Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Momentary Bliss
We had some blissful moments yesterday, working in the paddocks and round pen with the horses grazing around us. Cyndie decided to allow Delilah to accompany us, off-leash. That exercise went surprisingly well, until it didn’t. More on that, later.
Like happens so many times around here, I set off with one project in mind, and then found myself drawn to work on another. I was intending to cut down some small trees in the recently cut field north of the driveway where the brush cutter wasn’t able to mow. I never made it out there. The allure of the herd was just too great.
I needed to stop by the paddocks, because I had offered to bring in the wheelbarrow for Cyndie to harvest the latest crop of fertilizer. That’s when I noticed that Cyndie had included the gate to the round pen when she opened up the gates to grazing fields after she fed the horses earlier in the morning. While we have been busy with other things, the dirt of our round pen area has been getting overgrown with grass. They have been grazing the area around the pen, but the grass inside was untouched. Horses to the rescue!
Cayenne was the only horse inside the pen, when I showed up. I decided I wanted to pick up where I had left off last week on the task of turning over the soil in the round pen while the horses were around. It didn’t take long for the other horses to notice my presence, and in no time, I had 4 helpers. With all 5 of us inside the round pen together, Cyndie came over to take a picture:
After a break for lunch, I moved just outside the round pen to cut down growth that had sprouted from a stump left over from last fall’s project to clear that area. Delilah was with me, alternating between being entirely fascinated with piles of poop she came across, and digging and chewing on the stump and sprouts I was cutting.
Once again, the horses moseyed over to graze right beside where I was working. I looked up at one point and paused to absorb the bliss of Delilah nosing around in the grass among the four grazing horses, beside Cyndie and I toiling away on our respective tasks. Delilah had had a spectacular day off-leash. Cyndie had walked her up and down the driveway, practicing commands and rewarding her with treats. Delilah had stayed close to Cyndie, following her commands, when Cyndie was cleaning the paddocks.
At one point, Delilah and Hunter greeted each other, nose to nose, with no adverse reaction from either of them. Cyndie and I instantly shared the same hope that those two might somehow become fast friends. Delilah continued to receive treats rewarding her good behavior and the horses remained calm despite the dog wandering among them. We were enjoying things working the way we envisioned they could.
I have no idea what changed. Maybe it was that Delilah still has a lot of puppy in her, and just couldn’t hold herself any longer. She wanted to play a game of chase, and the horses make such irresistible targets. While Cyndie and I hollered at Delilah, the pursuit spun around the outside of the round pen fence. With me brandishing a shovel and Cyndie, a rake, we eventually collared the dog to put an abrupt end to the disruption, and an instant revocation of Delilah’s off-leash liberties.
Realizing how quickly things can go awry is probably why the moments of perfect harmony seem so incredibly blissful.
Flying Solo
For the first time since the horses arrived, I am home alone while Cyndie is out of town. I am trying to keep calm and project a positive confidence, but… oh. my. god.
So far, so good. Our animals are eating the food I cook, er… serve. I know I don’t do things the way Cyndie does, but so far, the dog and horses are politely tolerating my methods. We’ll see how patient they are with me after a few days without Cyndie around.
The cats behave like cats, and take care of themselves for the most part. Speaking of cats, it was over a week ago now that I spotted a white and gray cat beneath our bedroom window, savagely dining on a very recently deceased rabbit. A rather graphic depiction of the circle of life. I don’t know whether that cat gets credit for the kill, or if it was some other critter. If it was Delilah, I don’t think she would have parted with it long enough for the cat to have access.
Whoever it was, the cat didn’t get a chance for seconds after its first meal, because Delilah did find the carcass and had her way with what remained of it, making sure to show everyone around that she had a special prize.
Delilah and I are already missing Cyndie’s extraordinary skills of removing burrs. My skills seem to be in the realm of getting Delilah into more burrs. Yesterday afternoon, we were down by the labyrinth garden and I was clearing a path into the woods nearby that will meet with an old trail we plan to clear and re-open. Then I wandered over to do a little work on a tree that had fallen back in May, when the late-season heavy snow storm hit.
Delilah was exploring everywhere in the area, occasionally stopping by me to bite on a branch as if to help. By the time we got back to the house, she had some burrs that I haven’t seen before. I brushed her for a while, and then we had burrs on the floor, burrs stuck to my shirt, a pile on the table, and some on the counter.
As I was getting ready for bed, I discovered I brought back one more thing from my chores by the labyrinth: a tick. I think it was smaller than a regular wood tick, so that could mean the dreaded deer tick. Unfortunately, he/she was attached and dining on me. That’s the first bite I’ve had in the year we have been here, which I consider pretty good luck. None of our activities here fall under the guidelines of ways to avoid ticks. I was bound to run into this sooner or later.
It gives me something to tell Cyndie about, since I don’t plan to have anything newsworthy to report about the horses or Delilah. Now I gotta get back to work, tending to animals. There is no copilot available to cover for me for a few days.
Clandestine Surveillance
Have you noticed the headlines in the news lately about a number of national governments expressing outrage over the revelation that the U.S. is spying on them? I suppose it is the politically correct reaction, to publicly complain about being violated in such a way, but come on, it’s spying. Clandestine surveillance is likely happening everywhere, from every direction, so I find it humorous to read the protestations that sound like they are shocked and upset to learn that it is happening.
How do you demand that other people not spy on you? Spying is not something that is done by permission.
I fully expect that other countries are using whatever technique they possibly can to collect information on the United States. It’s what countries do. Heck, it’s what people do. Our neighbors have admitted that they spy on us.
If they were watching yesterday, they would have noticed Delilah helping me choose what to split next from the pile of cut logs by the shed. They should have noticed the FedEx truck come up our driveway. Weber grills customer service sent us a replacement regulator for our grill. Delilah got some doggy treats from the friendly driver.
Maybe they even noticed that we got a package in our mailbox. My two new pairs of work pants arrived. I needed to order some with a smaller waist, because all the activity we do around this place is burning more calories than I have been consuming.
Of course, all of this information is private, so if you are secretly reading this, then you are spying, too.
Maybe the next time I lose track of where Delilah wandered off to when we are letting her run off-leash, I should ask the neighbors which way she went.
Too Fun
It is a good thing that I chose the 8-cubic-foot sized wheelbarrow when I recently shopped for one with two wheels. Anything smaller and we would be making a lot more trips in and out of the paddocks to dump it, and anything larger and we wouldn’t be able to push it when it was full. I have been removing between 16 and 24 cubic feet of manure at a time, every few days, when I get around to tending to the task. When that wheelbarrow is full, it is very heavy to push.
Unfortunately, my grip is failing me, which doesn’t help when moving a heavy wheelbarrow, because the inflammation through my carpal tunnel (both left and right) is raging day and night lately. It seems that everything I do is an irritant, and my thumb and first two fingers go numb when typing on a keypad, when gripping a rake or shovel, scooping manure, moving the wheelbarrow, holding a steering wheel, gripping the wood splitter, or sleeping at night. It even bothered me while trying to hold a fork during dinner last night.
One would hope that the sleeping wouldn’t be a problem, because my doctor prescribed wrist braces to keep the hands in a neutral position all night, but 4 o’clock in the morning is a time when the pain and numbness seems to bother me the most.
It probably doesn’t help that I have started to frequently throw a ball for Delilah to find. My arm is killing me from repeated attempts to throw farther than I am realistically capable. But hope springs eternal, and I continue trying to throw that thing as hard as I can. It is just so irresistible to watch Delilah use her nose to hunt the ball down, returning so proud when she comes back to me with it clenched in her jaw.
It took her a while to get the hang of the game, but now she behaves as if she understands exactly what I am saying. If she didn’t see where I threw it, I tell her she needs to find it with her nose, and she will start traversing back and forth across the yard in front of me, nose to the ground, as fast as she possibly can. At first, I would just throw into the mowed grass, but I quickly increased the difficulty by throwing into the woods. It boggles my mind that she can find it in there, especially when she has lost track of what direction I threw toward. I will go back to splitting wood while she hunts, often expecting she will never find it, and then suddenly, she is at my feet, with that ball in her mouth, hoping I will throw it again.
It is a game that has become too much fun for both of us.
Partial Accomplishments
It was kind of a slow day yesterday at Wintervale. We are approaching the first freezing overnight temperatures, so it is time to pull the pump out of our little landscape pond, and drain all our hoses. I got part way through that project. It has been that kind of week for me. I seem to only get part way to completion on everything I choose to do.
We had some luck with Delilah behaving well, a couple of days ago, so I gave her some time off-leash. I was walking around the area that I recently mowed, on the north side of the driveway, taking measurements for future fencing, and she was having the time of her life. She was running back and forth at amazing speed. It was going so well, I offered to take her for a walk through our woods. She bolted down the trail, getting way ahead of me. When I got to a place I could see her, she was facing the neighbor’s woods, locked in on something.
I called her, but she had tuned me out, and then she darted through the rusty barbed wire fence that separates our properties. I didn’t see her again for about half an hour. Our period of lucky good behavior had come to an end. While waiting for her to come back, I killed time by pulling Buckthorn up by the roots. Upon her return, she got shuttled directly to her kennel where she spent the rest of the day.
I tried to do some work shaping the main drainage channel beyond the paddocks, but it was too soon after a recent rain, and my boots and tools became a comical mud disaster. I switched my focus to the deck, where I proceeded to dismantle our gas grill to troubleshoot a problem with gas flow. I hope it is the regulator, because I have exhausted all other logical possibilities. That’ll require a trip to the store where I bought it, to swap out that part.
As the afternoon wore on, a little sunshine appeared, so I headed down to mow the labyrinth pathways. It was still a little wet, but manageable. I guess that one did get accomplished, although it doesn’t feel like completion because, by walking the path to mow, I keep seeing all the things we still want to work on down there. I’m wondering how well it will survive the winter, and whether we will be able to walk the path throughout the complete snow season.
It wasn’t one of those dramatically rewarding days here, but that’s okay. There is something valuable to be gained from days like this. The horses have a way of dealing with things, and then just going back to grazing. At one point yesterday, I decided to go down and be by the horses, to immerse myself in that kind of energy. Being with them can provide a sense of calm.
It was good for me, but I must admit, I don’t think I could rate the visit as being anything more than just a partial accomplishment, in that regard.
Not Proud
Out of respect for the whole truth, I must report that it isn’t always sunshine-happy-roses here at Wintervale, despite all my blissful stories. Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie got out of her car after work, hobbling on a sprained ankle. She reported that it happened as she was squeezing out time before work that she didn’t really have, trying to walk Delilah one last time before leaving. Delilah ran off with gusto, pulling Cyndie off-balance.
With me trying to help out, doing more of the walking chores, we headed down to the barn to invite the horses into the paddock for their evening grain. I don’t know where he had been rolling, but Hunter arrived with dirt covering him, head to hoof. He was an absolute mess. Regardless the hindrance of her painful sprain, Cyndie wanted to try to clean him up. She worked her way into the paddock, with brushes and cleaning supplies.
He wasn’t interested.
She turned to Legacy, who had a fair amount of dirt on his back, giving him the option of being groomed. He didn’t seem to want to hang around, either. As we stood at the gate, after exiting, Legacy appeared to want to give us one last message. He presented his backside and lifted his tail. Message received.
We left the sorry-looking geldings to strut their muddy body art.
I dropped Cyndie off at the house and headed around back to retrieve Delilah from her kennel. Yes, she is still behaving like a puppy, despite our impression that she should be beyond portions of it now. For the second time in three days, she has ripped and de-stuffed articles of bedding. I found her insulated blanket torn open and puffs of white stuffing spread all over the place. It is so frustrating, especially when she presents such an obvious look pride for her “accomplishment.”
On Saturday, Delilah was confined to her crate in the house, while we entertained guests. She made quick work of the bed Cyndie had tossed in there while cleaning. Ever so quietly, Delilah pulled the green stuffing out of it to surround herself, before lying down to nap.
Shortly after coming inside with Delilah yesterday, as I brought a cold pack for Cyndie’s ankle, while she propped her foot up in the living room, I stepped in a pile of poop Delilah had covertly dropped on the rug the day before. That afternoon was when Elysa was over, and both she and I smelled something, but weren’t wily enough to follow our noses to the source. Discovery was delayed for 24 hours.
Maybe we can blame Delilah for all the flies in the house. There has been an epic population explosion of flies around here this summer, and now that we have an unending supply of manure, the flies are thicker than ever. With Cyndie on the couch, pointing them out, I swatted at flies in a fruitless effort to curb the infestation.
This was not one of our proudest days.
New Me
I spent most of my life in the carefree world of not needing to take care of a pet. Yesterday afternoon, as I fed four horses, then our dog, and finally, two cats, it occurred to me how much things have changed. Luckily, it seems to fit rather seamlessly into the days here, especially compared to my old life during the years we lived in our previous home. I didn’t want that kind of commitment back then, but it is proving to be a natural extension of our new routine.
The part that doesn’t fit anymore is my sitting in front of a television watching sporting events, or any program, for that matter. Lately, it has also meant not playing my guitar or mandolin, or doing much in the way of bicycling, but I hope to reclaim some of that time in the days to come. Our days are now filled with managing operations on our 20 acre ranch of fields and woods.
I miss being able to play soccer in the mornings with my friends, but I am reaping the rewards of all those years of that brilliant exercise, transferring the stamina, strength, and breathing capacity I acquired into the physical work done around our property.
The new routine appears to be burning more calories than I am consuming, so I am actually in better shape now than I have been in years. I’m hoping I will notice the difference when biking, in that I won’t be hauling as much weight up the hills.
Last night, as I moved the horses into the paddock from the open field, I had an opportunity to put into practice something that I learned from Cyndie and our friend, Dunia, at the Epona seminar they led in Arizona. The horses were loitering just outside the open gate as I arrived to encourage them to come in. Legacy, the leader, acknowledged my arrival, but made no motion to enter. If he doesn’t come in, the others won’t either.
I knew I was talking to the right guy, but he wasn’t buying what I was selling. Conventional wisdom would be to use a treat or bucket of grain to entice him to approach, but I learned another method to inspire a horse to follow me. I walked an arc in front of Legacy, back and forth, increasing my energy as I went. If you walk far enough around the horse, they will be inclined to move a hoof in a step to keep you in view. That step is the one I was looking for, because if you play that first step properly, it will lead to another, and then off I went, walking into the paddock up to the grain I had set out for them, and Legacy followed me all the way up.
On Sunday, I put into practice another essential lesson I learned at the Epona seminar in Arizona. When you approach a horse, the horse gets to set the boundary. When the horse approaches you, you get to set the boundary. When I unexpectedly found myself facing four horses running right toward me in the open field, standing with nothing but my camera in my hands, I remembered what Dunia, Cyndie, and the other leaders taught about setting my boundary.
I motioned with my hand to display an arc of my boundary in front of my body. Legacy, leading the group charge, suddenly came to a halt, just short of that virtual line I was projecting.
The person standing on that hill with those four powerful animals was not the guy I remember from a year ago. That is the new me, tending our property and caring for all our animals. It is feeling like a pretty good fit.
Other Things
There are other things than horses for us to deal with around here, even though the new herd is commanding the majority of our attention. Last Saturday, we did sneak away long enough to attend the “booya” hosted by our fencing contractors. There was plenty of good eatin’ to be had, but what really made the night for us was a trio playing blues music of a quality that could headline any venue in the city of Chicago. In a pole barn in the countryside outside of River Falls, no less! It was a wonderful surprise, not that I hadn’t been warned, but this was way better than I had expected.
Over the weekend, our trees came to life with the colors of fall. Each morning we would find that it looked like someone had been up all night painting leaves. I was walking Delilah in the evening when I spotted the setting sun through the trees. It made for a nice picture.
Yesterday was my weekday that I stay home from work, and I did some catching up on chores that have been neglected during the final preparations to get the horses here. I sorted through the pile of clothes that were pouring out of my closet and put away items that were clean, and washed things that needed it.
It was a perfect day for hanging laundry outside to dry: warm sunshine and gusting winds.
We have been here over 11 months now, and I had yet to ride my mountain bike on our trails. I think that is a function of how much the projects to get us ready for horses have dominated the bulk of our time. Well, no more. With the horses now here, with things pretty much in order, I felt the need to address some of the areas that have been suffering from neglect. I pumped up the tires and lubed the chain for the old bike’s maiden voyage around Wintervale.
The trip was made even sweeter by the company of our dog, Delilah. This will be a great way to get her some exercise that will burn off her energy. With her little orange vest on, we headed into the woods, down the steepest hill.
I don’t think she knew what she was in for, as we went from zero to high-speed in an instant. She loves to chase, and I made the perfect “rabbit” out front to encourage her to sprint after me. As the grade changed to flat and then eventually to up-hill, my speed dropped to near zero. Delilah would pass me by and go running ahead on the trail. It is kind of deflating to have her out front, pausing frequently to look back at me, as if to ask, “Are you coming?”
Or maybe, with my wheezing and panting, she was asking, “Are you going to be alright?”
Since it was my first ride in a long time, I made it a short one, to save my legs and lungs for other pursuits, and then went to the paddocks to let the horses out into the big field. After that, I needed to mow the lawn, as we have been neglecting this chore for weeks.
It was a day for tending to things not directly related to the horses, and by evening, I had brought some order to the chaos. It was a good way to wrap up September. The month that vanished into thin air.
How the heck did October get here already?
Featuring Hunter
Last night, Cyndie had a dinner date in the cities, so it was my first night alone in charge of the horses. I sat and watched them graze for a long time, then collected some apple treats for them, from the stash on our trail. After that, I wandered away to retrieve Delilah from her kennel.
Lately, the usual routine for me letting Delilah out, involves her rushing to the front yard to grab a toy for me to toss around. Not this time. Interestingly, she showed a very distinct interest to head the other direction around the house, toward the trail that leads to the paddocks. She led me right back to the horses for a visit.
Before Cyndie left for the evening, she had described her day with the horses. Cyndie and her friend, Mercedes, had walked pairs of the horses around our property, to better familiarize them with their new surroundings. The route included a stop at Delilah’s kennel, where the horses were now on the outside of a fence, looking in at the dog, in contrast to their previous meetings at the paddocks.
I’m wondering if Delilah’s immediate interest to go see the horses stemmed from their interactions at her kennel earlier in the day.
I had my camera with me while I was sitting to watch the horses graze earlier, randomly snapping varieties of their positioning. Upon review, when I got the images displayed on my computer, I discovered that the horse seemingly always in the front position was, Hunter.
He’s certainly not camera-shy.
Dezirea had a swollen eye, so earned a fly screen mask to give her a break from the unrelenting harassment of the winged beasts.
Identifying them in this last shot, from left to right is, Legacy, Cayenne, Hunter, and Dezirea.
Pet Pics
Maybe I am compensating in advance of getting horses, (because I expect to be taking a lot of pictures of horses in the near future) but I found myself taking a fair number of pictures of the dog and cats this past weekend.
It is not uncommon to find the cats napping on our bed in the afternoon. Most of the time, they pick their heads up when we enter the room, but every once in a while, they are so zonked out they fail to stir, even if we are being noisy. That happened Saturday, and I was in and out of the room several times when I decided to grab the camera and capture Mozyr with his paws all curled up. On the second image, he managed to open one eye to see what was going on.
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Delilah was being a fun playmate and playing tug-of-war with me. I prefer chasing her when she plays keep-away, because she always gets me laughing, but she often morphs that game into tug-of-war by finally running right at me and getting me to grab whatever she has clutched in her jaws.
We continue to exercise her to condition her to come when called. For the most part, she appears to be responding well. That doesn’t preclude her from still wandering into the neighbor’s field if we lose track of her for too long. It makes doing chores a little more complicated, because when she is off-leash, we need to pay almost constant attention to what she is doing.
She tried to be all innocent, on one occasion when she took a long time to return, but her feet smelled so bad from the manure that had been spread on the field, it was a dead giveaway as to where she had been. That earned her one of several baths she ended up getting over the weekend. I captured a shot of her in the sun, revealing some of the wave her coat gets when wet.
Relative Something 