Posts Tagged ‘horses’
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.
Horses Run
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Get out and run, they did!
We accomplished some significant steps yesterday, and that allowed us to open up the front field to the 4 horses.
First order of the day was to finish covering the old existing fence on the far side of the field. The type of fence that previously existed around that field, which we kept intact along that back side, has 4″ squares of woven wire. We were told we should cover those to keep a horse from putting a foot through. It took several days, with Elysa’s help, to finally get it hung the full length
, working our hands raw through a variety of weather, running out of material part way, and negotiating the tangle of old growth along the entire length.
It was a major milestone, and key to feeling comfortable opening the space up to the horses.
Before allowing them out there on their own, Cyndie wanted to walk the horses, two at a time, along the inner perimeter of the fence-line to familiarize them with the border. That causes a bit of a stir, because those who are left behind make a big fuss. Cyndie and Elysa took the horses for a walk,
and I stayed behind to watch each of the remaining pairs calling out to their missing herd members.
The final thing we did prior to letting the four of them out together was to energize the electric fence. It wasn’t immediately needed while they were initially in the paddocks, but we want them to learn to respect our fences, especially around the front field, so this was the time to finally turn it on.
They didn’t go near it while we were around, so we haven’t witnessed whether they have received their first lesson or not. When the gate to the big field was opened, they stepped out a short distance and immediately began to graze the new territory. It was a little anticlimactic.
Slowly, they increased their range of movement out there, eventually getting out of sight over the hill. My curiosity got the best of me and I headed up the hill with my camera to look for them. They were doing great, grazing in some really lush grass. As I lifted my camera to capture the moment, they spotted me and came running. It was kind of funny, looking as if they thought they weren’t supposed to be there, or something.
As I walked back into the paddock, they decided to follow me, so we closed the gate behind them and I went back to finishing the chore of wrapping the trunks of the two trees there, so they won’t chew them up.
At the end of the day, they seemed pretty happy with their situation here, having gotten a taste of that grass they knew was on the other side of their paddock fence.
Needless to say, we are pretty happy, too.
Important Play
On the fourth day of adjusting to their new home, the horses appear to be working on their pecking order. Well, three of them seem to be working on it, as Legacy stands by, unfazed by their activity. His leadership is not being challenged. The rest of the group had us laughing at their game of following each other in circles around the water trough, each one trying to influence the other.
Elysa and I were describing to Cyndie how Hunter seemed to be seriously focused on keeping Dezirea away from anything she wanted. First, the ears pull back, then strategic positioning of increasing threat. Cyndie explained how their exercising roles of dominance are a form of emergency response drill. Just like we practice fire drills, they are practicing to see who can drive others from harm’s way, regardless their interest in going.
If there is a threat, a leader needs to move the herd, even when they are unaware of potential harm and would rather just eat. By showing another horse that it can be controlled, no matter what, dominance can be established and a leader will earn its role.
Now that the horses are becoming comfortable with their surroundings here, they are able to play around with the hierarchy of their herd. It looks playful at times, and like serious business, at others. It is important play that establishes who can be trusted to take necessary action when the time calls for it, which allows the rest of the group to feel at ease and commence with their grazing.
Today, we intend to put them out in the big field for the first time. Since it has been so dry the second half of the summer, we didn’t get enough growth to justify a second cutting, so we will graze the horses out there to let them eat the grass that did grow. It will also give them a chance to be out in open space, and increase their familiarity with their new location.
No doubt, it will also give them a chance to hold some emergency response drills, practicing the leadership roles they appear to be experimenting with since they moved to our place.
Main Attraction
In an instant, the horses transform the atmosphere of our space here, and immediately become the main attraction. That’s as it should be. For months it has felt strange to pull up the driveway and see all the infrastructure in place for horses, but not any animals. Now we have the icing on our cake, and the horses have quickly created a pull that brought our first group from the Cities out to meet them.
Cyndie’s niece, Althea, brought friends, and the horses happily soaked up the affection.
It is nice to see all the attention that the horses command takes nothing away from the rest of our paradise here. Indeed, they add to it. One of the first-time guests repeated wonderment over the beauty of our space. Yes, the horses truly do make this special place even more spectacular than it already was.
It is an honor to be tending it, and a joy to behold.
Welcome to Wintervale Ranch.
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.
Got Fertilizer?
It didn’t take long for Cyndie to step in it. The horses are here!
What an amazing experience. We enjoyed a flawless delivery. The herd quickly adjusted to their new home and went right to grazing. What a joy to behold. These 4 make a perfect group. Since there was no reason to break them up, we decided to remove the gate between the two paddocks and let them have full access to both.
The horses are Arabians. We have two mares and two geldings. Dezirea was a brood mare. Cayenne is her daughter, but is larger in size. (I’m told the father was a big horse.) Hunter is a gelding who grew up with 
Cayenne. He got kicked in the head when he was born. He is a bit slow, as in, it takes him longer to learn things, but he is a gentle giant. Those three are all chestnuts. Dezirea has one white knee-high sock. Hunter has one white anklet. Cayenne has no socks. The remaining horse is Legacy, and he is a gray. He is the leader of the herd.
For the most part, they appeared very relaxed with their situation, but it was apparent that they were on alert to sounds or actions. They were very easy to startle.
After a short time of just letting them graze freely, we used carrots to entice them to come check out the automatic waterer. When it would turn on to refill, they would jump back in surprise, but it didn’t take long at all before they accepted it as a harmless noise.
When we went to check on them after dinner, in the early evening darkness, we found them up near the barn overhang. They seemed to be hovering there, but not really coming in under the roof. We turned on a light and stepped out to see them, and discovered they were hesitant to 
step on the strip of rocks that protect the drip-line of the roof. Our presence seemed to give them strength, and Legacy crossed the barrier. Once he did that, they all followed suit.
It was hard to say goodnight at the end of the day.
And what a day it was.
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Great Anticipation
Today is the day. After years of preparation, starting way back when we hatched this crazy scheme, we will finally have horses. It is the culmination of our vision, and it is the first step into a new normal. What an amazing change this is from our years back in Eden Prairie.
It should be a busy day today. First thing in the morning, I am expecting a visit from a log home professional who will quote the job of sealing up our home and preserving the logs for the coming winter season. After that, we will be watching for friends coming to visit, the delivery of bales of hay, and then the arrival of our herd of horses –not necessarily in that order.
We’ve got some things to do yet, prior to their arrival, so we hope to get one or two chores accomplished before we enter the phase of just standing and staring, which I expect will consume us for the remainder of the day.
I hope they will be happy with the grass they find here. They are coming from fields that have been over-grazed, so our long, thick grass will be a significant change. I also hope I will remember what I learned at the Epona seminar I attended with Cyndie in Arizona.
“Breathe.”
I will remember to breathe.
Final Preparations
I took advantage of being home on Monday and whittled away at the list of things we want done before the horses arrive. Cyndie had to work, so I was left to choosing tasks that I could accomplish alone. One of the big ones for me was to finish preparing the area we have set aside for manure management (just in case the 4 horses happen to produce any manure).
We selected a site last fall, and did some initial clearing. At the time, it seemed like the perfect location, if only we could remove some stumps. We cut into the bigger of two that were right in front, to see if it might come out with minor effort. It didn’t. Elysa’s friend, Anne, volunteered to work on it, because cutting out a stump appealed to her. She made great progress at the time, cutting through all the roots around the perimeter, but the stump held fast.
Early in spring, when Cyndie initially began cleaning out the stalls in the barn, the old sawdust and wood chips got dumped behind and beside the stumps. We ended up ignoring the area for most of the summer, and it grew tall with weeds and some grass. Yesterday, I brought out the chainsaw and made all the stumps disappear, both front and rear (sorry, Anne). Now we are set to dump manure from the front side, and remove it from the back side.
It is another one of our visions realized.
It will be easy to access the manure composting area off the new road that comes around the back side of the barn. Turning around from the view of the [future] manure pile, I took a picture of what the back side of the barn looks like.
We’ve got some spare gates remaining, which will likely get used in a next phase of fencing, whenever that occurs. Speaking of gates, my next project was getting chains installed to latch all the gates in the paddocks. That was definitely a priority to be done before the horses arrive.
When Cyndie got home, she helped to roll some big rocks into the bucket of the diesel tractor. The semi driver scouting our layout said he could back down toward the barn if the rocks weren’t there. We’d been meaning to move them ever since they were dropped on that spot at the start of our re-landscaping project, so we promised him they would be gone.
Now the rocks are back by the labyrinth.
In the evening, before we turned out the lights and closed up the barn, we turned on the electric fence to confirm everything was in working order, and then proclaimed the place ready for horses.
Today, I will mount some hardware to create tie-points where Cyndie wants them, to secure horses during saddling or other tasks. I will pick up some grain from the feed store. I will bring our collection of pallets down to the hay shed, to place under the bales of hay.
We are one day away from the planned arrival.
Counting Down
Okay, I’ll finally admit it. We are now counting down the days until horses arrive here. I have purposely avoided writing about it, in case something interferes with the plan, but now we are close enough that I am breaking my self-imposed silence on the subject. Four Arabian horses have been identified, two mares and two geldings. This fact woke me in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep until after I made a list of all the things that were flashing into my mind that remain to be done.
I think I came up with a list of 12 items. After both Cyndie and I were up and talking in the morning, the list grew to 31 things to be done. Yikes! On second review, I was able to convince her that many of the tasks could wait until after the horses arrive, but there are still more things than can probably be accomplished. We’ll just have to prioritize.
Yesterday was a beautiful day to get a lot done, but we struggled with hitting our high gear. We knocked off some things that were on our list, but not the one that will take the most time, which is unfortunate, because time is now in short supply. It was a beautiful day, sunny, breezy, and the temperature was perfectly comfortable. There was no reason we shouldn’t have gotten a lot done, until our first visitor of the day arrived.
George, from our neighboring CSA farm came over by horse-drawn wagon to deliver this month’s share of meat and eggs. We had a wonderful and valuable chat, but it extended well into time we can barely afford. It is a tough thing to balance, because on the one hand, such interactions are priceless. It is very close to being the very essence of living in a rural setting like we do now. On the other hand, it keeps us from finishing what we start.
Normally, it wouldn’t be such a challenge, but yesterday, it happened twice. The second time it turned out to be the person who will be delivering a semi-load of hay with the horses. He was scouting the route to our property and wanted to check the layout of our buildings and driveway in order to be prepared. He turned out to be another very talkative person, full of knowledge about things pertinent to our endeavors here. Another priceless meeting and exchange that we are blessed to receive, but which knocks us off our list of tasks we want to get done. This took us into the dinner hour, and standing in the cool evening breeze brought on a chill that had both Cyndie and me happy to call it a day.
We ended up building the first fire of the season in our fireplace and Cyndie made soup and heated some french bread for our meal. More things to love about September.
That, and the pending arrival of horses…
More Fence
Yesterday, our fence crew pounded the last posts for the paddocks, and put up a lot of boards. After boards, they will mount one line of wire along the top, which will be able to be electrified. This will discourage horses from chewing on the wood of the fence. Next, they will attach gates, and then complete the installation of the automatic waterer, and we will be out of excuses for not having horses here.
I guess it is time to take care of all the little details we have neglected to worry about until after the fact.
This afternoon, Cyndie is expecting a visit from a person with the local extension service who will review our situation and offer advice on best practices and available resources to support our efforts here. It’s another step in our effort to learn more about what we have gotten ourselves into, even as we forge ahead with plans to establish the infrastructure from which we will operate.
We have stumbled here and there, seeming to get ahead of ourselves sometimes, while allowing a few important details to fade into the background, but the progress we make is part of the way Cyndie works. It gets us moving toward our goal, and forces us to learn on the fly. It creates a bit of mental stress for me, but I can accept it, because if it were up to me, I think we’d be stuck before we even started.
I’d be hung up trying to answer the practically unanswerable questions, trying so hard to avoid a misstep that I’d end up not taking any at all.
Here’s to Cyndie’s brilliant capacity to bring our dreams to life, and our amazing progress thus far!
Relative Something 