Posts Tagged ‘scat’
White Stuff
Overnight last night, we received more of that white stuff from the sky. Probably enough that I will feel justified in firing up the Grizzly ATV to plow the driveway. Our other grizzly took on a shocked look at the latest batch of precipitation.
Possibly because the earlier flakes got covered with an icy drizzle. It created a crust over the surfaces that was just enough to make walking annoying because it caught the toe of my boot every few steps. There are enough trip hazards in our landscape that I don’t welcome the addition of any more of them. I’ve noticed a demeaning increase in my tendency to hit the ground over the last few years when my foot catches on unseen obstructions.
For some reason, those occasions are matched by an equivalent increase in F-bombs taking flight in reactionary shock.
The horses look like they stood out in the weather all night and then rolled around to get as wet and icy as possible. There is probably a word for the blocks of packed snow that build up and then get ejected from the bottom of their hooves. They are scattered everywhere around the paddocks. The series of days with this slowly accumulating snow at the temperatures we’ve had seems to keep the conditions right at the level that is prime for these to form.
Asher and I picked a spot to position the trail cam (which has been in storage [with batteries still in it. Boo!] for too long), hoping to identify what animal has been using an old downed tree trunk in our woods for its toilet. My scat-identifying skills have me thinking it looks like either a human or a dog as big or bigger than Asher. In reality, based on likely creatures traveling in that part of the forest, it’s a coyote, fox, or really large raccoon. Whatever it is, the amount of scat reveals this is a regular occurrence and not just an animal that happened to be wandering past.
There were no tracks in the fresh coating of white stuff this morning, so I didn’t check the memory card for images. New tracks in the snow will tell me when it’s time to check. You can be sure I will provide a full report as soon as we get some results. Heck, you’d think the tracks would give me the information I need to identify the culprit.
I’m about as good at identifying paw prints as I am with scat.
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Off Trail
Given the relatively long span of time with no snowfall, getting off the trails to explore our woods has proved revealing of late. Delilah and I came upon at least three hazardous waste sites. Me suspects the local raccoons have a luxurious condominium in the trees above this spot.
That’s more scat than I care to encounter in any one place. Wish they’d learn to bury their messes.
Farther along, it was hard to miss the calling card of one large antler-bearing white-tail deer. This buck also did a fair amount of pawing the ground in the vicinity of this scraping.
As we made our way down a slope where Delilah raced ahead while I scrambled to navigate the leash, and my body, around and under the tree debris she wove through, I thought I saw a big squirrel on the ground ahead. When Delilah ignored it and passed by in pursuit of a fresher scent, I saw that it was simply a long ago dried out scrap of furry hide from what I guessed to be a deer.
Later, after Delilah’s chase instinct had calmed down, I turned us back to look for that fur so I could take a picture. As so often happens in the woods, I couldn’t find it a second time. Unfortunately, we had no problem coming back to unsightly piles of scat, but nothing that stood out like a body of a dead squirrel that was obvious the first time we passed it.
Unless something smells freshly of death or walked by in the last few hours, Delilah’s nose seems to hold little interest. She walked past this bone with nothing more than a glance.
The white color made it stand out distinctly.
Actually, fresh presence doesn’t always guarantee Delilah will notice. Last night in the final walk before she retires to her crate (her “den”) for the night, my high-beam flashlight caught two little eyes reflecting about 50 meters ahead. I kept my eyes and the beam on the two reflecting spots as we closed the distance, while Delilah focused on whatever scent her nose to the ground was picking up.
Eventually, the creature decided to move off the trail and I could see it was a domestic-looking cat. My flashlight beam picked up the reflecting eyes again in the brush just off the trail, so I knew it hadn’t run off entirely. As we came abreast, I stared at the cat in my light beam and it stared back at me, while Delilah just passed right on by with her nose still to the ground, oblivious.
Never a dull moment on our thrice-daily (minimum) jaunts around the property for Delilah’s benefit.
Even more so when I decide we get to venture off-trail.
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Stinky Story
It has been a while since I put hours in at the day-job, and as a result, I have a fair backlog of stories to share that they haven’t heard regarding things that have happened at Wintervale. Yesterday, I was waxing eloquent on Delilah’s apparent preoccupation with wildlife scat and horse manure. As I spun my tales, I came to a funny story that I realized was worth posting here, and since I don’t recall having already written about it, I’m hoping I haven’t.
During the period that I was on leave, I worked on several outdoor projects that allowed me to grant Delilah the opportunity to roam freely, off-leash. She demonstrates such elation with being able to run free that it is a thrill to watch her, but since I would be trying to get some work done, there were times when I lost sight of where she was.
That was actually part of the training we have been working on. When we notice she seems to have disappeared, we call or whistle and she needs to return. Every time she does, she is rewarded with a treat or lavish affection, or both. Sometimes it takes a long time for her to return, long enough that I have usually grown frustrated and consider it a failed attempt. That presents a challenge, because she eventually does return, after all, and seems to expect a treat, but I’m reluctant because she didn’t come the first time I called.
Often times, when she doesn’t return immediately, it is because she has wandered off our property and is overly excited about exploring the unfamiliar territory of our neighbors. The plowed field just to our north is a particular favorite of hers. They weren’t able to plant any crop there last spring because it remained too wet for too long into the growing season. Instead, it became the place that our neighbor chose to dump fertilizer. He was putting some pretty stinky stuff on there from the local area dairy farms. I am pretty sure that is why Delilah likes it so much.
One damp day, after she eventually returned from a prolonged disappearance, she came back with what looked like muddy water soaking the fur around her head. It struck me as odd, because her head was dry, but I got the impression she had stuck her face into a puddle. I wondered how she could look wet around her face so thoroughly, but not show anything on her face or the top of her head. When she got close enough to me, I quickly discovered it wasn’t muddy water. She stunk something awful. There must have been a puddle of sewage up in that field somewhere.
It smelled so bad, I didn’t want to be near her. I went back to my project and hoped she would wear it off just by running through the grass, goofing off while I worked. Hours later, when Cyndie arrived home at the end of her work day, I had honestly forgotten about the mess Delilah had gotten into earlier. We all walked into the house through the front door together and Delilah jumped all over Cyndie and her nice suit, behaving like the over-excited puppy that she is, deliriously thrilled to have momma home.
“What is that smell?!” Cyndie choked.
Oops. The afternoon of activity had not done anything to get rid of the odor. It just served to dry the foul mixture into her fur. Delilah was marched right down to the tub for a good scrubbing.
Even after the bath, it seemed as though that stink lingered in her fur for a surprising amount of time. I imagine she was probably pretty proud about that.
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Relative Something 