Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale Ranch’
Oh Brother
It has been six weeks that I have worked full-time at home in my new role as ranch manager. For me, that is a lot of work days with no one to talk to other than our animals. Yesterday, I got a break from the solitude when my brother, Elliott, showed up with all his tree climbing rigging gear, offering me a day of his services. Not only did I have someone to talk with, but it was family!
Not only was he offering his assistance, he was providing a priceless service of trimming tree branches that were well out of my reach. In particular, one “widow-maker” that had fractured long ago, but still clung to the base of its branch and swung near the location of the wood shed. That one has been bothering me for a long time.
I had originally tried my own crude methods to toss a line into that branch in hopes of snagging it so I could pull it down. I couldn’t get it to let go, so the branch continued to menacingly dangle there.
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It was an incredible treat to watch my brother work. I had no idea it was possible to toss a line as high into a tree as he did, and successfully drop it down on the other side of a limb. Seeing him pull himself up made my arms tired just watching. Actually, after a while my neck muscles were complaining about how much time I spent with my head tipped back, looking straight up.
When he made it high up into the tree, he rigged two more points of security and then pulled out his saw to begin the cutting. From his new vantage point, he was able to spot dead branches to cut that I hadn’t even noticed from the ground. As he worked, we moved ever closer to the roof of the wood shed that is laying on the ground beneath this tree. To protect it, Elliott tied a rope to the branches about to be cut so they could be lowered in a controlled fashion.
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It is quite a process, and I was very intrigued by it, if not feeling a bit addicted. For the rest of the day after he left, I kept wanting to go back out and do more of that work. While helping to put away his gear, I asked Elliott to teach me how to “braid” the long ropes for storage the way he does. It’s slick because they easily come undone when you are ready to use them.
Being able to do these climbing and rigging skills would be a very handy thing for me, with the number of trees we have. It would require that I do a lot of learning to master tying the knots I need. I have difficulty remembering how to tie a knot soon after I learn it.
I don’t know that I would have the arm strength to do this, though. I have a permanently separated shoulder that means I have no skeletal strut supporting my collar-bone, and that leaves me significantly weaker on my left side.
I’ll just have to rely on the graciousness of my brother to make the trip out with all his gear again someday, to bring down more of the dangling dead branches that loom.
Elliott, I hope I didn’t drive you nuts with my excitement about having someone to pal around with yesterday. I can’t thank you enough for the “workout” you put in here. I am exceedingly grateful to have these branches down! Hope your arms aren’t too stiff today…
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Overwhelming Bliss
Early in the day yesterday, after scrubbing out the automatic waterer for our horses and scooping up manure from the paddocks, I paused for a moment and felt deeply moved by the overwhelming bliss of our place.
Delilah had been a particularly attentive companion during my chores, and afterward, wandered over to rest in the shade. The horses seemed thoroughly content; Legacy and Hunter up under the overhang of the barn, and Cayenne and Dezirea outside the paddock, grazing on the tiny strip I had opened up for them.
It was quiet, except for a few friendly bird calls, and the weather conditions were idyllic. It brought tears to my eyes. This is the environment we have endeavored to create. When it isn’t a muddy mess out here, we have pretty much achieved what we dreamed of accomplishing.
We have 4 fabulous horses, in space that is serving them well, and they seem pretty happy with their situation. We’re pretty happy with it too, and right now I am blessed with being able to be home to care for it every day.
I was working hard to keep Delilah engaged with me while I was giving her some time off-leash. My chores led us down to the labyrinth where I was fixing the sagging wall around the stockpile of fertilizer.
Suddenly there was a great commotion and I spun to see a turkey shoot into the air and fly off over the trees into the woods. I don’t know if Delilah scared it up, or if it surprised her. It was quite a sight. After it was gone, Delilah carried on as if nothing had happened.
To keep her occupied and discourage her from wandering off, I tossed a hunk of a branch into the woods for her to chase. Later, she came to where I was working and almost stood too close. It struck me as odd. Then I stepped back from what I was doing and saw that hunk of wood laying on the ground behind where I was sitting. She had brought it back to me and dropped it. That’s why she was standing so close.
Since it worked the first time, I decided to do it again, later in the day. I tossed a stick into the woods. I figured she wouldn’t find it among all the other branches on the ground. Silly me, I should know better. I should also have had more sense than to send her bushwhacking through our woods.
By the end of the day, she had more burrs stuck all over her than I have yet seen. I spent a long time brushing them out before Cyndie got home, hoping all the while that Delilah hadn’t also been exploring through any poison ivy during the day’s escapades.
Rest assured, I scrubbed my arms thoroughly as soon as we came inside.
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Mostly Quiet
It’s feeling a little mixed up for us this week, because Cyndie stayed home from work yesterday to attend the funeral of our next door neighbor, Barbara Losgaard. The day felt like a Sunday all over again to us.
I wore a coat and tie to the service, and quickly became a bit self-conscious about being over-dressed. The only other person with a tie on was the man from the funeral home. There were men in jeans and even some wearing shorts. A polo shirt would have been more than adequate from the looks of the men in attendance.
With the service occurring in the middle of the afternoon, major projects were saved for another day. I was able to get out and auger in a few anchor posts that I hope will adequately hold down my second version of a wood shed. I spun them in as far as buried rocks allowed.
Other than that, things are rather quiet. The weather is gorgeous, with low dew points and cool nights creating quite a September vibe.
I tossed balls for Delilah to chase as Cyndie and I did some weeding of the landscaping around the back of the house.
Delilah is back to being on leash again, after disappearing and not responding to Cyndie’s calls as she walked our entire property in search of her. I spotted Cyndie coming down the driveway in her car, and hopped in when she said she wanted to drive around and see where Delilah went.
I figured it wasn’t going to work, because the dog was probably deep in the woods somewhere, but I was wrong. We drove up the hill, past the house where she has been seen on other occasions when she wandered. At the end of our street, I said we should just turn around and head back. The odds of seeing her from the next road weren’t worth it.
On the return approach to that neighbor’s house, Cyndie spotted Delilah searching around out in their tall grass field.
After dark last night, we took her with us for a final walk of the evening and headed down to shut the horses into the paddock. Our timing was perfect, as the glow of the rising moon was just appearing on the horizon. We decided to walk the length of the driveway so we could enjoy seeing it come up.
Just as it was about to break into view, we were presented with a spectacular streaking meteor directly above, right in the area of sky we were peering at. The Perseids meteor shower! I looked for others, but that was the only one we saw.
We needed to get in and start acting like it was a work night in the middle of the week.
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Things Change
I suppose the transition will never be complete. Everything, including ourselves, is in constant transformation. In a couple of months we will have completed our second year living in a rural setting, now with 4 horses, a dog, and a cat. We moved from our home of 25 years in the suburban area where we had grown up, living those last few years with no pets at all. The transition has been monumental for us.
Since we arrived, I learned how to drive our diesel tractor (12 forward gears, 4 reverse). We adopted 2 cats, one of which has been returned. We found a fence contractor who helped us design a new layout, cleared scrub brush and trees, and installed paddock and hay-field fencing. We cut a new trail through our woods to finish a loop. We added a gravel driveway around a new hay shed we had built. We built a 70-foot diameter labyrinth garden, now officially named the Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth, after our dear friend, Ian Rowcliffe, who has influenced and inspired us immeasurably in this adventure. I built a wood shed and then dismantled it after it blew over in a storm.
We discovered a Belgian Tervuren dog breeder not too far away and brought home beautiful Delilah, a 9-month-old puppy. After bolstering the stables and barn walls with new planks of wood, we eventually got around to adding horses; 4 beautiful Arabians. The dream for this property, and for the modifications to it, have all been centered around the plan to have these horses, even though at the start, we weren’t sure from where the horses would come.
This summer I found myself pulling a hay rake behind my tractor and helping my neighbor to bale our hay and it felt like the transformation had reached a real milestone. This was almost like being a real farmer. I’ve certainly spent enough time digging around in our manure pile to at least feel like a rancher. I’ve planted, transplanted, fed, watered, and also cut down, split and chipped enough trees to feel like a lumberjack.
In July of this year, Cyndie started a new job which triggered the decision to have me stop working in the Twin Cities and stay home full-time to manage the property and animals.
There are still some significant projects pending which are looming large. We need to get drain tile and landscaping done to improve drainage around the paddocks, and we are adding the next phase of fencing to enclose a grazing pasture.
Our transition is nowhere near complete, but as we approach the accomplishment of our second year here, we are seeing the benefits of the changes we have made and noticing a feeling of significance for where we are now, in light of where we have been. We find ourselves pausing more often, to sit in our rocking chairs on the hill overlooking our back yard and take it all in.
Delilah, born about the time we bought this place and so also approaching two years old, now sits with us by the rockers, instead of running around chewing on everything. A very welcome change, among many.
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Just Chippin’
I’ve been getting in some hours on the chipper, working on clearing a path for the real fence that will be installed around our grazing pasture. The PTO-powered chipper is working really well for me. I did run into one situation where it was kicking out dust that almost looked like smoke. It took me longer than it should have to recognize what was going on. The exit chute was plugged. It was pulverizing the wood fed into it, because it couldn’t go anywhere else.
Our neighbor said we should use the wood chips for ground cover in our paddocks. That would require a LOT of tree branches to produce what we would need. The idea has some merit, though.
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Pine Love
I am deftly skilled at passing the same scenery day after day without really noticing details that are plainly visible. Last time I was mowing the grass around our home, the sorry condition of a few of our pine trees suddenly caught my full attention. I hate to think of how long I have been missing signs they were not making the best recovery from the harsh winter.
When spring finally arrived, I was greatly surprised to see almost every pine tree that turned brown during the winter ended up sprouting new growth, indicating signs of life. I had figured many of them were goners. As time passed, I failed to monitor their progress closely enough to spot the few who were having trouble keeping the new growth flourishing. I hope I haven’t missed a possibility of successfully nursing them back to health.
Yesterday, I took action to give the saddest looking trees some loving. Basically, they received a dose of horse manure fertilizer and a thorough soaking of water. We are hoping to be able to give all the evergreen trees around our house a regular watering through the fall this year to do everything we can toward reducing the stress they have endured for the last couple of years. It is hard on evergreens to enter winter without a good water reserve.
I did read that it is good to pause the watering in early fall, until deciduous trees drop their leaves, to allow trees to enter a transitional phase. After leaves have fallen, it is recommended to give all trees a deep watering until the ground freezes. Those evergreens will be losing moisture through their needles throughout the dryness of winter.
Meanwhile, despite total neglect, unwanted trees around our place, like box elder and common buckthorn, flourish and multiply. It’s just not fair.
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Horse Joy
John and Cyndie playing with horses; two pictures that I did not take. Thank you to Julie Kuberski for the beautiful photo of Cyndie exercising Legacy in our arena space. I realize that I just included a picture I had taken of Cyndie and “Legs” doing this same exercise a couple of days ago, but this image by Julie is just too wonderful to pass up.
The other one, Cyndie took with my new rugged-duty, waterproof camera. I carry it in one of my pockets most of the time, so it gets exposed to a lot of dust and dirt. There is a sacrifice of some image quality, but it gets the job done well enough to tell the story. I am interacting with Cayenne in this shot.
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.Horse wisdom is bringing us great joy.
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Double Bonus
Once again we have experienced one of our favorite things about Wintervale: the addition of visitors. We got a double bonus yesterday with a visit we were expecting, and also a drop in surprise! What a blessing it is to have friends and family be a part of our world here. It is especially rewarding when a visit includes the offer of labor toward projects.
Our special friend, Julie, whom I met years ago on one of the annual June cycling/camping adventure weeks, and her niece, Cecilia, came for a day of food, friendship, and work. Julie brought lunch she prepared, then Cyndie guided them through some exercises with the horses. After that, they all pitched in to help me work on relocating our temporary fencing to move the horses on to new grazing. The previous spot was getting a little too short.
Julie sent me a couple of pictures from her camera. This is Cecilia working in the round pen with Cayenne, and a picture Cyndie took of Julie in the “arena” with Legacy.
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Just as we had returned to the house for a break to have some popsicles, we received this great surprise: my niece, Liz’s husband, Nick, arrived with two of their kids, Ben and Heidi. Joyful energy abounded. Delilah had a blast when Ben tossed things for her to chase, the kids were cute as ever with the horses, and Nick offered his assistance for anything I needed help with.
Turned out I did find some heavy lifting for which his offer of help was a timely gesture.
With the day coming to a close, I was able to put final touches on removing slack from the tape, applying electricity, and opening the field to the horses great joy. This morning, in the low early light, my unwelcome shadow was unavoidable as I captured the horses in their new grazing space, where they are able to get in close proximity to the labyrinth garden.
Thanks to Julie, and Cecilia for helping get the fence up, and to Nick for bringing his kids for a surprise visit. It was truly a double bonus day for Cyndie and me. Delilah and the horses, too, for that matter!
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More Designing
I recently built a platform outside the back door of the barn for Cyndie’s portable sink. She said she liked it, but that she was also hoping to have a work station for washing horses in that area. On Friday, I worked on a design for a way to provide that, just beyond the sink.
The area will require a fair amount of fill, so I decided it was time to use the loader bucket on the diesel tractor. Moving massive amounts of manure was one of the reasons I figured I needed this tractor, but up until now, we have been managing just fine without it.
Actually, our neighbor, George, was just asking about our manure pile, and happily offered us the use of his manure spreader, as long as we can fill it using the loader on our tractor. That would allow us to spread our fertilizer on the hay-field. His asking created incentive for me to practice my skills using the loader for something other than snow.
It doesn’t come naturally for me. I have better control using hand tools. However, there is no denying the increased efficiency the loader provides. I can move a lot more fertilizer in a lot less time. One of my problems with mechanized assistance is that it also allows me to make a lot bigger mistakes in a shockingly quick blink of an eye.
For now, I am using the mostly composted manure from long ago as clean fill around our property. I moved a few bucket-loads to the spot and now have a sense of space that will be needed. I plan to bury a couple of fence posts to make a hitching rail and build up a platform where the horses will stand. We have some plastic grates that interlock, which we will fill with pea-gravel, and then that will be covered by rubber mats. I expect there will be a layer of plastic beneath the pea-gravel to cause water to drain in the direction we want it to go.
Luckily, Cyndie said she doesn’t expect to be washing horses for a while, so I have time to proceed in phases.
She was able to make use of the new arena space in the afternoon, exercising the horses with a lunge line. It was beautiful to see. The horses responded nicely to the exercise, and moved proudly around her in this new workout space that has been created.
Every day is something new around here. The progress of late has been invigorating for the soul, yet taxing on the body. That end-of-the-day shower is becoming a ritual of renewal and recovery after long days of heavy laboring.
During a brief pause between tasks yesterday afternoon, Cyndie brought out popsicles and invited me to join her on rocking chairs overlooking the back yard. With a cool breeze washing over us, it was a precious (and intentional) opportunity to take a moment to enjoy the richness of blessings we are surrounded by here. They are more than enough justification for the hard work we find ourselves engaged in day-after-day.
Horse Stuff
Here is what the arena space looks like after I hung the polytape fencing. I devised a gate which will allow Cyndie to pull up one post and move it to the side without changing the tension of the tape on any other posts.
Cyndie arrived home early enough to do some grooming of the horses yesterday. She surprised me with a text message that said she was “ten minutes away and bringing Dairy Queen ice cream treats.” What a sweetheart. Am I not the luckiest man alive?
A couple of the horses have been bothered by bug bites, and Cyndie took time with each horse, hooking to their halter with cross ties to keep them standing in one place so she could do a thorough job. 
The horses seemed to really appreciate the attention, willingly cooperating to get into the harness and lead rope for their turn.
After she had brushed them out, she applied a chemical fly repellant in hopes of giving them a break from the constant pestering, followed by a reward-treat to thank them for tolerating the funny smell. I was amazed that each horse didn’t just walk out into the paddock and roll in the dusty dirt afterwards, especially Hunter. He is notorious for getting himself covered from head to hoof.
Actually, he has been spending extra time when he does lay down, wriggling around to scratch himself against the ground, sending clear signals that the insects were bugging him.
I captured a picture of Hunter communing with Delilah (in her lopsided vest), in a rare moment when one or the other weren’t trying to demonstrate their perceived dominance.
In all fairness to each of them, Delilah and the herd have behaved with increasing poise toward each other in the days since I stopped driving across the cities to the day-job. I suppose it is a combination of the extended daily exposure they have been able to have, and the maturation Delilah is developing as she approaches the ripe old age of 2.
I’ll take it. Life is so much more pleasant when everybody is able to get along.
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Relative Something 