Posts Tagged ‘horses’
Sneaking Treats
I’m feeling a bit of a sugar overdose this morning after a day of too many treats. I told Cyndie that I kept sneaking cookies and caramels as if I was trying to hide them from myself. I don’t think I successfully fooled me.
We had a bit of a weather event move through the region yesterday. It wasn’t as bad as the tornadoes that proved lethal in the south, but it added a little drama to my double-commute. After navigating the snow to get home from work, we drove back into the cities through the heaviest snow for dinner and a visit with friends and family.
Yesterday’s precipitation started as rain. Cyndie had smartly moved the horses into the barn overnight, while they were calm and dry Tuesday evening. She described the horses as wanting to go outside Wednesday morning, even though the obvious reverberation of raindrops on the metal roof meant they would get a soaking once out.
By the time I got home in the afternoon, it was falling as all snow. It was a sloppy, sticky mess. Rolling slowly along the driveway, I inspected the herd. The two young chestnuts were in the back pasture, grazing normally. Dezirea was near Legacy, close to the paddock, but out in the hay-field area. She had her butt to the wind and her head down, in the classic pose of enduring the wetness.
It was Legacy who drew my attention. I felt a moment of alarm, wondering if he may have a serious problem, so I stopped to observe him for about three minutes. I couldn’t quite figure out his issue, because his uncharacteristic behavior included as many normal gestures as odd ones.
I decided he just looked uncomfortable and reported it to Cyndie immediately. She headed out to check and let them back in the barn for the night. Turned out to be accumulations of sticky snow balled up under his hooves that were irritating him.
After picking up my car that had been in for service— oh, that’s another story… The recent flat tire revealed that all my tires were pretty worn out. I authorized a full set of new tires and asked them to change the oil while they had it. I wasn’t surprised when the shop called to report the rotors of the front brakes were in bad shape. It was time. Nor was I surprised when they called again and said the calipers not working is probably what wore out the rotors. New calipers, too.
The repair of my one flat tire had escalated into a 3-day project that was in danger of costing a quarter of the car’s worth. When I called to see if it was ready for us to pick up, the tech answered and reported that, yes, the battery had come, and it was ready now.
Battery?
Oh, yeah. That, too. That one flat tire led to a very expensive visit to the shop. Merry Christmas, John. You just spent your holiday bonus and then some. I will say, I am very satisfied to have this much car, with its known history, for that amount of money.
I’m off work until next Monday and we now enter full Christmas eventing for the next 4 days. If I find time, I’ll write about it.
It’s going to involve a lot of driving in my “new” car, and I’m hoping a somewhat controlled amount of sugary treats.
Merry Christmas to you!
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Social Success
Our cookie social was a success, despite not drawing as many new faces as I hoped we might meet. The new people we did discover were a wonderful pleasure and we quickly learned, once again, how small the world can seem. We have a good variety of kindred spirits in the vicinity, revealing a number of common connections, many of them being our friend, George Walker.
The rural setting, with many of the homes tucked far from the road, makes it too easy to see less of neighbors, unless proactively putting effort in seeking to connect. It motivates me to be quicker to ask neighbors for advice or assistance in the future.
What’s the worst that could happen? If they weren’t able to help, I am learning they would most likely know someone who could, and they’d be happy to provide these referrals.
The downside about the small number of folks showing up is, there is a dangerous amount of cookies and holiday treats left over that I want to avoid consuming in my quest to eat a low sugar diet, even with Cyndie loading up mountains on take-home plates for folks.
Before guests arrived, I took Delilah out for a walk to burn off some energy and we made our way down to check on the horses. We found them at nap time, with Hunter laying down on the raised circle of hay in the paddock. Dezirea and Legacy were up by the barn where he was eating hay out of the box and she was falling asleep in the sun.
Legacy turned to interact with me, and while he was facing me, I could see Dezirea behind him. She kept buckling as she eased into too deep of a sleep, and would startle to catch herself and stay upright. Each time she startled, it made Legacy jump. He would turn to give her a look, and she would be standing just fine. It happened over and over again, creating a hilarious spectacle.
It was as if Legacy was peeved over her spooking him, and every time he turned to throw his grumpy gaze at her, she was standing perfectly calm, like a little angel.
I tried to take a picture of her to catch that moment, missing several times before I realized I should be recording a video. By the time I did, she must have figured out what was happening and remedied things.
I have a couple of minutes of video showing her standing rock solid.
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Didn’t Miss
I was wrong. Turns out, the rain didn’t miss us. It was simply delayed. When it finally moved over us, it arrived with a vengeance.
The precipitation began in the early morning hours yesterday, and thrashed down with significant gusting winds. I was awakened about a half-hour before my alarm by the tempest, allowing me a chance to lay and wonder how the horses were handling the assault.
The nasty weather added unwelcome drama to my commute through the cities in the early darkness, reducing visibility to the point that most decisions become mere guess-work, while my car was shoved to and fro unexpectedly by the extreme gusting wind.
The temperature hovered just above the freezing point, and throughout the day the precipitation oscillated between wet, icy, and flaky.
Cyndie sent me some pictures and reported that the horses were soaking wet, jumpy as heck, and shivering to beat the band when she arrived to offer the morning feed. Poor Hunter was beside himself, looking thoroughly undone and having a tizzy about getting into the barn. When he is cold and wet, the first thing he does upon entering the confined space of his stall is to lay down and roll in the wood shavings we use for bedding.
It makes a scary racket, because he inevitably hits the walls with his feet in his wild gyrating. Cyndie said he successfully got himself covered with wood shavings from head to tail.
By afternoon, the rain gauge had captured 2 inches. As I neared home on my return from work, I began to see water flowing in ditches that are usually dry. Every creek I crossed was spilling out beyond its banks.
Delilah had to traipse along beside the trails in places that were under water.
If we get a quick freeze, I’m afraid Cyndie will need to wear skates when she walks the dog in the days ahead.
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It Missed!
It turned out that my concerns were unwarranted yesterday about even more rain falling on our already saturated grounds. From my repeated checks of the radar all day, it looked like a wall was keeping the surging mass of precipitation from moving north past a certain point. As it reached the southern boundary of our county, it stopped its advance and just seemed to slide past us to the northeast.
This doesn’t mean that we dried out any. On the contrary. The sky remained heavily overcast and the dew point high enough that wetness continued to be the order of the day.
It was a good day to have the warm glow of a fire in our fireplace!
Happily, the lack of actual falling rain was a break for our horses, allowing them to avoid the cold soaking that rain in December involves.
The bleakness of our landscape lingers on. According to forecasts, the next possibility for freezing temperatures comes at the end of this week.
Even if it doesn’t bring a dose of accumulating snow, I will be happy to at least have the wet ground turn frozen, to give us a break from the frustrating mud.
I’m pretty certain that frozen leaves will provide less hazardous footing than the wet leaves over slippery mud which we are currently enduring.
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December Rain
I knew it was coming, but the arrival of more rain today still feels like a bit of a shock. Our land is so, so wet. The ground is not frozen yet, creating a very spring-like mud-saster wherever our horses walk.
We got some rain overnight, but had a momentary break this morning. I had forgotten to put the rain gauge out, after one of the times it actually was cold enough to freeze and I brought the glass tube in to thaw. I don’t know how much fell while we slept.
The unfortunate reality is that, as of this writing, we have much more rain on the way from the south.
We are approaching the middle of December and receiving rainstorms like the middle of summer. Why, it is as if the climate is changing, or something.
I saw the comment recently that we don’t need to save our planet. The planet will still be here long after the human race has gone extinct. We need to be thinking about saving ourselves!
Maybe I should be building a boat.
At least the herd is showing enough sense to seek the high ground this morning. The areas where we have covered the dirt with lime screenings have compacted enough now that they are performing well as intended. It gives the horses a chance to get out of the mud for a time.
It is impressive, and sometimes scary, how far down a hoof will sink in the mud, given the approx 1000 lbs. of horse-force pushing down.
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Horse Peace
One of the many things I like about our horses is the fact they don’t reflect back to me anything that outrageous politicians say, nor cruelties unleashed by demented terrorists. To stand among the herd in their pasture, there is no sense whatsoever of headline grabbing non-celebrities, no road-raging selfish drivers forcing their anxieties in every direction, no pharmaceutical advertisers listing sickening numbers of possible side effects with encouragement to ask my doctor if their product is right for me.
Nothing but eons of evolved horse sense, and all the peace that comes with that.
It is a priceless gift.
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Horse Explore
It’s been a while since the horses saw the big pink soccer ball. When we brought it out on Friday, there was a fair amount of apprehension in the herd about the reappearance of the strange object.
Legacy took the lead and tentatively investigated while the other horses stood by. Cayenne wasn’t as excited with the ball and stood by me to observe at a distance.
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Fun Friday
In the morning on Friday, Pequenita was stretched out at the end of the bed while Cyndie and I were studiously working on our laptops. I know I was working because I can see by the screen that I was in my work email account.
I had stepped away for some reason, and when I returned, I got this view of our cat, stretched long at the spot just beyond where my feet had been, with her front paws tucked beneath her.
How cat-like endearingly appealing that looks.
We had plans for the day that involved creating some fun food to bring to a gathering of a group of futsallers with whom I had played for many years, before my degenerating disks forced my retirement from the game.
I suppose that may have helped to inspire the coincidence of our spontaneously deciding to pull out the giant soccer ball for the horses to play with in the relative warm sunshine of the afternoon.
I recorded a short video so I could provide proof to my old friends that there is soccer still in my life on the ranch. Well, sort of.
The hours after the horse-play were filled with experimenting in the kitchen, where I helped with some taste testing and cutting & wrapping home-made caramels that Cyndie cooked up late Thursday night.
Then it was off through Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic to get to the party where we enjoyed hours of wonderful food and fellowship. I relished the opportunity to catch up with friends and hear stories about the ongoing morning games and the growing participation.
It was nice to meet a couple of the newer players and particularly precious to reconnect with my old favorites. The food was exceptional, to the point we packed a doggy bag of leftover foods that captured our fancy, when retrieving our dishes as our target departure hour arrived… and passed.
Brief moments after I had made the rounds, saying goodbye, a group photo was requested. While we were posing for that, Cyndie’s brother and his wife arrived, prolonging our visit for, I think, two more rotations of saying, “Good night. We have to leave!”
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Exponentially Homey
When I arrived home from work yesterday and stepped in the door, I was met by a very happy dog and the smell of deliciousness baking in the kitchen. Cyndie was making good use of leftover sweet potatoes to create delectable taste bud treats.
It was almost time to feed the horses, so I was offered a chance to pay the herd a visit and allow Cyndie to remain focused on her artistry. I was glad to have the opportunity, because I was rewarded with a bountiful spread of things to test when I returned.
I rated her efforts a smashing success.
My visit to the barn was also rewarding for me. Each of our four horses gave me a good few minutes of personal attention, after I had cleaned up around them and served up their feed.
The setting sun was putting on quite a show for us at the time.
I felt extraordinarily lucky to have all this waiting to greet me at home after work.
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Whiter Shades
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Somehow, we are days away from December; November has come and gone in record speed. The longer I live, the faster months pass.
Our scenery has changed from green, to brown, to white in about a week.
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Our forecast is predicting that “plow-able” snow amounts will fall tomorrow night into Tuesday.
Winter weather is finally here, regardless what the extreme El Niño has in store for the months ahead.
I’m not too worried. Whatever happens will be over soon enough at the rate the months are flying by in my perception.
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Relative Something 