Posts Tagged ‘pastures’
Days Away
I’m leaving today for a few days of camping and cycling, which will serve well as a warmup to the week-long Tour of Minnesota ride coming in mid-June. This time of year, a few days away from growing grass can be an issue, so I took some extra steps yesterday to address places that don’t receive regular attention.
Cyndie asked me to clean up our trails, which meant I would be using the string trimmers.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Between fuel refills for the power trimmer, we decided to park the water tank in the ATV trailer behind the rocking chairs on the lookout hill. Cyndie has planted grass seed on the bare spot in front of the rockers. To get the Grizzly ATV out, I needed to move the riding mower. As long as I had that out, I decided to do a quick mowing of the round pen. We like to keep that turf closely cropped, and the horses aren’t thorough enough with their grazing in there to stay ahead of it all.
Since I had the riding mower inside the pasture fence, I figured I may as well make one pass along the inside of all the fence lines to minimize the amount of trimming that still needs to happen beneath the wires. For some reason, mowing inside the fences is something I usually wait too long to do. It feels good to have done it before the grass got too tall for the mower to handle. It makes the trimming so much simpler, you’d think I would make this a higher priority.
With all these non-standard mowing steps accomplished, I’m feeling okay about sneaking away for a few days of biking. I expect my posts for the rest of the week will be more rudimentary since I plan to leave my laptop at home and will be using my cell phone for all my communication.
Hopefully, the battery pack I have will be up to the task of keeping my phone charged. I’ll be charged simply by living in the great outdoors and riding my bike for multiple days in a row.
Maybe I should think about packing my gear in the dwindling few hours left before my scheduled departure…
.
.
Mental Break
Last night, Cyndie and I watched the movie, “A Private War,” about journalist Marie Colvin who died in 2012 while covering the siege of Homs in Syria. It was some heavy, intense subject matter of the awful horrors civilians suffer in war zones. As soon as it was over, Cyndie said she needed a mental palate cleanser.
She took Delilah for a little walk in the direction of the horses. I chose to catch up and meet her out in the hayfield.
On the way, something grabbed my attention at the gate from the paddock to the back pasture.
The horses have worn a very specific path they trod when wandering into the field. For some reason, instead of meandering randomly out of the paddock to graze in the pasture, they regularly walk a precise route quite a way out before dispersing.
Inside the small paddock, the snag we left standing for their use as a scratching post had been pushed askew. The bottom is rotting enough that stability is almost gone.
Both Cyndie and I walked out into the hayfield and the horses happily followed. Then they kept going past us, climbing the rise and continuing over it to the far side facing the road.
The sounds of their contented chewing and ripping bites of grass have a soothing quality to them. The evening air was cooling nicely and the endearing sounds of nature surrounding us, combined with the munching horses as daylight faded, provided everything we wished for in terms of clearing our minds.
It is such a truly divine privilege to have horses living with us again.
.
.
Another First
It’s been a while since we tried something for the first time at Wintervale, so I guess we were due. Last night we started the 21-day incubation period toward hatching our own chicks. I never had this one on my list of things I wanted to try.
We have set our expectations low, but are striving to meet the specific parameters laid out [hee… laid] in the instructions as closely as possible to improve our odds. Since we weren’t planning ahead for this, some of the eggs spent time in refrigeration, which isn’t recommended.
If any of them hatch, we’ll have even more appreciation for what Rock contributed in his short time with us.
Candling to see if they are viable is scheduled to occur in seven days.
Yesterday, Cyndie gave the horses a new first by opening the gate to the front hayfield for them to explore. The four of them have already chomped the back pasture grass down so much we need to give it a rest.
Looking at how crazy-fast the lawn grass is growing around here during the latest series of rainy days, I expect regrowth in the back pasture shouldn’t take long. The first lawn mowing of the season is definitely imminent, pending the next dry, sunny day.
.
.
Relative Something 