Posts Tagged ‘morning fog’
Momentary Panic
It was a beautiful morning yesterday, with a thick line of fog hovering low across the valley. It completely obscured the view of our neighbor’s buildings on the property south of ours.
The horses were quietly eating from their feed buckets, and Cyndie and I were working together to scoop up manure drops out in the paddocks. Cyndie had her back to the horses, and I was facing them toward the overhang.
Suddenly, a ruckus occurred, and I looked up to see Swings struggling to get out from between Light and the wood fence. When she burst free, it was done very awkwardly. In an instant, before Cyndie could even turn around, Swings was moving right for us, stepping oddly sideways, like she didn’t have control of her body.
I’m not sure how she missed us, because we hardly had time to move, but she brushed past us, flailing sideways the whole way out to the middle of the large paddock. It looked like she was having a seizure of some sort. If not that, my only other perception was of her body being possessed by some entity other than her own.
She stopped moving and dropped her head down low. It reminded me of the way Light behaved when she was in pain from a head wound. After a moment or two, Swings regained her composure. She took a few steps and then laid down to do a normal-looking roll. When she got up from that, she had a moment of shakiness before slowly making her way up the slope toward the overhang to where she was before the whole drama unfolded.
It was the strangest thing I have ever seen in all the years we’ve had horses, but for some reason, not as unsettling as I would expect. It was good to have been there to witness it together. We kept our eyes on Swings for a little longer, but saw no indication of anything out of the ordinary in the time following.
Cyndie immediately reported the incident to the folks at This Old Horse. Since Swings had returned to normal, they felt that no action was necessary beyond watching her closely the rest of the day.
We spent some extra time with the horses in the middle of the day, and Cyndie was able to do some grooming on several of them to varying degrees. It was particularly rewarding to see Mia be so receptive to attention. Cyndie was able to completely brush out her mane, which had been a severe tangle of fairy knots.
Swings seemed fine the rest of the day, leaving us a little mystified about what caused her moment of panic, but it serves to keep us cognizant that she is 31 years old, and each day she makes it through without trouble is a blessing to be cherished.
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Foggy Morning
The weather app on my phone notified me that we were under dense fog conditions first thing this morning. That proved to be a spot-on analysis.
It wasn’t all that obvious in the woods where Asher and I were breaking spider webs that crossed our trails. When we reached the fence of the back pasture, it was as if none of our neighbors existed.
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The horses didn’t seem overly worried about their limited views. They were spread out with heads up when I came around the corner, appearing well aware of my arrival.
Every morning there is obvious evidence of burrowing critter activity in and around the barn overnight. There is enough spillage from the horses’ sloppy eating that barn pigeons and rodents find more than enough motivation to hang around. For some reason, this morning a couple of rodents didn’t wait until I was gone to emerge from their tunnels to scrounge. That’s the first time I have actually seen them.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the neighbor’s orange cat lurking around our property of late. I wonder if Asher would be okay with us getting a barn cat to keep the rodent population from exploding. In the meantime, we will be adding some traps in the barn.
One of our ash trees near the (vacant) chicken coop is proving to be our “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to the onset of autumn.
Every year it drops leaves sooner than most other trees have begun to change color. This year it stands out more than usual for being so bare-branched so soon.
Is the middle of September early for bare branches? Sure seems like it to me, especially when we have 80°F temperatures forecast for the coming week. It still feels an awful lot like summer around here, even with a cool fog blanketing the landscape this morning.
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Relative Something 