Posts Tagged ‘farm’
Flowers Show
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Not far behind all the fast growing grass we have around here, flowers are beginning to display their best selves for our delight. Like so many things this spring, it seems like they have just appeared out of nowhere. If we neglect to walk around the house and property for one day, we miss the grand entrance of some plant or another.
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Unfortunately for me, the weeds grow just as fast and get just as tall as some of the desirable flowering plants. I’m never sure which is which, and therefore am unwilling to be very zealous about weeding our landscape.
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The emergence of the flowers is matched closely with the appearance of pestering flying insects, several of which have a taste for blood. While stepping in close to capture the little blossoms on this flowering tree, I fell under attack from a swarm of tiny flying things, a few of which seemed to be driven toward burying themselves in my hair. That’s a joy.
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Speaking of that kind of joy, while working to clear trees from the drainage ditch along our southern border last weekend, I was sure that a mosquito almost large enough to pass for a humming-bird was responsible for the giant welt that swelled and itched when I came in for the night. I showed the welt to Cyndie right away to see what she thought of it. Inconclusive response. It had quickly gotten bigger than any mosquito bite I had ever experienced before.
In a few days, it became painfully obvious that it was not a bug bite. I’m guessing I unknowingly handled some poison ivy down in that ditch, then directly transferred it to my neck when trying to wipe off dripping sweat. The swelling and wide area of reaction is so distinctly different than the usual itchy spots that appear on my skin, I believe it suggests the level of exposure was an order of magnitude higher than my usual experience.
I remembered that my doctor advised I try an antihistamine to control the reaction, before resorting to a steroid prescription. That seems to be working for me, to suppress the swelling and itching, but it doesn’t necessarily shorten the average two weeks duration like steroids will. That’s okay. I dislike the prescription stuff enough to be willing to endure the duration of the process using antihistamines alone for now.
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Latest News
Lest anyone be oblivious to the special significance of this day, let me make it known that June 4th happens to be Cyndie’s birthday! I can’t think of anything more appropriate to give her this year than a new riding saddle. It’s a complicated purchase, so I already told her my idea and she will begin the process of getting the horses measured to see if it will be possible to get one saddle that will fit more than one of our horses.
She has received a few tips on recommended retailers, so we will be visiting a couple of them as soon as we have the measurements. Looks like I better stop dragging my feet about getting the trails in order around here. There are still downed trees in two places obstructing our main perimeter trail through the woods. Just as important, I need to increase the height of clearance throughout all the trails, to make it safe for someone traveling on horseback.
Cyndie reported that the vet said we can start increasing the time we allow the horses to graze freely by a half-hour every other day, up to a max of about 5 hours per day. That’s great news. The horses received good reviews and were given whatever shots were due this time of year. In about a week they will have their feet checked and hooves trimmed by our farrier, neighbor George Walker.
Speaking of George, I stopped by to check on him on my way home from work yesterday, and discovered he was out cutting hay using three of his horses to pull a rig with a sickle bar mower. What a beautiful sight. I pulled over and he gave the horses a break while we chatted about things like the weather, his hay-field, if it was going to rain, how much hay he should cut in case it was going to rain, and whether or not it might rain.
Obviously, the biggest trick to cutting and baling hay is finding enough consecutive dry days to pull it off during the months of May and June when things are growing the fastest.
After that visit, I headed home to do some cutting of my own: I mowed our lawn. The grass was so thick, it looked like I had created windrows for baling!
If you can decipher it in this picture, the pine trees that suffered so much from dryness last fall, followed by the extremely harsh winter, are sprouting new growth, except for one. The one on the left that looks the most rust-colored is the one that tipped over last year. It didn’t survive. Next time I have the chainsaw out down there, he will get cut down.
We are looking forward to seeing the new growth pop open soon, to bring the trees a healthier glow. As you can tell by the image, everything else around them is bursting with green life.
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Take Two
What do you do when you step outside in the morning to discover you have 2.25 inches of water in your rain gauge from overnight storms? We decided it was a good day to transplant some trees.
A few days ago, I noticed a lot of maple trees were growing in the middle area of woods where my foot path to the barn cuts through. They looked to be in surprisingly good condition, considering they are well beneath the canopy of mature trees above, leaving them in shade all day long.
Yesterday, when Cyndie and I stepped out into the soaking wet conditions once again, I suggested it would be a good day to plant trees, pointing out the candidates I had found. She was all in, and soon we were selecting tree after tree, as each consecutive find seemed better than the rest.
If you have been following along, you probably saw my recent exclamation that the tree we transplanted to the middle of our labyrinth was alive. Turns out it was just barely alive, and not doing well enough for our purposes. We had dug that tree out of the ground last fall with a shovel, and the only new growth that appeared this spring was on a couple of sprouts along the lower trunk. There were no leaves budding from any of the branches above.
Photo taken by Cyndie
For our second attempt, I wanted to try pulling the roots of a tree from the ground, digging it up by hand. It is a method we had wonderful success with at our previous home. By saturating the dirt with water, which wasn’t hard at all yesterday since the ground was already saturated, it becomes possible to work the roots free by hand, but it takes a fair amount of patience.
Delilah couldn’t figure out what the heck I was doing, crouched next to that tree for so long, with my hand in that mud puddle. Luckily, she was tied on a leash and unable to get her paws in there to help. She resorted to digging 4 or 5 holes of her own, probably to show me how it’s done.
In time, the tree gets very tippy, and eventually, it pulls all the way out with minimal effort. Prior to that, my hand received quite a workout, trying to remove the thick clay soil that encased the roots, large and small.
Spending that much time getting intimate with the root structure of a tree this size made me aware of something that should serve as a valuable metaphor for the path our lives take. In similar fashion to the way moving water will meander and create rivers with an amazing number of 180° turns, tree roots will often make a U-turn and grow in the opposite direction from which they started.
From above, the sight of a root growing away from the trunk gives the impression it would logically continue in that direction. My probing hand found that wasn’t the case. It becomes apparent that a 180° change in direction is common, and provides strength and stability toward holding the tree upright despite forces that might otherwise bring it down.
How often do people assume the best path for our lives is straight ahead? A reversal of direction seems like a negative thing. I think reversing course, whether forced by circumstance or freely chosen, will more likely contribute to making us stronger and more stable in the long run.
The new transplant is in the ground at the center of our labyrinth, leaves already showing hints of the trauma. Today we are starting over with a second take, watching for signs indicating it is satisfied with its new location and the bright sunshine. No less than we were with the first tree, we are filled with hope that this one will survive.
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Amazing Growth
The growth of tree leaves, grasses, and weeds has been happening at an incredible rate the last few days. We have been experiencing some warm, sunny days after several weeks with plenty of rain, and that seems to be the ticket for massive growth.
During periods of rapid growth like this, it is even more important that we limit the time our horses have to freely graze on the fresh green grass. Yesterday, when I opened the gate leading to the small square of grass we fenced off, Legacy was hesitant about going for it, which caught me by surprise. Usually he is overly anxious to get on that grass. I wondered if he might actually be self-managing his diet. As an older horse, he is more susceptible to ailments caused by eating too much sugary grass.
Cayenne was interested enough to move in from another angle and pass through the gate. The other two chestnuts found themselves stuck behind Legacy, and showed no signs of stepping past his authority.
I began to wonder about Legacy when I spotted him alternating taking weight off his back feet, and decided to ask Cyndie to come out to see what she thought. None of the horses changed position while I was gone to get Cyndie, but when she arrived, Legacy walked right toward her.
After a brief visit, he turned and walked through the open gate. The others followed. I monitored their time and kept it brief, but by the end of the day, none of them showed any hint of a problem, thank goodness.
The rest of my day was spent using the gas-powered trimmer, interspersed with runs to the local auto repair site with our vehicles and my leaky ATV tires.
I cut all of the growth down in the round pen, making it available for immediate use —barring any new rain. Then I knocked down some weeds growing in the grazing area, to keep them from going to seed. I just kept following weeds and eventually made my way back to the labyrinth. Oh. My. God. The growth there is insane. It is so long and thick that I couldn’t have forced the reel mower through it. I resigned myself to clearing the entire length of path using the power trimmer. It took forever.
I finally ran out of gas, as in, with the can totally emptied, with just a short distance left to go to reach the center. We were on the way to town anyway, to pick up cars and repaired ATV tires, so I refilled the gas container and finally finished the chore before we headed in for the night.
With all the amazing growth happening down there, it is now glaringly obvious that the only new leaves popping from the transplanted tree are going to be the ones down on the trunk. No sign of life in any of the branches above. We have decided to try another time with a tree from a slightly different location.
Maybe it was an unconscious way to solidify the decision, but I accidentally tore through the protective paper around the trunk and ripped open the bark on that tree with the trimmer as I was trying to knock back the jungle of growth happening along the path.
I finished the day with a little good luck, though. While killing time waiting for Cyndie to pick me up to shuttle a car back from the repair shop, I successfully hunted down the hitch clip that I had dropped a few days ago. It’s a good thing, too, because if I had waited any longer, it would have been completely lost in the jungle of fast growing grass happening here lately.
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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
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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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Purposeful Problem?
‘Twas the day before Memorial Weekend, and all through the ranch, we are going to try to get things in proper order to allow us to go to the lake for a day. Our daughter, Elysa, will take care of horses on Saturday and Sunday morning, after which, I will come home and she will get to head up to have a day at the lake.
Getting away from home to be with family on a holiday weekend is a valuable thing, but my mind is filled with thoughts of all the things that deserve attention around here, and I am pulled equally toward both.
I tried getting the lawn mowed last night, but in my haste, I rolled too close to a metal cable we had used to tether Delilah, and it became entangled in the blades of the mower. It was a classic case of choosing not to take 30 seconds to stop and climb off so I could move the cable clear of any risk, and ending up taking an hour to struggle with untangling the cable from around the blades. I was forced into disconnecting the mower deck and sliding it out from under the tractor so I could flip it over and remove the blades to get at the cable.
I am my worst enemy. Or, could it possibly have been for a reason? Before the mowing season began this year, I cleaned the mower and sprayed the deck with something to make it easier to remove grass clippings that build up. Since it has been so wet all spring, I have needed to mow through some ill-advised areas, kicking up mud and soaking-wet debris that I knew was creating buildup far worse than what I had scraped off over the winter.
I had tried reaching underneath to pull away the mud and clippings that were sticking, but it seemed pretty ineffective. To do the job thoroughly enough, I really needed to pull the mower out from under the deck and flip it over, but I was hesitant about revisiting the routine of undoing all the clips that would require.
Maybe my decision not to move the cable to a safe spot was a way to get myself to commit to the task of undoing the mower deck. If that’s the case, it’s too bad I still allowed myself to get so riled up about the incident. Ooh, I was mad, cursing a blue streak. However, with the sun about to set, I swiftly dispatched all the clips, easily slid the deck out from under the tractor, removed the tangle of cable, and scraped off all the accumulation.
Everything went back together as easily as it had come off, and I was able to test it by mowing a small area beside the driveway before it got dark for the night. It wasn’t that big a deal. Maybe now I won’t be so hesitant about dismantling it for cleaning next time it needs it.
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Shitty Education
In the time since our horses arrived late last September, we have been stockpiling manure in one primary location. Based on information Cyndie gathered, we roughed out a spot that we guessed would be large enough. That was about as far as we went in terms of a plan of action for manure management.
In my naiveté, I thought we could start piling at the back of the clearing we designated, and just keep dumping new loads toward the front. If it timed out right, we could access the pile from the back to remove old composted manure for use as tree food and fertilizer for Cyndie’s plants. I planned to scoop the front of the pile with the loader on our tractor, to stir and aerate the material, moving the composting manure back and making new space for fresh loads to be dumped in front again.
The more informed method involves an area divided into 3 separate sections. This allows the first pile to become fully composted and ready for use, the middle one to be in process of breaking down, and the last one for dumping fresh manure.
My system didn’t work the way I imagined because our method of dumping full-wheelbarrows ended up filling the designated space all the way to the front in a very short amount of time. Instead of dumping somewhere beyond our designated space, I chose to go up. I created a ramp and we just kept adding fresh manure on top of the previous batches already beginning to break down.
That has led to a pile with layers in varying stages of decomposition. It is obvious our pile shrinks over time, depending on how much new manure is being added, but the two key elements to accelerating the breakdown are the optimal amount of air and moisture, and our pile hasn’t been getting the correct amount of either. Our location is not covered, so I figured we would suffer from too much wetness, but the process of decomposition uses up moisture and will cause dry spots that interrupt decomposition if not stirred.
Yesterday afternoon, after I got home from the day-job, I cut deep into the back of our manure pile for the first time. I wanted to move some material from the pile that was already composting, down to the new location I created by the labyrinth. The impetus for that was our desire to give our newly transplanted tree at the center of the labyrinth a dose of horse manure fertilizer.
Even though the tree is showing signs of new buds along its trunk, there is no indication that the buds at the ends of the branches have any life in them whatsoever. It is really testing my patience.
So, I was able to cut into the main manure pile and get educated about what is going on down below, and I got enough cinder blocks stacked to create the start of a satellite pile where I will be better able to control the rate of composting.
Best of all, it will be conveniently located near the garden of plants that help define the form of our labyrinth path.
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Wet Again
I have another picture for you to compare. On Sunday I posted a picture of the standing water in our paddock, and then yesterday, I posted the improvement visible after a couple of days without rain. Today, you can compare the difference a day —and 2-inches of rain— can make. We are wet, all over again.
Unfortunately, we experienced two different failures that contributed to the amount of water that inundated that large paddock. First, I wasn’t able to reconnect the hose that Legacy pulled off the trough and dragged into the paddock because he had squeezed the threaded end out-of-round. In haste, I grabbed the closest hose at hand, but it was a poor choice. It was one of those new collapsible type hoses, and for this application of draining the tank by gravity, that hose presented too much resistance. On top of that, it wasn’t long enough, so I grabbed another old hose that I figured I wouldn’t miss if it ended up a permanent fixture down there, but the reason I wouldn’t miss it is because it kinks easily. Kink, it did.
The end result was that the water trough beneath the downspout overflowed and poured directly into the paddock.
The second failure was a plug of silt and debris that dammed up my little drainage channel that runs behind the barn. It occurred right at the worst spot for the water to pour out of the channel and run into the most problematic spot of that paddock.
What that means is, all the water from that 2-inches of rain that fell on the barn roof, front and back, ended up pouring right into the paddock. This is the very thing that I established was the first and most important issue we needed to tend to in order to improve the state of our paddocks. We devised some rudimentary systems to prove the concept, and they have been working surprisingly well, up to this point.
I hate to be moping about this, especially in face of news about the level of suffering the people of the Balkans are enduring due to unprecedented flooding there. Our situation is frustrating, but it’s nothing like that. Yet.
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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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Relative Something 