Posts Tagged ‘Legacy’
Long Day
The horses received a good amount of attention yesterday. We were able to get into the paddocks with the ATV and do some raking. What a difference a day makes. Compare this image with the one in my previous post: —————>
There are still some spots that are too muddy to drive through. I figured that out by forging ahead into one of the worst sections and almost not making it through. After that I became more selective about which areas got raked.
I started hauling out a portion of the big pile of manure and hay that was created when we used the diesel New Holland tractor to do some clean up in late winter. A few pitch forks into that pile and I hit snow! That slowed my progress a bit. It sure will be nice when that corner is finally cleared again.
While I was tending to that, Cyndie was hard at work cleaning the automatic waterer. Delilah was hanging around offering her version of “help.” When I checked on progress, Cyndie said it was going fine, except that Delilah had made off with the rubber stopper that plugs the drain. We did our best to search the muddy hoof prints in the vicinity, hoping she dropped it nearby, but the black plug was not easy to see. There was plenty of pleading with the dog, begging her to use her nose to lead us to it, but she didn’t seem very willing to zoom in on that one task.
It made for a harrowing temporary interruption to desired progress, but in time Cyndie and Delilah came up with it and that chore was completed.
The horses received some brushing, and were given a little extra time for grazing the fresh grass surrounding the round pen. I hope they don’t think their shenanigans with the water trough and hose won them all this good attention yesterday. I don’t like rewarding bad behavior.
I am pretty confident that the blame for that stunt with the hose is not deserved by all four horses. Legacy is the prime suspect whenever it comes to grabbing things with the mouth. He is incorrigible.
After we finished with activities in the paddocks, we headed down to the labyrinth. The grass is growing incredibly fast down there, and it needs to be mowed about twice a week to keep it in check. While Cyndie pulled weeds and tended to the plants, I pushed the mower all the way to the center, and back out again, stopping to take a picture when I reached the boulders.
To make it truly a full day of chores, after I had showered and eaten dinner, I realized I had forgotten to get the pond waterfall back in operation, and headed out to tackle that. It was something I had been meaning to take care of for weeks and just wasn’t getting it done. I didn’t want it to linger one more day.
Luckily, the filter installation went well enough that I finished before sunset, however, at that point in our very long and exhausting day, I ended up using about a week’s-worth of cursing to get things flowing without a leak.
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Gaining Experience
It is not surprising that the horses experience a little anxiety about being surrounded by fields of fresh green grass they can’t access.
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We have to control the horses’ amount of time grazing on lush springtime grass to avoid the condition called founder, or laminitis.
For the second day in a row, yesterday we opened the gate to a small section of grass and let them freely graze for about 30 minutes. Cyndie had come out again to watch them, and I consulted with her about options for coaxing them off the grass and back into the paddock. I was hoping to avoid the panic response they demonstrated on Monday.
She suggested I try using a lead rope around Legacy’s neck to guide him, with the hope the rest would follow. Her idea was brilliant, because it worked like a charm. I figured it would be a challenge to even get the lead around his neck, so I brought a treat to encourage his cooperation. I approached respectfully, and he returned the courtesy by pausing his grazing and lifting his head. I rewarded him with a treat and he let me drape the rope around his neck. We calmly walked back toward the gate to the paddock, and without hesitation, the three chestnuts followed. Two of them came with us into the paddock, but Hunter stopped to get a few last bites of grass. I walked back around him and guided him the rest of the way through the gate.
They made me look like a pro, or at least, like someone who knew what he was doing. Obviously, I do know a little bit, it’s just that I have no previous practical experience to work from. I told Cyndie that my success with the horses is entirely based on confidence I gained from the one weekend of training I received at the Epona seminar where Cyndie, Dunia, and the other trainers did their “student teaching” at the completion of their apprenticeships.
It comes easy to me because the methods they taught for interacting with the horses make total sense to me and resonate with my intuition. The positive feedback of the horses’ responses serves to verify my perceptions.
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Grazing Gratefully
We seem to have turned a corner and there are finally areas starting to show signs of drying out. It is a very uneven process, and the spots that are still wet remain ridiculously saturated and a muddy mess.
We let the herd graze together on fresh grass yesterday! I pounded down the posts for our temporary fence to the desired depth, and when the ground around them dries out, it will be like they were cast in cement. 
With the posts ready, I was able to string up ribbon fence lines that will be electrified, but not before I first had to fix a connection on the existing fence.
I found a splice that wasn’t sufficiently crimped. While I was troubleshooting the problem, I had Legacy’s full support. I’m pretty sure he sensed I was on a project that would lead to him getting access to better grazing. He stood front and center on the spot where I focused my attention.
I wish I could have talked him into using his powerful bite to accomplish something positive for once, and get him to clamp down on that splice. My hand tools were all sub-par for the job. I achieved enough of a crimp to give me electrical contact for the time being, which allowed me to prove the concept and proceed.
Cyndie made a heroic journey on crutches, navigating the uneven and uncertain terrain, to provide moral support, showing up in time to witness the completion and testing phase. All that was left after that was to convince the horses that the gate was open.
It was late enough in the day that we needed to put out their afternoon pans of feed, and that had their undivided attention. It also seemed to temporarily satiate their appetite, so they lolled around in a just-fed stupor, paying little notice to the fact I had opened a gate to the grass.
Hunter was the first one to show some interest in why I was walking around in their paddock. I was able to entice him to come toward me, but only up to the area where the mud got thick. They will cross mud, but they need a big enough incentive to do so, and he hadn’t yet figured out why I was urging him to come across. Before long, Legacy wandered over to see what was going on.
I pulled out the trick that I learned from Dunia at the Epona seminar, walking an arc in front of Legacy until he took a step, and then I turned and lured him along by my energy. We pulled Hunter and Cayenne right behind him. I needed to go to the hay feeder in the far paddock to convince Dezirea to join the fun.
While they grazed, I wandered back to the paddocks to restock the hay feeders. When I returned, Cyndie had gone back to the house, so I phoned her to confirm how short a time they should be limited to on this rich spring grass.
“Now would be good.”
“How do you suggest I do that?” I asked.
I tried calmly coaxing them to head back into the paddock, but these Arabians move from calm to panic in a blink, and you’d think I had slapped them on the butt and fired a shot from a pistol.
Of course, they were all juiced up on fresh grass. They carried that sprint into the paddock far longer than was necessary, from my perspective, but who can blame them? They had finally gotten what they wanted for so long, and that quick, had it taken back again.
I will not be surprised if I find them lined up and waiting at that gate when I show up to put out their feed this morning.
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Special First
Yesterday was one of those days when I found myself saying, “I did not picture myself sitting here when I woke up this morning!” My day felt so full that I can’t believe I was able to fit it all in. We entertained new friends visiting for the first time, discovered The Roost, (check it out!) where we ate pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven, and then I went for my first bike ride of the year. But the highlight for me was time I spent with the horses in the morning before all the rest of that started. Let me tell you about it. It’s what I do.
After amazing myself with completing both a blog post and getting the horses fed, I was trying to clean up manure in the paddocks. Legacy had other priorities. He really wanted a chance to get out and have a taste of that sweet green grass growing up everywhere surrounding his fence line. Up to now, I had yet to even place a halter on one of our horses, but with Cyndie laid up, my time had come.
Legacy was so persuasive, with his calm and subtle closing of any distance I attempted to create between my nose and his. Finally, he stepped forward to stand on the pile I was working to create, and I realized that the task I was on would be impossible to complete.
While pondering whether I would be able to pull off what I was now considering, I stepped inside the barn and picked up a halter. After several tries to decipher which end was up, it fell into place and became exceedingly obvious. I looked up and found Legacy had been watching my progress and was positioned as close to me as he could possibly get, at the door. How could I deny him?
I climbed the fence to enter the paddock and showed him the halter, even though it was clear that wasn’t necessary. He was all in. He helped me get it on him and off we went, to my next and probably biggest challenge. I needed to manage his position, the opening of the gate, and the continued containment of the other horses, all at the same time. I’ve seen Cyndie do it, so I just followed that image in my mind. It helps that the horses all know the drill, as well. They behaved perfectly, and suddenly I had Legacy out on some grass, and he was almost as happy with that as I was for successfully getting him there.
In succeeding turns, I got each horse out on their own for some time grazing fresh grass, and then a short walk. While I was out with the last horse, Cyndie arrived on her crutches, clinging to a bag of carrot treats. She was able to see me survive Cayenne having a little panic attack, spinning around on me, toward the end of her walk on a trail.
This time with the horses was a significant milestone for me, a very special first time of managing that level of care. I am very lucky and extremely grateful to have this wonderful herd serve as my teachers in this adventure we are on here. Something tells me they feel the same way about having Cyndie and me.
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Uninvited Situations
As April draws to a close, we would like to be preparing our minds for the transition that May should offer toward connecting us to summer. Instead, we are feeling shriveled and wrinkly from 6 inches of rain in 6 days. The events and situations of the last few days are beginning to take a toll. I think one of my unconscious responses is to clench my jaw more than usual. I have been trying to practice better awareness of that habit. Each time I catch myself clenching, I am startled at the discovery. How is it that I so easily start pressing without realizing it? I can’t help but wonder about how often I do it and fail to notice.
Our house feels uncomfortably out of whack, because I haphazardly pulled furniture out of the far end of the sunroom and stashed it anywhere and everywhere to get things out from under the leaks.
One of our garage doors is so water-logged, the electric opener can’t lift it. When I pulled the release handle, a pin popped out and now the bracket hangs loose, and swings menacingly.
Cyndie reported that she discovered one of the boards of the wall separating Legacy and Cayenne’s stalls in the barn was wrenched loose and lying in Legacy’s stall yesterday morning. She thought Legacy had done it, but I am suspicious of Cayenne, as she appeared to be working on the next board down while I was in there feeding them and freshening their water buckets. I’m gonna need longer screws.
After throwing one of Delilah’s toys for a series of “fetch” exercises before dinner, she walked past me on one ‘retrieve’ and stepped into the wading pool where we often wash her before letting her in the house. Pretty smart way to let me know she is ready to go in. After we got inside, I toweled her off and noticed she started to favor her left front foot, sometimes drastically avoiding putting any weight on it. She went from walking fine, to limping obviously, in an instant.
I have developed my first poison ivy rash of the season, on the inside of both arms, very consistent with the most likely source being contact with Delilah’s fur.
When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed something on the floor in front of the kitchen sink. There were six small ball bearings in one spot. I deduced that they must be from the pull-out waste basket under the sink, but I have no idea why or how.
These kinds of little uninvited situations start to have a cumulative effect, but they are probably small potatoes compared to what is really weighing on my mind. Today I will be driving Cyndie to an appointment to have an arthroscopic procedure done to clean up her hip-joint. She will be confined to crutches for an uncertain amount of time.
It sure would do us wonders to have the rain end and get a little warm sunshine beaming down on us soon. It would at least be one less reason to grit my teeth.
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Chillin’ Nearby
After spending most of the day on Monday working on the lawn tractor and getting the field mowed, I needed to spend some quality time in the paddocks yesterday, while it was still sunny. Today is predicted to be the beginning of a two-day soaking of rain, and those paddocks are miserable to clean when it is muddy.
As it was, they weren’t much better than miserable in the corner I was hoping to rake. There are still large areas where the ground remains saturated with water, which results in many deep hoof divots, the continued build up of manure from winter, and almost impossible footing for trying to do anything about it. The task involves trying to remove months worth of accumulated manure that is soaking wet and stuck into the mud, raking it across a terrain that is filled with pot holes that serve as perfectly frustrating traps.
I have to be mindful to avoid allowing that frustration to fill my thoughts, because I don’t want that to become the message our horses pick up from me. I have yet to master the art of literally “hearing” what they might want to communicate to me, but they definitely are conveying something by means of proximity. Legacy will walk towards me and pause, continually closing the distance if I neglect to stop what I’m doing to meet him. Eventually, he will come right up into my face, so that I can’t not stop what I’m doing.
Yesterday, I met his gaze and did my best to let him know what I was thinking, and we had a bit of a stare-down. Then we each “went back to grazing,” he, literally, and me, by getting on with raking.
Just as often, it seems, Hunter is my companion when I’m cleaning the paddock. While I was raking that same area yesterday, he wandered over and just stood next to where I was working. He wasn’t looking at me, but just standing beside me. After a short time, he decided to lay down, right there on that same spot. It is the closest I’ve ever been to a horse that was laying down, so I decided to take a picture.
It warms my heart to know he feels that comfortable with me, and that Legacy will behave respectfully when standing as close as he was. Obviously, we are communicating something.
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Trailering Poop
We finally put our new ATV trailer to use for cleaning the paddocks. The ground seemed to dry up quite a bit yesterday, so we took advantage of the opportunity to drive inside the fences and made fair progress on removing more of the winter’s-worth of accumulation. We have been working in steps, cleaning small sections at a time as they become dry enough. Using the ATV in place of a wheelbarrow increases our capacity nicely, and while working to prove the concept, we knocked off a new portion in each of the two paddocks.
I am pleased with the horses comfort around motorized equipment. They are not intimidated in the least by the rumbling engines of the tractor or ATV. We left them roaming free inside the paddocks as Cyndie opened a gate for me to drive in. Here is a shot I took of Legacy as he stepped in close to check on the quality of my work.
We have yet to figure out the ideal method of unloading the trailer. The main location where we have been putting manure for compost has gotten rather tall, and isn’t currently situated so that I could drive up and over it. I have created a ramp within the pile that allows me to roll the wheelbarrow up and around for dumping, but that isn’t sized for the ATV trailer.
It was decided that we would expand our compost operation to multiple locations, placing more of the product in proximity to where it will likely be used. With the wheelbarrow, it didn’t make sense to go traipsing around the property to unload, but now with the ATV that is not a problem.
The first place we picked was across the driveway, up among the pine trees. There are enough trees there alone that we can probably spread the majority of our collection in that vicinity. We do want to provide a modest amount somewhere near the labyrinth garden, too, but Cyndie is concerned that it be far enough away so as not to disturb the pleasant ambiance we are trying to develop there. I think that can be achieved.
It feels good to be making gains on the cleanup of the paddocks as they begin to dry. Too bad today I am called away to the day-job and Wednesday is shaping up to be another winter storm. Poop trailering is on hold for a while again. It’s spring, two steps forward, one step back. We’ll get there, eventually.
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Doggone Excitement
Sunday was a refreshing day of warmth and sunshine, which melted enough snow to bring us almost back to where things were before last week’s storm. As I expected, much of my day yesterday involved shoveling channels in the muddy ground to facilitate drainage of the melt water. Luckily, we got help from Elysa and her friend, Anne, who stopped by for a dose of country sun and to commune with all our animals.
Anne captured this beautiful picture of Legacy and Cayenne giving Elysa some love for her efforts.
In the morning, while Cyndie and I were working in the paddock, we spotted a local coyote hunter’s truck that had stopped on our road. Then I heard the baying sound of his hunting dogs and quickly became concerned about where Delilah was. We discovered her a little ways out in one of our fields, oblivious to the world as she buried her nose in the ground in pursuit of some enticing scent. We called her back to our vicinity.
A short while after that, the sound of the hunting dogs erupted again, this time closer, from the woods beyond our house. Delilah took off after the sound, despite my calls for her to stay. Uneasy about what the hunting dogs might do to the sudden appearance of our dog, I dropped my shovel and hustled after her. Before I got very far, I heard the hunter’s truck coming up behind me in our driveway.
He has been up to our house a couple other times, to ask permission to track coyotes across our property, so I was familiar with him. He assured me that Delilah was not at any risk from his dogs. Just then, she came sprinting back, now interested in this stranger standing with me. We visited briefly and then he checked his electronic tracker and found his pack of hounds had moved on, so he headed off down the road after them.
You’d think by this point we might have considered putting Delilah on a leash, but we went on about our activity as if that whole hunting dog concern was over. That’s not the way tracking necessarily works. After enough time passed to lull me into forgetting about it, I happened to glance up and spot an animal running along our southern property border. Initially, I wondered if it might be a coyote on the run from the pursuit, but it became clear it was one of the hunting dogs. By the time I located Delilah, it was obvious that she had seen it, too, and was already on the opposite side of that same field.
Despite both Cyndie’s and my protests, Delilah excitedly ran down to check on the new dogs visiting her turf. True to the hunter’s word, there were no threatening gestures from his pack, as the number of arriving dogs increased. What did end up happening was plenty of barking and eventually, confusion. With Delilah anxiously, but cautiously, trying to engage all these strange dogs, the pack seemed to lose track of their primary mission, and decided to focus all their attention on her. Delilah decided to retreat back toward us.
Soon there were hounds around and in the paddocks and a fair amount of chaos as Cyndie and I hollered, waffling between trying to collar our dog or the hunting dog that was now in proximity of our horses. In a flash the hunter’s truck was rushing up our driveway, and he apologized three different times as he hoisted each of his dogs up into their compartments on the back of his truck.
Happily, there were no problems that occurred from the close encounter between our dog and the hunting dogs. In fact, it turned out to be a great opportunity to increase awareness of Delilah to our surrounding community. The hunter happens to be a cousin of our neighbor whose property abuts ours on two sides. He approved of the orange vest we make her wear outside. He said he noticed her out in the field right away the first time he pulled over, and would make sure his cousin knows about her now, too.
I appreciate that, because we’ve been meaning to introduce her since we brought her home last July, and just never got around to making it happen.
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Last Blast?
With any luck, this will be winter’s last blast of snow. Most of the day yesterday, we received freezing rain and sleet. After their breakfast, we put blankets on the horses to give them a little extra shelter against the freezing moisture. Unfortunately, with our temperatures holding close to the freezing point, the ground stayed soft and those spirited Arabians were running all over the paddocks for some reason.
While feeding them dinner, we decided to bring them into the barn for the night, to give them a break from the mud and precipitation. When we opened the door, Legacy and Cayenne were standing right there, anxious to get in. Legacy had so much mud on his legs that it looked like he was wearing brown knee-highs. Poor Cayenne had a face full of mud from following too close behind another horse that was kicking up a mess when running.
I tried taking pictures with my phone, but couldn’t hold it steady and they were constantly in motion, so all of the images turned out blurry. It’s a shame because they were quite a sight.
I did get one picture before yesterday’s precipitation started to fall. I mentioned in a previous post that the labyrinth was a negative image now that the snow had melted off the rocks, yet still remained where it had been packed for the trail. Here is what it looked like a couple of days ago…
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Nature’s Course
There is no getting around the fact that we are at that time of year when the weather can flip from enticingly spring-like to “as winter as ever” in a single day. It can be a tough blow at the end of a harsh winter to be walloped by storms that give the impression the weather is headed in the wrong direction. Today is expected to be one of those tough blows, but it is not clear what the precise position of the storm will be. We are on the edge of a suspected path which could swing either to freezing rain or heavy, wet snow.
For the time being, I’m going to enjoy this image of our paddock from Saturday, when the snow had been cleared off the ground and the clouds were gone from the sky. We’ll have more of this type of enjoyment in the days ahead. We just need to tolerate a small setback to a winter storm for a few days.
That’s Dezirea munching hay, with Legacy standing by, on watch.
A couple of days later and it looked like this (although, in fairness, this one was taken with my phone looking through a dirty window from inside our sunroom):
At Delilah’s desperate urging, I let her outside to chase a squirrel, or squirrels, which had been tugging mercilessly at her predator instincts while she was trapped indoors. I followed her with my eyes as she sprinted deep into the neighbor’s woods to our north, much farther than she normally explores. The unconscious chase left her in new territory, and I would have been surprised if she just turned around and came back into our yard.
She disappeared for quite a while. When Delilah finally reappeared outside our windows, it wasn’t a squirrel she had as a prize, but the bottom portion of a deer leg. It is most likely that she happened upon a carcass that was left by some other predator(s), but she looked so much like a wolf out there, gnawing on that limb in the heavy falling snow, I felt a renewed appreciation for why our cats appear so wary of her.
She’s just doing what comes natural, but it can be almost scary seeing how incredibly proficient she is about it.
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Relative Something 