Posts Tagged ‘horse chores’
Minor Inconvenience
The cold weather arrived as predicted to grasp us in its firm grip. I suppose it is a sign of my lifetime of exposure to the harshness of season-long snow and cold that this cold snap has barely presented a minor inconvenience to my normal routine.
I’ve complained in the past about growing less and less patient with my slow and laborious effort of donning what I have taken to calling my “spacesuit” before heading out to do chores. The tedious struggle is well worth it though because the crazy cold hasn’t been a problem for me in terms of comfort.
I need to pay attention to the minutes Asher is out because the pads of his paws are vulnerable to the cryogenic extremes. Other than that, he shows no sign of having any problems with the cold.
The horses look to be coping just fine. Breakfast time almost feels warm under the cover provided by the overhang and bathed in the rays of sunlight beaming in during the morning meal.
The main challenge at feeding time in extreme cold is managing the knots on the hay bags. That and scraping away frozen pigeon droppings on the placemats under their feed buckets.
Yesterday, Asher and I even made a successful outing in the car, and the cold didn’t break the seal on any of the tires. He had a grooming appointment in Baldwin that Cyndie usually drives him to, but since she is being a good patient and staying indoors, I became the chauffeur.
I had forgotten that Cyndie mentioned there are cats roaming loose at the dog grooming place. I was taken by surprise when I noticed Asher nose to nose with a big long-haired cat just inside the door. He looked mildly curious but not the least bit threatening as I tensed up and probably triggered him to be more concerned than he initially was.
Luckily, the check-in process happened so fast, there wasn’t time for any problem to erupt.
On a cold day when my preference would be to stay snuggled in and avoid any potential for unexpected driving issues, I was sent out a second time at dusk to pick up a change of meds for treating Cyndie’s pneumonia. She developed a rash from the first prescription.
We are hoping that was just a minor inconvenience on her road to a full recovery.
My trusty car performed well despite the deep freeze. In the end, the most difficult part of the whole day for me was working through the checklist of getting myself in and out of my spacesuit every time I had to walk Asher or do the horse chores.
Remember the old saying, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
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Remembering Winter
It has been a couple of years since we’ve had horses over the months of freezing temperatures and blowing snow. I’m finding it a little comical that neither Cyndie nor I remember how we handled the nuances of our barn chores during the winter months.
It’s not difficult to make it up as we go along, except for the nagging knowledge that we already had a smoothly functioning routine once before. Seems like we shouldn’t have to start anew.
Yesterday, we found the waterer was freezing up, leading me to believe one or more of the heating elements are failing. At least that is a new problem because we never needed to worry about that before.
Manure management is a little wobbly. Sometimes, frozen poop is easier to scoop up. A lot of other times it isn’t. I keep telling Cyndie we used to leave it all in place until spring but she doesn’t remember it that way. The difference, I believe, is that we haven’t received much snow yet and we can still roll the wheelbarrow around. She’ll be happy to leave it all when/if real snow begins to accumulate.
I’ve reminded Cyndie that we plowed a path from the barn to the compost area and only scooped under the overhang and in the stalls over winter. Since we don’t have any snow yet, the obvious limitations aren’t there.
I’m already trying to recall my routine of resuming active composting after winter releases its grip. Those of you who keep dogs in your backyard in places where snow covers the ground for months know what the ground looks like when the snow first melts. Multiply that mental image by the volume four horses produce.
We are getting hit with seriously cold temperatures and aggressive winter winds already. The unknown element of snow accumulation remains to be revealed in the weeks ahead.
I’m waiting to find out if this will turn out to be a winter like the snowy ones I remember most from the recent past.
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Well, Hello
Here’s the thing, I was home alone last night, tending to chores while Cyndie was out. I had finished feeding and cleaning up after the horses, and walked Delilah, but the chickens weren’t quite ready to turn in for the night. It was another beautiful evening, so I suppose they were taking full advantage of it.
After killing a few minutes back in the house with dog and cat, I noticed it was probably dark enough to go close the chicken door. It is such a brief trip, I chose to leave Delilah inside, but did tuck my headlamp in a pocket, just in case it was too dark inside the coop to easily do a head count.
It wasn’t too dark, and I could see that the one Wyandotte that chose to perch against the wall above the window (well above all the others on the roost) just so happened to be the hen missing head feathers. A possible clue that something is setting her apart from the others. Whether it’s her choice or theirs, we don’t yet know.
Anyway, this is beside the point. I didn’t need the headlamp. Well, not until later. After dinner, I wanted to work on one of my creative projects, and noticed my headlamp wasn’t in the drawer where I keep it.
Who took my headlamp?
Oh, yeah, that was me. I had put it in my pocket when I went out to close the coop. But then, why wasn’t it still in my pocket?
This time, I decided to let Delilah come with me. I was guessing the lamp had fallen out of my pocket on the run down to the coop. With a different flashlight in hand, we set out to backtrack my route.
While Delilah mostly obscured my view of the trail, I staggered to keep up with her while scanning the path as best I could. As we got close to the coop, it became obvious that Delilah wasn’t just in her normal rush, she was frantically straining against the leash to get at something.
When I looked up to see what she was after, two little red dots were reflecting the beam of my flashlight right back at me.
Delilah was right in front of it at this point, and I suddenly had to juggle the dang flashlight and her leash to reel her back toward me. The critter just sat, staring. It looked to be about cat-sized, but it seemed odd to me that it hadn’t executed a mad dash in the face of Delilah’s rather threatening level of interest.
Despite our canine’s freaky level of urgency to be granted access, I successfully clipped the locked leash to a tree so that I could make a solo approach for identification.
Well, hello possum.
It stared intensely at Delilah, not up toward me as I stood right in front of it, beside the front door of the chicken coop.
It likely showed up to scrounge the bounty of chicken food off the ground that the hens kick out of the pan we set out during the day.
I got all growly and menacing and the pest finally turned and skittered into the underbrush.
Shortly afterward, I located my headlamp in the snow and everyone lived happily throughout the rest of the night.
No pics of the adventures in the darkness, but this is the lovely face of our wee one who joined me when I crawled into bed at my bewitching hour:
Well, hello there Pequenita!
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Relative Something 