Posts Tagged ‘Delilah’
Rainy Getaway
While a valuable soaking rain washed our world yesterday, Cyndie and I began preparations to drive to the lake. Delilah sensed something was up and lolled around, somewhat restlessly at first, and then fatefully. I think she figured out we had an agenda that didn’t include her.
She would be staying home to play with Mckenna, our house and animal sitter who has known our horses longer than the time we have had them.
Memorial weekend is the traditional work weekend at the lake place. Sounds like this year the main goals are cleaning up the beach area and preparing the water crafts.
The rain may have something to say about how much work actually gets done.
Shortly after noon, Cyndie and I were taking turns updating Mckenna with details of the latest animal escapades, when Delilah decided to help out with a demonstration of how she is becoming more aggressive in her dominations over Pequenita.
“Yeah, like that.” I said.
Check the pond, dump the dehumidifier, switch for the ceiling fans is over there, the door handles latch upward, animal food in the cupboard, ‘fridge and freezer stocked with people food, paddock gates can be left as is. Good to go!
Our drive north was painless, requiring windshield wipers about 60% of the time. Gray and wet is the pattern for the time being. We were the first to arrive and got the water turned on and a fire started in the fireplace. I changed a burned-out lightbulb and Cyndie prepared a late-afternoon appetizer for those who would be arriving soon after us.
About the time darkness fell, Cyndie’s phone rang. She could see it was from Mckenna, but couldn’t get the connection to hold. She tried returning the call using the cabin’s landline. After several misconnections, success revealed news that Pequenita had flown the coop and couldn’t be found.
Hours earlier I had been describing to Mckenna how surprised I was just a couple of days ago that ‘Nita had dashed out the sliding screen door before I even got my first foot out.
Seems our little feline might have been making a practice run with me. I texted Mckenna not to worry, but of course she felt horrible. I suggested that our sweet little cat may have finally decided she has had enough of Delilah’s repeated harassments.
Although I’m sure that it felt like an eternity for Mckenna, it wasn’t long before we received text messages that our escapee was home again, safe and sound.
Maybe Pequenita was just jealous that we went away for the weekend, and she wanted a getaway of her own.
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Lambing Season
As I pulled in the driveway yesterday afternoon, I found Cyndie walking Delilah on the 26′ retractable leash. Cyndie was shaking her head as she approached my car. I glanced down at Delilah and saw that she was carrying something in her mouth. Guess who found a rabbit’s nest?
With all that length, it is easy for Delilah to explore a little ways off the trail, into the woods. By the time Cyndie realized the dog was onto something, rabbits were already scattering in 4 directions.
Before I could even get the car backed into the garage, Cyndie was calling out that our neighbor George had sent a text message that there are new lambs. Since Delilah was preoccupied with a project that we didn’t want to see, we left her on her own in the kennel and drove to George’s.
He hadn’t returned home from his farrier work trimming or shoeing horses, so Cyndie dropped off a treat of homemade muesli cookies inside his door and we went exploring on our own. We found two mommas in pens with heat lamps, each with a pair of lambs.
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It has been rewarding for us to gain an up-close view of the activity of livestock farming on the small scale.
Thank you so much, George, for coming into our lives!
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This Happens
In the morning, our wake up call comes from Delilah. She sleeps in a crate beneath the spiral stairs in the main room. During my work week, when I leave the house in the early morning darkness, she regularly ignores me and stays quiet until around 7 or 7:30, if Cyndie is lucky.
It’s not exactly uncommon for Delilah to start getting vocal more than an hour earlier than desired. When it is way too early, I discovered that if one of us moves to the couch behind her crate and lays down to sleep, she will usually go back to sleep, too.
This morning was one of the occasions where it wasn’t so extremely early that it was still dark outside, but it was earlier than either of us wanted to wake up, after having stayed up a bit late last night because it was, after all, a Saturday. Cyndie, being less inclined toward sleeping on the couch for the dog, got up and let Delilah out of her crate. Then Cyndie came back to bed, hoping to get a few more minutes of shuteye before getting up for real.
That practice is based on the willingness of Delilah to calm down again after having just stretched out in expectation of starting her day. She puts her feet on the bed to check on me, she paces a bit and pants loudly. If we are lucky, she recognizes the situation and walks in a tight circle about 6 times and lays down to give us a little added slumber.
Then this happens… I realize that I have to pee.
Go figure. I am desperately trying to stay in my sleep mode, and the dog has just indicated she is willing to gift us with precious added time. I don’t have to go to work, I can sleep as long as possible, but my bladder is asking for relief.
Since I am tired, it is possible to override the body signals long enough to regain unconsciousness. It could be blissful, except for one thing. The body has its own intelligence, and it doesn’t give up without additional effort.
You know the drill. I was dreaming that it was time to leave and people were waiting for me, but before I could leave with them, I needed to use the bathroom. Actually, I think there were several bathrooms involved in this morning’s dream. Of course, a toilet couldn’t be found in any of them.
I dreamed I was peeing into something where I had mistakenly placed a kitchen utensil I had just used. Then I was peeing into a tub that had been placed where a toilet was supposed to be, but it turned out to be filled with plastic building block toys. In that case, the door was not latched and my niece’s young son wandered in, with her right behind. Soon she was commenting on my choice of receptacle.
It’s like being stuck in a labyrinth that has no end.
After Delilah decided we had enough extra time, she woke us again, interrupting my troubled sleep and freeing me from my self-inflicted imaginary dramas.
That was a relief for my mind which then, finally, allowed relief for my body.
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Ignoble Perch
Last week, when the snow was rapidly vanishing in the sun, Cyndie captured this poignant portrait of Delilah perched regally on one of the manure piles in the paddock.
It must have improved her vantage point to see the property in the distance where a certain 2 dogs who keep showing up on our trail cam happen to reside.
It surprises me that Delilah can come in the house after mucking around in the mud and manure in the paddocks for hours, and somehow, she won’t smell bad. It’s like she has a natural odor barrier that wicks off stink. Well, simple stink, anyway. The time she tangled with a skunk, she smelled awful for weeks.
Of course, it didn’t help much that one of the concoctions Cyndie purchased to get rid of the skunk odor left Delilah smelling like she’d just had a perm (hairdo).
Hey, I just noticed this image also shows a pretty clear representation of how good the footing looks where we have limestone screenings compared to how bad it is everywhere else this time of year. This solution sure has worked out well for us.
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Canine Visits
So much for using our trail cam to capture images of all the wildlife wandering our trails. Nothing but dogs this last time, traveling in pairs, even.
I have a whole new respect for what Delilah’s been sensing every time we walk our paths. I’m sure she is entirely aware of these scofflaws who regularly take advantage of our easy access to wherever the heck it is they are going.
There are 3 different dogs that have been making themselves at home on our trail at the southern edge of our property. I suspect that 2 of them are likely owned by a close neighbor. Driving past their place last week, I noticed a line of white flags across the front yard that looked a lot like the kind used to mark invisible fence installations.
Maybe they are working to keep the dogs off the road. Apparently they’ve left the back door toward our place wide open.
There’s no real harm done by their trespassing, but after all the fretting we have done over Delilah doing the same thing to others, it feels like they are getting away with something that they shouldn’t.
At least I now have a better idea of what Delilah is up to when she goes astray. I always figured she was chasing wildlife, or neighboring livestock. Now I suspect she is probably trailing along on the route of other dogs, returning the favor of marking each other’s passage.
I have no idea what this guy is carrying. It looks like a big branch, but it brings to mind the mysterious frozen cow’s leg we found laying in the middle of the trail down in that area last winter. It gives me new insight into how it could have possibly gotten to where it was that we stumbled upon it.
Other than the weekend we had two strange dogs show up by the house last fall, we haven’t been aware of how many and how often we have had uninvited canine visitors.
There have been tracks visible on occasion, but we weren’t quite sure whether it was coyotes or domestic dogs leaving the impressions. From now on I will be much more inclined to suspect stealthy dogs are the ones cuttin’ through.
At least, until our trail cam proves something different.
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Unidentified Visitor
While we were away over the weekend, our trail cam captured evidence of a more domestic critter visiting our trail than the wild bunnies and squirrels that have been repeatedly triggering the motion sensor.
Neither of us recognize him from any of our immediate bordering neighbors. I wonder if Delilah has been calling for company or if these canine visitors that seem to keep showing up are just random wanderers who have stumbled upon our property without any agenda.
Since Delilah has been spayed, I assume they are checking out her great personality, and not any other attractions.
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Cat Love
For the last ten minutes, when I could have been typing with two hands, I have instead been thoroughly preoccupied by a certain cat who plopped down on the corner of my laptop, strategically beneath my right hand. In our house, I appear to be the cat magnet.
Our little tortoiseshell, Pequenita, always comes to the door to greet me when I get home from work. If Delilah happens to be in the house, ‘Nita waits for a turn, but she makes a point to visit. She has this wonderful/terrible habit of reaching up my leg for a stretch, and flexing her cute little front paws so that her sharp claws pass right through anything but my heaviest Carhartt jeans to make startling contact with my delicate flesh.
I know she means well, but the reaction it involuntarily evokes involves spontaneous reflex flinching, some yelling, occasionally cursing, a bit of anger, a dash of sadness and hurt feelings, and perplexity over her lack of sensitivity to my plight. That all leads to my questioning why we have a cat.
Then I remember, we have a cat so we will have something to clean off the coils under the refrigerator whenever we get around to checking it. I assume, as ironic as it would be, the mice around here are thrilled over the vast resource of nest material that piles up in every out-of-sight nook and cranny in our house.
After the ten-minutes of head scratching and full-body massaging that she gets from me when I crawl in bed and she arrives for her session, there is a small blizzard of cat hair sticking to me, my keyboard, the comforter, her back, and floating in the air currents of the heat vents.
What can I do? She loves me.
I’m her pin cushion and her masseuse.
I must admit, it is kinda nice to have one pet in the house who doesn’t go into barking fits over sights and sounds outside these walls. Maybe I should work on getting the cat to try out the stretchy clawing maneuver on the dog every time there is an eruption from Ms. Barksalot.
The old stimulus / response model thing.
Delilah’s smart. She’d probably figure out she shouldn’t go all panicky barking at squirrels after a few sessions from Pequenita, don’t ya think?
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General Goodness
It’s been a quiet day in Lake Wo-Wintervale-begon. The weather was mild all weekend, the trail cam continues to capture rabbits and squirrels, and progress on my wood sculpting art project has advanced, but not enough to stand out in pictures. Trust me. I considered showing them here today, but the results were too emphatically underwhelming.
The horses have been emanating incredibly peaceful vibes, Delilah is mostly behaving, and Pequenita endlessly seeks hands-on attention from me. Cyndie has been extraordinarily productive with creative abundance from her kitchen. I stand around wondering how to at least be ‘above average,’ never sure how to achieve the ‘good looking’ descriptor that Mr. Keillor tosses around.
We’re at one of those points where, in my past life, I would respond with a multitude of reasons for a gloomy outlook. It is a precious thing to have forged a path above and beyond that inclination, and to be able to relax and absorb the absence of dilemma today; to actually feel joyous, in fact.
Sure, the Check Engine Light still comes on in my car after every time the shop resets it, but I’m not stressin’ that. It is what it is. Things are mighty fine in general, and being able to appreciate that goodness, without struggling so to do, is icing on a cake that I get to have, and eat, too!
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Trail Cam
We finally got ourselves a camera to monitor the animal activity on our trails. The big challenge will be figuring out where the best vantage point is for capturing activity. I took a first crack at it over the weekend and hit the jackpot.
Two different species of ferocious forest animals were captured in their travels across our trail. We now have a clear explanation for why Delilah gets so worked up, because we have photo-evidence of the threatening intruders that have been encroaching on her turf.
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Hey, don’t laugh. Don’t you remember that scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail?”
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Runaway Chores
The last few times we ran the dishwasher, we found some wetness on the floor in front of it. Most recently, it turned out to be a lot more than just some wetness. We had a leak.
Fearing the worst, I hustled downstairs to check the ceiling. The dishwasher is located above our storage room, which has a finished ceiling. There was a light stain on one of the tiles. Curses!
We have some history with leaking dishwashers. In our previous home back in Eden Prairie, the leak went undetected for a long time, because it was located in the drain hose. Mice had chewed a hole in the plastic hose and the leak was not visible from the kitchen.
My fear was that it had happened again, and I prepared myself for pulling the dishwasher to look behind it. I didn’t really want to tear into that project, so I decided I should make sure the drain wasn’t blocked by debris, first. The only problem with that plan was the fact that I didn’t know how to gain access to the drain.
While I was sitting on the kitchen floor, peering at the inner workings of the dishwasher, I got a close view of the nasty buildup of gunk that had accumulated around the edge of the door and on the gaskets around the door. Could it be?
I gave them a thorough cleaning. While I was on the floor peering under the appliance, I got a scary view of places that never get cleaned. We have a cat, so areas that don’t get cleaned become an incredible mass of cat hair, which then becomes a super absorbent net that catches dog hair.
Cyndie got the small shop-vac for me and I started cleaning under kitchen cabinets. Cat crawl spaces. While I had the vacuum and was lying on the kitchen floor, she suggested I clean under the stove and the refrigerator, too. I couldn’t argue with that logic.
I pulled the drawer from beneath the oven and found enough items to feel like an archeologist discovering an ancient tomb. I had to ask Cyndie whether they were from us or the previous owners. She said it looked like a little of both.
After the stove, I moved on the refrigerator. Again, my first thought was, we own a cat. Those coils should be cleaned about 10-times more often than we are accomplishing. It was nightmarish under there. While I was grunting over that project, Cyndie started giving the oven a heavy dose of scrubbing.
I asked permission to remove some screws so we could get to the space between the windows in the oven door. There was a cobweb in there that has bothered me for a long time. Soon, we had all the kitchen appliances in pieces, and we were cleaning nooks and crannies that have probably never been cleaned before.
Delilah was incredibly patient with us, as we toiled away the entire evening on this runaway series of cleaning chores, though she failed to mask how forlorn she felt over being neglected the whole time.
While we were busy dealing with the mission creep of the oven door and the refrigerator coils, the original problem of a leaking dishwasher appeared to have gone away. After cleaning the gaskets, we put it though a test run while we worked away in the kitchen.
There was no sign of any leaking whatsoever. Problem solved? I will be keeping a skeptical eye on it for the foreseeable future.
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Relative Something 