Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Many Thanks
On this eve of our Thanksgiving holiday, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to you, my readers, for venturing into my world and joining in my adventures and explorations of Somethings occasionally Relative. You may have arrived to view my stories of a Himalayan trek, our visit to Portugal, my annual bike trips, pictures, poetry, Words on Images, or tales of a transition from the suburbs to our Wintervale Ranch paradise. You may be family, friends, coworkers, fellow WordPress bloggers, poets, photographers, wordsmiths, or happenstance searching link-clickers.
You are my audience, and I thank you for your participation, silent or otherwise.
I hope that regular followers have grown familiar with the usual cast of characters that populate the content of late. A certain dog seems to get the most mention. Long ago I began a move toward dropping constant use of orienting descriptions for people and animals that show up in my tales of adventure and woe, hoping that they were becoming established and familiar to readers over time.
We are many chapters into a book that you are reading as it is being written. What will happen next? I can’t make it up. The drama plays out with little concern about how I might be able to narrate it.
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I purchased a replacement GFCI breaker for power to the waterer in the paddock. It failed, too. My “spidey” sense tells me there is leakage current, after all. Removing the access panel on the waterer revealed an incredible amount of moisture present. No wonder. I saw a statistic that we are currently running in 7th place for wettest November on record.
In the previous two years of having that waterer during the winter, we’ve never faced needing to have the heater on when it was so wet.
I’m temporarily bypassing the GFI safety feature to keep the ice off the water source for our horses. Cyndie had a heck of a time breaking off the ice for them yesterday morning, after I tried a night with no power at all.
It appears the solar-powered battery supplying electricity to our arena fence is successfully keeping the horses from wreaking havoc on the barrier.
I found a picture I had taken with the intent of showing how wet the ground was, and discovered it caught Legacy in the distance, mouthing the fence. Busted!
Don’t forget, you can click on the smaller images to bring up the full-size view for closer inspection.
Our house is already filled with the aroma of traditional holiday feasting fare. Cyndie has been busy cooking and cleaning in preparation of hosting Thanksgiving dinner here tomorrow. Family that are planning to come should consider bringing mud-boots.
The weather shows signs of possible precipitation, in addition to the water already saturating our grounds. I’m hoping we don’t all end up stuck indoors watching parades and football games, and eating way more than we should as a result of more rain. It would be a shame to miss out on walks in our woods, exercising Delilah to tire her out, walking the labyrinth, and visiting the horses.
I’m guessing we won’t let a little rain stop us from getting out for a little bit.
Thank you for reading!
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Situations Happen
You just never know what is going to come next. When we went to bed on Saturday night, there were no concerns on our radar. I started the day yesterday in the sunshine, modifying pallets for future use. In a moment of pause, I gave Delilah a chance to join me on a trip to check on the horses, to look at the arena fence that Cyndie told me had been taking some abuse from Legacy.
The last time we took down temporary fencing that kept the horses out of the hay-field, it meant we lost the connection to electricity for the arena fence. Turned out that wasn’t a problem for more than a month, but horses have a way of eventually getting around to dealing with anything in their reach. Legacy has proven himself very persistent, once he figures out he can get his teeth into something.
It was time I put electricity back on the arena fence.
My first problem was that the horses would scarcely grant me a break from their messing with the portions of the fence I had just put back in order. As I moved to a different spot, they congregated at the previous location, eyeing their prize.
I reacted with little thought to the appropriateness of my action and ran after them, inviting Delilah to join me in the chase. She was more than thrilled at the rare opportunity. Most days, she is subject to firm restrictions when it comes to harassing the horses.
We rounded the bend at the end of the arena with maximum energy and the horses reacted with a bit of shock over the unprecedented sight. They scrambled around and circled to face us from a distance. Legacy was very unhappy with our behavior and snorted with a boldness I have not seen before.
I stood my ground, conveying the seriousness of my desire that they not mess with the fence, and then slowly headed back to my work on the next section.
Legacy moved them back up after a few minutes, and when I spotted him biting the fence again, I called Delilah to action, and we charged again. She loved it. The herd made a bigger circle back and stood a little farther away, this time staying put long enough for me to finish what I was doing.
On my way back through the paddock, I spotted ice covering their water, which meant the electric heat wasn’t working. That meant they hadn’t had access to their water all morning.
Best I can tell, the ground fault safety on the circuit breaker is either failing, or doing its job and telling me there is a problem. I’m inclined to believe it’s the former. Further testing to follow, as soon as I can find a replacement GFI circuit breaker.
Just a couple of things I didn’t see coming to keep things interesting around here over the weekend.
Situations happen.
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Deer Season
It is quiet this morning, meaning, there have been few gunshots echoing around us. Yesterday was the opening day of the deer hunting season and shots were heard with regularity.
Even though the majority of land around us is cultivated for crops, there remain a fair amount of forested lanes and steep slopes where deer herds tend to travel. The farming neighbors who surround us on every side all don the blaze orange head-to-toe uniform and ply the hunt.
It’s a bit nerve-wracking.
I don’t mind them thinning the herds. The other main predator of deer seems to be cars and trucks, as the sight of dead deer by the side of the road is a daily spectacle. I recall that there was one in the road ditch of this property years ago when we came to visit in the weeks after our purchase offer was accepted.
The previous owners told us that one doe came up to the house and gave birth to her fawns in the nook by the front door. We did see a pair of deer in our yard frequently that first year after we moved in. Not so much anymore.
I figure it is a combination of our getting Delilah and the horses. We did add a trail through our woods, which actually opened up a new path for deer, but we subsequently began using it regularly for walking the perimeter with Delilah. The deer traffic became less conspicuous.
I’m sure they are still passing through. We just don’t see them as often.
The neighbors must still see them. They found a lot of reasons to shoot yesterday. Across the road from us, as I was returning up our driveway from the mailbox with Delilah, the neighbor-hunter group shouted a greeting, waved, and showed me they were successful on opening day.
For us, it means the horses are edgy, the dog is on high alert, and the nearby woods are alive with scanning eyes and booming firesticks, sunup to sundown. It is a brief anomaly in the sedate ambiance that usually prevails.
It is deer hunting season, and the hunt is on.
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An Addendum
Last Sunday was a beautiful warm sunny day, during which we were out and about, tending to a variety of chores. It was also the day when we received the second of our two visiting stray dogs of the weekend.
The dog was clearly interested in everything I did, spending most of the time that he was here, in close proximity to wherever I was working. My last project, prior to heading in to watch the end of the Vikings NFL game, involved the Grizzly ATV in front of the shop garage.
I remounted the plate which supports the back of the snowplow frame beneath the under carriage. I also spent time bolting the blade and associated parts to the plow frame, which had been removed for welding over the summer.
I had the first half of the football game on the radio, and both Delilah —on a leash— and the wayward visitor, milled close by as I puttered.
As Cyndie passed by after feeding the horses, she picked up Delilah and headed into the house, leaving me to finish while the stray longingly eyed me for attention. When I was finally ready to close up, I spotted the dog laying in leaves nearby. I closed the big garage door and then turned out lights and shut the shop door.
I recall purposely deciding to not head directly toward the house, thinking the stray dog would follow me to the door and make me feel bad about going inside without him. I chose instead, to head toward the barn first, and circled around toward the labyrinth, so I could get one last look at the new mowing I had done earlier in the day, widening the path along the back pasture fence line.
In doing so, I saw no sign of the black dog. Since I had wanted to lose him in the first place, I was okay with that, and climbed the hill up to the house, alone.
On Monday morning, I left for work in the early darkness and hoped to hear from Cyndie if the dog was still hanging around when she and Delilah got up. No news came. With no dog around, she had no reason to call the veterinarian to find out who owned it. We thought that was the end of it…
Until yesterday.
Just after lunch, I got a call from Cyndie with a big surprise. When she stepped out of the barn in the middle of the day after cleaning out the stalls, she heard a wailing sound and followed it up to the shop garage. She discovered that the stray had somehow made his way inside when I closed up on Sunday.
He had been locked in there for almost 2 days! I hadn’t made a visit to the shop on Monday after I got home from work and he didn’t make a sound any of the multiple times Cyndie and Delilah walked past, until she finally heard him yesterday afternoon.
It breaks my heart to know the poor guy was stuck in there that whole time. Cyndie gave him water and some food and he headed off on his own right away. Cyndie followed up with the vet and contacted the owner, who reported the dog had made his way home, but she was rather surprised he wasn’t soaking wet from all the rain that had fallen.
I’ll take consolation in that. At least he was warm and dry during his unintended 2-day imprisonment.
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What Joy?
What joy is there to be had when terror is sown to disrupt normalcy in places defenseless and random?
Is it possible to feel joy over the vast number of young people who do not fall prey to the sickness of mind that leads a person to justify becoming a terrorizing murderer? Most people are actually sane, after all.
Oddly, yesterday, almost as if in reaction to the illness that revealed itself in the acts of terrorism in Paris, Delilah spent the day vomiting, over and over. Her energy dwindled with each episode, eventually culminating in her putting herself to bed two hours early.
Yet, healthy joy continues to exist, despite the never-ending ripples that disrupt it. It started for us this morning with the happy expression on Delilah’s face and her ability to eat some scrambled eggs.
Yesterday afternoon, I stood in the paddock while the horses finished their afternoon feed, and absorbed their calmness. They didn’t exude joy in that moment, but they offered peace.
The world recoils in horror for the moment, but joy and peace rise from the dust. If it starts in distant rural areas, like ours, it can make its way back to the cities and people who live on the front lines of conflict.
There is joy. Feel free to allow it to sprout again and blossom for you. Let it glow and grow for the rest of the world.
The world will feel it.
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Visiting Stray
We came upon a stranger on the perimeter trail through our woods yesterday morning. Cyndie and I were walking Delilah when I spotted a dog facing us on the trail ahead. We paused and started a dialogue with the mutt, but I got the feeling he wasn’t hearing us. He simply stood his ground, no matter what we did, so I decided we shouldn’t approach.
We turned around and headed back in the direction from which we had come, which pretty much involved dragging Delilah sideways, because she did not want to take her eyes off the stranger.
By removing the pressure of our presence, the stray was able to let its guard down enough to turn its back on us and head off in the direction from which he had come. With that, we reversed ourselves again and followed to observe where he would go.
At our southern border, the visiting dog crossed under the old barbed wire fence and kept going on our neighbors property. We finished out our walk and then got the wood chipper hooked up on the tractor to grind downed branches into wood chips for the labyrinth.
While we were working, the stray dog showed up again, this time exploring around our house. I headed after him, trying to sweet talk him into letting us check out his tag, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with me.
I went back to work, but Cyndie continued to try making a connection, eventually succeeding in getting a leash attached. The dog’s tag included an ID number and contact info for a local veterinarian. They checked their records and provided the name and a phone number for the owner. Cyndie left messages and then put the dog into Delilah’s kennel.
Eventually we learned the dog’s name was, “Blue” and he was very old, and hard of hearing. He had been missing from home since Wednesday night’s “Flash-Boom” event of a thunderstorm. He ran off to catch that booming invader, and ended up in our neighborhood a day-and-a-half later, over 2 miles from home.
By the way, it wasn’t until yesterday that I checked our rain gauge and found 3 inches to add to the 1.5 that Cyndie had dumped out Wednesday night.
Maybe Blue just floated here on the runoff.
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Flash Booms!
Holy cow, did we experience a flurry of lightning and thunder last night. If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed we were in the month of June, based on the lightning laced downpours I traveled through on my commute home after work.
By the time I pulled in our driveway, Cyndie already had the horses in the barn for the night. Subsequent checks on them through the evening revealed signs they were appreciative of the shelter, yet still needing to manage some nervousness over the fireworks of the storm.
Someone else was failing miserably at managing her nervousness about the cracking and booming that repeatedly burst forth overhead. Poor Delilah couldn’t keep herself from trying to out-shout the mysterious noises erupting from the high heavens.
We reacquainted her with her Thundershirt and let her sample some doggie downers in hopes of saving her heart from premature failure. There was no pausing the thunderstorm, so she needed other sources of relief.
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Dinner time occurred at one of the storming peaks, but she soldiered through the inhalation of her meal (which actually should have required some chewing) and kept up her “defense” against the noisy invader without hesitation.
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Forest Pasture
I got out and about yesterday afternoon for the first time in days. Cyndie was away and I had charge of animal care. Near the middle of the occasionally sunny day, after an impromptu nap, I set out with Delilah to walk her around the property.
We did the usual perimeter trek at a leisurely pace, returning to the point we had started from near the house. Delilah was ready to rush back indoors, but I wanted more. I dropped off my extra shirt, because it was more than I needed, and took Delilah down to the pasture so I could spend some time with the horses.
They didn’t disappoint me. The herd approached us instantly and we mingled and lingered together for a long time. I unhooked Delilah’s leash and let her romp, as I wandered around the back pasture to see what changes may have transpired since my last time out.
Cyndie had done a lot of work in the round pen, and there was evidence of greater runoff from recent thunderstorms than I was aware. The ground continues to be the wetter than makes sense to me for this time of year. I sure hope it makes the trees happy and helps them get through the winter in peak health!
I strolled down to the portion of our back pasture where we have preserved an area of tree growth. With the usual thick foliage gone for the season, I could better see how much horse activity goes on among the trees. The herd followed close behind, with Cayenne roaming right into the thick of it to show me how she seeks out the best bites that grow in hard to reach places.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was seeing a moose munching away in there.
No wonder we are having such a difficult time getting our horses to lose a little weight, with the abundant food sources available in the areas we allow them to graze.
We are probably a little more lenient this time of year, however, knowing that very soon the green growth will be gone and buried for a long few months under plenty of ice and snow.
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Comes Around
Last year, when I was home full-time, I often looked forward to the moment when Cyndie would arrive home from work and cruise up the driveway where she could see the results of my day’s effort on some project or another. Of course, this only worked if she made it home before dark, which is a tough thing to do during the period when the sun sets before 5:00 in the afternoon.
Sadly, more often than not, I would need to prompt for some feedback, and the response tended to reveal that she hadn’t noticed a thing. After the long commute, just reaching the driveway safely becomes the primary milestone of note, which tends to swamp the senses and blur specific details that may have been noteworthy.
Yesterday, after I pulled up the driveway, I did see the horses grazing in the hay-field nearby, but after that, pretty much a blur. I found Delilah waiting on the other side of the door, as I walked into the house, but no Cyndie. After a wonderfully happy greeting from our dog, I watched her move to the doors beside the fireplace which provide a view beyond our deck to the back yard hill that slopes down to the labyrinth garden.
With no leaves on the trees, it was easy to spot Cyndie pushing the reel mower on the path of the labyrinth. Delilah anxiously followed her master’s every move in the distance. That dog really bonds with the person who is home with her all day.
When Cyndie eventually made her way back up to the house, she promptly asked me how the place looked when I pulled in.
Busted.
I hadn’t noticed all the work she had labored to accomplish on her own while I was away. I felt awful to have missed it, and I gained a new appreciation for what it was like for her last year, before our roles became reversed.
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Looking Back
Last week we reached the milestone of the 3rd anniversary of making Wintervale Ranch our home. Lately, Cyndie and I have found ourselves randomly recollecting some of the early days here and marveling over the variety of things that have since changed.
It feels a little —what is it? Presumptuous? Gratuitous?— somehow inappropriate for me to request, but I urge you to sneak a peek at one or two posts from the Relative Something archive (Previous Somethings) for the month of October 2012. There are too many gems depicting our arrival for me to do justice to them by trying to produce links, or re-posting to bring them forward to current posts this week.
Barely a month after we finally closed on the purchase of this place, we adopted the cats, Pequenita and Mozyr. After about a year, we came to the realization that Mozyr was not happy with his situation, and we returned him to the shelter, but Pequenita has proved to be compatible with the random chaos that arises here from time to time.
In July of 2013 we added 10-month-old Belgian Tervuren Shepherd, Delilah, to our family, purchased from a breeder nearby. From that day on we have tended to find ourselves in a battle between her training us and us training her. It’s fair to say there have been a smattering of victories on both sides.
Just short of 3-months after Delilah joined us, in the last week of September in 2013, our horses arrived. That was a monumental occasion for us, and came after an intense effort over the previous 11-months to be appropriately prepared.
We removed rusted barbed wire, installed new fencing, built up protective cover on barn walls (previous owners had miniature horses), buried a water line to an on-demand waterer in their paddock, and built a hay shed, along with a variety of lesser noteworthy projects.
I knew so very little about horses at that time. They have taught me a lot in the ensuing years, and come to mean the world to me. Just standing among them, passing time, has become one of my favorite things to do.
I have built a wood shed, twice. After it blew down in a storm, our friends Barb and Mike Wilkus came by and helped me to put it up a second time. Any time we weren’t working on something else, we were creating the spectacular 70-foot “Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth.”
Speaking of storms, we have endured a variety of dramatic winter weather events. Two of them particularly stand out for me.
The first one involved 18-inches of heavy wet snow in early May and snapped a lot of tree branches. Two pine trees that tipped over during that storm eventually died, even though I tried standing them back up and staking them.
The second snow storm blew for days and eventually filled the space between the 4-foot banks on either side of the driveway. It took me two days to dig us out, even with the assistance from both of our closest neighbors. What did I learn from that storm? The neighbor to our south told me he had plowed his driveway twice during the storm, so it never got to the extreme that ours did.
Lesson learned.
An awful lot has changed in the last three years. It is hard for me to imagine what might be different, three years from now, but I expect the changes won’t be near as dramatic as what transpired when we first arrived and worked to establish the infrastructure to support having 4 horses and fulfilling a dream of creating our Wintervale Ranch & Retreat Center.
What fun it is to look back once in a while.
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Relative Something 