Posts Tagged ‘dog walking’
Wintery Spring
After what seemed like an almost summery winter, we are now experiencing a very wintery spring. Did I mention the meteorologists were referring to this storm as a long-duration event? It rained hard almost the whole night before turning to snow again yesterday morning.
Now on top of the inch or two of standing water that was covered by about 7 inches of saturated snow, we were receiving oodles of new, dryer snow. It made for some really laborious trudging while accompanying Asher on one of his daily rounds.
The drainage swale that cuts across our back pasture was clearly visible as the rainwater made its way from the fields to enter the creeks that run to the rivers that eventually make their way to the mighty Mississippi for the journey to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s all downhill from here.
When I took these pictures, I was standing on the footbridge I built that allows for ease of travel across the spot where our swale meets the ditch along the south border of our property. That ditch was filled with more flowing water than I have seen in a very long time.
It is dry 98% of the time. It channels runoff during spring melts and occasional flash-flooding rain storms.
As Asher and I reached the far corner of our property on the trail we call the North Loop, a bald eagle swooped up out of the field as if we’d disturbed it from some activity. The very top of the tallest pine tree in our neighbor’s front yard became the eagles’ perch.
If there was a carcass the beautiful bird had been involved with, I didn’t want Asher to find it so we trudged onward to finish the property border walk and get back to the safe confines of the house. The conditions outside were teetering uncomfortably close to the category of being unfit for man or beast.
I’m looking forward to the end of this long-overdue smattering of winter so we can return to some much more spring-like conditions. We’ve certainly got a good head start on “April showers.”
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Hit Threes
I’ve figured it out. The way to make a big splash in the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament is to hit all of your three-point shots and shoot them with abandon from everywhere on the floor. If you want to beat a higher-seeded team, it sure helps to hit more three-pointers than they do.
While I’ve been watching basketball, Cyndie and Asher have been having some unexpected excitement in the great outdoors. I got an odd request from Cyndie in a phone call asking for a different leash for Asher and a change of gloves for her.
They had encountered a coyote on a walk on our north loop trail and Cyndie used the trunk of a pine tree to anchor Asher from bolting after the intruder. Her gloves and the leash ended up covered in pine sap. She said Asher howled with high intensity in expression of his desire to chase.
Unfortunately, the other excitement involved howling of a different sort. Asher suffered a too-close encounter with the electric fence around the back pasture. That’s the second time he has met that fate. Let’s hope it doesn’t take “three” to teach him once and for all to stay away from those white wires.
It might be a little harder to notice them today because we got a fresh coating of white over our landscape last night. Forecasters are telling us this is the first of two doses of snow we should anticipate, the second, on Sunday, being the bigger of the two.
We just might end up getting more snow in spring than we did all winter. Heavy, wet spring snow makes me fear for our tree branches.
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Impressive Overachievement
It’s been over two weeks since Asher and I discovered a fallen tree leaning across one of our trails in the woods. At the time, Cyndie was in Florida and I needed to wait for her to get home before bringing out the big chainsaw –a tool I’ve agreed to never use when home alone– to clear the path.
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Alas, this many days later and I’ve allowed myself to disregard that project. In my way of thinking, I should get out the Grizzly ATV and hook up the trailer to haul the saw into the woods and carry the wood back out. Then, I realized I should be resting my shoulder to allow it to better heal, and holding the big saw seemed a bit much.
I decided the tree could hang there for a while since it was easy enough to duck under. It is unsurprisingly easy for me to put off chores for some other time.
With our continued dry weather and the forest as dormant as ever, each time we walk around in there I spot another vine to be removed from smothering one of our trees. Cutting down vines takes a lot less effort since I can easily hand-carry the trusty Stihl mini chainsaw on walks with Asher.
I remembered to grab it yesterday to cut out another gigantic woody grapevine that I’ve walked past countless times and somehow ignored until now. I didn’t even try to pull it out of the tree. Just cut out a six-foot section of it and carried on with following Asher along the path.
Then we came upon the tree leaning across the trail. Hmm. Mini saw in hand. Fully charged battery. Could it handle a job this size?
Yes, yes that little branch pruner could. You may notice there were already a number of cut sections of fallen trees on the ground in that spot. For now, I cleared the pathway and left the freshly cut pieces on the pile.
Asher became fixated anew on whatever the heck might have been living in the dirt under all the chunks of wood.
Our dog is tenacious when it comes to digging for critters, but that Stihl GTA 26 is an even more impressive overachiever.
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Crash Landing
The high temperature yesterday was another record for February, climbing into the 60s(F) in the afternoon. It is so disorienting. Stepping out to walk Asher without wearing a coat on the way to feed the horses felt so bizarre. It’s still winter here.
In fact, the forecast is showing a quick change is due, with a 70% chance of snow tonight and temperatures in the single digits by tomorrow morning. A day or two after that, the prediction is for a return to near 60° again. I’ve seen the word “rollercoaster” used several times to describe this week’s weather.
The warmth added a spring to Asher’s step as we ventured down the hill of the backyard. I often try to trot along behind him so he can exercise his legs with more than just walking. Occasionally, he gets me running a little faster than my breathing can support and I end up anchoring his fun down a notch.
That routine did not play out so well yesterday due to a combination of factors, the most significant of which was the soft and slippery footing of the thawing ground.
Asher was perked up by the summery warmth and picked up speed down the yard’s slope. I tried to keep up with him but things quickly turned problematic. He was beginning to outrun me and by the time it was too late, I discovered I didn’t have the footing to counteract his increasing velocity. Putting it simply, my brakes were out.
Since he felt no resistance, Asher just kept gaining speed which triggered a series of “No… No… No, no, no!” cries from me as I stomped and slipped along toward my unavoidable fate. I knew I was going down and in those fractions of seconds was trying to have some say in how it would play out, but the footing just wasn’t there and I couldn’t get any control.
It was a pretty spectacular fail. Landing with so much unhindered momentum drove me into the ground hard, grinding up the wet black dirt into my belt and the pockets on the left side of my pants. I smashed my glasses against the ground and wrenched my shoulder as it took the bulk of the initial impact.
Two things probably saved me from more serious injury than just the sore shoulder that resulted: I landed on the shoulder with a permanent type III separation (old flag football injury) and the ground was thawed enough to be rather forgiving.
The clavicle on my left shoulder floats free of the scapula. The lack of a hard connection between the two meant the impact didn’t all go into my collarbone. Instead, I think the worst of the blow dissipated throughout soft tissue. If the ground had been frozen, I might have landed much harder. Of course, if the ground was frozen, I could have planted my feet to stop the momentum.
Today it feels similar to having had a vaccination shot in that arm. That’s nothing that will put me out of action, which is a good thing because Cyndie just left yesterday to visit her mom in Florida for 10 days.
I suppose I should be a little more cautious than usual until she returns.
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Vine Interruption
What started as a typical walk through the woods with Asher yesterday afternoon suddenly shifted on a whim to become an industrious “de-vining” effort. Because it is easy to navigate off the beaten paths this time of year, I frequently allow Asher to wander wherever his nose takes him. Sometimes he turns me around enough that I lose my bearings. Asher can bring me to spots where I’ve never stood before.
In one such spot, I noticed a trunk of grapevine that was thicker than my wrist. We have a general policy of favoring our trees over opportunistic vines but some of these in the center of thick growth have evaded our notice long enough to become monstrosities. The problem is that the rare times I discover such huge vines I don’t have the tools with me to do anything about it.
Yesterday, I decided to act on my chance. With Asher unknowingly tagging along, we marched the long walk back to the shop to get the small chainsaw trimmer and then back again to take on the large, woody vine trunks.
There were more than I realized. In every direction I turned, there were additional branches of the serpentine limbs either climbing another tree or putting new roots into the ground. With the power of that saw, I severed the link between every large chunk I could find.
I’m not sure what I will do with them, but I brought back a couple of trophies from the wildly twisting large sections.
I had tethered Asher to a nearby tree while I worked to find as many of the aggressive tree-climbing troublemakers in sight. Upon exhausting myself of the effort and returning to collect him, I found Asher gnawing on a bone he had found near a large hole he had dug.
I sensed we both headed back to the house with a similar air of accomplishment.
Now, if I can somehow maintain the surveillance in that thicket throughout the coming growing season, that would be just great. Otherwise, they will just return with a gusto unmatched by all the many plants we actually prefer to see thriving in our forest.
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Dazzling Display
In the middle of being distracted by how much Asher was fixating on the scent he was manically following along our North Loop trail’s pathway, I noticed the sunset was ablaze in this spectacular deer-hunter orange glow. I wanted to see if I could get a picture of the scene but would need to redirect Asher somehow to allow me to move beyond pine trees that were obscuring the view.
With time of the essence, I resorted to my tried and true obedience technique of yanking him unceremoniously by the leash to break the spell of the (I assume cat) smell he was following and drag him in a 90-degree direction past the trees.
Asher is so sweet to accept the rude disruption and allow himself to be reluctantly forced to follow me against his will. We must look like such a smooth-functioning team.
Bam!
Got it.
I struggle to comprehend the angles involved in illuminating the clouds overhead that look so low in the sky and so far from the horizon, especially with Earth already turned past the point of being able to see the sun. I assume it is that the clouds are higher in the sky than I perceive.
It seems like an optical illusion because so much of the rest of the cloudy sky lacks any sunny color. How are the sun’s rays missing the rest of the cloud deck but hitting clouds below?
One minute later, the show is over and the color disappears. The evening becomes a dull gray that soon fades to black.
It’s such a treat to witness dazzling displays like this that happen for such a brief period. I didn’t wish to be walking Asher at that hour but look at the reward I got for doing so.
I’m going to need to ruminate on the lessons available for me in that experience.
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Autumn Walk
The ground has started to dry up after the most recent soaking and the sky slowly grew sunnier and sunnier yesterday afternoon making for a particularly picturesque leash-walk with Asher.
Warm, however, was not how the air temperature felt.
I have no confidence that Asher is able to associate being confined once again to the leash with his recent rash of unacceptable sprints across the road to disrupt things at our neighbors’ but it’s the only solution immediately available in our bag of tricks.
The challenge it creates for us is finding ways to burn off some of his big energy with games and exercises in the house. He got a little wound up in the house but he was amazingly tolerant of being tethered every time we went out.
I thought this flipped-over oak leaf with the deep puzzle-shaped recesses was particularly eye-catching. I didn’t recall ever noticing leaves with this shape on tree branches. A few minutes down the trail, boom! There’s a small oak with the same shape of leaves. Doh!
The trail in the woods offered more mystical nature specimens, especially this classically shaped toadstool.
Had me looking for a troll sneaking around in the trees nearby, especially the way Asher was sniffing the ground.
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Can’t Complain
Relative to the news and analysis of my ongoing experiences being chronicled here, I can report from my thoroughly biased perspective that we are emerging this morning from the day-long soaking rain with fresh anticipation for Cyndie’s return late tonight.
One aspect of caring for non-speaking others that I deeply dread is my inability to interpret their expressions of needs or wants. I can’t say that Cyndie deals with these situations any less stressfully than me, but when she is taking them on, I am relieved of sole responsibility.
I’m pretty sure I misread Asher’s whiny pleading last night. I had made the mistake of getting too close to the road with Asher roaming off-leash and he suddenly bolted for a house on the other side of the road to harass their dog while entirely ignoring my attempts to command his obedience.
He was thrilled over being able to lap up whatever was in bowls on their front steps (cat food?) and manically sniff every nook and cranny around their property, peeing on only half of them. Their little barking Bichon Frise-like breed dog had retreated to their back deck. Luckily, Asher was too curious to be confrontational and merely invaded its personal space when conducting a full inspection of their deck.
Our wonderfully sweet octogenarian neighbor, Eileen, was bold enough to grab Asher’s collar when he finally trotted up to meet her. I was busy panicking that he was going to jump on her and knock her over. Since I hadn’t brought a leash along on this walk, I tried walking him by the collar close enough to our property before letting go so I could run with him back to the safe confines of our property.
Asher made a U-turn and went right back to their front door. Eileen stepped inside to grab a leash to loan me so I could get him home.
Inside our house, Asher whined and paced from door to door, wanting to get back outside. I assumed he wanted to go right back over to where that little dog that barks all the time lives.
All this was happening in soaking rain. I can’t complain about the long, slow precipitation. It was perfect for our recently planted grass, but it made it complicated to step outside with the dog. Asher persisted for so long that I decided I needed to put on his vest with a leash, get myself geared up for battle against the elements, and take him for a walk.
He didn’t poop right away. He made me walk several circles through the thickest woods before he finally relieved himself of what looked like uncomfortably loose excrement.
No wonder he was whining.
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Search Worked
Walking Asher unleashed through our woods yesterday, I took a picture of him trotting in front of me because he was so calm and happy. I was even happier because he stayed on the trail and was not manic about the sights and smells constantly vying for his attention.
Shortly after I captured that image, his trot picked up pace and soon he was running out of sight ahead of me.
It was nice while it lasted.
No trouble came from any of his brief excursions out of our sight on multiple sessions of walking with him unleashed. Asher generally explores the woods adjacent to our property and returns within roughly one to five minutes of vanishing. Since he has yet to reliably respect our voiced recall commands, our off-leash walks happen more toward the wooded end of our property as opposed to the open fields near the road.
We do not trust he would know enough to stay away from traffic passing on our street. I suspect just the opposite; he would be inclined to dangerously chase after moving vehicles at this point.
On one of our trails, we passed something I don’t recall ever seeing before.
Do you know what critter makes this?:
There was a half-dozen of them in relatively close proximity.
I added my foot to one of them to give a size perspective.
Just ignore that brightly colored leaf stuck in my boot. [I can’t keep my eye from looking at that distraction.]
Cyndie suggested we do an image search after uploading one of my photos. I figured that wouldn’t work but I was very wrong. She quickly found many photos with striking similarities to this one of mine:
Based on the search, the likely creatures are ground bees. Color me surprised.
I’ve seen bees disappear into a hole in the ground but I’ve not seen the ant-like piles of granules with the perfect pencil-sized hole on top like these.
I learned two things from this. One is obviously the discovery of ground bees. The other is to not doubt Cyndie’s problem-solving prowess.
Married for over 41 years and known her since we were teens in high school. You’d think I would have already learned not to doubt her abilities by now.
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Flash Gorgeous
Why “Flash Gorgeous?” I saw a portion of a program on climate change last night, talking about the increasing incidents of flash flooding erupting out of our periodic thunderstorms. Yesterday’s weather was the opposite of a flash flood so I thought of flipping convention and describing the incredibly gorgeous day using a term we usually associate with the blast of a weather disaster.
We enjoyed a day-long flash of spectacular weather for working on projects outdoors. I cranked up the power trimmer and focused on cutting tall grass growing on both sides of the fence segments of the round pen and along the border of the back pasture that I mowed on Wednesday.
The air was as fresh and comfortable as ever and allowed for sweat-free exertion which is a rarity for the type of work I was doing under the high-angled sun.
Speaking of fresh, Delilah came home from a grooming appointment smelling so sweet and clean I almost didn’t want to let her outside again, where she tends to seek out the nastiest smells and then rolls in them.
The views during our treks through the woods are quickly growing shorter and shorter because of all the leaves that have burst forth in the last ten days. It really changes our woods dramatically during the peak of transitioning between the extremes of summer and winter.
One disadvantage of Cyndie and me getting away from home over our extended Memorial Day weekend is that transplanted trees didn’t get regular watering and they all looked really sad as a result. Time will tell if better attention now can prevent the loss of the mix of oak and maples we moved to a line just outside the paddock fences.
It makes me even more pleased to have also found a few saplings we could nurture right where they sprouted and not deal with the risks of transplanting. They haven’t suffered a bit since we last checked on them.
Maybe we will end up with a “flash-Forest” one of these days. I prefer looking for flashes of brilliant positives instead of the typical flash-flood of extreme weather disasters being visited upon us with ever-increasing intensities.
Give somebody a dose of “flash-friendliness” if you find an opportunity today. Happy Friday!
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Relative Something 