Posts Tagged ‘sleep deprived’
Leadership Dispute
After three days of less than adequate sleep, I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open after dinner last night. It was great to know my body was willing to make up for what I had denied it, but if I went to sleep too early, I’d wake up way too soon. Postponing sleep until closer to my usual time was worth it to get back on a more normal overall schedule again.
I arrived home yesterday to a report from Cyndie that Mix and Light had entered into a phase of heightened conflict, maybe in competition for the role of herd leader.
She described a change of increased aggression from Mix toward Light. For a while, we were seeing just the opposite between those two.
At the second feeding yesterday, Cyndie found Mix standing firmly in Light’s usual feed bucket spot, without protest from Light. That is the station we serve first, and Mix appeared to be claiming it.
Light just stood back and didn’t attempt to eat from any of the buckets.
I asked where Swings was this whole time. Cyndie said Swings has been hanging out with Mia, which she doesn’t usually do because Swings doesn’t like Mia. They were grazing grass together and showed little interest in coming up to eat grains.
I’m just fine with Mix wanting to be the herd leader. More valuable to me would be to have her demonstrate some visible leadership on a consistent basis. If Light gets relegated to the second or third rung on their level of hierarchy, I hope it doesn’t mess too much with her self-image.
Light was rescued from a kill pen on two different occasions and was spookily skinny when she came to This Old Horse. Even though she looks outwardly healthy now, I would guess she suffered enough psychological trauma to leave her mentally fragile ever since. That hasn’t been the way I have looked at her in the past, but since that last Vet visit, my perspective has been readjusted to a more realistic interpretation of the horses’ ages and the abuses they have suffered.
While discussing the horses last night with Cyndie, we jointly came to the recognition that Light’s clinginess to Swings could be a reflection of an insecurity, not a desire to lead. Although we don’t know exactly how she ended up in the kill pen, it occurred to us that she might never be sure that it won’t happen again somehow.
Whatever it is that the horses might be trying to work out among themselves, I hope they come to an arrangement that satisfies each of them soon. It’s much more soothing to have them be loving with each other than to have disputes.
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Congratulations Earned
I doff my hat to two football teams that have accomplished tournament wins in the last 24 hours. Congratulations to Inter Miami for their Leagues Cup championship and to Spain for the Women’s World Cup victory.
I was able to view both games even though we are on a stay-cation with our friends, the Wilkuses in Mound, MN, and the entertainment value was top-notch –both the football and hanging out with friends on Lake Minnetonka.
The high heat and lake atmosphere combined with the fabulous lunch offerings made for a quintessential picnic meal yesterday.
I’m a little sleep deprived this morning due to the late finish of the Leagues Cup match that went to penalties and went through all eleven players of each team and then the early start of the England v. Spain World Cup match.
It will be hard to top the excitement of the games and yesterday’s feasting and swimming but we’ll give it a decent effort today before returning to Wintervale tonight. I may try to talk Cyndie into driving so I can take a little snooze to the hum of tires speeding along the pavement.
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Saving Daylight
It’s that 23-hour day again. We all get cheated out of a normal hour of sleep in order to feel like there is more daylight today than there was yesterday. Whatever.
Living with, and caring for animals, is one way to notice how laughable our arbitrary adjustment of clock hours is to nature.
Last week, the chickens had already responded to the increased hours of daylight by restarting their egg production. Yesterday, Cyndie cooked up “home-laid” eggs for breakfast again. Even without a lot of live-bug protein in their diets yet, our free-range hens sure produce delectable eggs.
So, the storm blew in yesterday with gusto. Strong winds toppled the multiple-unit Martin house. Neither of us noticed if any residents were displaced. The activity there has rarely been visible, even though there is some nest material inside.
Just like predicted, we received rain for a few hours before it changed over to snow, so the overall accumulation appears to be a more reasonable 5-ish inches (and still falling), instead of twice that, or more, that it could have been.
There’s not enough light out yet to show you how gorgeous the new snow looks, stuck to all the trees, but we’ll have our cameras out while plowing and shoveling all day today, so I expect there will be some scenic shots to share eventually.
In the mean time, here is a shot that Cyndie took which I adore:
I asked her why her snowshoe trail took on the whimsical “s” curves, and she said that she was looking down as she trudged along, and for that last stretch had resorted to simply following Delilah’s footprints in the deep snow.
I guess it’s a visual of where the most canine-alluring scents were wafting in the air on that trail-breaking trek.
Happy Daylight Saving Time to those territories who make the adjustment.
Yawn.
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Sleep Deprived
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crafted
by the last thing I remember
in the microseconds
before I would inevitably forget
there was pure nothing
absolute nothing
which is something
in an unlikely sort of way
rapid deceleration
smiling wryly
in my general direction
placid attitudes
with no reason to be
wordless wonderings
wandering aimlessly
waiting weightlessly
beneath whatever was lying around
dripping delicately
the way vague ideas do
blowing in with little momentum
to fill a void
that never really existed
a transaction of inevitability
forged rather forcefully
from fashionably feasible concepts
intercepted unexpectedly
in the final hours before dawn
when babies are prone to cry
and sleep suddenly goes b’bye
acting in nobody’s better interests
one passing moment at a time
the thing that was never there
disappears rapidly
suddenly filling what was once
only mostly
nothing but thin air
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Horses Down
One really great thing about the proximity of our chicken coop to the pastures is that we are able to observe the herd while we work. The middle of the day has been a time when it is not surprising to look out and find them settled in for a group nap.
That is always such a captivating sight, having them all lay down for a rest at the same time.
I would assume that they feel much more comfortable conking out to that level of unconscious when they have enough light to safely survey the surroundings.
The funny thing for me is, the way they look here mirrors the way I tend to feel around those same hours while at the day-job lately. Trying to simultaneously design and build a chicken coop has me burning my candle at both ends. A long night’s sleep has been one of the things I’ve sacrificed.
Oh how I’d love to join the horses for a mid-morning power nap.
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Cat Nap
When there is too much going on in life, it is not uncommon for people to drop something from their days that seems expendable… hours of sleep. Even though I know better, sleep is one thing I sacrifice all too often. Now that I have been spending significant hours on the highway in a commute to and from work, lack of sleep has become a scary hazard. That afternoon drive home has been a real struggle for me, more times than I care to admit.
Regular readers here will be able to recognize the times when I needed to cut short my time for writing, and post a quick picture or poem. I love to write, and will admit that it is too easy for me to borrow hours from the block meant for sleeping, to play on the keyboard, hunting for words.
The other day, in a pause between other commitments, I tried to do a little work on the laptop. I was probably composing a poem about slumber! I think Pequenita recognized I was doing more napping that typing, and decided to join me. How could I resist? Cyndie ran for her camera when she discovered this scene of my nodding off in front of the computer, and being kept warm by a napping partner.
Relative Something 