Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Wonderful Wetness
We have received several days of light-to-moderate precipitation which is soaking in more than running off, and the plants around here seem pretty thrilled with the conditions. The grass sure is growing fast.
Hopefully, the horses have properly adjusted to all the greenery available for grazing, as we are now leaving the gate to the back pasture open 24/7 again. They don’t seem to like the noise made by rain on the metal roof of the barn, so when precipitation is falling, they move away, either to the bottom of the paddock or way out in the pasture.
I was in the city working yesterday, and when I got home in the afternoon, Delilah was laying in the gate area of her kennel, which is beyond the tarp that covers the main area, so she was soaking wet. Silly dog.
We walked down to feed the horses, but they didn’t show any interest in coming in from the far side of the pasture. Since it was raining steadily, I didn’t wait around for them, taking Delilah on an abbreviated walk back toward the house.
After having just mowed last Saturday, there are places where it already looks like it needs cutting again, just 3 days later. On our way in, I stopped to empty the rain gauge, which had 2 inches of rain in it since Saturday.
Before going to the horses, we had stopped by the labyrinth to see that the maple tree looked okay (hard to tell exactly when the leaves are drooping from the wetness), and the trillium in the woods was looking very good.
I’m grateful for the rain not coming all at once in a gully-washing downpour, but instead has soaked in enough to help fuel growth in everything around here. It’s making things a sloppy mess in some places, but overall, it is a wonderful wetness.
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Evening Quiet
As Cyndie stepped out the door last night for Delilah’s last walk of the evening, I heard her telling me it was really nice outside. How could I resist? I hurried into my boots to join them for a stroll.
The warmth of the sunny afternoon was just beginning to slip away and darkness was making progress toward cloaking visibility. Looking back over our house to the west, the waxing crescent moon looked picture-post-card-perfect, complimented by the striking brightness of celestial bodies Venus and Jupiter, evoking a magical feeling in the moment.
It was mostly quiet, except for the odd sound that may have been a raccoon letting its presence be known. It didn’t seem to distract Delilah one bit from the rabbit scent she was ravenously exploring. The thick smoke from the neighbor’s wood burning furnace was creating a thin line in both directions, hanging low in a thermal inversion of the valley air a mile away.
I had in mind to get the gate to the arena space closed, to keep the horses out of the confined alleyways overnight. As I made my way into the paddock, Cyndie gently called Legacy to bring the herd back inside. All 4 horses obliged, with the closest two, Cayenne and Hunter, coming in to meet me before I even reached the gate I was about to close.
Legacy and Dezirea turned to come in the paddock, but Legs stopped right in the opening. Both Cyndie and I were sweet talking them with encouragement to keep them coming in our desired direction. I was trying to convey my intention to close the gate, and began moving it in that direction. Legacy took the hint and stepped far enough in to clear, and Dezirea took advantage of that opening to walk right up to me and leaned into the gate.
Dezirea in a recent daytime shot
She wanted me to scratch her itches. I wanted to grant her wish, but after I got the gate hitched. Her forwardness set me to giggling as she insistingly stood up against me in the way of my closing the gate.
I pretty much had to push her hindquarters out of the way, and there she stood, awaiting my return. With the chain clipped, I turned around and dragged my fingernails through her dusty, waxy, shedding coat.
After my week of healing from poison ivy, I know all too well of that orgasmic feeling of having itches scratched. The horses stiffen their necks and bob their heads while making funny expressions with their lips. She was loving it.
I tired quickly and glanced around at the other horses, wondering if I had started something that I wasn’t entirely prepared to fulfill. Luckily, the late hour and encroaching darkness seemed to put them all in a sleepy calm that allowed me to saunter off toward Cyndie and Delilah outside the paddock without needing to give each one a fair turn.
It was the kind of beautiful evening that had us overflowing with gratefulness for our animals and this beautiful place where we live.
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Quintessential Spring
The winter snowmelt was pretty easy to deal with this year, almost to the point of leaving things too dry for a short time. Then we got a few bouts of spring rain and our ground moisture began to show signs of life. Now we are in the classic battle of grass growing so fast that it is hard to keep up with the mowing, and occasional rain storms that hit on the days when it would have been nice to mow before the grass gets too long.
The horses are doing their part to keep things mowed (when we give them time on the grass) munching down the area we have fenced off for an arena.
Since we don’t do any jumping with our herd, we may end up leaving the area in its uneven, sloping natural state. We’ll see how it works for our purposes, once Cyndie actually starts holding some seminars.
The spot we picked for that arena is within the field we have designated for hay, and the narrow lanes that resulted beside it in that corner and along the drainage swale are now isolated from what will be cut and baled. We decided we may as well make it accessible for the horses to “mow.” I just need to put up a short length of fence to contain the horses in that alleyway and keep them from venturing out into the main hay-field.
When I finished mowing the grass yesterday, I spotted the horses already out in part of that space. Cyndie had put up a rudimentary barrier and given them access to one side. I still need to get a more secure version of a temporary fence there, though, as they will certainly challenge it in time, especially as the grass continues to grow more enticing out in the greater field.
In another classic sign of spring, I got a call from my hay supplier on Friday, checking in on how many bales we’d be interested in this year. He sounded a little crestfallen when I told him the much smaller number of bales we felt we would need. Between not wanting to be short and then getting higher yield than we expected from our own field last year, we got ourselves overstocked.
Other spring milestones include my being startled by the first garter snake of the year and the number of rabbits and raccoons visible romping again. Obviously, Delilah can’t find every rabbit’s nest when she is confined to being leashed the majority of time.
The temperatures have been bouncing classically between warm and cool, appropriately mixing at times to create thunderstorms, but so far, this year we are enjoying a perfect spring climate with few unsettling extremes. It is a nice change from the previous two years.
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Not Again!
When it comes to birds, I don’t know why I thought I might get away with doing nothing about keeping them away, after destroying the first nest I found in the gutter downspout on the barn a week or two ago. I’m noticing a theme the last two days, having to do with my neglect to take timely action.
Washouts!
Regarding the gutter downspout, I actually talked about putting some kind of screen at the opening to the downspout, but just talking about doing it didn’t turn out to be very effective prevention.
I don’t think it rained very hard overnight Sunday, but there was plenty of evidence yesterday morning that the downspout was plugged, because the water overflowed out of the gutter and created washouts in the lime screenings on the ground in the paddock.
We received less than a half-inch of rain in the gauge up by the house, but that was enough water coming off the barn roof to make a significant impact. This is the whole reason why I wanted a drain tube attached to the downspout and buried underground down to the drainage swale outside the paddock.
A downspout nest.
With more rain likely this week, I dared not hesitate another day before doing something about this, so out came the ladder and off went the electric fence, and up in the air I did go to pull screws and dismantle the downspout. I’m proud to report that I thought to bang on the downspout before climbing up the ladder, which chased out the bird that would’ve startled me into a calamitous fall, had I not.
Immediately below the gutter there is an elbow, and then a short, straight section before another elbow. The bird had packed that straight section completely. I assume the little trouble maker must know to get out of there during the rain or it would drown for sure. The water would have filled that first elbow before backing up and overflowing the gutter.
I found some bird netting that Cyndie had used for covering her garden back in Eden Prairie and cut off enough to cover both ends of that first elbow. I will have to keep an eye out for the bird, because I have no idea if this will work or not. I suppose it could decide to just put the nest on top of the elbow at the drain cutout in the gutter, using the netting as a nice starting base.
I know better than to think they won’t try again because the sliding doors on the other end of the barn have a new nest on top of them every day. It doesn’t cause any damage, so I can forget about it for a few days if we don’t open those doors. When we finally do, it generally results in, sadly, the falling of eggs.
At least I never need to fret over cleaning up the messes that result with Delilah around. When she has eggs for breakfast, she eats the shells and all.
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Early Attention
It may not be 4 a.m., but it always feels like it when Pequenita, our cat, decides she has had enough with our being asleep and tromps on us before daylight is visible, kneading and purring, as if being cute and sweet will offset the annoyance of unwanted attention at such an early hour.
She puts her face in mine and tries a few head butts to make sure I know she’s there, but I practice the art of remaining comatose to convey to her that my sleep is not to be interrupted. It is the kneading with those front claws that I am forced to react to if the covers don’t sufficiently cover my sensitive skin.
Some mornings she decides to settle back down and join me in continued slumber, unbeknownst to me since I was practicing being comatose, and I will suddenly fling her off the bed unintentionally when moments later I realize my bladder can’t wait until sunrise for relief.
I am surprised by the amount of abuse she tolerates from me, continuing to lay and sleep at my feet as I jostle her rudely while moving my legs in search of a position my body will accept as sleep-worthy at the beginning of the night. Maybe it is because she knows she will have her vengeance in the wee hours of the following morning.
It is not entirely unlike the relationship of a mother and her child, though it was not my original intention to write all that as a segue to get to acknowledgement of all mothers and their loving sacrifices on this Mother’s Day in the US. Yet, even the title I chose for today’s post, before starting the first paragraph, could be interpreted as an homage to that which all mothers give.
Our kids are grown and gone, but with our dog and cat, we have accomplished a way to feel as though we are still parenting infants, just ones that never grow up.
Happy Mother’s Day all you moms!
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Life Giving
Despite the recent trend of precipitation missing us as waves of disjointed showers and thunderstorms have been flowing over our region, yesterday evening we finally received rain, but in the form of a dramatic gully washer. It poured as if from a pitcher, and then stopped as quick as if the pitcher had returned to upright. Just as I was beginning to consider a trip outside to tend to the horses, the downpour resumed in full gusto.
The sound of such heavy bursts of rain is dramatic enough on its own, but we also had a few booms of thunder which served to amp up the excitement. On top of that, Delilah felt the need to run to and fro, barking her 2-cents worth toward the storm. My decision to remain calm and collected despite it all made no visible impact on her confidence over our relative safety in the moment.
After the third or fourth wave of heavy rain, we received a sign that I could venture outside. The setting sun popped out from behind clouds, creating an irresistible invitation to go outside, even though some residual rain at our location was still dripping from the clouds overhead.
I chose to override my better judgement and wandered around with Delilah tethered closely to me as the lightning and thunder on the backside of this storm continued overhead, preventing Delilah from reaching anything close to calm and secure during this particular walk.
The air had the fresh smell of recent lightning strikes and the copious amount of water that fell in a surprisingly short amount of time was now rushing through our drainage swale. I felt a sense of appreciation for the much-needed moisture that was providing a life-giving treat to all our growing things.
The giant double rainbow that was filling the sky to the east served as an exclamation point to the whole sensational event. From where I stood, it shone down on the horses clustered close together in the paddock to ride out the storm.
I took Delilah into the paddock with me to open a gate that allowed the horses into the back pasture for the night, then headed back toward the house to check the rain gauge.
We had received 1.75 inches of rain in about 45-minutes time. I hope more of it soaked in than flowed away in the runoff. It just might have been a case where we got too much of a good thing.
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Pill Time
It is a lazy Sunday morning and we have finished a glorious breakfast of blueberry pancakes with luscious fresh maple syrup tapped from local trees at S & S Sugar Bush. It being early in the month, we realized it was time to ask Delilah to take her prescribed heartworm pill. The first time Cyndie presented one to her when we were new dog owners, Delilah gobbled it up enthusiastically. That worked a few more times before something registered with our dear dog that she didn’t like it after all.
This confuses us to no end because we have seen the extremely wide range of disgusting things Delilah otherwise delightfully ingests. Seriously, can this pill taste worse than a mummified carcass that was lying in a farm field that had recently been covered in nasty smelling fresh manure?
This morning, Cyndie tried slipping it into a hard-boiled egg that was reaching the end of its refrigerator life. Surely Delilah would delight in an egg getting past its freshness date.
Of course she did! But the pill dropped right out on the floor. Next came some peanut butter. I warned Cyndie that the last time I tried that, Delilah licked the peanut butter off until the pill was getting slimy, leaving it behind.
I think Cyndie should try slipping it in when she is giving Delilah and Pequenita some shared treat time. It has become their favorite routine to receive cat treats on the kitchen floor together. The cat takes time to crunch hers into several bites, but Delilah gobbles the little morsels up so fast that I’m afraid for fingers that don’t get out of the way in time.
Seems to me to be the ideal time to slip in the old heartworm pill with a little slight of hand so she wolfs it down before realizing what it is. If it doesn’t work, at least it might teach her to slow down and savor this opportunity of sharing space with her sister of another species.
Cyndie enjoyed success with her peanut butter trick this time, so my idea will have to wait another month to be tested. Something tells me Delilah will never fall for it, anyway.
Sure makes me wonder what could be so bad in that little pill, compared to all the vile things our dog fights to get into her mouth at other times…
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Brooke Writes
Guest Post
Today’s post is a contribution from my niece’s daughter, Brooke Friese, age 11. Brooke and her brother, Drew came with their mother for a visit last Friday. I was thrilled when she accepted my invitation to write a guest post about their day.
I went to my great aunt Cindy and uncle John Hays’ Wintervale Ranch. It was one of the best days of the week!
They have a beautiful (and furry dog) named Delilah that loves to slobber all over frisbees when you throw it :). They also have an adorable cat named Pequenita; we also have two cats which are twins. Pequenita and my two cute cats are very alike. They are both small and they both are tortoiseshell cats, the only difference between them is my cats have more black and Pequenita has more brown.
Anyway back to Delilah and Pequenita (‘Nita for short), Delilah, being a dog, obviously wants to play, chase, sniff, and lick ‘Nita until she runs and hides meowing at Delilah all the way.
We also went on a walk through the beautiful (but very muddy) woods; we passed a fallen tree that Uncle John has nicknamed “The Brooke tree,” we walked down to the labyrinth, it was super cool!
I can’t wait to see it in the summer! My brother and I followed the winding trails to the middle and then back out again.
Then uncle John led us to the barn where we said hello to the horses. Legacy, (a beautiful snow white horse) acts as the boss of all the other horses (Hunter, Cayenne, and Dezirea) he pulls back his ears and jerks slightly towards the horse(s) that is bugging him.
Dezirea acts as the mother, making sure everyone is fed before she eats, and makes sure everyone is using manners at all times, but she will never scold Legacy, after all he is the boss!
Then we headed over to the hay barn, I wasn’t expecting much, I mean it’s called “The Hay Barn,” there’s bound to be a few stacks of hay . . . oh no, when I walked into the hay barn I was surprised.
I saw tons and tons, two huge piles of hay both stacked in the form of stairs. My brother and I had fun climbing and exploring on the huge mounds of hay (with Uncle John’s permission).
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After my brother and I were exhausted from climbing on the two piles we walked over to Uncle John’s compost/molding horse manure piles, there were three piles of manure covered in thousands of flies. Along with the three piles was a still frozen compost pile that was now almost dirt, and wheel barrel full of more almost-dirt-compost, (My brother, Drew also pulled apart the poo with his bare hands so he could see what it looked like inside! Delilah also ate some manure! Ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!) Then Uncle John shifted the manure with a pitchfork, and the moldy compost started to steam! Uncle John measured the heat of the manure and it was around 130 degrees! Wow it was only around 50 degrees outside!
After that we headed inside, we played a hide and seek game with Delilah where we hide a ball and she had to go and sniff it out, it was awesome! My visit to Wintervale was super fun and exciting from Ellsworth’s cheese factory to Legacy’s bossiness. I can’t wait to come back! 🙂
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Under Represented
I tell so many tales about Delilah’s daily escapades, and the horses are such a powerful commanding presence around here, that our beautiful cat, Pequenita, ends up being too often overlooked. Today she gets some well-deserved air time.
She is a wee little thing, but she knows how to use her claws to get respect when she wants it. That mostly applies to her dealings with Delilah. I’m pretty sure she means it affectionately when she reaches up and hangs her front claws in my pants leg. She likes me a lot so I get that treatment various times throughout each day. Most of the time I am wearing heavy Carhartt pants that have a double layer of fabric over the knee, so she gets away with it.
It surprises her when she tries that maneuver on the occasions I am wearing something else and I recoil in shock over the silly habit.
When I climb in bed at night with hopes of doing a little writing before nodding off to sleep, she immediately shows up in search of some tender loving care. Pequenita tenaciously navigates a position between my eyes and the display of my laptop, and settles in for some scratching and a massage from me.
My efforts are rewarded with a contented purring and handfuls of her hair.
We find her most often perched on our bed in various levels of slumber. Some days I walk in to grab something and she doesn’t move a bit. Makes me question her survival instinct a little that she can fall asleep so hard and ignore activity around her. Of course, all the other times I walk in, she rises from her nap to see what I want and I end up feeling guilty for rousing her when I didn’t plan on giving her any attention.
Most likely, the bedroom remains her preferred hangout because we usually have a gate up to keep Delilah out of there. It becomes a room where Pequenita can relax without a cold nose constantly pushing on her butt. They do continue to improve on tolerating each other’s presence, but Delilah can’t help herself from playfully brandishing her most dog-like aggressive-looking gyrations when she wants to roughhouse.
‘Nita would prefer the game involve a dramatic reduction in the smacking of jaw and baring of teeth. Delilah’s eventual change from that behavior to trying to sniff Pequenita’s butt doesn’t seem like much of an improvement to the cat by that point, either.
When it gets to be a bit too much for her, she retreats beyond the gate and takes a time out. It is not strange to see her choose to return after a very short time, but Delilah rarely figures out that it’s an invitation to try something different, and the scene goes through a bit of recycling back to the over-excited doggy gyrations.
Pequenita is a precious addition to the non-human members of our family. She definitely deserves more attention than she usually receives from us.
Maybe that is why Delilah over does it so often. She is trying to make up for the other periods of attention deficit that Pequenita experiences.
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Hooves Trimmed
Taking full advantage of the quick-dry we are enjoying this March, I was out raking the lime screenings on the upper slope around the barn and picking up the never-ending crop of manure the horses like to deposit there. 
As I often choose to do lately, I had Delilah tethered to an outside hook on the paddock fence where she was doing her best to behave like she was an integral participant in my project.
For whatever silly reason that only dogs can understand, she picked a perch that looked like she was claiming ownership of one of the piles I was trying to pick up.
I was hoping to get the area cleaned up in time for the scheduled appointment to have our farrier/neighbor, George Walker, give the horses their routine periodic hoof trimming.
We are starting to get the hang of the process and for the first time since he has been coming to do this, we prepared by getting a halter on each of the horses and tethering them up near the barn in advance. I give Hunter credit for this bit of wisdom, as he always played hard to get when it was time for his turn. George would be stuck waiting while tried to quickly talk Hunter into cooperating.
Quickly cooperating is not something he is inclined to do, especially when it is our agenda and not his.
Case in point, just getting him into his halter yesterday took 3-times longer than it did the rest of the herd. Having done so, the 4 horses were in an out of the hoof trimming station in record time. The only thing that slows down the process is all the precious gabbing we end up doing while George works.
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Relative Something 