Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Serious Soaking
First, I want to share an image that I received from Cyndie yesterday morning after she read my post. Exhibit A:
She had forgotten to send it earlier, but my description of how Delilah loves rubbing her snout in the snow reminded her.
Just as I predicted, there is very little snow left now. It was very gloomy all day, and rained throughout, but being mostly chained to my desk, I didn’t really notice how much rain actually fell. All I had to go on for what was happening across the state line at home, was the weather radar.
My main concern was over how the thunder might be upsetting Delilah. I wasn’t sure about what hours she might have the company of Anna, our animal sitter who helps out between classes at University of Wisconsin – River Falls. It’s hard to pinpoint the minutes of big thunder claps booming.
I did find the telltale evidence of a throw rug at the deck door pushed up into a pile, indicative of her usual tizzy of “shouting” down the big bully who is threatening us with all that rumbling noise.
From her location and behavior when I walked in the door, I’m guessing she tired of the stormy weather and took refuge in the one place without windows. She didn’t get up until after I walked in –an uncharacteristic behavior– from the rug in a short hallway between bathroom and bedrooms, where she had obviously been sleeping.
The situation at home turned out to be an anti-climax to the alarming sights I witnessed on my drive after passing through River Falls. The whole way from work was wet, but closer to home there must have been an extreme downpour.
Just south of River Falls, I spotted the first epic flooding, where it was pouring over a side road, making it impassable. A short distance later, I noticed a car turning around on an adjoining County road. As my car moved past the intersection, I saw that a highway crew was trying to deal with a missing lane of asphalt that had washed away.
Five miles from home, I cross what is usually a little meandering stream, but the outlines of the banks were completely indistinguishable beneath what was now a giant flowing lake.
The water flowing in ditches looked like raging rivers. I worried about what I might find at home.
Luckily, although there was an abnormal about of water wherever I looked, the damage was minimal.
We now have a pretty significant washout on the path around the back pasture. I’m afraid I will need to resort to a bridge over that gully now, if I want to keep mowing that route with the lawn tractor.
It used to be a slight depression that I could drop into and drive up out of, to keep mowing without interruption. Any attempt to repair the gulf with fill, so I could continue to drive over it, would just get washed away with the next heavy rain.
That spot is calling for a load of field rocks, which then leads me to the plan of needing a bridge for the lawn mower.
Our land is in a constant state of change. I think the rate of change is accelerating due to a certain alteration of the global climate.
It’s intimidating.
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Love Needed
Sending love to those who could use an extra dose today. If you are of a mind to do the same, conjure up some love of your own and send it out into the world. May health and healing blossom from our seeds of love cast far and wide.
It feels like this week has been all about Delilah or chicken eggs. What’s not to love there?
.My days have been filled with plenty of both. All eight of our birds made a contribution yesterday.
I think everyone here is ready for Cyndie’s return this weekend. We’re hoping she will bring back some of that warm Florida sunshine in her suitcase.
Wouldn’t that be lovely?
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Daytime Sighting
Our dog, Delilah, has so many episodes of freaking out over something she sees or hears through our doors and windows that we have grown numb to her outbursts. It is rare that I bother looking anymore to see what squirrel/rabbit/bird is triggering her tizzy.
Of course, there was the time last summer when we finally checked and discovered she was barking about that group of 10 cows that had found their way up near our bedroom window. Her reaction that time was totally justified.
Last night, we were up in the loft when she revved up over something she spotted in the back yard through the French doors. Since I had a similar view without needing to get up, I turned to check it out.
There was a raccoon sauntering across our yard in broad daylight, unfortunately, directly toward the chicken coop. I rushed down to track its path and was able to see it climb up a large tree and disappear, high up inside the main trunk. Just a short distance further ahead, the chickens were calmly combing the deep leaves on the ground among the trees.
Our chicken coop, when buttoned up for the night, is well secured against raccoon intrusion. Regular readers may recall we got duped by a possum that snuck inside during the day and killed one of our hens over night after we shut the door at sunset.
Now we check all the nooks when we count the chickens and close the door for the night. The usual evening report used to simply list the number of hens secured, but now it always includes the affirmation of the coop being predator-free, as well.
Unfortunately, since we have chosen to free-range our chickens, they are easy prey during daylight hours. One reason a raccoon will be out during the daytime (other than maybe being sick with rabies or dysentery) is because of hunger. That is not a good omen in such close proximity to where our chickens hang out.
I tossed a treat of dried mealworms in the pan of feed yesterday afternoon.
It was a BIG hit. They came after me looking for more:
We collected seven new home-laid eggs yesterday.
At least the hens are putting those worms to good use.
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Getting By
Delilah seems to have finally adjusted to the fact that Cyndie is gone, only running around looking for her once a day, instead of five times a day. We are halfway through Cyndie’s planned stay in Florida, and I think we are going to make the rest of the way on our own without extreme hardship.
I resorted to making a peanut butter, bacon, and pickle sandwich on cranberry walnut bread for lunch today, because that is what I found in the refrigerator. Why grocery shop when there is still edible food on the shelves at home?
I don’t like to grocery shop.
If nothing else, I can always eat eggs. Collected seven fresh eggs yesterday! We are now getting more than a dozen every two days.
I’m starting work late all week, so I can tend to animals in the morning before departing. Our animal sitter, Anna, is stopping by between classes at River Falls, to give Delilah some attention in the middle of the day, and I resume duties again when I get home in the afternoon.
Soloing the morning and evening duties is decidedly easier without the time previously spent with the horses, but their departure has left a stupendous energy void in the center of our compound.
I do appreciate not needing to be concerned with how wet and soft the paddocks have gotten as the ground begins to thaw.
Muddy season has arrived such that the floors in the house are developing a fine coating of silt, as the debris that was once clinging to Delilah’s long hair, dries out and falls away after each walk.
When it warms outside to the point of not re-freezing every night, we will put out the kiddie pool by the door for Delilah to rinse off before coming inside.
In the mean time, yuck.
Our methods may not be pretty, but we are getting by while the matron of the house is away.
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Slow Spring
I was thinking about taking a little break off my feet to soak up the bright spring sunshine on our swinging bench in the front yard yesterday, but there is still an iceberg parked there, taking its merry time with melting.
Delilah barks
it’s a squirrel
she claws at the window
the squirrel is hopping around
Delilah has a conniption fit
I holler
it doesn’t do any good
after she calms down
I take her outside for a walk
there are no squirrels anywhere
just chickens
but she doesn’t notice them
why? I don’t know
selective noticing?
nonsense?
I vote nonsense
like spring
that is still cold
and has icebergs
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Cold Lonesome
It’s not feeling very springlike this morning. It dropped well below freezing last night and today dawned frozen like a rock. Cyndie is gone to visit her parents in Florida, so Delilah and I are in charge of caring for the chickens and Pequenita. Since Delilah is no help with either, I am pretty much on my own there.
The paddocks have become a lonesome place to pass. There are still a few piles of horse “apples” yet to be collected out in the farther reaches, but that will wait for some magical moment when it isn’t frozen solid, or so wet and muddy it’s impossible to navigate.
A neighbor posted a request for used T-post fence posts on our local online site, and we have some to spare, so Delilah and I spent time in the barn yesterday sorting out the ones missing anchor plates from those that have them, as well as culling a few that lack the quality of straightness.
Now they are laid out all over the floor in piles of five, something that we would not do if the horses were still here. It is freeing, but weird.
I also took advantage of having my music playing while I worked. We chose to avoid exposing our horses to the sounds of recorded music, so it was a novelty to be working in the barn with tunes on.
While we were tending to fence posts, I decided to begin dismantling the border that defined our arena space in a corner of the hay-field. Most of the posts are still frozen in the ground, but the webbing could come down.
It was beautifully sunny, but also cold and windy. Much of the work had me pulling my hands out of my gloves and soon my fingers grew so cold I started to lose dexterity.
Also, the plastic insulators weren’t very agreeable to being flexed open, so that didn’t help my cold hands any.
This morning, Delilah and I walked through the back pasture and reached the round pen, with its sloppy sand currently frozen, preserving the footprints of chickens. Only chickens.
It served to prod my lonesomeness for our horses.
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Saving Daylight
It’s that 23-hour day again. We all get cheated out of a normal hour of sleep in order to feel like there is more daylight today than there was yesterday. Whatever.
Living with, and caring for animals, is one way to notice how laughable our arbitrary adjustment of clock hours is to nature.
Last week, the chickens had already responded to the increased hours of daylight by restarting their egg production. Yesterday, Cyndie cooked up “home-laid” eggs for breakfast again. Even without a lot of live-bug protein in their diets yet, our free-range hens sure produce delectable eggs.
So, the storm blew in yesterday with gusto. Strong winds toppled the multiple-unit Martin house. Neither of us noticed if any residents were displaced. The activity there has rarely been visible, even though there is some nest material inside.
Just like predicted, we received rain for a few hours before it changed over to snow, so the overall accumulation appears to be a more reasonable 5-ish inches (and still falling), instead of twice that, or more, that it could have been.
There’s not enough light out yet to show you how gorgeous the new snow looks, stuck to all the trees, but we’ll have our cameras out while plowing and shoveling all day today, so I expect there will be some scenic shots to share eventually.
In the mean time, here is a shot that Cyndie took which I adore:
I asked her why her snowshoe trail took on the whimsical “s” curves, and she said that she was looking down as she trudged along, and for that last stretch had resorted to simply following Delilah’s footprints in the deep snow.
I guess it’s a visual of where the most canine-alluring scents were wafting in the air on that trail-breaking trek.
Happy Daylight Saving Time to those territories who make the adjustment.
Yawn.
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Endless Loop
Our weather is like a broken record, in the sense of a vinyl record, where the needle gets stuck, jumping back to play the same sound over and over. I almost titled this post, “Broken Record,” but I figured most people younger than me might miss the connotation.
“Needle gets stuck?!”
Our weather is like an endless loop of snow and cold, with barely a break between.
Delilah is showing increasing weariness over the deep snow and brutally cold temperatures. I had to cut short our afternoon walk on Sunday because her feet were bothering her. She would walk a short distance and then lay down to tend to her paws while I waited.
It became very clear that she was happy with my decision to reverse direction and head straight back to the house.
She allowed me to pause for a picture of the labyrinth, covered in an unblemished winter blanket. The path is impossible to discern.
Even though it hadn’t snowed all day yesterday, as I approached home on my commute from work, there seemed to be a surprising amount of snow in the air.
The wind was blowing last Friday’s fresh powder aloft. Is that a big deal? It was when I reached our driveway. A drift was forming on a large portion of the southern banks of the already narrow opening.
Reminds me of the predicament I was managing last week in the wee hours of the morning.
It’s an endless loop.
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Best Part
I might be putting my “great-north-winter-lover” membership in jeopardy, but the best part of my day yesterday was the six minutes when it almost stopped snowing. That pressing feeling of concern over whether the roof tops of all our buildings will cope, how we will ever get our paths cleared again, and if the Grizzly ATV and its aging plow blade will endure the abuse I’ve been putting them through, lifted just long enough to allow some precious moments of relief.
Then it was back to the harsh reality of plowing and shoveling snow up against piles that are already so tall that we are barely able to add to them, while new flakes quickly covered up the progress being made.
Walking Delilah anywhere other than on the driveway now requires snowshoes. Even then, the blowing snow has filled in many of our previous paths to the point of oblivion, and I had to abort a plan of trekking around the outside of the hayfield, because it was too much work fording the deep snow.
Since Delilah breaks trail out in front of me, she was more than happy with my call to bring her back to retrace our steps toward the house. At one point, she picked up a scent of interest just off to the side, and I paused to see what she would do.
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One step into the depths was as far as she got. Apparently the smell wasn’t worth further effort.
It’s official. This is now the snowiest February since the weather watchers started keeping records. Why stop here? Might as well make a run at most snow in any month. We are told there is another snow system taking aim for us this weekend.
I can’t imagine what we are going to get when March arrives. Historically, that is when the biggest snow dumps used to occur. Maybe the shifting global climate has moved that phenomena up a month.
We can only hope.
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All Day
Two all day things: It snowed all day yesterday and we shoveled all day. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!
On Wednesday night, we noticed all the school districts in our vicinity were announcing they would be closed on Thursday, so I decided that was a pretty good clue that I shouldn’t try driving to the day-job. As a result, I am going in today, in a swap of days for my 4-day work week.
Sitting at my desk today will be a welcome relief from the strenuous exercise of shoveling for hours on end.
I took a little break to see what the horses thought of all these flying flakes. Cyndie caught a picture of Dezirea and me giving each other the eye. I think the horses were growing weary of the long duration of snowfall.
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Cayenne was sporting some cute curls in her long wet winter growth.
I got out the snowshoes to walk Delilah on our trails through the woods. She was so fired up to be out in the deep snow that she wanted to run, but I couldn’t keep up with her at that pace. I felt bad slowing her down.
The chickens showed no interest in leaving the coop. I snowshoed all around the coop to pack down the snow for whenever they decide to come out again. It’s probably going to be too cold for them today, but eventually, they will get tired of being cooped up (literally!) and venture out into the world again.
We have one Buff Orpington that doesn’t seem to be her normal self. We think she may have scrapped with that possum and be suffering some ill effects as a result. Cyndie couldn’t see any obvious physical wounds, so we have decided to just keep her comfortable and see if time heals whatever might be bothering her.
Today, I’m hoping to not do any shoveling all day. I’m expecting to be confused by this disruption of my normal routine, commuting and being at work on a Friday.
I expect it’s going to make my weekend seem unusually short, but my body will appreciate today’s break in the manual labor of property management chores.
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Relative Something 