down and just letting my eye rest. I figured it was possible that I had scratched my eye and that was what was hurting every time I blinked, so I was about to just wait it out.
Then I stood up again and grabbed my eyelash for the umpteenth time to pull it away from my eye. It was something of an instinctual reaction. I just felt like there was something under my eye lid.
With a blink, I determined that’s exactly what I was feeling, because the stinging pain was suddenly gone. Just like that, I was back to my old self, blinking pain-free.
Disaster averted.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Days Happen
Despite our lofty plans and petty concerns, time marches on. Days happen, one right after the other. The present moment unfurls and that quickly becomes history. Last night, I was struck by a reference in a PBS Frontline story to research done in the archives for information from 1977. Was that really that long ago?
I guess so.
Today I am struck anew by the amazing place where I now reside. As the year 2016 nears the twelfth month, we have become ever more normalized with our rolling hills and areas of hardwood forest. We have slowly developed new trails and arranged sections of fenced pasture. It is becoming a reflection of us and the animals now living here.
In the relatively short time we have been here, the neighborhood has changed noticeably. We are currently in the final weekend of the annual deer hunting season, an event that has quieted significantly compared to our first years on the property.
I’m not sure why there is less activity visible this year on the properties adjacent to us, but it’s been nice to have fewer sights and sounds to trigger Delilah into the fits of unnecessary outbursts she feels called to deliver. I wish I could attribute her good behavior to a continued maturation, but evidence hints otherwise.
It’s quite possible that her presence alone is a factor in relocating local hunters to more distant acres, although she isn’t chasing all the deer off. We still see them around with regularity. More likely, what has moved the hunters away is the combined activity of the horses and humans roving around here along with her on a daily basis.
Life is happening here everyday. And as soon as I chronicle it, the stories become archived in the “Previous Somethings.”
Time marches on.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Doggin’ It
Racing home to beat the sunset, I arrived in time to drive the Grizzly into the woods with my chainsaw to clear a fallen tree from the trail. Actually, to clear half a tree, as it had fallen from our neighbor’s side of the fence. The top half of it was protruding into the path of our trail.
It wasn’t large, so I made quick work of it and returned to the garage where I changed to the winter wheels on the Griz and mounted the snowplow to get it ready for the next wave of precipitation moving our way.
Then all the off-season tires for both the ATV and Cyndie’s car were stowed away on the high corner shelf, and the garage got rearranged to make room to store all the equipment we probably won’t be needing for the next few months.
By the time I got in from chores, Delilah was overdue for attention and let us know it with an endearing parade of dog toys she pulled out and presented for our review. After chasing her around the house for her rubber yellow monkey, she got distracted by her antler chew.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I laid down next to her and listened to the sound of her teeth clanking and grinding against the hardness of the branched horn. I was down on her level and we were just chillin’ together.
With all of the things I accomplished after work on a Monday, I deserved to spend a little time dogging it.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Disappearing Loaf
On Wednesday, Cyndie baked a couple loaves of bread and we cut into one of them right away at dinner. Yesterday morning, I received a text from Cyndie:
“Did you bring bread to work today or did Delilah eat a half loaf last night?”
I did not take any bread to work with me, so I guess…
Cyndie and George were going to have some toast for breakfast but she couldn’t find the loaf we had cut into. I can imagine her mental gymnastics of trying to figure out where it could be. Did we completely clear the table when we retired to the fireplace in the living room after the meal?
Looking innocent, “helping” Cyndie change the bed sheets.
Our dog has no history of taking anything off our kitchen counters, but anything lower than that might be a risk. If she took it from the table, there is a little bit of history there.
Early on in getting to know our new canine family member, Cyndie placed her coffee and toast on the table with her computer and stepped away to grab one more thing. She returned to find Delilah standing there with marmalade on her whiskers.
“Did you just take my toast?!”
Cyndie reported the look she received seemed to indicate Delilah assumed the toast was left there for her to take.
There were no crumbs of evidence detected anywhere yesterday morning. All I know for sure is that I didn’t take the half loaf of homemade bread.
Now I wish I had.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Straightening Posts
With my trusty companion, Delilah, tagging along, I lugged tools across the pasture to finally deal with a corner post that had been bugging me for months because of its ever-increasing lean.
Starting with chains and a come-along, I quickly discovered that the angle I was dealing with was compound.
I would need to pull from both directions. There was a problem with that, though. There wasn’t anything to pull against in the second direction.
While Delilah and I surveyed the situation, the neighbors suddenly showed great interest in our presence.
The cows came running up to the fence around their pasture and stared at us expectantly. I think maybe that leaning post was bugging them, too.
Since I couldn’t pull in that second direction, I decided to push. I got the tractor.
It worked pretty slick, although it required a lot of climbing on and off to check the progress. Delilah wasn’t offering any assistance at that point, and I couldn’t see if it was straight from the tractor seat.
Once I had it where I wanted it, there was a long process of trying to pack the soil around the posts to a point that would hold them in place after I released the supporting pressure. In fact, just to be sure, I left the come-along and chains in place overnight, even though I had put the tractor back in the garage.
A little insurance while the soil dries out and settles for the long haul, which I hope lasts for a very long time. Of course, that part about dry soil won’t last long at all. It is supposed to rain again this afternoon and tonight.
I wonder if I packed the soil firmly enough.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Sun Basking
This time of year around these parts, when there is warm sun painting the afternoon, you best soak it up to the fullest extent possible. After tending to the horses when I got home from work yesterday, Delilah and I were making our way back to the house and were overcome by an irresistible urge to pause and bask in the glorious warm autumn sunshine.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
After I took a few portraits of her, Delilah said she wanted to take some pictures of me. I gave her the phone and struck a pose.
She said she needed to fix something. My nose was runny.
If I used Facebook, I’d have to update my profile picture with that one.
.It was pretty funny watching her hold the phone in her teeth as she reached up with her paw to touch the button for the photos.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
That Time
It’s that time again. Now is the time of year when it is very easy to see the common buckthorn leaves in the woods, because they stay green longer than our other trees. Buckthorn is a non-native invasive tree that makes a great hedge, but given free rein, can block out all others here and take over the landscape.
I let the buckthorn get out of hand on our previous tiny lot in the suburbs, so I have first-hand experience on what can happen, and what it takes to eradicate it. Now we have a LOT more property to police, which makes it a difficult thing to control, but I still want to put effort toward keeping it at bay.
There are still a few other plants that also have their leaves, so it isn’t as simple as pulling up or cutting down anything that is still green. Most of them are relatively easy to recognize as something other than buckthorn, but there is one in our woods with leaves that look surprisingly close to those of the buckthorn.
Usually, if I’m not absolutely sure, I just skip over it for the time being. Once you know what buckthorn leaves look like, it is pretty clear when you come upon them.
The saplings are rather easy to just pull out of the ground, and the area where I was working was very wet, so that gave me even more inspiration to try pulling most of what I found.
Some were just too big, obviously ones I hadn’t properly dealt with a year ago to have grown so large. Those I had to cut down with a saw.
The pulling is just so much quicker and more rewarding. I knock the dirt off the roots and dangle them over some nearby branches to wither and dry. Delilah loves to help with the root pulling. She claws away at the dirt and then grabs the roots in her teeth and pulls.
Sometimes we end up pulling against each other.
It is a serious full-body workout to pull the bigger ones. It ends up becoming a challenge for me to see if I can dislodge the next size larger trees by gripping them with my legs bent and then trying to stand up. I need my legs to do the bulk of the work, not my back.
At one point when I felt my legs tiring of the effort, I looked over to see how Delilah was holding up. She was sound asleep in a nap.
Yeah, it is really an exhausting exercise.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Octember Feeling
Our weather this weekend is feeling more like September than October, with temperatures warming near 70° (F) for the highs. The morning-scape today was beautiful, as the sun just started igniting the colors in the distance.
Delilah and I trekked the full circumference of our property before stopping to serve up morning feed for the horses. The air was alive with the traffic of bird sounds and the occasional distant dog.
Our sweet puppy was in a more subdued mood and refrained from answering any of the calls, which I greatly appreciated.
It was a precious autumn morning of the kind that soothes whatever ails you.
The kind you wish would never end…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I am pretty sure chances for more of these kinds of mornings are waning, regardless the ongoing warming-ization of our planet. As early as tonight, the forecast includes the words “showers” and “thunderstorms,” and then by the end of the week, the predicted high temperatures drop significantly.
Of course, the impending transition to cold weather is what makes mornings like today’s so incredibly precious.
And it is why we soak them up with such thorough all-encompassing exuberance.
We know Octember is not going to linger much longer.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Newer Tricks
Our dear Delilah is getting another year older and we are looking at adding some newer tricks to her repertoire, like behaving well around other dogs and not showing her fangs and snapping at others unprovoked. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I don’t know if we will ever get around to convincing her not to bark at thunder or bolt off in the direction of gunshots, but at least those involve pretty obvious and relatively infrequent triggers.
Cyndie is trying out another training class at a pet store in Hudson in a pay-as-you-go plan for now. After 1 session, she reported that Delilah was an “angel dog” in a text on her way home, (a message which arrived to me as “ninja dog” after autocorrection).
The biggest opportunity right now is getting her to accept some guests that are living with us. George and Anneliese are here with their dogs while they are between homes. Our neighbors are moving to central Minnesota. For now, their dogs are behind baby gates and confined to the basement.
We are moving slowly and letting them know each other exist, but not having direct contact. We had all the dogs out on the back yard grass together yesterday, but each on a leash. They seem to be just fine about the general proximity.
I think it will be a heck of a trick to get Delilah trained to a level where we have control over her natural instinct to inflict her dominance over any other creature around her.
But it’s a goal.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bird Pests
June seems to be the time of year when the birds really make pests of themselves down at the barn. They are becoming pests because they are making nests. There is a starling that has taken a real liking to one of the downspouts from the gutter, plugging a short horizontal section between two elbows.
I tried to flush it out last night while trying to take apart the sections so I could remove the nest. I didn’t really want to be up on the ladder when the section popped open with a protective momma bird suddenly exposed. The fact that it wouldn’t try to get away from all the banging and shaking I was doing made me think all the more there might be eggs present.
I finally bit the bullet and yanked it apart. The bird still didn’t fly away. From the looks of things, it was caught on something between the bottom cutout in the horizontal gutter and the first elbow. The poor thing couldn’t free itself even if it wanted to.
I suddenly felt guilty for all that banging I had done to scare it away.
In hopes of avoiding any aggression from the exposed side, I climbed into the paddock and from that position, removed the last screw keeping the elbow connected to the gutter. The starling was gone in a split second, flying off in a direction I couldn’t see.
A custom gutter-downspout-shaped nest
Poor Delilah was beside herself with urgent desire for a chance to “assist” me with extricating the bird. I had her leashed to a fence post nearby while I worked. I feel like she gives me such a look of disappointment when I just let creatures go free like I did with this bird.
I can perceive her saying, “What are you doing! You let it get away!” with extreme incredulity.
She seemed to know it was trapped and so fervently wanted to just run up the ladder and offer it a helping paw. More likely, a not so helpful jaw, in all honesty.
Now it’s time to up my level of intensity in the project of bird-proofing the downspout. The plastic netting I tried last year turned out to be woefully inadequate. Next up, a plastic wedge-shaped screen that boasts “Revolutionary Patented Design Eliminates Downspout Clogs!“
Cyndie picked it up for me from a home improvement store on her way home from an event because I had texted her about the previously-unplanned-but-now-urgent need.
Meanwhile, something that looks like a pigeon keeps making a nest over the large sliding doors. That one’s a lot easier to dispatch. Seems like every time we open the doors, a couple of eggs drop to the ground.
I figure the birds think we are the ones that become pests at this time of year.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 