Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Risking Exposure
Photos don’t do justice for how much better it looks around the paddock after I mowed yesterday. This is the same spot that irked the horses last time I mowed it. Once again, they were watching me closely, sending signals of shock and indignation over seeing tall grass (and mostly dandelions) go to waste when they would gladly take care of it themselves.
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After I cut that area with the lawn tractor, I mowed down the grass in front of the other paddock using my Stihl gas-powered trimmer. I’m not sure that was a good choice. The section nearest the paved driveway was mostly weeds, and everything is pretty wet, so the pulverized plant matter gets sprayed all over me. If there was any poison ivy in there, I’m thinking that was a good way to give myself a lot of exposure.
I’ve been hoping my skin might get desensitized if I keep experiencing regular exposure, and with Delilah likely brushing past the plants in her daily explorations and my inability to be careful about handling her, I assume that has been happening. I haven’t had a verifiable breakout since the first time it happened earlier this spring.
Lately, we have been confining Delilah to being leashed, so her forays into poison ivy territory have been reduced. Based on that, I should be able to determine whether my reckless exposure to the spray from the trimmer involved any PI or not. You’d think I would’ve developed some skill at identifying the culprit so I could avoid cutting it, but that hasn’t been something I’ve ever felt confident about.
I tend to assume it is everywhere until proven otherwise. In this latest case, time will tell.
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Returning Home
“Yes, Pequenita, I will feed you. Have I ever missed a day?”
Boy was she persistent this morning in her attempts to wake me as I tried to sleep in a bit on this Memorial Day holiday in the US, kneading and pushing her face into mine.
I drove home in the middle of the day yesterday, probably passing Elysa as we exchanged locations; she, driving up to the lake, me heading home to take care of our animals. The horses looked thoroughly contented, happily munching hay in the paddock.
Delilah was sleeping so soundly outside in her kennel that I left her there until dinner time, in order to give the horses my full attention.
I am back in our paradise, after leaving our other paradise. The two locations are very similar in how special they are to us, but that large body of water up at Wildwood definitely sets it apart. I already am missing the lake.
The growth down here continues at a rapid rate. The lawn will need mowing again, less than a week after I last cut it. The little path I use as a shortcut to the barn is becoming a tunnel through the trees, with the leaves filling out to obscure our view of the paddocks from the house.
I still have a lot of growth to clear along our southern border, where we will be putting up the next fence. Now the project becomes a bit more work because the branches all have leaves. It has me focused on finding a wood chipper that will allow us to consume the brush piles we create without burning them, which would allow us to use the chips for ground cover over the trails in the low areas that are often wet, and for other applications around the property.
Now I am off to run Delilah a bit and get on with the day’s chores. It’s a holiday, but work here never really pauses. Luckily, it is work I enjoy.
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Long Day
The horses received a good amount of attention yesterday. We were able to get into the paddocks with the ATV and do some raking. What a difference a day makes. Compare this image with the one in my previous post: —————>
There are still some spots that are too muddy to drive through. I figured that out by forging ahead into one of the worst sections and almost not making it through. After that I became more selective about which areas got raked.
I started hauling out a portion of the big pile of manure and hay that was created when we used the diesel New Holland tractor to do some clean up in late winter. A few pitch forks into that pile and I hit snow! That slowed my progress a bit. It sure will be nice when that corner is finally cleared again.
While I was tending to that, Cyndie was hard at work cleaning the automatic waterer. Delilah was hanging around offering her version of “help.” When I checked on progress, Cyndie said it was going fine, except that Delilah had made off with the rubber stopper that plugs the drain. We did our best to search the muddy hoof prints in the vicinity, hoping she dropped it nearby, but the black plug was not easy to see. There was plenty of pleading with the dog, begging her to use her nose to lead us to it, but she didn’t seem very willing to zoom in on that one task.
It made for a harrowing temporary interruption to desired progress, but in time Cyndie and Delilah came up with it and that chore was completed.
The horses received some brushing, and were given a little extra time for grazing the fresh grass surrounding the round pen. I hope they don’t think their shenanigans with the water trough and hose won them all this good attention yesterday. I don’t like rewarding bad behavior.
I am pretty confident that the blame for that stunt with the hose is not deserved by all four horses. Legacy is the prime suspect whenever it comes to grabbing things with the mouth. He is incorrigible.
After we finished with activities in the paddocks, we headed down to the labyrinth. The grass is growing incredibly fast down there, and it needs to be mowed about twice a week to keep it in check. While Cyndie pulled weeds and tended to the plants, I pushed the mower all the way to the center, and back out again, stopping to take a picture when I reached the boulders.
To make it truly a full day of chores, after I had showered and eaten dinner, I realized I had forgotten to get the pond waterfall back in operation, and headed out to tackle that. It was something I had been meaning to take care of for weeks and just wasn’t getting it done. I didn’t want it to linger one more day.
Luckily, the filter installation went well enough that I finished before sunset, however, at that point in our very long and exhausting day, I ended up using about a week’s-worth of cursing to get things flowing without a leak.
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Horse Mischief
Lest you think my incessant blathering about the muddy mess we are suffering is excessive, I offer a couple of images as evidence of the saturation in which we are wallowing. After a few days without additional rain, and even some sunshine yesterday, we are enjoying some long-awaited progress in drying of the intermediate areas, but the wettest sections continue to hold standing water.
Those areas remain a magnet for Delilah, who rushes to sink her feet into the muckiest of muck when we arrive to feed the horses each morning, rendering her abolished from the house until we can get her washed. I think she measures the quality of her days by how many baths she gets in the kiddie pool stationed by our front door.
I lied in my post yesterday when I wrote that I wouldn’t get any mowing done since I would be biking and barbecuing. We had a fantastic ride in beautiful weather, and then dove into eating everything in reach as fast as it arrived to the table. It was a wonderful time that I enjoyed thoroughly, and I arrived home in time to help Cyndie get the horses fed and then do some mowing.
My main objective was to cut the back yard, but after feeding the horses, I noticed the jungle of growth on the uphill side of the big paddock behind the barn. It was twice as bad as the yard, so I decided to give that first attention before moving on.
The horses took great interest in my actions. Instead of moving away from the loud noise of high RPM tractor engine and mower, they came right up to the fence to witness the horror. I got the impression they were galled at the audacity of my cutting down the green growth right before their eyes. I guess I could have taken a moment to convey the reason we have been unable to give them access to this area outside their fence, but something tells me they wouldn’t have bought it. The growth was fresh, green, tall, and surely rich with sugars that would give them the rush they seek.
My drain hose from the trough that sits beneath the downspout on the barn was strung across that area I was mowing, and I flipped it toward the fence, out of the way after I had made the first pass. This morning, when I showed up to feed the horses, I immediately spotted that garden hose pulled way into the paddock!
Had I tossed it too close to their fence yesterday? No. When I started pulling it back out of there, I quickly discovered that it had been pulled in from the other end; the end that had been attached to the trough. How did they get a hold of that!? Lo and behold, the trough itself had been dislodged from its position. Someone had been up to some mischief overnight.
Message received. I think they were clearly letting me know how they felt about my decision to mow that area right before their eyes, at a time when we are firmly limiting their minutes of grazing on the new spring fast-growing grass.
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Dirty Pants
If I venture outside on our property, especially if I expect to traverse the horse paddocks, I will trash my pants with mud. When we walk in the door, we remove our muddy boots, but my pant legs will sometimes be just as bad as the boots. I have been known to remove my pants at the door, too.
It doesn’t make sense to me to put these in the wash every day, as the next pair I put on will get just as dirty in a single outing, so I have taken to wearing the same pair for days, or even weeks. They pretty much stand up by themselves after a day or two.
When I decide to finally wash them, I will lay the pants on the driveway and spray the mud off with a hose, before running them through our washing machine. They get that bad.
It feels a little weird to be saving my dirty pants at the end of each night. It’s even weirder to be climbing back into them the following day. I have to be delicate about sliding them up when putting my boots on, to minimize how much debris breaks loose and falls on the floor, or into my boot. When I come in for lunch, I can’t sit on the couch or nice chair, and try to step carefully around the house.
Our cat, Pequenita, isn’t bothered by the mud at all, and climbs on my leg regardless how grimy they are. As an indoor cat, it’s her chance to be close to the earth.
I suppose I could step into the kiddie pool we have out the front door for washing Delilah before she comes in the house. It seems only fair. Of course, the mud I get covered with is incidental to the tasks I get involved in, whereas Delilah’s mud is a result of her deliberately getting herself into the worst areas and marching back and forth or digging. She needs daily washing —sometimes multiple washings in a single day.
My system of keeping dirty pants gives me many more wearings between eventual necessary washes.
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Fighting Frustration
I know that I can just give in and stop trying to make progress when barriers repeatedly frustrate my attempts to advance toward a goal, but I seem to have an ingrained attachment to that angst of repeatedly banging my head against the problems that arise. Eventually, I will go back to grazing, but for now…
Yesterday was a day to give up and go back to bed, but I forged ahead regardless, and bashed headlong into the fruitless exercise of trying to get something done anyway. It probably wasn’t as bad as I’m making it seem, but the final straw was trying to write this post live online when our internet connection was doing an endless dance loop of resetting, creating a repeating pattern of pages hanging mid-load, and slamming the brakes on any attempts to actually achieve something productive.
Talk about frustrating! We were trying to research costs for materials for our next phase of pasture fencing, to compare with the quote we have received from our fence contractor. We also got stopped in the middle of trying to do online research for information on improving the surface of our paddocks.
The reason we were indoors doing research is because it is raining outside again. Speaking of frustration, the rain gauge revealed 2 more inches fell overnight Sunday to Monday morning. The wetness around here is crazy-making!
Since I couldn’t work on anything else, I walked right down to the wettest area of our planned grazing pasture —probably out of spite— where two dead trees had toppled over in the storm that destroyed my woodshed (I think the woodshed failure is frustrating me more than I am admitting to myself), and I started cutting them up and creating a new brush pile. Man, will it feel good to ignite that bonfire. Too bad it will have to wait for months because the pile is currently located on an area of standing water.
I let my focus wander to the drainage ditch that forms the southern border of our property, where the water of the last few storms is still flowing along in an irritatingly pleasant manner. Standing in water up to my ankles, I began the work of cutting out the 1-to-2 inch volunteer trees that were allowed to grow unchecked to clutter the ditch, making a perfect snow-stop that creates dams and backs up flow during the spring melt.
The plan is to clear the ditch, and the junk trees that have been sprouting in the area just above it, because above is where we will run the southern leg of our new grazing pasture fence.
While I was down there working, our delightful dog, Delilah, was happily exploring to and fro, prancing in the running water, and generally being a sweet companion… until she wasn’t. She disappeared on me while I was engrossed in aggravating the tendonitis in both elbows, working our ratcheting pruner to cut down the forest of unwelcome growth.
After Delilah’s performance on Sunday —moments after I had received a subtle comment from our neighbor about her frequent visits to his place— where she ran away from me to interrupt that very family’s Mother’s Day picnic on their front lawn, she has me so frustrated that I have decreed that she must be on-leash now when outside and not being directly watched.
It’s all got me plenty frustrated, I tell you, but the regression to need to leash Delilah again is at the top of the heap.
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Disappearing Act
It is that time of year again when piles of brush get burned into oblivion. This pile was on the top of the hill on the north side of our driveway. There was a moderate collection of fair-sized branches that had been there since before we arrived. A couple of days ago, I tossed on some cuttings I recently cleared that were leftover from when I mowed this area last fall.
That created a collection that was half-fresh-cut and half-long-dead. I wasn’t sure how it would burn, because the old wood was damp from the recent rain, and there was a gusty wind that could help, or it could possibly drive it out of control.
I started daintily, pulling a small amount of debris off the pile to create a moderate fire, although, up wind of the rest of the fuel. I started on that side to take advantage of the wind, because I felt I needed it to cause the green wood to burn.
Progress was ideal and I enjoyed a fine afternoon by the fire. Cyndie made the trek all the way out on her crutches, and kept an eye on things while I took a break to walk the horses, one-at-a-time, off that damn muddy paddock and out where they could graze for a spell on the grass. After that last storm and its additional inch of rain, the little spot of grazing I fenced off for them is too soft for their weight and they will tear it to shreds if we let them on it.
When I got back to the fire, I found Cyndie had outdone herself with the cutest little burn pile ever, all clean around the edges, safely pulled away from the main one, making me think I may have over-stated my concern that she do it my way. She was sitting on a chair, weaving a basket out of the vines that were growing all over the ground up there. Being forced to use crutches does little to stop her ambitions, it just redirects her energy toward more creative pursuits.
It had turned into an absolutely gorgeous evening for a bonfire, so we decided I should head to the house to feed dog and cat, and then bring back a picnic dinner. That meant washing the manure and mud off of Delilah, before letting her inside.
That done, I picked up my bag of food and headed for the door. Before I even opened it, I could see the flames through the glass. The entire pile was ablaze something fierce. I know the feeling of standing next to that. Elysa and I were present last year when one of our burn piles went rogue and roared alive with incredibly dramatic energy. I pictured Cyndie in that chair, hobbled by the healing hip, and my heart jumped a bit.
Luckily, this pile wasn’t quite that large, and although dramatic, it was not a catastrophic event. I arrived with the bag of food and prepared to make a joke about her little clean pile burning safely on the side. She asked if she could tell me something funny.
She was sitting there as the fire appeared to be burning itself out, and was fretting over having let it burn out while I was gone, by not adding enough new fuel to the side fire. Knowing I could just re-kindle the burn, she decided to stay seated. Without doing a thing, the core of the pile ignited!
Fire is not to be trifled with. Kids, don’t try this at home.
We dined by the warm fire on a chilly evening at sunset, lingering until after dark, when our shadows eventually appeared in the moonlight. A spectacularly magnificent experience for us once again at Wintervale. Cyndie used my camera to take a few more pictures after dinner…
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Acknowledged Risk
Yesterday was supposed to be the day I took Cyndie back to where her surgery was performed, for an appointment to get her stitches out. We ended up rescheduling, when the risk of severe storms loomed large for the time we would be on the road. It turned out to be a smart decision.
Our dog, Delilah, has been demonstrating an extreme anxiety over rumbles of thunder. Unfortunately, the thunder-booming storms started here on Wednesday evening, and her panic-barking kept me up until well past midnight. I was at the veterinarian’s office yesterday to pick up some new tick repellent, since our previous product isn’t doing the trick, and when I happened to mention Delilah’s anxiety, they asked me what we “give her” for it.
Hadn’t entered my mind to medicate her. Their first recommendation was Benadryl, but they also reminded me of the “thundershirt,” a hugging body wrap that calms dogs. Good idea.
Shortly after I returned from the vet visit, our predicted rough weather rolled in. I’ve been through worse, but we did receive a blast of wind, small hail, and heavy rain that more than convinced us we made the right decision to stay home. If we had gone, Delilah would have been trapped outside in her kennel during the worst of it. The folks at the vet’s office said dogs can, and do, injure themselves in their efforts to escape whatever is causing their anxiety.
That wind would have probably put her into a tizzy, especially when it picked up and rolled over my woodshed, which is located right next to her kennel.
Lesson learned on the heartiness of simply standing the structure on stones in the ground. That was the design I chose, even though I knew it was a risk. On the bright side, it gives me a chance to try building my second structure ever, using what I learned on the first one. I guess the next one will have posts buried well into the ground.
I’ve discovered an interesting fact about how I see our woods. No matter how familiar I think I am with the views, after a big wind storm, I have difficulty identifying what is new damage, and what is old. There are plenty of downed or leaning trees and broken branches. In the area near the up-turned woodshed, something doesn’t look right to me, but I’m not certain if it is damage from yesterday’s event, or something previous.
Actually, with another inch of rain increasing the saturation of our ground, it’s a wonder there are any trees left standing at all.
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Animal Images
We can look at these guys each day, but you have to wait for me to post pictures. Here are some shots taken in the last two days…
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Yesterday, when we put the horses out to graze on grass, Cyndie and Delilah and I had a little picnic lunch beside them. It was rather idyllic. Well, truth is, every day that we get to enjoy the views of these fine animals could be described as idyllic.
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Two Incidents
With Cyndie laid up in recovery for a while, I have sole responsibility for tending to the horses. After only one day, I already have two incidents to report. The common denominator for both situations happens to be our lovely dog, Delilah. If I didn’t keep letting her tag along when I head down to feed the horses, things would probably have come off without a hitch, but she needs to get out just as bad as I need to go feed the horses.
Most of the time, Delilah is getting along well with the horses. It’s similar to the way she is with our cat, Pequenita, in that there are still too many moments out of the blue when she works herself into a tizzy and begins barking and baring her teeth at them. Our cat is small enough that it appears that Delilah just wants to play when she gets all riled up and pouncy. The significant size of the horses appears to be more intimidating, and Delilah comes across as trying to establish some control and to prove her skills at herding. She is a shepherd, after all.
After I got Cyndie home from the procedure on her hip, I discovered that the straps that run under the belly of Hunter’s blanket weren’t connected properly, and it was flipped up over his back. He seemed calm enough to allow me to monkey with it, so I tried to quickly unhook and then re-hook the two straps. Off they both came, and then the first one clicked right into place, at which point Delilah went nuts and did some ferocious barking at Hunter. The horse lurched back and I lost hold of him and that second strap, which was now dangling precariously under his belly as he maneuvered in response to the canine troublemaker.
Our muddy troublemaker
I definitely have not succeeded in teaching Delilah what “No!” means. Apparently, she thinks it means she should keep doing whatever it is that she was doing when I suddenly burst forth with the word, repeating it in ever-increasing intensity.
Eventually, I fooled Delilah into approaching me close enough to allow me to grab her collar, after which she was dragged unceremoniously into the barn and tied up. It took a little patience, but after a short wait, Hunter allowed me back in position to reach under him and pull the strap through to hook it up properly.
Yesterday, I had finished filling the hay feeders at their dinner time, when I noticed that Hunter seemed to be following me wherever I went in the paddock. I allowed myself to linger longer than I really wanted to, finally choosing to just stand in his space when he repeatedly closed any gap that I created by my movements.
When I spotted Delilah beginning to bare her teeth and revving up to bark at him, I decided to intervene swiftly to alter her focus. I tried kneeling down and holding her next to me, soothing her anxiety as Hunter nosed around, taking in big whiffs of her scent. I was hoping to nurture a calm, close-contact interaction between them in hopes it might set a precedent for them developing a more congenial companionship.
Without warning, Hunter suddenly lunged forward and tried to bite Delilah as I held her. I felt awful that I had put Delilah in that dangerous proximity, despite her anxiety of the risk. In fairness to Hunter, he was only returning the treatment he has been receiving from her for far too long. Delilah wrenched out of my grip quickly enough to dodge any real harm, and we both decided it was time to hustle out of the paddock and out of Hunter’s reach.
Hunter went back to grazing.
I have added a couple of notches to my belt of experience managing our dog while in close proximity with our horses. I’m looking forward to my coach soon being able to use her crutches to come down and supervise my lessons, hopefully before any more risky incidents play out.
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Relative Something 