Posts Tagged ‘horses’
More Damage
Of all the things we learned from Pam and John when we arrived home, the last thing I anticipated was a report of more damage to the paddock fence.
If you inspect that image you should be able to find that the top board of the wooden plank fence to the left of the gate opening is missing. That board was broken completely in half and the screws holding it to the posts were ripped loose. In addition to that, the high-tensile wire that was strung above the top board was also broken.
The power to the electric fence had been turned off while we were away and I will need to repair that break before we can energize the wires again. It occurred to me that having the electricity off for such a long time may have allowed the horses to show less respect for the fence. Still, the mystery remains about what precipitated the dramatic actions on two different occasions to trigger the horses bashing the barriers they’ve tolerated for all the years they’ve been here until now.
One factor I am considering, beyond the fact they were initially being kept off the pasture (while we anticipated the arrival of hay-cutting equipment), is that the four horses were separated in twos, split between the two paddocks. We did that to make it easier on our horsesitters at feeding times.
Now that Cyndie and I were home, I was able to remove the barrier between the two paddocks after they finished eating late yesterday afternoon. It didn’t take long for the horses to move across to the side they had been kept from for the last ten days. I stood and watched as the horses explored and surveyed the grounds “on the other side of the fence.”
There was a lot of sniffing and some brief grazing as each horse patrolled the space that had previously been out of reach. Mia laid down to roll in the dusty dirt.
We tried to look for video recorded by the camera mounted off the overhang but couldn’t see any evidence it was being saved. It looks like it is programmed to record so my troubleshooting will look toward the format of the memory card and the instructions about the path (network address) where the files are to be saved. This exercise may require the expertise of my primary technical consultant, our son, Julian.
Pam and John did report hearing coyotes but that is not an unusual sound whatsoever in these parts so we don’t think that would explain Swings or Light suddenly damaging fences. I did hear some fireworks after dark last night but that is also not that unusual. I put the camera view up on our TV in the bedroom and observed their behavior during the “pop-pop-popping.”
They looked to be aware of the situation and paying attention to the surroundings but weren’t showing any signs of being particularly anxious or upset by the noise.
While I am mowing grass today I will be pondering my options for trying to bend the metal gate flat again. It may be a fool’s errand, but I figure I might at least improve the spacing between the bars where it got opened quite a bit. If that doesn’t work, we’ll probably end up shopping for a replacement.
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Animals Again
We are headed home this morning after a long stay at the lake that included the holiday weekend. It’s been wonderful despite a rather scattered weather pattern that limited the number of warm, sunny days. I have thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of lying around in the mornings without jumping into clothes to walk the dog the moment we wake up.
At the same time, we do miss Asher and the horses. Our home and animal sitters have been sweet about providing frequent anecdotes about the activities at Wintervale. 
Apparently, Mix has developed some connection with one of the pigeons that has taken to perching on the post closest to where Mix’s feed bucket is hung. That’s something we’ve never seen before. That doesn’t really surprise me at this point, since we’d never seen the horses mangle one of the gates before, either.
I’m mentally prepared to need a little time to readjust to home life and the latest activities of our animals. Based on past experience, it won’t take long to get back into the swing of things. Before we came up to the lake, I’d only been home a few days from my week of biking and camping with friends on the Tour of Minnesota. I’d hardly recovered from the euphoria of that trip before diving into the power-lounging and lake swimming of the last ten days up at Wildwood. Settling in for real at home is something I’m looking forward to.
Well… settling in for 10 days or so before we return again to the lake for another 4-day weekend.
At least our animals will have had plenty of opportunities to get used to us occasionally disappearing on them for days or a week at a time with increasing regularity. I hope they sense how often we talk about them with people who ask about our lives in the country. Even when we are away, we bring the spirits of our animals with us to share far and wide with everyone who shows interest.
They really do mean an awful lot to us.
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Always Interesting
There is always something interesting happening around here. I wrote yesterday about Mia’s allergic reaction. Here is a photo:
When Cyndie checked on the horses last night, she found Mia standing with her head in the corner looking as forlorn as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Mia hadn’t even finished her oats and corn in the bucket. Cyndie checked under the fly sheet and found all the welts had disappeared. As soon as she pulled that sheet off, Mia’s countenance changed dramatically.
She picked up her head, moved out of the corner, and headed over to finish eating the rest of her grains. I don’t think Mia liked wearing that fly sheet one bit.
The different coloring of those two images is a result of direct sunlight in the morning and Mia standing under the shade of the overhang around sunset.
I stepped inside the air-conditioned house during a break from mowing in the heat and didn’t hear a peep from Asher. I wandered from room to room in search of him and found him like this:
I think Asher is rather fond of air conditioning.
Cyndie disappeared for a while and I got a text from her.
“Lots of strawberries. Going back to pick more. Will u feed dog?”
This time of year, when I can’t find Cyndie, she is usually outside picking berries of one kind or another.
Jam season won’t be far behind. And based on past experience, if it’s not canning jams, it’ll be something else interesting. It always is.
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Muddy Mowing
A couple of sunny days hasn’t been enough to dry our grass for mowing without leaving muddy tracks. The areas of saturation didn’t come as a complete surprise yesterday, because there is still standing water on our trails in the woods. I just didn’t expect so many wet spots in places where it isn’t normally wet.
The outlet of the culvert was no surprise, but it was wet well above there, too.
The area along the small paddock fence is usually a puddle after the snow melts, but not in June.
The alleyway behind the barn is as wet as ever, to the point of being practically undriveable.
As much as possible, I know to avoid these areas when I’m on the riding mower. Even though I was trying to be careful along one of the ditches beside the driveway, I got sucked into some standing water that almost swallowed one of the back tires. I’m not sure how I got out of that mess but soon after I switched to using the push mower wherever water was visible.
Almost as challenging, the compost area was a slippery, sloppy mess. During the week I was away, I had Cyndie dump manure into one particular spot. Because of all the rain, the horses haven’t spent much time away from the overhang area near the barn so there ended up being a LOT of manure to clean up there. Yesterday, I spent some time stirring up and shaping compost piles that were soaking wet. I discovered that active composting is the exception, not the rule in these conditions for most of the piles.
We had a little excitement in the morning when we found Mia covered with welts that appeared to be some kind of allergic reaction, maybe to something she ate in the fields or possibly a bug bite or bee sting? It looked rather extreme but she wasn’t behaving in a way that indicated she was being bothered by it. We notified our handler from This Old Horse, who brought over some pills for Mia.
Toward the end of the day, Mia looked better. We now have her wearing a protective fly sheet, too. It was white when we put it on her. I can’t imagine it will stay white for very long with all the mud and standing water across our landscape.
The weather conditions are a problem for normal operation around here but, hey, we aren’t dealing with the threat of a failing dam or 4 feet of water in our home.
If muddy tracks from mowing are the worst outcome we suffer, I’d say we have it better than a lot of other folks in the region.
Quit your bellyaching, John.
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Imagine That
Yesterday, I gave myself a day off from conditioning my body for long-distance cycling with a plan of riding this morning. Although it would be good practice for the upcoming Tour of Minnesota, during which we ride rain or shine, I did not have it in me to go out and get cold and wet while subjecting my bike to the abuse of rain riding.
I’ll wait for another (dryer) opportunity.
At least I finished mowing all but the wettest areas of grass yesterday afternoon before this latest dose of saturating precipitation.
It was rewarding to find the horses equitably sharing space under the overhang this morning as rain poured down. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise to me but they were even positioned properly for their feed stations. That is not a common occurrence.
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A volunteer from This Old Horse asked if she could feed the horses yesterday afternoon. I was not completely astonished this morning to find where she dumped the manure in my compost area and had to double-check with Cyndie about who dumped it.
I tease Cyndie about her penchant for choosing the most inappropriate pile, which is what our volunteer did yesterday. The thing that I don’t understand about the choice, whenever there are no obvious piles for freshly dumped manure, is how they decide to pick the oldest, most composted, most ready to be removed for other uses pile from the five or six options.
The last thing I want is to have fresh manure mixed into it.
My response each time this happens: “Imagine that.”
I guess I have become more educated than I’d like to admit about what the differing stages of composting manure look like. Newer piles that are very actively “cooking” may be hard to tell apart but it seems to me the oldest pile that looks like the closest thing to dirt should be the last of the choices.
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Double Punch
Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I have done what I could to put the COVID infection behind me and resume normal activity but putting it behind me wasn’t supposed to be literal. I now find myself about as far away from normal activity as I have been in years.
There is something terribly wrong happening in my lower back that feels in every way as if one of my discs is bulging against the nerve that generates incapacitating waves of pain. My poor brain automatically leaps to a conclusion that the timing of these two latest physical maladies are entirely related, but I have no knowledge that this might be true.
All I know is that I am now one week away from the day my health insurance ends with the company that covered me for the first five months of the year and starts with my new choice under Medicare. I was hoping to get through the transition with a clean break from activity on either account.
Today, it is shockingly difficult to avoid stabbing pain when I cough at a time when my asthmatically reactive lungs are teetering on the backside of a virus notorious for negatively impacting breathing.
I am not a pretty sight.
If I could walk without fear of losing my footing, I’d wander down among the horses and bask in their late spring serenity.
We are fast approaching the end of Asher’s on-site training session at a kennel up north. The trainer has scheduled a call this afternoon during which we expect to learn how Asher has been faring during the previous week and what the plan is for picking him up to continue the training at home.
It would really mean a lot to me to be able to walk without pain by the time of Asher’s return.
Walking is once again the exercise that will become my primary focus.
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Diet Transition
Imagine if people had to be as careful about changing their regular diet as the animals in our care. Full disclosure: this line of thought is coming from someone who doesn’t have any food allergies.
For two completely different reasons, we are currently in the process of changing the foods of both our dog and the horses. It is a long period of gradual transition from the old food to the new, serving a portion of each at a sliding percentage.
The horses don’t appear to care much about the introduction of something different thus far. I haven’t seen any indication of change in preference for the mixture we’ve been serving them.
Asher may be happy with his changing mixture because it was starting to look like he didn’t care for the food he’s been served since we adopted him. He’s shown no hesitation with the new brand.
I feel very lucky that the food I can choose to eat isn’t dictated by someone else. Unfortunately, that leaves it up to me to make smart choices. I was thinking the other day that it takes constant mental energy for me to avoid succumbing to my cravings for carbs or sugar foods.
It’s always great when you are granted a free pass to have as much as you want of a healthy food. Why doesn’t spinach taste more like chocolate? I love the feeling when I am thirsty and my body seems like it can’t get enough of a tall glass of ice water. Guilt-free reward.
Oxygen is something else I can consume as much as I want with no limitation. When my mind yearns for something my body doesn’t need, I can think about the total free pass I have to inhale as many huge breaths of air as possible.
Yeah, I’m weird like that.
This time of year there is a lot of tractor time when thoughts can meander. Yesterday afternoon, I was finally able to drive on and mow some of the areas that were saturated two days ago.
It amazes me how fast conditions change. The high ground around here is getting bone-dry. After I finished mowing the backyard, spotty thundering rain clouds rolled past. I put away the tractor and prepared for a downpour.
All we got was a spattering of drops.
I’m guessing all that ground moisture is getting sucked up by plants and trees making leaves. There is now a fresh new batch of phytoncides to absorb while bathing in the atmosphere of our glorious forest.
I’m going to count that as part of my spring diet transition.
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Serene Green
This time of year, every morning the landscape looks different than the day before. The increase in the number and size of leaves on branches and blades of grasses that happen in a day is astonishing. Our morning walk with Asher through the woods and around the pasture offers one marvel after another.
“Look at this!”
“I can’t see you through the trees anymore.”
The horses have quickly gotten over the excitement of being allowed on the grass now that we’ve reached the point of leaving gates open all the time. They get to come and go as they please so there is no anxiety about confinement.
They are wonderfully calm in the morning and impressively patient about waiting for the delivery of their feed. I will soon be able to refer to “grain” in their buckets as we are gradually transitioning from manufactured pellets to a mixture of actual grains. This was a business decision by This Old Horse but it seems like an improvement to me, changing to a less processed food.
The chestnuts, Mia and Light, took a break from grazing to have a little nap in the lush grass. That incredible serenity is precious, especially since the horses are also experiencing seasonal hormones that have them coping with some unfulfilled urges that sometimes stir things up in the herd.
Yesterday afternoon, Light was like a little puppy trying to get Mia to snuggle necks but Mia wasn’t interested and moved away carefully to avoid causing a ruckus. Mix actually greeted Light nose-to-nose without being aggressive about it. That almost never happens.
Maybe Mix is showing some empathy toward Light.
That kind of behavior contributes significantly to the serene scenes we’ve been enjoying between rain showers. I’m all for more of that.
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Splish Splashing
After a lot of rain, a large puddle forms in the larger of our two paddocks. While I was turning one of the compost piles, I heard splashing and looked up to find Swings stomping away in the water. It looked like she was either trying to make the puddle deeper or she was splashing to wash off her legs.
This got Light’s attention, who then walked over and started stomping her hoof on the ground at the puddle’s edge. Since she never joined in the water splashing, her behavior gave the impression she was doing it in encouragement to Swings.
“Do it some more! Yeah! Go for it! Do it again!”
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When Swings decided she had had enough of the escapade, she turned and walked out of the puddle. Light seemed to completely understand the task was complete and moved away with Swings, as if they were tethered together.
As soon as I stopped recording and walked back to what I was doing, Mia went over to the puddle and immediately lay down in it. I barely got my phone out in time to capture her getting back onto her feet. Then she walked over near the others and they all acted as if nothing had just happened.
Mix grazed in the foreground without paying them any attention.
Horses are so much fun to have around.
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Left Out
The day started mostly sunny but the forecast warned of a chance of rain in the afternoon. Sometime after Cyndie departed for a couple of days away with friends, I granted Asher a chance to walk through the woods wherever his nose led us, hoping to distract him from already missing her.
Before we set out, I opened a gate to allow the horses some time to graze grass. As far as we can tell, their bodies are adjusting to the gradual change in diet just fine.
While our neighbor to the south mowed grass along our property lines, Asher and I popped out of the woods and made our way between the horses in the field and the riding mower. It seemed like a perfect afternoon of spring sunshine.
The sky was partly cloudy, but it didn’t seem all that threatening. I hadn’t paid any attention to what the radar looked like. I’ve heard the phrase “popcorn showers” used for the dotted image of precipitation blobs that showed up when I finally checked.
Asher and I had made our way around our entire property and into the barn where I left him to kill time while I cleaned up manure and then prepared buckets of feed. I was planning to bring out the buckets as an enticement to get the horses to come in off the field. Before I made it out the door, they came racing in at top speed.
We couldn’t feel the wind at that point but the sound of the howling gusts that suddenly blew through the surrounding trees was downright spooky. Eerie enough to scare the horses back to the safety of the barn. I hung their buckets of feed as quickly as I could to get them focused on their evening meal while I scooted down to close the gate to the field.
I made it back just as rain started to fall. Then it started to pour out of the cloud with an ominous roar that rumbled the metal roof to maximum decibels. I looked out the half door at the horses and noticed why it was so loud on the roof. It looked to be equal parts rain and BB-sized hail.
Unfortunately, of the four spots the horses choose for feeding, Mia’s is outside the cover of the overhang. With enough warning, we can easily move her under but she was already out there when the deluge hit.
I could see the pellets of hail bouncing off of her. It didn’t seem to bother Mia a bit. Light turned around a couple of times to look out at the cloudburst but other than that, the dramatic precipitation didn’t disturb the horses from their feed.
The gusher ended as quickly as it arrived. Mia was wet but unfazed by it all.
Asher and I walked back up to the house under a fresh interval of sunshine and ate our respective dinners devoid of any further meteorologic theatrics.
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Relative Something 