Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Who Cares?
Life is pretty great when it involves staying home everyday and taking care of our animals, but there is no denying a sense of isolation that shows up on occasion. My world is horses, a dog, and occasionally a cat. Currently it is also snow and snow plowing, wood splitting, and walking our snow-packed trails. It is pretty idyllic.
I scan news headlines and feel far removed from everything I see. Issues like the struggles in Syria and Ukraine, Islamic State terrorists, Boko Haram mass kidnappings, epic snow storms in and around Boston, measles outbreaks, and million dollar lottery jackpots. If any ripples from the daily top news events are making it to the middle of our country onto our precious property, they are so dampened that I cannot detect them.
I live in the luxury of not needing to notice. At the same time, I can’t help being influenced by struggles in other places. Closer to home, there are ongoing difficulties that family and friends face which have some measure of influence on my psyche. That is something that I can more tangibly grasp and contribute my thoughts of love toward.
Most difficult for me is when the person I am closest to is heavily burdened by the ongoing challenges of her professional responsibilities. I think that is my Kryptonite.
One of my defense mechanisms for dealing with all the world’s ills is to not care. It seems like a poor choice of reaction, but it is a superficial method of saving myself. Deep down, I really do care, and am moved by the suffering of fellow human beings. What I mean by superficially not caring is that I move past the tough news without dwelling too long on any one issue.
When I have the strength to do battle for people or causes, I become active in those with which I am connected and which are within my reach to help. As a person living with depressive tendencies, I need to pay attention to maintain a healthy balance in my “reason to live” file. Feeling like you can do nothing to help others in this world is a dangerous mindset to allow. Even if my only contribution ends up being that I send love out into the world, that is significant for me. It reflects that I am healthy enough to make that choice.
A depressed person generally wouldn’t be so inclined.
Who cares? I do. Really, I do. Even if I pretend that I don’t.
I’m sending love.
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Never Question
Well, we have another classic canine carnivore story for Delilah’s scrapbook. I don’t know why I ever question her nose. Over and over again she has keyed on something when I see absolutely no evidence to support her suddenly manic focus. My tendency to doubt her level of excitement comes from the endless number of times she has torn up a good part of our grass in her quest for a mole or pocket gopher, and come up with nothing but a dirty nose and messy yard.
However, each time she surprises me with an unexpected success, I am led to believe the likelihood of a critter having been mere centimeters away from her bite all the other times is probably high.
Monday, it was her tenacity that had me fascinated enough to give her all the time she wanted as I stood patiently and observed. We were almost back to the house after a long walk around the property when she inexplicably diverted off the trail through some trees. There were no tracks in the snow and her nose wasn’t to the ground, so I couldn’t tell why she was straying course.
There was a portion of a tree trunk coming out of the ground at an angle that had been cut off about 5 feet up. The amount of bark that was sloughing off indicated there wasn’t much life to it. Wait a minute, that’s the wrong way to describe it, because according to Delilah, there was definitely some life there.
She got increasingly worked up over her find and searched for some access to the prize her nose indicated was inside. She started peeling the bark off, getting a flap in her teeth and ripping it loose, then spitting it out emphatically before going back for another piece.
There were two knot holes where branches had once been that she could stick her nose in while balancing on her hind legs. Doing so just fueled her zest for this conquest. There was definitely something in there.
I walked over to get a closer look. Sure enough, when Delilah put her nose in one hole, I spotted the face of a mouse as it peeked out of the other hole. I think it saw me and decided to retreat in hopes of riding out the attack.
Had Delilah seriously smelled this mouse from over on the trail? I can see why this breed is often used in police work for bomb or drug sniffing. Something kept her fixated on harassing that tree until the rodent had no other choice but to bail and make a run for it.
There was a frantic scramble as both creatures dashed, turned, leaped, and ran, but Delilah got her prize in the end after the mouse made an oddly fatal decision to loop back and head directly toward Delilah’s menacing jaws.
Yesterday, I gave her a chance to return to the scene, curious as to whether she would show the same interest. Nope. Not this time. I guess that tells me there were no more mice in there. I’m sure her nose would have brought on a much different response if it had been otherwise.
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Winter Comfort
Yesterday was the “day after” our little snow event and the sun was shining, birds were singing, and the chilling wind just didn’t feel all that cold. Much to my dismay, my little pocket camera only had enough battery power for a couple of pictures in the beautiful light of the rising sun, before it said goodbye and powered down.
The scenery was extra special with the powdery snow crystals glimmering in the early sunshine. Very few animals had ventured out yet, so Delilah spent most of our first perimeter patrol of the day fervently checking the scent of the tracks she had made in the snow the night before.
After breakfast, we headed outside to do some shoveling to tidy up the edges of the plowed areas I’d done in the dark Tuesday night, and then tackled the nooks of the shop and the barn that the plow doesn’t get. When I say, “we,” I mean that Delilah stands guard on her leash nearby while I do all the work.
She is a pretty sweet partner. Twice I looked up to discover that she had found a frozen mouse that I had unceremoniously tossed out of traps in the house garage and the shop, days or weeks earlier.
My “toss” is an attempt to get them to land well into the trees, but if you have ever tried flinging a mouse out of a trap without handling it, more often than not, somehow the motion of ejecting it counters the swing meant to make it land far away. It then flops down almost at my feet. Not my proudest moments.
The unquestionable highlight of the day came after I had finished shoveling and switched to scooping up manure in the paddock. By this time, I figured Delilah was on the brink of having had enough of not being the center of my attention, but I wanted to get the chore done before heading in for lunch.
The horses were out in the hay-field, soaking up the bright sunshine and Delilah had squeezed under the wood paddock fence from where I had hung the handle of her retractable leash, scouting out the poo piles. It was feeling about as comfortable as a winter day can get. Soon the horses began laying down for a nap.
They had moved into two groups of two, with a short distance between them. One horse in each group stayed standing while the other two lounged on the snowy ground. I love witnessing this routine. In minutes, I looked again and saw that a third horse had joined the two lying down.
Next time I looked up, they were all on the ground. My clomping and clanking of the wheelbarrow and tools didn’t seem to disturb them a bit. Then I spotted Delilah. She was joining them in a solar snooze, head down and eyes shut, sleeping on the snow in the paddock.
It was so serene I was tempted to lie right down and join them.
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Still Winter
Our general region has had it pretty easy as far as weather goes this winter, especially as compared to the heavy snowfall events that have occurred in the northeast of the US. We’ve had less snow and warmer temperatures than usual. But the past doesn’t define the future. It’s still winter, and yesterday we enjoyed a return of both snow and cold.
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With the temps low, the snow crystals were perfect and we received about 2 inches of wonderful powder snow that came floating down in a windless calm. The woods took on a mystical appearance with snow cradled in every “Y” of all the branches.
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As is typical for our horses, they stood out in the middle of the hay-field during the heaviest snowfall. I coaxed them back under the overhang by bringing some loose hay and putting it on top of the slow-feeder grates. It probably would have been wise to put their blankets on prior to the snow, but they aren’t showing any signs of having a problem with the relatively small amount of precipitation.
Poor Cyndie had to endure a prolonged evening commute as a result of the backed up traffic, but that gave me a chance to get the driveway plowed before she got home. Since the snow was dry and light, that chore was a breeze.
I was walking Delilah when I decided the precipitation had slowed enough to justify some shoveling and plowing. She sat calmly while I shoveled the front steps, walkway, and apron in front of the garage doors. Then she began to demonstrate an interest in moving on. I willingly accommodated her since it was already past her usual dinner time, setting the shovel down to head indoors.
I still wanted to get to the plowing, so I left my jacket on and rushed to put food in her bowl, before heading back out. I figured she should be fine on her own while I worked.
When I opened the door 45-minutes later, I found her laying right inside of it. She looked uncharacteristically subdued. Then I noticed food in her bowl. That is an anomaly. I worried that something was wrong with her and bent down to give her some love and attention. As I stood up to remove my outdoor gear, she got up and walked over to eat everything in her bowl.
To my great surprise, she chose to wait by the door for my return rather than eat her food! I had no idea. It does add meaning to a behavior I have noticed during our routine of coming in the door after a walk. I make her wait in the entryway with me while I remove her leash harness and blaze-orange vest. Then I tell her, “Okay,” as a release to run off and do whatever is tempting her more: chase Pequenita the cat or madly chomp on any available squeaky toy.
I’ve noticed that she doesn’t run off until she sees me taking off enough outdoor wear to feel satisfied I will be staying inside along with her.
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Gruesome Find
Eventually, all the clues began to make sense. Not a day goes by that Delilah doesn’t find something outside our windows that drives her into a barking frenzy. Nine times out of ten, it is beyond me to identify what has triggered her reaction. If it’s squirrels, they are long gone by the time I arrive. If it is gunshots or thunder, she hears it long before I am able.
Yesterday, Delilah began to go nuts with the barking. Attempts to distract and calm her seemed futile. Minutes later, Elysa and Anne stepped in the door announcing their arrival for a visit. Was Delilah barking at them? I was willing to believe it.
As the afternoon wore on, we headed outside to spend some time with the horses. We found them uncharacteristically jumpy. I tried several times to brush the remaining snow off their backs, but not one of them stood still long enough for me to finish. The wind was gusting a bit, so we thought maybe that was making them uneasy. It gave us an excuse to move on toward the pasture to toss discs for Delilah to chase.
Out in the open, the wind was cold enough to drive us onward so we headed for the trail in the woods. I had already traveled this trail earlier in the day with Delilah when we did our usual morning patrol after feeding the horses. We had enough snow overnight to just cover the ground, so it was easy to spot recent tracks along the trail. There were very few at that earlier hour.
As the four of us walked along with Delilah, it was easy to spot something laying on the trail up ahead. My first thought was that the wind had knocked down a tree branch, but what my eye was seeing looked larger than a typical fallen branch.
Yep. Not a branch.
It was the largest limb from a carcass that I had ever come upon. My guess: it was the leg of a cow and coyotes were likely to blame. Why one or more of them had dropped this leg in the middle of our trail is a mystery to me. Of course, it was a prize beyond Delilah’s wildest dream. It was too much for her to carry, so I picked up the frozen leg and carried it for her.
She didn’t know what to do. Walk in front of me? Walk behind me? Jump up and bite it while I walked? We made our way back to the house where I left it on the ground for her to gnaw on. She instantly morphed into one of the pack.
Based on the size of this limb, I’m expecting to see the local coyote hunters busy at work around here in the near future. Farmers aren’t very patient when their livestock are being culled by predators. For those with sensitivities about such images, I am including this shot as a thumbnail to give readers an option of viewing it or not. Click per your personal tolerance for the gruesome, but natural, cycle of life involving wild carnivorous animals.
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Few Photos
Our friend, Ian, was hoping for photos of our frolicking with the dog and horses… The weather yesterday was particularly warm and very sunny, but the horses weren’t in much of a frolicking mood. It was so serene that I think they were lulled into an irreversible calm.
It was quality time for all, regardless. Cyndie brought out her camera and captured some of the action. I unclipped Delilah to play a little “Oblio and Arrow Triangle Toss.” I’m pretty sure we won.
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We then mingled with the horses.
Except for an occasional outburst from someone’s dog down the valley, it was amazingly quiet outside. The fact that the Green Bay Packers were playing in the NFC Championship game at that hour may have contributed to the absence of any outdoor activity. The barking dog was irresistible to Delilah, so to keep her from running off to answer its call, I had to reconnect her leash after we finished our play. We wandered up to the horses, who had moved to the shade of the barn overhang to get out of the hot sun.
Or maybe it was to eat hay.
I crouched down to mediate potential interaction between the horses and Delilah, then snapped a shot of the view Delilah sees when she looks up at Legacy. I can see why she is a little intimidated.
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Everyone was very calm and relaxed during our visit. I think it helped to burn some of Delilah’s extra energy before our interaction with the horses at such close proximity. It is nice to spend time in the horse’s space when we have no actual demands to ask of them. We just lingered together and that was enough.
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Pesky Procrastination
Yesterday we finally got a break from the bitter cold. For two nights in a row now, we have been able to leave the horses outside all night. That means, I didn’t need to clean out their stalls during the day. Yahoo! They seemed to accept the return to their previous routine without concern, and I gained some flexibility in choosing what to do with the middle of my day.
I opted for splitting wood. I have been negligent in keeping after that chore. My goal was to have the wood shed filled to the brim this winter, but I’ve yet to make that happen. It’s just too easy to let it slide. Between the December and New Year holiday events, and the extreme cold, there have been plenty of reasons to delay working on it. Particularly, because the wood being stacked now is for burning next year and beyond. I probably already have more than enough for next winter, so some of what is stacked won’t get burned until a year after that.
It isn’t going to make a big difference whether I finish soon, or in another month or two. That is challenging for a person who is more than happy to procrastinate when opportunity allows.
I clipped Delilah’s leash to one of our glider swings while I worked and after thoroughly scouting her perimeter, she settled down to keep an eye on the horses barely visible through the trees. If your eyesight is good, you just might be able to make out the silhouette of one of the blanketed chestnuts in that image. Delilah certainly had a bead on them.
I wonder if she was pondering why they get to free-graze out there while she is stuck tethered by a leash. She is still a flight risk. She recently failed two brief tests when given freedom to meander.
On Tuesday, while I was clearing the drifted snow off our deck, she got out of sight around the house and set me to whistling and hollering for her. Happily, she returned after not too long, but she had taken advantage of her brief freedom to go find the nastiest velcro-like burrs possible and made sure they got well tangled into her thickest fur beneath the outer hairs of her coat.
I spent much of the rest of that day in damage control, pushing the limits of her tolerance while trying to get them all out. Makes me wish I hadn’t procrastinated pulling up all the weeds that grow burrs last summer.
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Delilah’s Lamb
She almost looks a little sheepish, wouldn’t you say?
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Winter Dose
We’re getting a full dose of winter now. They call it an Alberta Clipper and boy did it clip through here yesterday. We enjoyed beautiful blustery snow all day, alternating between sailing by horizontally and falling picture-post-card perfect. Then suddenly at a few minutes past 3:00, the snow stopped falling and patches of sunshine peeked between the clouds. The low pressure center was already on its way to Chicago and beyond.
While walking with Delilah in the morning, I captured a selfie that should become my next profile picture. This is my uniform for working outside in dangerous wind-chill temperatures.
Some of the snowflake crystals were captured nicely on my cap, but a few show up as a blur sailing by in the wind. It was still mighty cold when this was taken, but we did climb comfortably above zero for a time in the afternoon. After the sun set, the temperature dropped quickly and the strong gusting wind helped to change things back to an almost painful level.
You learn to do things quickly at these temperatures. There is no benefit in dawdling.
Delilah doesn’t shy away from the cold, but she certainly is easy to persuade when I offer up the option to go back into the house. She stayed outside for a long time in the afternoon, despite the wicked wind, while I was shoveling and then plowing with the Grizzly.
In this image, she is looking toward the horses, who spent most of the day out in the falling snow, with blankets on, pawing and grazing in the back pasture. I presume they were low enough to be out of the direct force of the wind at that spot. They certainly didn’t stray from that location until time came for their usual dinner hour.
Then they ran up to the barn and politely waited for me to get everything set before inviting them into the stalls for the night.
To top off this day of serious winter weather, Cyndie spent about 3-hours driving home through traffic rife with spinouts, accidents and cars in ditches. She was successful in keeping all four of her tires in touch with the ground.
It was a real-deal winter day of the kind that suits the name we gave our place: Wintervale.
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High Standards
We have a thermometer attached to the outside of our bathroom window that is my favorite, primarily due to the large size of the digital display. Unfortunately, it is probably the least accurate indicator of the actual outdoor temperature because it is mounted to a window that is likely much warmer than the air away from the house. Still, it serves the purpose of giving me a reference for comparing readings from other days.
It has been indicating all week that it’s cold outside. Not that I wasn’t already aware. When we get down to double digits below zero, the cool spots around the inside of our log home start to become much more noticeable.
I think this cold spell has zapped some of my zest for accomplishing things. I am growing weary of the 5-minute production to get into my outdoor cold weather uniform every time I need to step out the front door. I think Delilah finds me to be a comical gymnast as I wrestle the Carhartt overalls over my pants and heavy shirt, then try to bend down to get boots on without being able to breathe. After which, my face disappears beneath a neck-warmer pulled up over my nose to just beneath my eyes, and my hat gets pulled down to cover the neck-warmer so that only a thin slit remains from which I can see anything.
By this time, she has politely waited twice as long as she wanted, making my fumbling with getting the chopper mittens on my hands, but under the coat sleeve, a painful exercise in beyond-reasonable-tolerance for her. It’s exhausting, and I’ve been doing it way too many times a day for her this week.
The only real work I have accomplished outside has been the daily cleaning of the horse stalls —my least favorite task. It tortures my perfectionist tendencies and severely taxes my urge to be frugal. We use wood shavings on the floor of their stalls. We buy them by the bale, and I keep wanting to say, ‘these shavings don’t grow on trees,’ but, of course, they do. Still, they require that I make a trip to the store and pay money to get them. I don’t want to be wasteful.
Trying to toss out the manure and urine-soaked shavings without getting any dry, “still perfectly useable” wood shavings becomes a fool’s errand. And yet, that’s what I do.
The other failed proposition is expecting to get every morsel of manure separated from the shavings and scooped up. I have this sense that the horses must experience a certain amount of frustration when they step on the frozen nuggets that I have missed. Every time I think I’m done, and sweep the manure fork across the remaining shavings to spread them out, additional poo-cicles always pop up. There is an unending supply. It is exasperating.
On a positive note, the practice I have been getting this week is allowing me to become more reasonable about the precision I try to achieve, reducing the time I spend laboring to maintain my high standards. That’s important during these extremely cold days, because I’ve been starting out already pooped just getting dressed to go out for the cold-weather work. I could do with some improved efficiency.
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Relative Something 