Posts Tagged ‘horses’
Barely Noticed
We knew it was coming, so when snowflakes started to fly, we didn’t make much of a fuss over it. While Cyndie was in the middle of a phone conversation, I noticed her gesturing to direct my attention toward windows. The rain was changing over to sleety flakes.
Not a big deal, but it was enough that I decided to take a picture of the first snow of the season. Then, we got on with some rewarding indoor activities. I cleaned out some drawers of accumulated clothing and successfully took action on several things that have been stored for years and rarely worn anymore.
We were in the closet of winter gear, digging for coats to walk Asher and feed the horses in blowing rain and snow that was strikingly similar to Icelandic conditions. Cyndie decided to sort and give away worthy items discovered in there, and soon, we were on our way to earning a decluttering badge for the day.
The next time we looked out the window, we were surprised that we’d barely noticed how much the snow had intensified.
I thought it was still too warm for us to get any accumulation.
Alas, it was too warm for snow to last very long, and as fast as it arrived, it melted away again. It was a bit surprising to find we collected almost 2” of moisture in the rain gauge by the end of yesterday.
Like she often does, Cyndie found a way to squeeze in some baking between closet cleaning and crafting her latest secret art projects. She made a dozen small loaves of bread –six cranberry orange and six banana nut with chocolate bits.
The house smelled delicious when I woke up from an afternoon nap in the recliner.
Not a bad way to close out the month and usher in something that feels a bit more appropriate for November. Uncharacteristically, all my winter coat options are neatly organized and hanging in the freshly cleaned closet before I actually need to put them to use.
Mia got an early chance to wear her winter coat yesterday after Cyndie found her shivering excessively in the cold rain. Some days, I wish we could just bring Mia up to the house with Asher and us when the other horses are behaving like mean girls to her.
Swings stands under that overhang, warm and dry all day long, Light often by her side. Mix moves in and out a lot and rarely stays dry. Poor Mia barely sneaks her head under to eat bites of hay from a net bag, always ready to retreat if one of the other three decides to claim that space.
The precipitation moved away to the east last night, so all four horses probably headed out into the fields where Mia would be able to claim whatever space away from them she wanted.
We had the heat on and slept snuggly under warm blankets all night, barely noticing how far below freezing the temperature ultimately dropped.
.
.
From Here
There are many days when life around here feels like we should be mentioned in a Prairie Home Companion Lake Wobegon monologue. Oftentimes, that is because nothing particularly noteworthy has transpired. I could start out with, “It’s been a quiet week at ranch Wintervale…”
The sun came up about when we expected. The unseasonably warm weather that is becoming more seasonable every year hung in there to the last minute before a front of clouds and cooler air showed up yesterday afternoon. Cold rain is expected this morning. Last I checked, the conditions didn’t look all that promising for comfortable trick-or-treating tonight.
I miss being able to say that our phones rang off the hook. They buzzed and pinged with dramatically increased frequency from messages related to the election campaigns. I have no idea what any of them were because I instantly report them as spam, block the number, and delete the calls and texts in every instance.
It brings me great pleasure to not look or listen to any of them.
There are a lot of things that I get pleasure out of not doing. Plenty of them would be obvious, like not falling off a cliff. I love it whenever I don’t do that.
I like not picking up after the horses in the fields.
We took some time on Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon to give the horses extra attention. We brought along some carrots, which they seem to like more than the dry processed treats we keep in a cupboard in the barn.
Cyndie believes Mix may be experiencing arthritic pains. The last time the farrier was here, she thought Mix was showing some muscle knots. The farrier doubles as an equine massage provider. A few brief moments of her technique produced a quick response of approving signals from Mix, such as a big release with an audible exhale and dropping her head down.
Mia continues to be the odd horse out. The other three horses are very consistent about keeping her aware she is at the bottom of the herd hierarchy. Her response over the years is to simply spend more time grazing in the fields while the others choose to stand around under the overhang.
Now that we have some chilly rain happening, our concern will be whether they allow her to get under the shelter or not.
If not, we will intervene on her behalf.
That’s the news from here on this final day of October. Happy Halloween to all the little costumed candy seekers and their parents! (I love not taking kids trick-or-treating.)
.
.
Past Sunset
By the time I pushed my tired legs up the driveway toward the house, the sun was already below the horizon. It had been a very long day of unplanned effort, starting with the discovery of a huge tangle in Mix’s tail.
While Mix was eating from her feed bin, Cyndie worked to detangle the dreadlocked knot. I stood and watched for a while but eventually couldn’t resist reaching out to grab a portion and comb away snarls with my fingers.
I was very impressed with how Mix tolerated all the tugging on strands of her tail without complaint. It was easy to interpret this as her understanding we were working to remedy the problem in her tail.
We spent so much time on that tail that Asher was able to set a new record for digging after rodent tunnels in the dirt floor of the barn. This triggered an unplanned goal of moving accumulated debris being stored in there and putting dirt back from where it had been dug.
The project had no formal boundary, so we found ourselves progressing to layers that hadn’t been touched in probably a decade. Once you’ve gone that far, may as well continue to the bitter end.
We pulled out the shop vac and cleaned dusty cobwebs off the walls. I began to worry that all the crap that had been dragged outside created a new dilemma about what to do with it. I didn’t want it all getting piled back inside again.
In the middle of all this, I received a message that my gutter downspout was ready for pickup in Hudson. That was an opportunity I didn’t want to delay and ultimately provided the highlight of my day.
I was hoping to also purchase a piece of angle iron for our fireplace while I was out. The staff at the home improvement store moved my query up three levels of people with knowledge on the subject. Ultimately, I was sent off with ideas but no iron.
Since it didn’t seem like I could buy exactly what I was after from a store like theirs, I decided to act on a whim. There is a very industrial-looking little shop on the highway out of River Falls called “Steel Towne.” I’d driven past this place twice a day during my years commuting to the day-job and always wondered who their customers were.
Found out they serve walk-ins. I pulled in and described the problem I was trying to solve. Five minutes later, I was handed a two-foot piece that cost me $3.00. I left with a whopping sense of elation.
Cyndie had worked non-stop to keep cleaning while I was gone, so I jumped right back into the barn project we didn’t know we were going to do when we woke up that morning.
There are some things that simply got moved to storage in the hay shed or the shop garage, but we agreed to throw out a fair amount of other stuff.
We were getting wobbly-legged at the end and did move several objects back into the middle of the barn temporarily so we could close things up for the night.
As I shuffled toward the house and enjoyed the orange glow in the western sky, I contemplated the gutter downspout project and the fireplace fix, which are actually planned work that is on the agenda for today.
.
.
Leak Repair
The person who installed our horse waterer works for the excavating company that delivers rock and gravel for our needs. Yesterday, we accomplished two goals that have lingered all summer through his delivery of river rock to finish our landscape upgrade and then his replacing a cracked valve in the waterer.
We started our landscape project in the spring and it has dragged on for months. It is very satisfying to finally have the rocks delivered which puts the completion of this project entirely in our control.
When the rocks poured out of the tilted truck bed, they created a cloud of dust so thick I couldn’t see the truck anymore. Their supply of river rocks had sat collecting all that dust for more than a month due to the absence of rain that would normally provide a periodic rinse.
Due to the incredibly wet spring and summer months this year, it wasn’t obvious that the waterer in the paddocks was leaking. With the arrival of our current drought, the ground dried up everywhere except the area around the waterer.
I don’t like knowing that the cracked valve that was found yesterday is probably related to a freezing event (maybe the first time the barn lost power) and has been leaking for half a year.
The Ritchie waterer needed to be disconnected and removed, and water pumped from the hole in order to confirm the cracked valve and replace it.
Of course, like so many projects of this type, the fix required a trip to the hardware store for parts, which prolonged the time the waterer was out of service to the horses.
I had closed gates to keep the horses out of the small paddock while the repair was underway, but they had full access to the fields through the large paddock. When they wandered in from grazing and showed interest in getting a drink, I hustled to provide a large bucket under the overhang that I filled from the spigot in the barn.
The repair was taking much longer than I expected. Taking advantage of the waterer being disassembled, I was able to scour moldy nooks and crannies that were otherwise unreachable, making good use of time while our favorite repairman was off buying parts. I looked up from my scrubbing and found all four horses lingering around the bucket like a bunch of people bellied up to a bar. Cute.
With Asher napping patiently in the barn, I’d spent the entire afternoon until horse feeding time on this project. When the valve had been replaced and the waterer reassembled, my feeling of satisfaction doubled for the day.
Even though it’s sad to see how dry the ground is in most places around here, I’m really looking forward to the wet spot in the paddock finally drying up for the first time all summer.
.
.
Horses Good
It’s been a while since the horses got any airtime on the blog and I’m happy to report they are living large with us as retired thoroughbreds who once raced and then spent time as broodmares. They suffered varying levels of neglect before being rescued and arriving to reside with us in 2021.
Three and a half years later, it looks like they’ve figured out that the routines of their retired lives have become rather predictable and comfortable.
I spotted them napping beneath the dying willow tree in the small paddock a few days ago. This is such a beautiful thing to witness.
When they rest their snout on the ground like Mia can be seen doing in the photo at right, it occasionally results in a snore, which is chuckle-inducing.
I wasn’t hearing anything from them when I approached to take a picture, but I noticed Mix was kicking in her sleep so I switched to recording a video, hoping to catch it.
.
.
Maybe she was dreaming. Eventually, Mix and Mia got up, which provided a good chance for viewers to see what that process looks like.
After that short mid-morning rest, they moseyed out into the hay field to get back to work munching on grass.
It’s a tough life, but they seem to have the hang of it and I’d say they are living a life of retirement luxury these days.
.
.
Light Show
Last night the sky was flashing constantly yet I only heard thunder periodically. When I took Asher out for his last walk of the day, we stopped at the barn to collect feed buckets and close doors for the night. According to weather radar, the storm’s heavy rain was just approaching Minneapolis at the time, but the leading edge of the wall of clouds had already arrived straight overhead.
The horses headed out into the hay field and I wondered if they had an inkling of what was going to happen in an hour or so.
Back in the house, warnings on TV talked about the possibility of hail and to expect a strong gust of wind when the storm arrived. We didn’t get either, thank goodness.
By the time the rain arrived, it was dark outside. I could hear periods of heavy rain falling but couldn’t see much of anything beyond how far the outdoor lights shone.
I expect this morning to be an adventure of discovery as I check rain gauges and survey for fallen branches. That will define a storm’s significance, more than the amount of visible lightning that occurred.
Here’s hoping we came through that batch of threatening weather unscathed.
.
.
Independent Streak
It would be fair to say that each of our four horses demonstrates a bit of an independent streak on occasion, but Mix often stands out from the others for more reasons than just her coloring. She doesn’t seem to need the others’ company as often as they choose to maintain a tight proximity. It came as no surprise to me yesterday when Mix came back to the overhang when the other three ventured out to graze in the hay field.
Since I was lingering to watch from the half-door of the barn, I surmised that Mix might be coming back to check on what I was up to. When she started trying to find a firm edge to rub her muzzle against, I stepped out to see if I could provide some hand scratching to soothe an itch.
She didn’t want my hands on her head but seemed to appreciate my robust scratching everywhere else on her body.
When she’d had enough, Mix moved slowly out of my reach and then moseyed down the slope toward the hay field gate. I continued to lean on the gate in front of me to observe.
At the exit of the paddock, Mix suddenly broke into a run toward the other horses with a dramatic pounding of hooves on the turf. None of the three even flinched.
Arriving with all that energy, Mix trotted around them some, shook her neck, and looked to see if she had inspired any of them to match her excitement.
They continued to basically ignore her.
Mix gave up and lowered her head to join in the grazing.
A short time later I noticed Mix rolling around on her back in the grass. I wasn’t around when they returned from the field but the next time I looked in on them, they were all standing around together in the small paddock.
When I showed up for their second feeding of the day, Mia was the one showing some independence from the herd. She was grazing grass along the outside of the paddock fence while the other three were under the overhang.
It’s never a concern if they are not in the immediate vicinity when we show up to feed them. I busy myself with housekeeping duties beneath the overhang, raking up spilled hay, scooping poop, and sweeping off their placemats. At some point, I turn to find (in this case) Mia standing right next to me. We are always amazed when these thousand-pound beasts demonstrate the ability to close distances swiftly, yet silently and suddenly startle us by showing up at our shoulder without warning.
.
.
Reclaiming Pathway
One place that suffers when we get behind during periods of fast-growing grass is the labyrinth. I tend to leave it until last when trying to mow all the other grass areas. In addition to the front, back, and side of the house, I cut grass beside the shop garage, along both sides of the driveway to the road, between the road and our hay field fence, around the hay shed, around 2 sides of paddock fences, around the perimeter of the back pasture fence, the space in front of the labyrinth, and two pathways: the north loop and the south side of the hay field fence.
When that is done, I roll the push mower down to the labyrinth and remove the grass discharge chute to close the mulching cover. That’s required to fit between the rocks of the labyrinth pathway but it also provides the bonus of eliminating grass clippings.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The grass that the mower can’t reach is beginning to swallow the rocks. At least the pathway becomes clearly evident upon a fresh cut.
We have experimented with different techniques (no hazardous chemicals allowed) for trimming grass and pulling weeds around the rocks but haven’t found anything more effective than the time and labor-intensive hand-cutting/weed pulling. When things are growing at this crazy pace that we’ve been experiencing this summer, we can’t dedicate the time it would require to focus solely on the rocks of the labyrinth for a few days.
Maybe if we didn’t go galivanting off to the lake so often, it would be easier to manage the entire property to the level it deserves. We leave this morning with Cyndie’s mom for another dreamy 4-day getaway to Wildwood. [First World Problems®]
Horse Behavior
Both Cyndie and I have noticed that, for the most part, the horses appear to be ignoring the recently mowed back pasture since I opened that gate. I’m hoping our perception is off and they are spending time out there when we aren’t looking. Still, the amount of manure we find beneath the overhang offers reasonable evidence that they are lingering by the barn more often than not.
It could be they are waiting for the hay field to be opened back up to them instead. It may be available soon if the baling happens today as planned. Then we will be able to open all gates like they are normally granted, giving them full access to go wherever they want, whenever they want.
It won’t surprise me if the back pasture needs a second round of mowing by the time we return home from the lake. I’ve decided we should plan to mow that field regularly since it is obvious there’s no interest in cutting it for baling.
More tractor time!
Sorry, labyrinth. You may be waiting even longer between trimmings.
Don’t worry, though. I’ll still keep the pathway open for you.
.
.
Fields Cut
Finally. When it rains so frequently that you have to wait until the second week of July to cut hay, it makes for some tall growth. We have been anxious to have our fields cut because we don’t want the weeds to mature enough to go to seed.
When I came out to see how the cutting was going, I found the horses milling about along the paddock fence. They appeared to be taking an interest in the goings on.
I spotted the red Jolly Ball that was missing from the paddocks. The mower rolled over it and left a little of the orb visible. We’ve rarely seen the horses play with it so it was a surprise to imagine they had carried it out into the field. Either they did or some other animal suddenly took an interest in it.
We left the double gates open to the back pasture in hopes the farmer might cut and bale that field too, but he didn’t take the bait. Last year they told me that area was too small for his rig to be efficient. When he finished cutting the hay field yesterday and drove away without hesitation, I knew I would need to cut that back pasture myself.
So, I did. As soon as he left I hooked the brush cutter mower to the Ford New Holland diesel tractor and knocked down everything the other guy skipped. Rolling through the tall grass for a few hours produced a lot of grass seed on the tractor and me.
I sure hope more grass seeds than weed seeds will take root out there next year.
It feels pretty good to have both fields cut on the same day. I hadn’t really planned on immediately cutting the back pasture after confirming my suspicion it wouldn’t be included in the hay baling project. Somehow, I just acted in the moment. How unlike me.
Having it all done now is very rewarding. In a couple of days, we will be able to allow the horses to graze the back pasture again.
That will make all of us happy.
.
.
Fence Fixes
The first project of the day yesterday was to replace the broken board from the paddock fence. We still have all the old boards taken from the deck when that got redone, so I rummaged through the stack in the hay shed for an 8-foot board that was in reasonable condition. Cyndie came down to help and we worked to push the end post back toward vertical while pouring rocks and lime screenings into the void to hold it.
The wire had simply pulled out of the ratcheting tensioner so re-threading it and cranking it tight again provided the finishing touch after screwing the board to the posts.
One fix down, one remaining…
We moved to the bent gate and started by unthreading the webbing that Pam and John had used to temporarily secure the mangled gate. I loosened the clamp that secured the “hinged” end to the posts.
We laid the gate on the ground and debated our next move.
While talking it through, we started putting our weight on it and found that was enough to slowly return it toward flat. Next, we brainstormed ideas for prying the crossbars to close the widest gap. Using what we had immediately available, we found the webbing worked well to pull the bars closer together. After making extra wraps to hold it, we tied off the ends and declared it “good enough.”
The whole process went surprisingly smoothly and the fix was completed with relative ease using minimal additional tools beyond what we had brought with us. How often do things go as well as that? Rarely, in my experience.
It doesn’t look pretty and it’s not very sturdy, given several kinks and broken welds, but it closes the space and serves as a visual barrier at the very least. I’m rather pleased we aren’t forced to buy a new one to replace it right away. If a horse decides to run into it again, I suspect the result will be beyond repair.
For some reason, the horses showed total disdain for our activity and left us alone the entire time. Maybe they were embarrassed about the original incident and were distancing themselves from the evidence.
As soon as I finish mowing around the fence, I will energize the wires again and re-train the horses to avoid the fences at all costs. It’s probably not that big of an issue for them since they’ve now turned their attention to abusing the feed buckets instead.
When it comes to owning horses, it seems there is always another new fix awaiting attention around the next corner.
.
.
Relative Something 