Posts Tagged ‘farm’
Seriously, Horses
Not all that long ago I was living in a suburb of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, in Minnesota, where my wife and I raised our children, and I was driving a mere 11 miles to a day-job that occupied my weekdays. As often as I could, I would participate in team sports with a couple gangs of like-minded friends, playing soccer and floorball for fun and exercise. I can honestly say I had no idea about the changes that lie ahead for me.
Seriously. Horses?
Turned out, yes, horses.
Now I find myself spending each day tending to our herd of 4 horses. In a short time I have gone from having no experience with horses to having a personal relationship with 4 of them.
Last week there was one night when the temperature dipped below zero, and it felt even colder due to a brisk wind. I gave the horses a night inside the barn.
We usually move them in one at a time using a lead rope temporarily draped around their neck. I succeeded without incident with Legacy and Dezirea. As I attempted to bring Cayenne in, Hunter quick-stepped his way through the gate before I could push it closed behind her, getting past Cayenne as I held her in place with the rope.
She did well to remain calm and respect my control as he entered her stall despite my verbal objections. He went straight to the feed bucket in there and chomped up a mouthful. I stood at the opening to her stall with her on my right shoulder and tried talking him out of there. My mind raced through options.
It wouldn’t be the first time we swapped their positions because of something like this, if I just put Cayenne in Hunter’s stall. My intuition moved me to do otherwise. Risking potential disaster, I walked Cayenne into the stall along with him. She went right for her feed as if he wasn’t in there, basically wedging him against the back wall. He looked totally stunned.
Suddenly he went from the frisky little “I can do whatever I want” guy to looking like a confused child. Since Cayenne was ignoring him, I stepped in to push her butt over so he had space to exit, which he did without hesitation. Hunter rushed out of her stall and headed directly into his own, appearing very happy for the opportunity.
For some reason, I don’t feel a tendency toward panic when things don’t go the way I intend with the horses, which may just be a function of my relative naiveté. I give credit for some of my control to Dunia and Cyndie for the horse wisdom they have provided me. It also helps that I have the benefit of daily interaction with our herd. Our horses seem to recognize my contributions of serving up their input and cleaning up their output, and demonstrate total comfort with my presence in their midst.
Yesterday, Cayenne came to me as I exited the paddock through a gate while holding Delilah on a leash. Similar to the precious shared moment she gave me a while back, Cayenne pushed her cheek into mine and we lingered together, breathing in each other’s smell while Delilah patiently waited her own turn for my attention.
My life has changed a lot from 4 years ago, and I couldn’t be more honored to be doing what I do now.
Yeah, horses. Seriously.
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Quarterly Meeting
We’re trying to run a business here. Sort of. Today we will be holding our first annual meeting to assess our status and document goals for the year. Here’s hoping the animals will be well-behaved and communicate their opinions clearly.
With tax documents for the previous year filling our inbox, there is an increased visibility of the paperwork and accounting that is involved with managing finances. I was reminded that our lawyer urged us to keep thorough records of meetings that reflect operation of Wintervale Ranch.
Sure. No problem. How hard is that?
We have failed thus far to follow through on even holding formal meetings, let alone properly documenting them.
With that, this morning I will blog less, and conduct business more. I’m off to a meeting in the conference room/kitchen to lay out the goals and dreams for the 2015 phase of Wintervale Ranch, LLC. Hopefully the remote transmission from staff in the paddock will be working smoothly so advice from all parties involved will be heard.
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Hay Thoughts
We experienced a distinctly different sky Monday from that which we enjoyed on Sunday. In fact, we even received a short burst of heavy snowfall for a few minutes from the gray clouds overhead. However, the above freezing temperatures of the middle portion of the day sufficiently evaporated the fresh snow cover off of any surface that wasn’t already a snow base.
The cloudy sky kept things from being very melty, but didn’t completely stop the loss of snow cover. The ground is peeking through in multiple places, especially where I had plowed a path for walking around the back pasture fence.
At this time last year, there was so much snow on the ground that I don’t think I would have been able to keep that path open. This year has been quite a different story. I am itching to find out how our new drain tile installation will work for us in the spring. If the winter ends with below-average snow levels, I am expecting to see noticeable improvement in how the paddocks dry out. Although, it will be hard to judge how much better the drainage is when basing it on a reduced amount of melting snow from this year.
Not that I’m complaining. After the amount of wetness we endured during the first two spring seasons that we lived here, we are due for a break this year. If a dryer spring happens in 2015 and we don’t get a real test of the new drain system, so be it. I’ll welcome the break.
One of the things that would be a nice change is a chance to cut hay sooner. Our hay crop was far from pristine, as our field is long on weeds and short on desirable grasses, but our horses seem to prefer it to the bales I purchased from a farm to the north of us.
(Jack and Joanie, if you are still reading: I recently found a few bales of your hay left over that we had stowed inside the barn, instead of the hay shed. Our horses really liked your hay! We were able to feed it to them during the severe cold nights.)
I am still hoping that we will gain ground on improving our hay simply by cutting it regularly. If we can get on the field to cut it before it gets too long for a first cut, and early enough to give us a good shot at getting a second cut later in the summer, I believe, based on the yield we got last year, we can put up enough of our own hay to feed our herd through a winter. That would be a real special success.
It would be just like we planned it, back when we didn’t have a clue about any of this.
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Snow’s Back
I’m sitting with some Guatemalan hot chocolate and fresh-baked puppy dog tails from Isles Bun & Coffee (thanks Jeff and Catherine!), preparing to have a late breakfast after an extended trip to feed the horses. It took a little extra time this morning because of the new snow that fell overnight.
It has been a while since I needed to clear snow. I’m out of practice. I’m behind schedule and chomping at the bit to get out on the Grizzly and plow, so I’ll make this short. I’ll post pictures!
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Sibling Revelry
Despite a sloppy wintry mix of precipitation doing its best to dampen our spirits (sorry ’bout the pun), the gathering of Hays relatives was a joy and a half. As always happens to me at family gatherings of limited duration, the riches of access to siblings I grew up with is enticing, but the reality of our usual chaos leaves me wishing there was more time. It is hard to finish a story, and sometimes a single sentence, without interruption. My attention is too often wrenched away from the person I was listening to, and time flies by so fast, the hour of departure comes up way too soon.
Regardless, every moment was precious. Reconnecting after long periods of separation, with siblings who share so many tendencies and characteristics, is refreshing and invigorating. I tend to feel a kind of validation of who I am, discovering the brothers and sisters that I grew up with remain so similar in behavior and perspectives. I am among my people again.
I’m lucky that, as a family, we all get along. These are the people who inhabited Intervale Ranch with me from the day I was born until 9 years later, when our family moved out and the property was razed for development into an industrial park.
With technical assistance from my son, Julian, I was able to display a digitized version of a slide show I put together close to 30 years ago, which featured that old farm property. It provided an opportunity to exercise our memories, as we analyzed some of the images and compared recollections.
Meanwhile, there was non-stop food to be consumed, youngsters to get reacquainted with and entertained by, and horses to visit. Unfortunately, that last part with the horses was complicated by the weather conditions. They have been a little jumpy the last two days. I’m thinking there may have been some coyote activity in the area. That jumpiness was then compounded by wet precipitation which brought them to shivers.
As the bulk of our visitors wandered down to greet the herd, the attention suddenly needed to be redirected to preparing the stalls and moving the cold, wet horses inside. At least people were able to witness the process as it happened, and see the horses enjoy the reward of coming in to warm up and dry out.
Delilah was pretty excited to have so many visitors, but eventually adjusted to the clamor of all the conversations and quietly laid in front of the fireplace. She seemed more than happy to accept cuddles from Reese, one of the older grandchildren present.
It’s nice to see the kids doing well with our animals, because we see them as potential ranch hands in the years ahead. When their parents eventually start thinking about sending them off to some camp for the summer, we can put in a pitch for the valuable experience they could gain here, doing chores at Wintervale. Seems like a win-win.
Cyndie and I express our extreme appreciation to all the family members who made the trip through messy weather to bring our place to life with their love and energy. Here’s hoping we don’t let too much time pass before the next Hays family gathering materializes!
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Morning Routine
We are in the third weekend since Cyndie’s surgery and things are going really well. Struggles have been minor and triumphs have been many. This morning I am experiencing a bit of a longing to be able to sleep in. Normally, weekend mornings are Cyndie’s chance to greet the horses she has been missing during the week, allowing me the opportunity to wake slowly, linger in bed, and compose my weekend blog posts.
I’ve long heard stories about dairy farmers who needed to get up early every day of every week, without exception, to milk cows. I am feeling an increased appreciation for that commitment.
My morning routine has normalized for all of us and is flowing very comfortably of late. Delilah has pleasantly announced her waking with soft mutterings, remaining stretched out on the bed in her overnight crate after she hears sounds of me getting up. I switch on the kitchen light and she lolls in place luxuriously while I get myself dressed and ready to take her out and feed the horses. It is a very soothing pace to start the day.
We step out and locate the horses during our stroll to the barn. It takes the herd no time at all to sense our approach, whereupon they begin something of a controlled stroll toward their morning feed. It is as if they don’t want to appear too eager.
The one variation in the pattern happens as they select who gets which feed pan. Some days it is very straight forward, and sometimes it becomes a complicated exercise of gamesmanship as the chestnuts take turns flaunting domination by driving each other off one pan to another.
If it is windy, or something else has them already on edge, feeding under the roof overhang is fraught with multiple emergency response drills as they all erupt in a hasty dash out from under cover whenever any one of them even flinches at the slightest thing. Just as quick, they seem to figure out it was a false alarm and come right back, but that doesn’t stop another panic from happening 20-seconds later.
It’s interesting that my presence is sometimes a contributor to their alarm, but more often completely ignored. I need to stay alert to be out of the way when they panic, and they surprise me that they don’t react at some of the clanging and banging noises I make when I am fumbling about.
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While they are focused on the feed pans, I wander over to the hay shed to fill the wheelbarrow with flakes that I distribute to the two feeders. As soon as the horses have licked the feed pans clean, they come munch hay. Hunter most often chooses to wait until the other three dive into the first station I have filled, then he chooses the other one. Sometimes another horse might meander over to join him, sometimes not.
After horses are fed, Delilah and I head out on an exploration of our trails. I will often let her choose the route, and I just follow along, stopping wherever she chooses to linger, examining the source of some scent that has dramatically grabbed her full attention.
Once back to the house, both she and Pequenita are served their breakfast, after which there settles a wonderful calm over the house.
When Cyndie gets back to full mobility, and we get back to the old weekend morning routine, that calm moment will be about the time I think about finally getting up.
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Stitches Out
We traveled to the big city yesterday for Cyndie’s follow-up appointment to have the surgeon’s nurse inspect the incision and remove the two stitches in the long wound. The way modern medicine closes surgical wounds in this day and age amazes me. Everything looks good and Cyndie says she is a lot more comfortable having that sticky bandage finally removed. Her movements have improved visibly as a result.
This morning our farrier, George, is coming to trim the horse’s hooves. It was scheduled on his calendar after the last appointment, but I had completely lost track of it. Luckily, he sent a text alerting me. Suddenly my morning routine is squeezed a bit.
The horses were in good spirits when I showed up to serve their a.m. feed and put out hay. I’m hoping they will be cooperative for me in an hour, because Cyndie will not be able to do more than offer moral support as I take on the role of chief handler for George as he works.
Delilah is another challenge. She has been hyper-focused on critters out the window and doing her worst to destroy glass and window trim to claw her way after them from inside. We have tried resorting to instant “time-out” when she loses control and jumps at the window, bringing her back to the spiral staircase and leashing her in place for a spell. After the second instance in a row this morning, instead of lying down in acceptance of her fate, she took to boldly barking her defiance.
I tried the “ignore” technique, because I was busy trying to write, but that didn’t help Cyndie. She couldn’t stand it. I understand that totally. There are plenty of times when I absolutely can’t tolerate the bark. It’s interesting that I was determined enough to try to finish my task with the looming appointment in the barn creating a tight deadline, that I was fine in this instance with letting the loud bark float in one ear and out the other.
The dog will unfortunately be restrained in her kennel during the hoof trimming today, since we don’t have enough hands to tend to everyone at once. Sadly, I think her time in the kennel while we were gone yesterday is the reason for her rambunctiousness today. It just means I will have to give her extra attention this afternoon.
I have taken to letting her run off leash inside the pasture fencing, while I toss discs for her to chase. The fence has worked well to keep her from giving in to the urge to dash off into the woods after some tempting scent, even though she can finagle under it if allowed. The lowest strand is not electrified, and I think she has figured that out.
Time to go prepare the horses for their hoof-icure appointment!
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Glimpse Success
On Saturday we enjoyed a day of sunshine with temperatures above freezing right from the start. What little snow cover we had acquired just a day prior was no match for the warm rays. I was very happy to be able to get the deck shoveled clean first thing in the morning, to take advantage of the solar drying mechanism.
When it got above 40°F, I talked Cyndie into taking her walker for a little stroll on the nicely dried deck to soak up some of that direct sunlight. It helped to lift her spirits a bit while getting in some exercise for that new hip joint. As far as we can tell, the new joint is doing fine. The residual pain of the surgery is still commanding her attention, and that certainly limits her abilities for the time being.
While making my rounds down to the barn I was happy to discover a glimpse of success for a portion of the drain tile we had buried in the fall. They ran a tube right off the barn gutter downspout down into the ground and buried it in a trench that runs down beyond the paddock fence.
The water was flowing audibly down into that tube on Saturday, so I walked across the paddock to the outlet in the newly carved drainage swale to see what it looked like.
It was working brilliantly! There was a perfect trickle of water flowing out of the pea-gravel, turning the snow in the swale a telltale gray with saturation. It is but one part of three drainage solutions which we had installed, but it gives me hope that we will see similar success in the other areas when spring ultimately rolls around.
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Relative Calm
For the most part, calm prevails on the ranch as we settle into a routine of rest and healing for Cyndie. With neither one of us needing to go anywhere, we can operate at a very comfortable pace, guided by the regular intervals of animal feeding times which I must act on.
Cyndie is capable enough now to take care of many things herself, so I don’t need to constantly be in her immediate vicinity. Plus, we continue to be blessed with the added assistance of her mother’s occasional visits, or the home-care nurses and physical therapist.
We received a dusting of snow after last weekend’s melt, making our views a bit more photogenic again, at least for this time of year. I was going through a bit of a picture-taking drought for a while there.
After walking Delilah yesterday morning, I grabbed my camera and headed back outside to see if I could capture some of the scenes that had caught my eye moments earlier.
The horses were so content, messily chomping away on the hay in our two feeders, that I was moved to take some extra time and linger among them. Both Legacy and Dezirea had rubbed their manes into a tangled “braid” that defies logic. I have yet to see how they do it, but it is a recurring phenomena —more so for her than him. They tolerated my interest in detangling their hairdos, continuing to munch at the feeder while I worked.
Delilah patiently waited for me in the barn, where I left her while getting hay. It’s a good day when she quietly waits for me there while I feed the horses. Too often I feel rushed to get back because of her sharp barks of protest for being left longer than she wants.
The only other thing that has disturbed the peace and quiet we’ve been enjoying is an invoice that came in the mail from the city of River Falls. In addition to needing to pay for the towing and repairs to the truck after Cyndie’s little rollover accident, we are also responsible for paying the public service emergency responders for responding. It costs $500.00 to have an accident in River Falls. It adds insult to injury.
Don’t do it, folks. It is not worth it. That money is better spent on groceries. It irks me to no end that they show up and park their cars with flashing lights while the tow truck works, and then bill you five hundred bucks. If they are going to charge you, they should at least inform you, and give you a choice of having them respond or not.
Talk about a dis-incentive for calling for help. Something is seriously messed up if our tax dollars are not sufficient to fund public services. And they have a monopoly. We should have a choice of more affordable options. If they want to charge for services, then privatize it and let us shop for a responder who charges the fairest price.
I told Cyndie that she is not allowed to have any future accidents in or around River Falls, WI. We can’t afford it. We’ve got horses to feed.
Speaking of the horses, that reminds me, it’s time to go back to grazing. I’m going to return to that place of calm. I don’t have to pay an extra fee to do that.
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Bring It
The predictions for our weather being significantly stormy today have continued to intensify. Meteorologists report that all computer models remain in agreement for a potential of over a foot of snow in our region by Tuesday. Cyndie and I are ready. We say, “Bring it on!” I haven’t asked the horses what they think about it.
We worked hard yesterday to tackle everything within our power that needed to be addressed before a lot of snow covers it all up. As we went along, we found little things to add to our list of preparations. It’s quite possible that I have never been as ready for a first significant snowfall of the season as I am today.
With Cyndie’s help, despite an ailing arthritic hip, I finished making a raised area around the hay feeder in the paddock. That also means we were able to use up the left-over pile of lime screenings.
We rearranged equipment in the shop garage to move plow blades and snow tires to the front for easy access, and piled lawn care accessories out of the way in back. I went so far as to clean out leaves that had collected in nooks and crannies around the house and shop walkways where I will soon be trying to shovel snow.
We re-hung tarps on the walls of Delilah’s kennel to give her added shelter. She was thrilled to be present while we worked, chasing mice that popped out when Cyndie disturbed a nest while sweeping out the corners.
Yesterday morning I was teasing Cyndie with a query about whether we had enough toilet paper to survive the coming storm, since that is a common item that gets purchased when harsh weather is approaching. She assured me we did, but later in the day, as we rearranged vehicles to get the truck parked under a roof, she decided to make a run to fill the gas tank and pick up some groceries.
She brought home more toilet paper.
All that is left to do is let nature take its course and invite winter over to make itself comfortable at Wintervale. Seems like the picture above will be the last glimpse of dry ground we’ll see for a few months.
Bring it on, we say. We think we are ready.
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Relative Something 