Relative Something

One thing about the high humidity of the last two days that I didn’t expect is how spiders and mosquitos have taken over the woods. They probably like that it has been staying warm all night, too. It is very common to walk into a single strand of spider silk that crosses our trails but lately, it has been entire completed webs that remain invisible unless the light hits them at just the right angle.

Even after walking into it, you can’t see it but can feel it sticking and flailing to rub it off is far from successful. So you just flail even more.

Meanwhile, the mosquitos haven’t even been waiting for us to stop walking before buzzing our ears and attacking in numbers. It scares me if I have to pause and wait for Asher to do his business for fear I will be carried off by the marauders. I just resort to flailing as if I had just walked into a spider web.

One action that solves two problems.

So, Swings lost her fly mask yesterday. When we left the barn after serving their morning feed, all four horses had masks on, the fans were running on high, and we’d put out extra water for the day. When Cyndie checked on them mid-morning, Swings wasn’t wearing a mask.

We have not seen them venturing far from the fans very often since this nasty heat dome arrived so we both figured the mask shouldn’t be hard to spot. We were wrong. It was nowhere in sight around the overhang or inside the paddock. Nothing was visible looking out at the fields near the gates.

When serving their evening food, I took a walk through portions of the hay field and found nothing. At sunset, when closing up the barn and removing masks from the other three, I walked around in the back pasture and, again, found nothing.

That mask has vanished. We have no idea where she lost it. Usually, they rub up against something, so trees and fence posts are likely targets. I don’t believe the horses would have hustled out for a short visit to one of the fields and then returned before Cyndie showed up to check on them, so logic tells me it should be inside the paddocks.

I will expect to find it this morning while patrolling the taller growth in the paddock with the wheelbarrow looking for new piles of manure.

One other unlikely thing happened during this heat wave. We found a large branch about 3-4 inches in diameter lying in the yard beneath one of our larger oak trees first thing in the morning. It wasn’t windy and the wood looked healthy so I have no idea why such a large branch broke off.

When cutting it up, I saved several good sections for sculpting hearts and two long pieces that have a nice pattern. They will make for some nice coasters.

Can’t wait to do some sanding and polishing to see how they will look when all cleaned up. You know, do a vanishing act of those blade marks on the surfaces!

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