Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Tree Dwelling
Near the edge of the woods at the bottom of the hill behind our house, there is a large tree with three distinct critter access points. I noticed them the other day because Delilah stopped to look up at the tree with excited interest. That almost always means a squirrel was moving around in the branches.
I didn’t see any life in the branches but I very much noticed the three holes in the tree.
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Do you think those are three separate “apartments” or is that a deluxe three-story home with a door on each floor?
Cyndie, Delilah, and I are waking up at the lake place this morning on the weekend of the American Birkebeiner cross-country ski race. Our friends, the Williams family will be joining us, and their daughter, Ella will be skiing it on Saturday for the first time.
It is estimated the event brings 40-thousand people to Hayward for the weekend. That changes things dramatically around here. For reference, the population of Hayward is a little over 2000. It messes up our navigation because they close roads and strive to move everyone by shuttle bus. Foils our desire to sneak down a fire lane road to catch a glimpse of racers in the middle of the woods.
Organizers want all spectators to watch the beginning or the end, or both, traveling by shuttle bus. I’d prefer to not be constrained to standing among the masses. I’m not tall enough to expect I will be able to see anything in a crowd, anyway.
Before we left home yesterday, I needed to finish clearing snow from in front of the big barn doors so I could move bales of hay in for the person tending to the horses while we are away. I also needed to pull snow off the eaves above the front door of the house and then shovel that into a giant mound by the front steps.
Arriving up here hours later, the first order of business was to shovel access paths to the doors. The driveway was plowed and caretakers had pulled some snow off the roof but no good attention had been paid toward clearing snow from in front of the doors.
Ski racing might be an Olympic sport, but I feel like the shoveling I’ve been doing lately is medal-worthy.
In case you didn’t form an opinion about the tree pictured above, I’d say it’s one palatial three-story home based on the noticeable lack of tracks in the snow at the base. I may be wrong, but I’m guessing it’s some fat-cat of a squirrel luxuriating up there with no reason to come out and get his feet wet.
I think Delilah could smell him.
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First Paths
Following a new blanket of snow, the next phase could be called “first paths.” As Delilah and I emerged from the woods behind the back pasture yesterday morning, the first thing I noticed was the few very specific routes a horse or horses traveled into the smooth covering of new snow.
I wasn’t able to capture it all in a photo but took a couple of sample shots anyway.
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This is one of those cases where the naked eye can absorb the full expanse of the landscape in a way the camera cannot. However, if I had a drone I’m pretty sure I could have come close.
Turning around to look back in the direction from which we had just come, you can visualize Delilah prancing along beside me as we forged each of our own ways through the deep powder.
After breakfast, I needed to finish the plowing that I had started the night before. It was both easy and difficult all at the same time. The snow was light and dry, making it easy to plow and shovel, but there was so much of it that it became difficult to manage with my little ATV plow blade.
A snowblower would have been a handy tool in this case. I have avoided that purchase decision for many years but the subject comes up more and more as we age.
To clear the areas in front of the barn and around the hay shed when there is so much snow becomes an almost endless iteration of shifting from forward to backward. I push forward with the blade overflowing, going as far as I can into the pile from the last time it was plowed, and then back up so I can make another pass beside the one just prior.
The engine revs, then pauses while the plow blade is lifted. The engine revs again as the ATV backs up. I generally don’t notice the noise because I’m focused on the task at hand but I get the feeling the sound of that on and off throttling would drive me nuts if I wasn’t the one driving.
I tend to wonder if the horses find it completely annoying but they made it pretty clear yesterday that it doesn’t bother them a bit.
While I was revving the engine over and over, Mix and Swings decided to take a little nap. Maybe the engine’s repetitive up and down droning is something they find soothing. They probably fall asleep during long car rides, too.
Speaking of first paths, if you look closely at that last shot, you see how much they’ve already pounded down the snow in the paddock while making just a few treks out into the hayfield. You can also see a skinny trail coming out of the paddock that was probably made by a neighbor cat who frequently visits.
New snow is so much fun for the vivid evidence of travel paths it exposes.
Yeah. Remind me about that next time I start whining about needing to plow and shovel it all.
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Fresh Blanket
The old snowpack has melted and refrozen several times and was beginning to look rather sad. It’s been polished by whipping winds and covered with leaves, branches, and shrapnel from trees, knocked down by birds and squirrels. Well, it has a whole new look today. It snowed all day yesterday and everything is now covered with a fresh white blanket.
At the time of that photo, we had about 8.5 inches on the ground. After dinner, when I was out plowing the driveway, it snowed another half-inch.
The horses can always retreat to the protection of the overhang and I closed gates between the two paddocks to give the two chestnuts unrestricted access to one side. Under the overhang is where we hang hay nets, so the hay stays dry. Of course, then the horses can stay dry, too, while eating.
I’m dumbfounded why the chestnuts, Mia and Light, choose to stand out in the snow anyway. Swings, the eldest of the four mares, always chooses the overhang for shade when it is hot and shelter when it is windy or wet.
Here is what the difference looks like:
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That’s Mia on the left and Swings on the right.
Today is my last day of talking to myself for the past nine days because, if all goes according to plan, Cyndie returns from Florida.
I think Delilah is getting tired of trying to figure out what I am saying, as I have been rambling at length to explain my activities to her in the absence of anyone else around for conversation. She has taken to cocking her head a little and giving me a long blank stare. If my jabbering doesn’t ultimately culminate in something she can eat, she tends to sigh and wander away for another nap.
That is, if it isn’t time for one of her walks. She knows when it is time for our regularly planned outings and never hesitates to make herself very available for each precious occasion. Walks are even more special for a while now because of the fresh blanket of powder we get to romp through.
I get a fresh chance to trudge a wider pathway on our trails for several days. Delilah and I will have it looking nicely packed again in no time. Then all the forest critters will commence dropping things everywhere and I’ll start pining for the next new blanket of snow to show up.
Rinse, and repeat until spring.
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Like Marchruary
Is it possible that you are able to see that this image was taken when the temperature was below zero on Saturday morning?
It is a reference for the next image that I shot yesterday afternoon.
That outdoor temperature of 45°F was in the range of average for the month of March, not February. Both Delilah and I wanted nothing more than to just be outside in the warm sunshine.
I offered to brush her multiple layers of hair out on the deck, flashing a bag of tasty treats as periodic reward for her cooperation. The only cooperation she offered was to sit down every time I neared her back legs so that I couldn’t be the least bit effective.
It became a game where I offered a treat to buy more time and she would soon after, sit down so I would feel the need to offer another treat to get her up again. I didn’t get much brushing done. I switched focus to tossing some discs for Delilah to chase in the back yard.
She pretty much wanted to sit down after only a few throws of that exercise, too.
I think she is starting to feel all of her nine-and-a-half years of age. Average age for a Belgian Tervuren Shepherd is 10-12 years. She is starting to act as if she is getting old.
My next attempt to make her feel young again was met with complete disdain.
I made a snowball out of the sticky snow and started rolling it down the hill. When it got big enough that it was difficult to push, I stopped and looked up to find her completely ignoring me.
When I decided I didn’t have any interest in making a snowman out of my giant snow boulder, it occurred to me that I was feeling my ripe old age.
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Nose Knows
Against my best effort to thwart Delilah getting after something we wouldn’t want her to have, I came out entirely outmatched. It’s not that I doubt her olfactory abilities, it’s just that I’ve seen her get excited over so many spots that turn up nothing that I hoped this would be one of those.
It’s not uncharacteristic for her to venture off-trail to follow some critter’s paw prints, stopping at whatever point I decide to lock her retracting leash. I rarely allow her to go past our property line and usually stop her from forcing me to step off the trail, but generally grant her the added excitement of some varied explorations beyond the obvious path.
The other day, she fervently wanted to go after something that she sensed while we were still on the trail. With a complete lack of interest in her goal, I waited as she made her way as far as the leash reached into a tangle of growth. I waited and waited.
We each held our ground until I finally decided to tug the leash and talk her into coming back to the trail. She reluctantly came out, took a couple of steps on the trail, and then headed right back into that tangle from a new angle. She really wanted something in there, so I decided to take a look for myself.
I pulled her back until I could clip her leash to the nearest tree and then I wove my way through the mess to look for the most likely attraction, typically, something dead.
Finding nothing, I came out again to let Delilah have her wish and allowed her to get all the way in there so she could sniff around and find nothing, too.
She rushed back in there and made her way directly to an undisturbed spot of snow, put her face in it and immediately started crunching on some bones. That was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
I had to go back into the tangle again because she showed no interest in coming out to the trail at the moment. I negotiated a release of her clenched jaw holding what looked like a rib bone.
It was about fifteen feet from the trail under the snow and her nose absolutely knew it was there, most likely dropped by some predator who had cleaned the meat off and left it for other scavengers.
With the fresh bone now tucked into the back pocket of my overalls, I had Delilah’s full attention all the way back to the house. In reward for her letting me take the precious find away from her, I served up a sanctioned purchased bone in place of the wildlife remains of unknown condition.
Her nose didn’t seem at all disappointed in the difference.
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Blown Snow
On Monday, I was plowing the driveway to clear the gradual build up of 1-to-2-inch accumulations from the previous couple of weeks and it was wonderfully calm. Yesterday, the latest two inch accumulation of powder on top was being blown across our fields while I wasn’t looking.
I took Delilah outside with me when I needed to do some cleanup shoveling that I had skipped after plowing on Monday. She patiently waited while I worked at each stop: up at the house in front of the garage doors, in front of the shop/garage, and down at the barn to clear in front of the big doors.
While I had the big doors open, I moved a few bales into the barn from the hay shed and then tidied things up in the barn. We were down to our last two bags of feed for the horses and I was anticipating delivery of more any day. I like to have things neatened up for the arrival of more feed.
Upon completion of all my intended tasks, I wanted to reward Delilah’s patience with a long walk to wherever she wanted to go. When we popped out of the woods behind the back pasture, I was surprised to find the path completely filled in by blown snow.
The whole time I had been shoveling around buildings I had been oblivious about how much wind was blowing and the open fields offered up a lot of snow to sweep into drifts.
I trudged through the deep snow, wishing I had my snowshoes on. But then, coming around the corner, the path was nothing but packed snow where no drifting had occurred.
I totally understand why some cultures have many words for snow.
The blown snow made a nice pattern around some stacked rocks near the labyrinth.
Later in the day, when we returned to the barn to set out the afternoon feeding for the horses, there were eleven new bags of feed freshly stacked on the pallets. There’d been a visit from the feed-fairy while we were up in the house having lunch.
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Acting Foxy
I’m not sure what got into Delilah yesterday, but it was Valentine’s Day, after all. She was getting all foxy, pausing to hunt for out-of-sight prey beneath the snow during several of our walks around the property yesterday.
It’s hard for me to tell if she thinks something is lurking beneath the pristine snow cover because she can smell it or hear it. The part that looks so fox-like at the start is how she cocks her head and focuses her ears over the surface, waiting to pounce.
When she thinks the time is right, she pounces and buries her face into the snow.
Either she was getting false signals or the critters under the snow outsmarted her and got away. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve watched many little rodents make a mad dash escape out the back while Delilah is digging through the weeds for a prize.
In that photo she is searching at the edge of the wash of snow I had plowed off the driveway a short time earlier. We’ve had a series of 1 to 2 inch snowfalls and several days when wind has packed the snow into hard drifts and I hadn’t plowed for a couple of weeks.
Our driveway looks so nice cleaned up after days of having neglected it. Dare I say, it’s downright foxy!
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Big Between
We have been living in a pretty peaceful time of late at Wintervale, one I tend to label, “the big between.” Whenever we get a significant block of days without a major weather event or an unexpected life disturbance, it becomes the time between the last one and the inevitable next one.
Delilah was her best-behaved self all day on Saturday. She responded surprisingly quickly in obeying a “drop it” command that she normally resists. She had just made a lightning-fast dash and discovery of a recently departed squirrel just over the snowbank of the driveway. We were on our way back from the barn after feeding the horses and Cyndie was just telling me about startling a hawk when she came out of the house at right about that same spot.
Poor bird didn’t get the benefit of its kill. That is, unless it was keeping an eye on where Cyndie tossed the limp tree rodent over the property line into the neighbor’s woods where it will be out of reach of our dog.
Delilah was rewarded with a fully sanctioned dead animal chewy treat that Cyndie purchases, not made out of squirrels.
Heavy napping soon followed.
A couple of days ago, just as the horses were finishing their pans of feed pellets, I was blessed with a precious interaction with Light toward the completion of my manure scooping.
She approached the wheelbarrow, which they often do, and was checking things out as I walked up with a full scoop. She stepped as close as physically possible to impede me from being able to grab both handles. I dumped the contents of the scoop into the nearly filled wheelbarrow and set down the tool to give Light my full attention.
Not yet confident that I am reading the signals from any of these mares, I attempted to see what combination of hand contact, intensity, and location appeared to meet with her satisfaction. Scratches behind her ears? Under her jawline? Massage her neck? Slide my hands under her blanket?
Scratching her forehead and jawline seemed to elicit the best reaction of eyes closing as if in bliss, with ears happily relaxed. The routine I am used to with these four Thoroughbreds is for them to move away rather soon after we put hands on them, but this time Light was more inclined to lean her forehead into my torso with no hint of wanting to be anywhere else.
It is such a treat to be given so much attention from a horse. Surprisingly, I ended up being the one to break the spell. We had been standing together like that for about ten minutes and I really was on my last scoop and ready to dump the wheelbarrow so I could join Cyndie up at the house for breakfast.
I moved toward the far handle of the wheelbarrow and Light read my intention and slowly backed up so she could turn and mosey over for a drink of water.
I’m hoping the time between that session and my next opportunity to receive similar love from any of the mares is not anywhere as long as the number of quiet days we’ve been enjoying around here lately.
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Squeaky Stroll
How would you like to tag along virtually on a frigid mid-day walk with Delilah on some of our trails? In a rare (for me) instance of verticle orientation filming, I recorded nine minutes of our rather uneventful stroll yesterday to provide a glimpse of what has been a major part of my days since Cyndie has become hampered by a troublesome painful knee (the one that hasn’t been replaced by an artificial joint yet).
With the air temperature just below zero (F), my boots squeaking on the snow are the prominent audio component of the recording as I quick-step to keep up with Miss D. I won’t feel bad if you choose to turn down your volume to reduce the potential annoyance of the squeak but I hope you can turn it up whenever she allows me to stop so you can enjoy the sweet sounds of birds in the otherwise serene quiet of a mostly calm day.
I directed Delilah to make the first turn and then let her choose the route the rest of the way. Hopefully, my motion won’t make you feel car-sick as the girl pulls me around bends and I hustle to keep up with her pace. I turned twice to provide a glimpse of the horses, but they were lingering around the gate between the paddock and hayfield and at that distance weren’t much to see.
If you spend the full nine minutes to follow her along on this video like she’s pulling you on a dogsled, you will be presented with a pretty good perception of the experience of walking through parts of our woods to where this trail emerges behind the back pasture.
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It ends rather unceremoniously at the point my phone battery got too cold and gave up on me. We were approximately halfway around the property perimeter at that point. It was simply more of the same to complete the trip, just without the trees. If you’ve watched the video, you’ve seen the best part of the trek.
Thanks for coming along!
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Chaos Ensued
It wasn’t a stellar start of the day for my unnecessarily grumbly countenance yesterday morning. We are ensconced in a pattern of dry, cold winter days that can tend to chip away at a person’s stoicism against the elements. The temperature reading began with a minus sign once again and we steeled ourselves as usual for the “spacewalk” to exercise Delilah and feed the horses.
It was a wonderfully calm morning and the only sound from the trees was occasional cracking in response to the cycles of freezing and thawing we have had of late. My mood was perfectly balanced between not wanting to be out in the cold at the crack of dawn for another consecutive day and being thrilled to witness the beauty and wonder of a new and beautiful winter morning.
Under the barn overhang, I was met by evidence the horses had been under there all night. If they spend time out in the fields, I don’t scoop up the piles. Under the overhang, we try to remove their manure as fast as they produce it. Maybe it was because there was poop everywhere that one of them decided to do their business over one of the hay boxes.
Half-frozen to a wrought iron corner bracket, it defied convenient clean-up. While dealing with the mess I discovered the box has been kicked enough that it is barely holding together. It kind of took the wind out of my sail of cheerfulness.
Once back in the house, I recovered nicely with a spectacular breakfast of perfectly poached eggs on toast that Cyndie served and I was reclining under a lap blanket absorbing the stories in the daily newspaper. It was deliciously serene when Delilah leaned into my chair to request some scratches.
While I focused on what I was reading, Delilah would rotate her body to move my hand where she wanted me next.
Suddenly, she yelped and snapped at me when I inadvertently pinched her in my overzealous massaging/scratching. I jumped and professed my apologies.
Before we had barely begun to settle ourselves, Pequenita showed up out of nowhere, attacking Delilah with punches and swipes while hissing in anger. Delilah instantly responded in kind with growls and glaring canines. We bumped the side table next to me and knocked my full tumbler of ice water to the floor where the top blew off and cubes and water went everywhere.
Cyndie was on top of Delilah instantly to scold her to get off the cat. She pulled Delilah away and was making the dog lay down in submission and the cat showed up again in full fight mode of hissing and swinging paws at the poor pooch. I was yelling that it wasn’t Delilah’s fault and Cyndie was hollering at both pets.
We have never, ever seen this type of aggression from Pequenita. It seems most likely to us that she was reacting to defend me from Delilah’s reaction to my having pinched her.
It was unprecedented madness of a surprising degree.
Helped me totally get over the angst of the busted, pooped-on hay box.
I got the water and ice cubes cleaned up and both pets calmed down and found themselves separate corners.
Ultimately, our calm serenity was restored, but geesh! Took me a while to get my pulse back to restively reclining mode.
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Relative Something 