Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale’
‘Tis Seasonal
I am truly living a storybook life here, folks. The season is upon us when decorators of the world pull out everything they have saved for years that has anything to do with December holidays and inundate their surroundings with color and lights.
Our place looks like Christmas magic all of a sudden. The only thing missing is little kids in footsie pajamas running around with eyes like saucers, over-anxiously waiting a visit from the guy in red who travels by reindeer.
We were blessed once again with a visit from Cyndie’s mom who worked tirelessly for the entire day yesterday to provide her exquisite skills in bringing the spirit of the season to life in our home.
She went beyond the call of duty before even arriving by taking time the day prior to shop for baking supplies and accoutrements like garlands with lights. With barely a pause to catch her breath, yesterday she cooked and baked and decorated, then helped me run an errand to drop off a car for service, then helped get Cyndie down to the barn for her first visit with the horses since the surgery.
She is a superwoman!
The best highlight of the day —among many— was having Cyndie get bundled up to be outside, her walking part way down the driveway with crutches, then hopping in the back of her mom’s car for the rest of the distance to the barn, and finally communing with the horses that had come up to the barn to see her.
They were a little freaked by her crutches and walker, but very happy to see her after all this time she has been away.
Back in the kitchen, Cyndie and her mom moved into full production mode for a while and cookie smells were mixing with the home-made caramels and Chex mix snack that had just come out of the oven.
What could I do? You can’t fight this kind of momentum. I went upstairs and put on the holiday music, came down and set about testing the goods coming out of the oven.
I told you, it’s a storybook life I’m livin’!
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Going Right
When things are going right for you, ya just gotta soak it up and enjoy it for all it’s worth. I’ve had a vision in my head since we moved here about how I might manage firewood. After a variety of stumbles in the time since, yesterday I made progress that went as smoothly as I could ever hope, in terms of the vision I had.
When we first arrived on this property, there was firewood stored under the overhang of the barn that the previous owners generously left for us. I had to move it up by the house, but it was more than enough to allow us to enjoy fires through that first winter.
When we had our fence contractor start clearing trees from the water drain path and pulling out old fencing, they created a hefty pile of cut logs that I needed to split to augment the dwindling stockpile that had been left for us. I needed to shop for a splitter. I found that ingenious Swedish manual splitter which works slick and will be perfect, once I am ahead and only splitting a small amount at a time.
The fence crew cut logs haphazardly and I found the lack of uniform length frustrating. It made it difficult to split, but that wood got us through the second year.
I found myself looking forward to eventually being able to cut my own wood so I could enact a little quality control. I figured out the chainsaw I wanted to have and made that purchase, but the quality control would take some time as I gained experience. Meanwhile, I still had a large backlog of already cut wood awaiting splitting, and that kept growing because of the new trees I was cutting down for this year’s fence project.
When the woodshed I had built was knocked down in a storm last spring, I let the wood splitting slip while I figured out how to get the roof back up again. That has left us a little short of ready to burn firewood for this winter. All the splitting that my neighbor recently helped me with is for wood that will be burned next year.
Now with Cyndie home for weeks on end, recuperating from her hip transplant, we’ve been having fires almost every day and have quickly consumed much of the balance of dry wood. I need to take action on a plan to turn the many downed trees in our forest into firewood.
I’m hoping they have been dead long enough that we can burn it as is. I broke off a few small branches and mixed them in our fuel a few days ago with good success. Yesterday, I got out the chainsaw and cut the bigger branches into perfect-sized logs. Some of them getting big enough around that I felt I should take a crack at splitting them.
It’s an oak tree, and the manual splitter was popping them in two with surprising ease. I stacked them in the open space on the right side of the shed and quickly had a pile over two feet high. Everything was working just as I envisioned it could. This is the way I will be able to stay ahead of our needs by just doing a little at a time.
It was an incredibly rewarding exercise, made more so by the hassles I’ve dealt with prior, before finally getting to this point of things going so right.
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Glimpse Success
On Saturday we enjoyed a day of sunshine with temperatures above freezing right from the start. What little snow cover we had acquired just a day prior was no match for the warm rays. I was very happy to be able to get the deck shoveled clean first thing in the morning, to take advantage of the solar drying mechanism.
When it got above 40°F, I talked Cyndie into taking her walker for a little stroll on the nicely dried deck to soak up some of that direct sunlight. It helped to lift her spirits a bit while getting in some exercise for that new hip joint. As far as we can tell, the new joint is doing fine. The residual pain of the surgery is still commanding her attention, and that certainly limits her abilities for the time being.
While making my rounds down to the barn I was happy to discover a glimpse of success for a portion of the drain tile we had buried in the fall. They ran a tube right off the barn gutter downspout down into the ground and buried it in a trench that runs down beyond the paddock fence.
The water was flowing audibly down into that tube on Saturday, so I walked across the paddock to the outlet in the newly carved drainage swale to see what it looked like.
It was working brilliantly! There was a perfect trickle of water flowing out of the pea-gravel, turning the snow in the swale a telltale gray with saturation. It is but one part of three drainage solutions which we had installed, but it gives me hope that we will see similar success in the other areas when spring ultimately rolls around.
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Day After
It feels like an accomplishment to get through the day after Thanksgiving. It has become such an event unto itself. My preferred way of coping with the bombardment of consumerism-run-amok is to not go anywhere or do anything that could in any way be construed as partaking in the buying frenzy.
When Cyndie appeared from the bedroom yesterday morning, she informed me that I would be making the 1-hour drive to the city to pick up a prescription for her. My plan for the day was foiled from the get-go. In addition, daylight had revealed a new covering of snow that arrived overnight, so I had some plowing and shoveling that demanded attention as well.
It didn’t end there. As I was driving home from the pharmacy, I noticed some rain drops on the windshield. We were receiving sporadic bouts of timid precipitation all afternoon that alternated between wet drops and icy shards. Never enough to make a major impact, but enough to leave a trace. If it got any worse, I would likely need to put the horses under cover of the barn overnight, which meant I needed to clean the stalls from their previous stay.
Such is life on the ranch in the winter. When Cyndie returns to full activity, these projects will be minor demands on us. Prior to that, the combination of tasks needing simultaneous attention complicate my routine significantly. I am not able to help Cyndie at the same time I am out doing chores.
I walked in the door this afternoon and found her working in the kitchen. As time passes in her recuperation, she begins to grow weary of asking for assistance and naturally tries to do more and more herself, as she feels able. I begin to feel like a nag from frequently asking if she needs my help, but then think I’m neglecting my role as care giver when she has worked past her comfort level.
We make a great pair. You’d think we were married or something.
Friday came and then disappeared in a blink. I safely navigated traffic for a few hours on the road, then we enjoyed a flatbread pizza Cyndie created for lunch. I got the stalls cleaned, Delilah walked, driveway plowed, and trash/recycling wheeled down to the road.
In the end, I decided the horses didn’t need to come in overnight. I’ll find out this morning whether they were okay with that plan, or not. It wasn’t exceptionally cold overnight, and the prediction is for above-freezing temperatures today, so I’m hoping they aren’t finding the weather too bothersome.
If I’ve got the energy for it today, there is some old firewood that needs to be hauled to the house and new firewood to be split and stacked. With a little luck, maybe I’ll even get back to that slow hay feeder box project that has been stalled for a few days now.
I’m happy to have it be the day after the day after.
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Relative Calm
For the most part, calm prevails on the ranch as we settle into a routine of rest and healing for Cyndie. With neither one of us needing to go anywhere, we can operate at a very comfortable pace, guided by the regular intervals of animal feeding times which I must act on.
Cyndie is capable enough now to take care of many things herself, so I don’t need to constantly be in her immediate vicinity. Plus, we continue to be blessed with the added assistance of her mother’s occasional visits, or the home-care nurses and physical therapist.
We received a dusting of snow after last weekend’s melt, making our views a bit more photogenic again, at least for this time of year. I was going through a bit of a picture-taking drought for a while there.
After walking Delilah yesterday morning, I grabbed my camera and headed back outside to see if I could capture some of the scenes that had caught my eye moments earlier.
The horses were so content, messily chomping away on the hay in our two feeders, that I was moved to take some extra time and linger among them. Both Legacy and Dezirea had rubbed their manes into a tangled “braid” that defies logic. I have yet to see how they do it, but it is a recurring phenomena —more so for her than him. They tolerated my interest in detangling their hairdos, continuing to munch at the feeder while I worked.
Delilah patiently waited for me in the barn, where I left her while getting hay. It’s a good day when she quietly waits for me there while I feed the horses. Too often I feel rushed to get back because of her sharp barks of protest for being left longer than she wants.
The only other thing that has disturbed the peace and quiet we’ve been enjoying is an invoice that came in the mail from the city of River Falls. In addition to needing to pay for the towing and repairs to the truck after Cyndie’s little rollover accident, we are also responsible for paying the public service emergency responders for responding. It costs $500.00 to have an accident in River Falls. It adds insult to injury.
Don’t do it, folks. It is not worth it. That money is better spent on groceries. It irks me to no end that they show up and park their cars with flashing lights while the tow truck works, and then bill you five hundred bucks. If they are going to charge you, they should at least inform you, and give you a choice of having them respond or not.
Talk about a dis-incentive for calling for help. Something is seriously messed up if our tax dollars are not sufficient to fund public services. And they have a monopoly. We should have a choice of more affordable options. If they want to charge for services, then privatize it and let us shop for a responder who charges the fairest price.
I told Cyndie that she is not allowed to have any future accidents in or around River Falls, WI. We can’t afford it. We’ve got horses to feed.
Speaking of the horses, that reminds me, it’s time to go back to grazing. I’m going to return to that place of calm. I don’t have to pay an extra fee to do that.
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My Welder
I have wanted to buy a slow feeder for a method of providing the horses their hay for some time. The system we currently use allows them to eat it too fast, and they toss too much on the ground, which is a waste. Being such a relative newbie in the world of all things horse-related, I figured there should be a common tried-and-true method for slow hay feeding. A little research revealed there are a variety of solutions, many touting the benefits of allowing them to also eat in the more natural position of having their heads down, as if grazing on the ground.
There are several versions of a box that is about the size of a small bale, with a metal or plastic grid over the hay that the horses have to pull through. Watching videos of horses feeding through a grid show that the process ends up being very similar to their natural grazing process. Seems perfect for what we have in mind. Surprisingly, I didn’t find what I wanted readily available for purchase locally. In fact, when asking around, I received mostly blank stares, like they had no familiarity with a slow feeder. Really?
I decided to take a leap of faith and order online. One nice looking wood box was made out west, but wouldn’t ship to my region. I found a plastic one that looked like it came from Iowa and decided to give it a try. That site said they wouldn’t ship to a residence and suggested folks have it shipped to a feed store and pick it up there. Okay. I called our feed store in Ellsworth and got approval to have it shipped to them.
Oddly, after placing the order, I received no confirmation email. After a day, I grew suspicious and tried calling the phone number listed on the web site. I think it was an individual’s cell phone. I left a message. Never received a call back. I tried the email contact form on the web site. It didn’t work. I emailed directly to the address on the web site. No reply.
When weeks passed with no response, I contacted Paypal and initiated a dispute case. They give the seller a chance to reply to the complaint and settle the dispute. Apparently, they got no reply. I was credited the full amount.
Contemplating other options, I decided I might as well do it myself, like most of the other folks posting pictures had done. Building a box out of wood isn’t that big a deal. The key part is finding the metal grid. After a brief attempt to locate an industrial solution online, looking at manufacturers instead of retailers who don’t sell exactly what I want, I decided to ask my wise neighbor. He works at the auto body shop where our truck is currently being rehabilitated.
After he finished giving me that “blank stare” response to my description, he asked if I had talked to Gaylen. Who? Apparently, Gaylen is THE welder whom one talks to if they want something like this done here. I went for it. I’m all in.
I called Gaylen, raced home to draw a sketch with dimensions, grabbed an image off the web of what I was hoping to build, and drove to downtown Beldenville. Two bars and a post office, basically, with few houses either side of them. Take a left at the post office, then the first right after the bridge over the little creek, to the end of the driveway.
I have found the local Mecca of custom welding projects.
In the end, this may end up being a more expensive slow feeder than necessary, but I am investing in a relationship that could prove priceless to me in time. I like the thought of being able to say, “my welder,” like other people say, “my therapist” or “my lawyer.”
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New Normal
Wednesday brought a return to normalcy at Wintervale, as Cyndie ventured out in the rental car in the early morning hours and drove herself to work. A form of “getting back on that horse,” if you know what I mean. I don’t know what that was like for her, but her safe departure brought a return to the usual weekday routine for the animals and me at home. Although, it was ‘usual’ under the guise of our new normal which involves WINTERY weather!
The horses appear to have adopted seamlessly, and happily paw the ground in the back pasture to reveal grazing available that still interests them. Regardless, I have begun to increase the daily ration of hay that we put out in the paddock to assure they have access to all the fuel their bodies require to be comfortable in the cold temperatures.
I suppose I should probably increase my daily intake of peanut M&Ms to help my body beat the cold, as well.
I finally made it to the bottom of the pile of split wood that my very generous neighbor helped create, moving it all into the woodshed. Now the stack of logs remaining to be split stands out a little more. I was too busy with other priorities in my race to prepare for the impending snow last weekend, to accept his offer of returning to finish all the splitting.
Much of what’s left is little stuff that will be easy to do by hand, anyway. Not that that would have stopped him. I look forward to using my fancy Swedish Smart Splitter to split a few logs at a time, and working on getting that shed filled to capacity. Everything going in there now is for burning next winter. Right now we’ve got barely half the amount of seasoned wood I’d like to have available for burning this year.
Who knew winter would arrive so early?
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Theory Proved
Once again, we have added proof toward the theory that being prepared means you won’t find your preparations necessary. Our readiness obviously contributed to shifting the first major winter storm this year just far enough north that we didn’t end up receiving a plow-able amount of snow. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we didn’t face hazardous travel conditions. We received just enough sleet and freezing rain to make the road conditions downright dangerous. Heck, I almost suffered an adrenaline overdose just walking down to the barn, given how many times I slipped, causing my body to involuntarily panic in reaction.
I took Delilah for a walk around the property and spied plenty of tracks in the snow. Finally I can see what the heck she is reacting to when her nose picks up a scent and pulls her off course from the trail. We came across the foot prints of deer, squirrel, rabbit, cat, and probably raccoon, too. There were obvious soil disturbances from moles and a couple of well worn trails where mice left a snow-less path.
At one point on our walk, the woods burst to life with movement as we disrupted the largest flock of wild turkeys I have ever happened upon. Many took to the air, but plenty stayed on foot and made their way ahead of us to maintain a safe distance. I’m happy to report that Delilah didn’t over-react and pull my arm out of the socket in chase. She seemed a little perplexed with the sheer number of options, and after taking in the spectacle, I guess just decided it was too many from which to pick. Her nose went back to the ground and she carried on with her trail surveillance.
We walked up to the neighbor’s house to deliver a fresh-baked apple pie as a token of appreciation for the incredible effort of splitting firewood for me. I worked again this afternoon on moving more wood from the pile of recently split logs over to stacks in the woodshed, and still haven’t finished. My neighbor helped me split a lot of wood.
Delilah gladly accepted my offer to let her nap in the freshly tidied kennel while I worked. I think she adored the opportunity to be out in the fresh winter air. The horses weren’t so keen about staying out in the freezing rain. It is always fun to see how much they like coming inside the barn to get out of cold and wet weather.
What little snow we did receive created a good visual of the newly defined drainage swale through the pasture. Maybe the fact that we now have that feature in place will end up limiting the winter precipitation to an amount that the swale won’t be needed. Just a theory.
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Bring It
The predictions for our weather being significantly stormy today have continued to intensify. Meteorologists report that all computer models remain in agreement for a potential of over a foot of snow in our region by Tuesday. Cyndie and I are ready. We say, “Bring it on!” I haven’t asked the horses what they think about it.
We worked hard yesterday to tackle everything within our power that needed to be addressed before a lot of snow covers it all up. As we went along, we found little things to add to our list of preparations. It’s quite possible that I have never been as ready for a first significant snowfall of the season as I am today.
With Cyndie’s help, despite an ailing arthritic hip, I finished making a raised area around the hay feeder in the paddock. That also means we were able to use up the left-over pile of lime screenings.
We rearranged equipment in the shop garage to move plow blades and snow tires to the front for easy access, and piled lawn care accessories out of the way in back. I went so far as to clean out leaves that had collected in nooks and crannies around the house and shop walkways where I will soon be trying to shovel snow.
We re-hung tarps on the walls of Delilah’s kennel to give her added shelter. She was thrilled to be present while we worked, chasing mice that popped out when Cyndie disturbed a nest while sweeping out the corners.
Yesterday morning I was teasing Cyndie with a query about whether we had enough toilet paper to survive the coming storm, since that is a common item that gets purchased when harsh weather is approaching. She assured me we did, but later in the day, as we rearranged vehicles to get the truck parked under a roof, she decided to make a run to fill the gas tank and pick up some groceries.
She brought home more toilet paper.
All that is left to do is let nature take its course and invite winter over to make itself comfortable at Wintervale. Seems like the picture above will be the last glimpse of dry ground we’ll see for a few months.
Bring it on, we say. We think we are ready.
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Grooming Session
The horses were long overdue for some serious grooming, and yesterday Cyndie was able to give each of the 4 of them a thorough cleaning. Of course, this morning a couple of them have already found ways to grind in some new dirt. Apparently, they won’t have a chance to roll in dirt tomorrow, because the ground will be covered with snow. Weather forecasters have updated their prediction to a high likelihood of a significant snowfall event tomorrow.
Looking at the weather this morning, I don’t get any inkling of the impending mayhem. It brings to mind the deadly storm that occurred on Nov. 11, 1940, the Armistice Day Blizzard. Thank goodness for the improvements in weather forecasting that have evolved since that time. If you want to see some in-depth detail of what is being forecast (as of 10:14 p.m. last night) for our region tomorrow, check out this post on my favorite weather blog, Updraft, from MPR news. It paints a pretty dramatic picture of what to expect.
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As I toiled away on my projects yesterday, moving dirt and pea gravel around the paddocks, Cyndie focused her attention on the horses. It was a treat to see how much they seemed to relish the attention. It was so calm and quiet I almost burst with appreciation for the pleasantness of the moment.
Delilah was restrained on a leash nearby, and when she started barking for attention, I moved her closer to the action. That seemed to satisfy her needs and she laid down in the mid-day sun to regally observe the activity. The horses alternated between lining up for the grooming appointment and strolling down to graze along the fence outside the paddock or out on the hay-field hill.
Most of all, it was blessedly quiet. The air was filled with contentment, …a striking contrast to what is predicted to befall our little paradise tomorrow. Now I need to go batten down some hatches. There’s a storm a comin’!
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Relative Something 