Posts Tagged ‘horses’
Running Hot
With the cooler mornings lately, I don’t need to use a temperature probe; I’m getting visible evidence that the manure is actively composting.
It looks like there is a fire burning in there. By using the pallets to hold the piles into a cube shape, it’s pretty easy to get the manure to reach or even exceed the optimal composting temperature. When it starts getting too hot, I stir it up to bring the middle of the pile up to the top, and that calms things down a bit.
At this accelerated rate of composting, I need to move the pallets to a new spot after just a few days and toss the entire pile back in again because it gets too dense and dry, which interrupts the process. The outer six inches don’t compost, so stirring it up again adds air and mixes the edges back into the active middle.
The mares do a great job of making sure we never run out of raw ingredients for our compost operation.
In the afternoon, while I was waiting for the horses to finish all the feed in their buckets, I took Asher into the woods where I wanted to cut up a small tree that had fallen across one of our trails. He didn’t show up by the time I had finished, so I had to backtrack to find what was occupying him.
I’ve seen this drill many times before. He could smell critters inside a hollow, dead stump. With no need to interrupt his fun, I stood back and watched him work. He’d already been at it the whole time I was cutting up the fallen tree. To help him, I pushed the stump over, giving him full access to both ends.
Then, as he was busy on the top end, a big mouse zipped out the bottom and scampered up the trunk of the tree visible in the picture at Asher’s hip. He completely missed it. Unfortunately, the lack of a mouse didn’t end Asher’s passion for trying to get inside that stump. When my patience ran out, I called him off the stump to join me in returning to the barn to bring in the empty feed buckets.
It’s just Asher and me for the weekend, as Cyndie is up at the lake with friends. This means John will be having the sound on for weekend sports broadcasts without irritating anyone else in the household! Yee-haw!
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Big Change
Things have changed dramatically from too dry and dusty to nicely soaked after two days of a mix of occasional rain and constant drizzle. It was just cool enough that Cyndie chose to put a rain cover on Mia, as she rarely receives a gracious welcome from the other horses who shelter under the overhang.
Since the horses were showing little interest in walking out into the rain to get a drink from the waterer, we provided some temporary buckets near each placemat. It’s interesting to see how often they choose to dip their snouts in the bucket while eating when it’s convenient. Has us thinking we should wet all their food, not just Swings’. She has been getting softened servings as the eldest mare because she has lost some teeth in her advanced years.
The muddy slurry of lime screenings is almost as annoying to navigate and poop-scoop as the overly dusty conditions. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have some complaint to make about the conditions. Hey, I’m just reporting what I see.
Cyndie made use of the inclement weather to take care of some overdue cleaning of stencils under the entry to the shop door while Asher and I stood watch, occasionally handing her something that I thought might work better for her task.
There wasn’t much else to do in the soaking wet conditions. I ended up doing some rudimentary sweeping of the concrete shop floor.
Yesterday, I resorted to watching college football on television while Cyndie ventured to Minneapolis to add all the clutter she had scrounged from our basement to the yard sale that our friends, Pam and John, hold annually.
The sun is making a re-appearance this morning, and all the growing things look really happy about the return of hydration.
In just a few days, we have experienced a big change. Here’s hoping we don’t need to swing to such extremes every time a new weather system takes hold. For today, we are blessed with a pretty reasonable balance. We will be sure to appreciate it for as long as it lasts.
Maybe the next weather complaint I come up with in the future will be about how perfect it has been for such a long, long time.
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Fresh Trim
The mares got professional attention on their hooves yesterday, and they all look pretty darn sharp now as a result. It doesn’t take long for their hooves to begin looking really ragged from stomping around on the dusty, dry lime-screenings surface under the overhang and the drought-worsened, rock-hard clay ground in the paddocks and fields.
One of the reasons we put the sleeves on their legs is to protect them from fly bites that cause them to stomp their feet in reaction. Repeated stomping contributes to the chipping. The dry conditions don’t help much, either. Cyndie regularly paints a conditioner on Light’s front hooves to help reduce the cracking she is prone to.
We were really pleased to see that Light showed little resistance to standing patiently for the farrier. Historically, she has been the least cooperative about having work done on her feet. It’s incredibly rewarding for us whenever she demonstrates full acceptance of the process.
Things were going so well that I decided to wander over to the compost area and tend to the piles while the other three got trimmed. Cyndie reported that they all behaved well and passed hoof inspections problem-free. We’re good for another month and a half. That’s a great feeling.
This Old Horse also dropped off a sample batch of grass hay bales that look much better in quality than the dregs we have left from the last large delivery. We’re hoping there will be more from where these came from when we get the next winter’s-worth shipment later in the year.
As evening drew near, Cyndie and Asher found the horses grazing at the far end of the hay field near the road.
They give our place such a regal ambiance, simply by their presence. It’s such an honor to be able to provide them with a healthy place to spend their retirement. The many blessings definitely go both ways, from us to them and from them to us.
There’s a lot of love happening here every day.
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No Sooner
No sooner had I returned to my precious home and I’m spending a night in Victoria, MN, at Cyndie’s brother’s house. It made the most logistical sense. After getting the majority of the mowing done on my first day home, I spent yesterday morning trying to clean my bike and camping gear before it was time to dash to the Cities for a grand birthday event planned by Cyndie and her siblings for their mom.
They rarely do anything small, so the guest list was no less than 100 for an afternoon soirée that included a live band and enough appetizers to feed more than twice the revelers in attendance. This morning, a family brunch is occurring in Victoria, so I left my car in Bloomington, MN, to travel with Cyndie (and all the foodstuffs she prepared in advance) to sleep at her brother’s house.
There was a momentary panic last night when the cooler with the egg bake and caramel rolls looked like my tent in the flash flood due to melted ice, but it appears the water damage was limited to the packaging and not the food.
The horses are being tended to by one of our trusty hires from the nearby University of Wisconsin, River Falls, for last night’s and this morning’s feedings. Asher has been granted his own retreat at his trainer’s kennel to give Cyndie one less thing to manage around the weekend events.
I’m feeling a little like a soldier trying to return to the world. My mind is still with my four comrades entrenched in the struggles to survive harsh elements in an unfamiliar place. It’s a different frame of reference when you have to pedal your way in extreme heat for extended miles to reach a destination.
Finding myself suddenly in a bustling social situation of ease and luxury feels rather incongruent.
Standing among the horses and rubbing up against them yesterday morning took a lot less effort.
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Happily Home
Gee, but it’s good to be back home. First of all, our dew point temperature is significantly lower than it was in Missouri. It actually feels like September here, with the cool evening, warm afternoon, brisk wind, and lowering angle of sunlight yesterday creating a distinct feeling of autumn. The rain that fell here while I was riding the Katy Trail has greened things up considerably.
Cyndie captured this gorgeous shot of the horses backlit by the twilight sky.
Now that’s a field that looks worth grazing.
I spotted one of her sunflowers with an echo of the actual sun in the background.
The wind picked up significantly in the afternoon while I was mowing. The north loop trail was clear when I gave it a clean cut, but after lunch, I found it blocked by a fallen tree.
It was a dead pine tree that we had let a grapevine climb, so no big loss as far as we are concerned.
Sometimes, the beauty of Wintervale causes me to question why I ever leave.
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Scattered Thunder
We haven’t solved the drought, but we got a little more relief yesterday from scattered thunderstorms rolling through. A fresh batch of heavy rain showed up right as we were heading out to feed the horses. The roar on the metal roof is so loud it becomes hard to hear each other talk. The intensity of the downpour became a little unsettling to the horses. Mia didn’t want to eat in her usual spot and kept retreating to the other side where Swings and Light were.
When a close lightning strike hit, the clap of thunder made all four of them jump and scatter for a few seconds before settling back down. Throughout much of the day, the sky shifted between bright sun and dark clouds. It seemed like thunder was happening around us regardless of what the sky looked like.
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I needed to keep looking up the radar view on my phone to see whether I should be concerned or not. It ended up being mostly not.
Meanwhile, I received notice of an extreme heat warning in Missouri, where my friends and I will be riding the Katy Trail for a week.
I can’t help feeling like all the warming planet impacts that are simultaneously playing out should be catching more people’s attention than it seems they are.
Fossil Fuel use continues unabated. It’s heartbreaking. We will need to get creative about finding a way to ride in these conditions. I sure wish we had a team car like the professional racers do, so we could get handed blocks of ice to tuck into the backs of our jerseys.
Maybe we’ll get lucky, and the high heat will trigger some scattered thunder to give us something else to cope with on this adventure.
I’m planning to post from my phone for the week (if it doesn’t melt), so don’t be surprised if you find little more than a picture a day here for the next 7 days.
Bon Voyage!
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Trailer Loads
We resumed moving trailer loads of composted manure to the high spot of the hay field yesterday. We got to this just one day after an overnight thunderstorm would have soaked it in nicely. Better late than never. We received a whopping quarter of an inch Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.
It was nice that the horses came out to graze while we were working in the field. It’s rewarding to have them calmly accept most any project we do that infringes on their space or disturbs the peace of their surroundings.
Being free to open gates and drive inside their territory without them threatening to take advantage of an opportunity to get beyond their fence line makes our activity that much easier.
Coincidentally, Cyndie discovered that neither of us had chained the barn gates earlier; an oversight that could have let them escape through the barn. We leave barn doors open all day for airflow, although there is a hanging screen that covers each opening and keeps pigeons out.
No harm, no foul, as they say, but mistakes like that trigger a chill down the spine when we discover them. On the plus side, it renews our vigilance for quite some time afterward.
Maybe Swings was aware the gate wasn’t chained. When we showed up to serve dinner, she was giving Mix the business in a most demonstrative way, pinning her ears and backing up toward Mix with an unusual intensity and duration. She absolutely would not let Mix get near the alleyway between the two sides under the roof of the overhang.
The alleyway is where the unchained gate was. Mix is the one most notorious for nosing that gate open while I am doing the housekeeping and Cyndie is filling feed buckets. Maybe? Although, I don’t know why Swings would have a problem with them getting out. Maybe she doesn’t want to jeopardize a good thing.
I eventually opened a gate between the paddocks that is beyond the waterer and coaxed Mix to come around the long way to get over to her side for feeding. At that point, the four horses stayed put and focused on food.
Earlier in the afternoon, Cyndie and I went out and shook down as many ripe plums as we could from the wild American Plum trees populating the brush and bramble along our northern property line. By dinnertime, Cyndie had canned 10 jars of plum jam. I helped pit the olive-sized fruit these trees produce.
It was an extreme exercise of tolerance for me to allow my hands to become covered with squished fruit, which meant the knife handle was a mess and all my sensibilities were tripped well beyond my usual comfortable mode of operating. Yucky! Somehow, I survived.
Today, Cyndie will be heading to pick up her mom to drive to the lake for a long weekend. I leave tomorrow to begin a week of biking and camping in Missouri. No more trailer loads will be moved in the foreseeable future.
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Special Visit
Despite the prolonged drought, some of our flowering plants continue to put on a show and attract hummingbirds.
The 10-day forecast shows no sign of precipitation to ease the suffering of plants that are clinging to life. I think most of them have simply started their transitions toward the end of their growing season.
Even though our grounds look far short of their best, I enjoyed the pleasure of hosting a visit from a couple of my Eden Prairie classmates, Jodi and Kelly, yesterday. (Cyndie is up at the lake with a friend for a couple of days.) This was the first time Kelly had been here. It was a great chance for me to notice through Kelly’s eyes how many different things we’ve done to enhance the property over the years.
As always, the precious energy of Wintervale comes alive whenever people visit to experience the natural beauty of our sloped terrain, forest trails, and open fields.
It doesn’t hurt to have the eye-catching labyrinth and mystical spirits of four beautiful Thoroughbred mares on top of everything else special about our place.
Light and Mix were mostly well-behaved, but not the least bit bashful about insisting they deserved endless carrot bites from our guests. Swings stood back for the most part, not being as interested in trying to chew a carrot. I held a soft treat for her that I was able to serve up in a fleeting moment as she moved past when they all rearranged positions.
Mia removed herself from the area for much of our visit, then eventually made her way in, swinging her head up and down the whole way. She had a cloud of flies bothering her, so I grabbed her a fly mask, and that seemed to help. She even came close enough to receive some carrots, as well.
I expect that none of you will be surprised that I made sure to show off my composting area, but in my defence, Kelly brought up the topic first!
We were blessed with a gorgeous summer day, and the opportunity to spend some casual time with lifelong friends made for a really fine afternoon. I appreciated that they were willing to make the trip. It’s usually an hour-long drive minimum from the Twin Cities, and that can be perceived both as a long trip and as not so bad. Usually, after people have done it, they report the drive is worth it.
Cyndie and I have gotten so used to it that the distance seems perfectly reasonable to us. Still, I respect those who may not be inclined to drive so far, but on occasion do so for our sake.
Sharing our sanctuary with others is as rewarding for me (and Cyndie) as it is for the people who visit. I strongly believe that the horses and Asher tend to agree.
Great minds think alike, you know.
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Tiny Bites
We took a stab at digging into the largest pile of unturned manure to loosen it up for transport to the hay field. At this point, it looks a little pathetic due to the small amounts I’m moving at a time with the trailer behind the ATV. We’re just taking tiny bites of a much bigger pie than our trailer can carry.
We ran three loads before it was time to quit and clean up for a dinner date with our friends, the Wilkuses. I was filling the trailer and driving up to the high point of the hay field, where Cyndie helped empty it, staying to spread the goods while I returned to the compost area to fill the trailer again. We have enough to eventually cover a large percentage of that highest portion of the field. Then we hope the next rain will soak nutrients in and/or run them downhill in every direction.
There was a chance of some rain last night, but I didn’t hear anything. We have another shot at it this afternoon. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Some less-desirable critters have been taking tiny bites of leaves around the grounds. Anybody else facing voracious Japanese beetles in their gardens?
Cyndie read that a local flower gardener had taken to hand-picking them off her plants and exterminating them. I watched my partner-in-crime practice similar lethal justice to test its effectiveness. I fear their numbers are too great to make a dent in them that way, since they are spread out all over the place.
Between my manure-spreading exercise and the Japanese beetle infestation, we are dealing with imperfect-scale operations.
Last night, the horses were finally taking tiny bites of their own out on the freshly cut hay field.
They have been spending the majority of their days napping on their feet under the barn overhang, so it was a bit of a thrill when we got home after dinner and found them out there on the grass.
If anyone is interested in a fun-energy neighborhood pub on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, we were in Afton at The Lumberyard Pub. It was a great evening to be on their patio. Great service, good menu options, perfect pub-quality food.
It was also nice to catch up with Barb & Mike. The four of us shared tiny bites [as in, snippets] of our latest life adventures (if I can get away with abusing that title phrase one too many times) and caught up on family news. I am officially jealous of their new metal roof on the cabin.
For the record, I took too many not-so-tiny bites of my Crispy Chicken Caesar Wrap and have no one but myself to blame for my middle beginning to expand beyond my comfort zone. I’m afraid my caloric intake has been exceeding my calorie burn for too many weeks in a row.
Will our hero muster the commitment to reverse the trend starting today? Stay tuned to find out. We all know that weight reduction is a long, slow process. “Smaller portions” would be a good mantra for me to start with if I’m serious about doing something about the situation. That, and maybe… smaller bites.
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Reunion Tales
Now that I’ve had a whole day of not going anywhere, life feels faintly familiar to the norm to which I have grown accustomed. Cyndie drove to the cities to visit her mom, so I had a quiet day with Asher. We went for a walk after breakfast and then took a nap when we got back to the house. It’s going to take me a couple of days to pay back the sleep debts I accrued last weekend.
The highlight for today is going to be a visit from two of Cyndie’s classmates who heard plenty of stories about our property. I wish we could host all the people who show a sense of wonder and interest when we describe our place. It is rarely a convenient opportunity for most people, so we are thrilled that this particular time it appears to have worked out just a couple of days later.
I got permission to share a story of Cyndie’s from an interaction at her class reunion. She was looking forward to talking with a guy whom she remembered had poked fun at her buck-tooth and thick-glasses appearance when they were young. The memory had always seemed curious to her because the guy was the only other particularly noticeably buck-toothed, thick-glasses kid in her year.
Turns out that it wasn’t him. At least, he has no recollection of it and doesn’t think he would’ve ever done that. Now Cyndie is questioning her memory. Was it someone else teasing both of them, and she mistakenly placed it on the other victim? We’ll probably never know.
The eventual outcome is the best of results. The two of them ended up having a wonderful exchange and quickly bonded in their shared experience. I might add that he turned into as good-looking a guy as Cyndie did into a beautiful woman. They might not have even talked if it weren’t for this mysterious memory.
Happy surprises like this are one of several reasons I am a big fan of reunions.
I enjoyed reuniting with the horses yesterday. They don’t offer up grandiose gestures of being happy to have us return after several days’ absence like dogs do. Asher doesn’t hide much with that wagging tail, licking kisses, and leaning into us for scritches. No, the horses are much more subdued in their acknowledgment.
Swings just stood stationary when I put my face to her nose to exchange breath and stroke her neck. Staying put was her way of telling me she was happy to see me.
The amount of food I found spilled beside her bucket last evening was more than I’ve seen before. We need to start soaking her food to help her cope with failing teeth. Do they make dentures for animals? [not a serious question]
Moments after I took that picture, Mix moseyed over to eat most of what had been spilled.
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