Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Duly Moved
Last night I watched the award-winning documentary, “Free Solo“ about Alex Honnold’s epic climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. What a masterpiece of a film! I highly recommend it. I was duly moved by the intimate glimpse into Alex’s life, and the inclusion of the emotional challenges of those around him coping with the immensity of the monumental risk he was facing in his quest to climb that granite monolith without ropes.
Alex points out that any of us could die at any moment, whether doing something risky, or not. I tend to avoid things with a high risk of death whenever possible, but it is true that my life could end at any time. One way I interpret his thinking is to frame myself as “free soloing” all the time.
It made my walk with Delilah a little more exciting than normal after the movie.
She suffered a bit of a panic inside her overnight safe-space crate yesterday morning when a rowdy thunderstorm rumbled over top of us at oh-dark-thirty. I didn’t have much success trying to assure her we weren’t in jeopardy as I prepared to leave for work, which made it rather stressful for me to walk out the door and leave her alone until Maddie was due to show up an hour or two later.
I soothed myself by considering how she would greet me when I got home at the end of the day, as if clueless that anything out of the ordinary had happened earlier, which turned out to be true. She did.
We then made the rounds on the property, hiking the perimeter trails and surveying the results of the wild weather. There were 2.5 inches of rain in the gauge and the ground is fully saturated, but no new-fallen trees or limbs, thank goodness. That much rain, or more, is expected to fall before this weather event is done and gone.
We will carry on and survive to the best of our ability, even though I now have this new sense that I am doing it all without the benefit of any ropes.
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Wild Treat
We took Delilah on a deep woods explore across the road from the lake place yesterday and came home with a new chew toy to occupy her time for a while.
I’m guessing the old deer skull wasn’t giving off much of a scent because we had paused with Delilah almost standing on top of it when I spotted one side of the antlers sticking up. She was busy looking elsewhere, oblivious to the exciting treat below.
Rodents had already gnawed much of one antler, but it’s a safe guess that it was at least a 6-point buck.
I knocked off the remaining portion of the snout with teeth in it and let Delilah have what was left for a chew treat out on the deck all afternoon.
She seemed very happy with the adventure in the wild woods up north that make our little tract of forest at home seem like a postage stamp. It made it worth my having to suffer wearing long pants, long sleeves, and the annoying smell of bug repellant required to survive more than a brief minute under the canopy of the towering trees.
Walking in these woods turns people into wild treats for the mosquitos unless properly protected.
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Storm Damage
By the looks of the driveway alone, up at the lake, it is obvious that there was some heavy rain. There is evidence of a flash flood of runoff that washed gravel away into the woods. Farther along on the property, we discovered that the big eagles’ nest had also succumbed to the deluge. There was debris of sticks and dead fish on the ground at the base of the tree. Looking up, the size of the structure had shrunk considerably.
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Still, the two youngsters remained perched, one on a branch above, and one on what was left of the nest. We occasionally hear them calling out to the adults who are the source of their meals. I would expect the stinky fish that landed below to eventually be picked up and delivered above again. It’s not like they’re past their expiration date or anything.
Getting the fish bodies up off the ground would make it a little easier to walk Delilah that direction. It takes a lot of muscle to steer her clear of trying to roll around in all the stench.
On a whim, I decided to be adventurous and take Delilah for an explore in the woods across the highway from our property. As soon as we made our way beyond the thicket of growth along the berm beside the road and got into the spacious forest beneath the spectacular canopy of the tall trees, I discovered the hazard of my decision.
All that rain seems to have unleashed a ferocious new batch of teeny mosquitos. They were unrelenting in their onslaught. I tried to keep moving to foil their attempts to land, but Delilah –lacking the exposed flesh I presented– didn’t share my urgency. She kept stopping to smell every enticing forest odor and, still on leash, frequently chose a path that had us at odds over which side of tree trunks to be on.
I had to cut our expedition short and set a course straight back to the bright sunlight of the roadway.
Things were much calmer when we got to the beach and I let her soak in the water while I stood on the sand taking a sunbath and listening to loons.
By that point, the storm damage was out of sight and out of mind. Almost the same for the chaos of the preceding week.
I will continue this course of therapy for a couple of days. It seems to be just what a doctor would order for what was ailing me.
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Delilah Nodded
Has it been a while since I boasted about our brilliant Terv? Being a dog, Delilah is rather highly motivated by food. As random as things are around here, we do strive to provide Delilah with as routine a schedule as possible. She is very helpful in reminding us when it is time to eat, should we ever stray from timing she expects.
I used to think it was a function of her impressive ability to tell time. Evidence now points to her reading our activities and recognizing we put out her food after coming in from certain tasks in the morning and afternoon. If we end up coming inside too early in the afternoon, she still assumes our arrival to the house means it’s time for her dinner.
When that happens, we tend to make her wait for the clock to reach the appointed hour.
With Cyndie out of town this week, I put Delilah in the outdoor kennel while I was mowing the lawn yesterday after work. By the time I decided to stop to feed her, it was about 30 minutes past her usual mealtime. When I reached the kennel to retrieve her, she was incredibly excited to see me. I knew why.
I’m pretty sure she knew I knew.
“It’s dinner time!”
She did the classic excitement behavior of running ahead, running back, and running ahead again. Knowing she was too excited to think about peeing, I encouraged her to take a moment to do that before we went inside.
Her response, in the midst of dashing fore and aft, was a head nod to let me know that wouldn’t be necessary. Going inside so I could immediately serve dinner was the only thing on her agenda. With a very obvious nod of her head, she indicated there was no need for what I was asking of her.
While she ate dinner, I stepped back outside and finished as much mowing as time allowed. Before washing up, I took Delilah outside one more time.
The very first thing she did was pee.
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Unglamorous Reality
I think it’s only natural that our minds tend toward the fantastical when attempting to interpret an unexpected scene in our otherwise staid environment. Why would the first impression be the simplest option, when a more unlikely one is possible?
When I got home from work yesterday, I discovered a mysterious disruption around the front of my closet. There had obviously been some sort of disturbance. Several odd shoes had been pulled out, shoes I haven’t worn for some time.
I suspected someone had been looking through my shoes, but it was possible my footwear had been incidentally dislodged by a person looking for something else. What could someone have been after?
Well, I can narrow it down a little bit. The only “someone” around here all day would have been Cyndie. The most likely scenario would be that she was pulling out items to be laundered.
Not all that exciting, after all.
The truth was even less glamorous than that.
When Cyndie came in from trimming fence lines, she offered up a set of facts I had failed to consider. Pequenita had barfed in the vicinity and Delilah stormed in to take care of cleaning it up before Cyndie could react.
Lovely. Sometimes things aren’t quite what they initially seem.
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By Hand
Circumstances had me home alone again last night, so I talked Delilah into helping me clear some of the smaller trees that had fallen across our trails, doing the sawing the old fashioned way: by hand. I will try not to hurt myself, patting my own back in pride over once more resisting the urge to use the chainsaw when no one else is around.
Work safe!
The first tree we came upon seemed to be in an advanced state of decay, so I hoped it would be a quick cut. Yeah, …that didn’t come true. The outer circumference was very spongy, but the inside was totally solid wood. Delilah was very patient while I took several breaks to rest my arms.
The second tree was higher off the ground, so that offered a chance to stand up while sawing, but it also had a lot of branches that ultimately led to more cutting.
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Delilah was a great help, standing guard up the trail to make sure no one entered the work area while I was cutting. Using the hand saw, I was able to clear three trees and turn a 10-minute job into an hour-long project. My helper didn’t even complain that our lumberjacking expedition cut into her regularly scheduled evening meal time.
She probably appreciated the greatly improved look of the trail so much that a little food delay was easily accepted.
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The big tree that remains across the trail is high enough up, it gives an appealing impression of an intentional arbor. Maybe I’ll leave it there for a while. I could let the vines that are growing hog-wild everywhere cover it up for increased aesthetic value.
Cyndie and I are short enough that neither of us needs to duck to pass under it, but people taller than us might feel it is a little too low to have left where it fell.
If anyone complains, I’ll just say it was too big for my little folding hand saw.
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Didn’t Hear
If a tree falls…
We didn’t hear a thing, but there is another tree across the trail along our western border. I’m not sure there was even a storm that occurred here since that tree came down, although it was rather windy yesterday.
It was a hot wind for the most part, although the high dew point of 78°(F) caused enough sweating that the air moving across wet skin provided a nice cooling effect. I monitored the storm activity going on to the north all day yesterday, and witnessed some serious damage from hail and downed trees, but the thunderstorms never spread down to us.
I should be more thankful, but part of me feels like we missed out on a big shift of conditions that storms provide. Our temperature and humidity just quietly eased a little overnight. This morning the thunderstorm activity is sliding across just to our south, showing an outside possibility of reaching us before the day is out.
Apparently, Delilah didn’t hear or smell the deer that was laying about 10 feet off the trail this morning. She obviously didn’t see it, despite the rather obvious way the light brown color stood out against the dark earth and green foliage of the surroundings. I decided not to stop for a photo in order to allow this brave animal to remain in place as a reward for it trusting we were not a threat.
I offered a greeting as I passed and we continued on our way. I found it humorous that further along our walk along that perimeter trail, Delilah showed signs she smelled something of interest in the middle of our forest. Her behavior conveyed, “Hey! There are deer in there! Can I go see them?”
Too late now, pooch.
We had a date with the chicken coop to open the hatch and clean the poop board.
I’m pretty sure the hens heard us coming. They started up a chorus of pleas to be freed for a day of free-ranging bug feasting.
I was more than happy to oblige them.
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Angry Skies
When I opened the door to take Delilah for a walk yesterday afternoon, the sound of endlessly recurring thunder from the southern horizon instantly notched up her excitement to 11. She wasn’t sure what to do with the fact it didn’t end. The rumbles just kept rolling over, one on top of the other.
Our assessment of the tipped tree across one of the trails in the woods was akin to the old “We will rebuild” memes with a lawn chair tipped over post-earthquake.
Removal of this hazard will barely require the chainsaw, but that is not a complaint. Not by any means. I am thrilled this is the worst we suffered. The bigger tree leaning from the right side of that image is from our neighbor’s property and it was blown over in a previous storm. I will probably tend to that at the same time I get around to dealing with the little one across the trail.
It is wet enough around here again that the mosquitoes have become a nuisance that will make lumberjacking a less pleasant endeavor. There may be a rudimentary trim that happens in the short term, leaving the ultimate cleanup for more inviting fall-like weather in a couple of months.
The chickens were undisturbed about the angry sky rumbling almost overhead and came out of the tall grass to be sociable when I stopped by to pick eggs.
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The cut fields from last weekend haven’t even been raked into windrows yet. They just haven’t caught a break this summer for getting enough consecutive rain-free days to allow the grass to dry sufficiently for baling. It’s really sad to watch. I would really be suffering emotionally if we were depending on it to feed horses.
I can’t imagine how all the others who need hay are dealing with it this summer.
By luck, our fields were missed by the round of cloudbursts that moved past just to our south yesterday, but chances don’t look promising for later today.
The angry skies seem to echo the vibrations coming from my news radio covering U.S. politics.
Boy, do I miss blue skies, dry days, sunshine, and benevolent leadership.
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Free Show
Nature put on quite a show last night. We swung from oppressive heat and humidity in the afternoon to a sky-mazing thunderstorm that moved in with such darkness it got the chickens to enter the coop an hour early. Well, full disclosure: it took a little coercion from Cyndie to get the last two to move inside because there was still a sliver of daylight visible in the sky, opposite the direction from which the storm was approaching.
They weren’t all being fooled.
Cyndie dashed back in the house just before the full force of the deluge began to pound down. We received about an inch and a half of rain in roughly an hour’s time.
From inside the house, it was unclear how severe the wind gusted, but there was enough to open a rare, but not unprecedented, leak over the toilet in the bathroom. Only certain combinations of wind and water trigger that short-lived breach of our shingles.
Earlier, Cyndie had already reported the dramatic storm that rolled over us on Sunday night (which I successfully slept through) had tipped a tree that is now leaning across the west border trail in our woods. There will need to be additional reconnaissance later today to check for even newer toppled trees or branches from this storm.
During the roar of the downpour, it was hard to hear how much thunder there was, but based on Delilah’s reaction, it was occurring regularly. After the rain stopped, it seemed like the lightning and thunder became more intense. I know the dog’s barking sure did.
As the sun sank closer to the horizon, the back side of the storm clouds moved clear to allow for a nice double rainbow. At the time, there were still some spectacular flashes of lightning happening, so it provided quite a visual splendor.
The rain brought down the temperature to a more comfortable level, but the humidity still lingered. Unfortunately, our normally wonderful geothermal AC system is displaying a fault that showed up before bedtime, so we opened up the windows for the relatively fresh overnight air.
The storm offered a dramatic weather show for free, but I don’t think the AC service call today will produce anywhere near that kind of a bargain.
Frankly, though, when the weather is oppressively uncomfortable, functioning air conditioning almost always seems worth the expense.
A bargain at any cost, you might say.
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Look Closer
Just as soon as I go spouting off about there being few raspberries on our bushes, I discover that I was wrong. While mowing the lawn yesterday afternoon, I noticed the potential bounty that Cyndie was referring to the other day. Closer inspection revealed a good number of future berry blossoms developing on bushes in a variety of locations around the yard.
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The fruit might be ripening later than usual, but it does appear that there could eventually be a similar yield to last year’s big volume. That would be a real treat.
I rushed home from work yesterday to mow in order to be free to head to the lake this afternoon for the annual weekend of 4th of July games at Wildwood.
As I mowed past the fence-post where our rain gauge is mounted, I noticed an inch of water collected there. Our yard is an interesting mix of spots that are very wet and spots that look like they are starting to get too dry. Why is it always one or the other extreme around here?
Delilah will stay home this weekend with Maddie, who is caring for our animals while we are gone. There will be a full house up at the lake, and plenty of neighbors will bring their dogs, so we are going to simplify our visit by leaving Delilah behind.
I hope there won’t be too many fireworks popping off while we are away, so Maddie won’t have to endure the endless barking that Delilah does in response to the sounds. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the dog will behave like a little angel when someone other than us is taking care of her.
That kind of thing has been known to happen… However, I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation.
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Relative Something 