Posts Tagged ‘mutual grooming’
Different Realities
The world is a collection of independent realities simmering away at varying distances from one another. Currently, I am home alone for a few days with our animals. It feels so very far away from when I was in Chicago for the wedding last weekend. Cyndie is gone for a few days with a friend who will be having a surgical procedure done.
The countdown has reached three days until I depart for a week of biking in the Black Hills. That will definitely be a different reality. Shortly after I return from that, we travel to Boston to visit the world Barry and Carlos inhabit.
Yesterday, a friend shared a “Letters from an American” entry by history professor Heather Cox Richardson that featured Illinois Governor Pritzker’s response to tRump’s announcement that he was planning to send troops to Chicago. The sorry excuse for a President is definitely living in a unique and independent reality.
The Governor addressed the members of the Press who were in attendance, asking for their “courage to tell it like it is.” If only the media were able to present one true, unquestionable reality to the world about what exactly is going on behind the curtains in Washington.
I like to dream of a reality where Republicans at every level start rising up to admit that their king has no clothes.
At Wintervale, a current reality unfolding before our eyes involves the ripening of a robust-looking crop of fruit from the wild American Plum trees scattered across our property.
I don’t know if Cyndie’s reality for the near future involves producing some wild plum jam or not. It feels wasteful just to let all the fruit drop to the ground. But harvesting can be laborious unless we are both around to spread out a sheet to catch the plums as one of us shakes the trees. It’s possible we won’t both be at home until we get back from Boston in the middle of September.
This morning, I hope to meet another new This Old Horse volunteer who might be able to help feed horses when I leave for my bike trip. It’s pretty easy to train folks who are familiar with horses. Introduce them to the herd, then show them where the bags of grain are. They know the drill from there. The horse world is a more universal reality than an independent one.
Yesterday evening, I witnessed some beautiful “mutual grooming” going on between Light and Mia. It really warms the heart to see signs that members of the herd are taking care of one another.
I sure wish there was a more universal reality where all humans took good care of each other. I’d like to see a reality where anger and fear of others are replaced with a universal love and acceptance for all people.
Sing it, Jesse… “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”
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Goodbye Trails
We said goodbye to the Rails-to-Trails in the driftless region around Sparta yesterday and made our way home. I am very happy to be writing on my laptop again instead of my phone. The horses look to be in great spirits. Cyndie sent me a picture of Mia getting some nice attention from Light as they practiced a little mutual grooming.
It probably goes without saying that the grass needs to be mowed. That meant I couldn’t dawdle upon arrival yesterday just before dinnertime and had to set in almost immediately with processing the post-trip routine of cleaning and drying the tent, the rainfly, the ground sheet, my sleeping pad, airing the sleeping bag out, and sorting out clothes that need to be washed. I’ll get to the clothes later, but everything else is cleaned and dried in preparation for packing it up again in two weeks for the Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week.
With that taken care of, I hope to snatch a few precious hours this morning to mow before we set off for Savage, MN, to attend a graduation party for my grandnephew, Drew. I’ll cut what I can. We also learned that the person who was going to feed horses and Asher while we were away is no longer able to come. Sorry, Hays clan, our visit will be brief so we can get back for afternoon chores. Maybe I will be able to do a little more mowing as a result.
We have guests coming to brunch on Sunday, and Cyndie would like the place to look respectable when they arrive.
I’m still in the afterglow of the fabulous four days with Rich. Did I mention we were the only car and campers at the walk-in campground in Sparta?
We were also the only ones in the campground in Elroy (the one with the impossibly steep hill) on our first night there. Thursday night, one other campsite got claimed. After the first night sleeping in Elroy, we figured out ways to avoid making any extra trips up that incline. We left a lot of stuff in the car parked across the road so we could shower at the trailhead after riding and before heading out for dinner without climbing back up to our tents.
Yesterday morning, we were able to bring everything down in one trip, dropping it at the gate to be loaded after Rich brought the car over from the lot.
We added 44 miles to our 4-day total, riding the “400” State Trail from Elroy to Reedsburg and back before showering at the trailhead in Elroy and heading home. Brunch in Reedsburg was at Greenwood’s Cafe, a gem of a place for breakfast with a small-town feel.
The exclusive dose of gravel railroad bed trails took a toll on our minds and bodies, so if I were to do it again, I might look to add a change of pace with some miles on a few country roads. The trails plum wore us out each day. On the bright side, though, the effort should serve us well in preparation for the Tour coming up in just two weeks.
That reminds me, I didn’t give my bike a bath yet to wash off all the accummulated grime. I wonder when I’ll find the time to get to that.
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Micro Climates
This morning while walking the trails with Delilah instead of lingering in bed to write this blog post, (because Cyndie is gone for 10-days to Guatemala visiting Dunia and family, helping guide some equine-assisted seminars while there) I was struck anew by how different our property is in as little as a few feet separation.
In the woods, the prominent grouping of trees change from oaks and maples to butternut and poplar. The trail transitions from hard soil to mossy to grassy to muddy to sticks and dirt.
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I paused to take a picture of a spot that grows a beautiful carpet of medium-length grass and Delilah photobombed it. I like it!
Popping out of the woods, suddenly we are walking beside open fields, each that have their own characteristics of differing grasses, prominent weeds, and volunteer trees trying to grow. Of course, we also have paddocks with horses in them.
Cayenne had isolated herself away from the rest of the herd by grazing a spot that dead-ended around the round pen and she was making her way back to the paddock upon noticing Delilah and I approaching. I figured the morning feed was her priority, but when dog and I came around the bend I found her nose to nose with Hunter.
He received her invitation and they set about grooming each other before coming up to eat the morning serving from their feed pans.
Standing with the horses, the muddy trail at the bottom of the hill in the woods seems like it must be miles away.
It is only a minute away by foot.
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Four Horses
With Cyndie home full-time this year and me working 4-days a week, I spend dramatically less time with the horses than I did last year. On Thursday, Cyndie asked me to feed the horses when I got home from work, because she wasn’t going to be home, and I found myself lingering with them afterward.
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The young ones, Cayenne and Hunter, cooperated in some mutual grooming.
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Legacy was test tasting a sample of the new hay Cyndie had brought home.
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Dezirea appeared to be standing watch. She is a very good lookout.
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Yesterday, while I was working on distributing piles of compost to trees around the property, I looked up and spotted Dezirea laying down in the pasture. It was late in the afternoon, about the time they would be coming up to the barn for their evening feed, and it alarmed me to see her down at that hour of the day.
I hustled that direction and hollered to Cyndie, who had walked past the horses minutes earlier. I was curious how long Dezirea had been down. At the same time that I got Cyndie’s attention across the field, our hollering rousted Dezirea from her brief slumber. She stood up right away and quickly rendered my query to Cyndie, moot, although I still learned she hadn’t been down when Cyndie walked by earlier.
So, that was a really short nap.
Sorry, Dez, for so loudly disrupting your rest.
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Relative Something 