Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale’
Waiting Games
My patience has been tested the last few weeks, waiting for three different contractors to make appearances on our property. Unfortunately, nature isn’t going to delay the onset of winter just because my projects weren’t completed. Completed seems like a humorous concept, since I can’t even get people here to start. They all claim the reason they can’t make it is that they are too busy and behind schedule.
Yesterday, I received a token visit from landscapers who will put in drain tile to route water around the paddocks, in hopes of keeping them from becoming such mud pits. It was “landscapers” plural, because the first one was so over-busy through the end of the year he needed to contract it out to a friend. They took some final measurements and said work should be able to start next week. I can only hope.
It felt a bit like the experience I often have in a visit to the doctor. I check in to let them know I arrived at the time of my appointment, and take my place in the waiting area. After what seems like way too long to be waiting, I start getting agitated. When that feeling starts to morph into anger, a nurse pops out and calls my name.
That resets my angst, and I am happy my turn has finally arrived. Except, it hasn’t. I eventually discover that all they have done is move me from the outer waiting area to an exam room to continue waiting. It’s a great system, because I tolerate a lot more waiting when it is broken up by little moments of faux progress. It would have been an intolerable wait, had I spent the entire time in the outer chairs. Broken into two stages —the second one feeling like actual progress— helped me accept the overall total wait-time without making a fuss.
It feels like the landscape contractors finally made an appearance yesterday to reset my angst and make me feel good about them telling me the work should be able to start next week sometime.
Once again, it works wonders for me. My previous anxieties have been reset. I’m happy with their latest promise.
Here’s hoping they are able to live up to it.
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Delilah Games
One night last week, when I was taking the memory card out of my camera to download the day’s photos to my computer, my finger slipped when I pushed on the card to eject it. The card popped all the way out and went sailing past me to the floor below. Delilah scooped it up the second it landed. I could hear the sound of the hard plastic clicking against her teeth as she checked it out.
In a panic, I scrambled from my stool and pushed my fingers around her jaw and into her mouth. I wiped off the saliva and inspected it for teeth marks. There were none. Disaster averted. Thank goodness for dogs ‘soft grip’ ability.
What a drama one slip of the finger can create.
You know, that gentle touch with her teeth reminds me of the amazing prowess that horses have with their lips. I was watching Legacy yesterday, while he rushed to graze some clover greens from which he seemed to anticipate I would pull him away. We were on our way over to the north pasture, but I was in no hurry, and actually was happy to have him trim the growth along the side of the gravel driveway loop. So, I let him have at it, and studied his technique.
There was a dead cottonwood leaf that seemed to be right in the way, and at the rate he was going, I expected it to get sucked right in with everything else. With an impressive combination of motion between his head and lips, that leaf was manipulated out of the way several times as he gobbled up all the greens on every side of it without ever slowing down. Talk about having touch.
Anyway, back to Delilah; Miss Quick. She’s a dog. She likes to chase and retrieve. She is also very fond of playing keep-away with us. She will keep bringing whatever the toy of the moment is for us to grab, so she can shake her head to pull it away. Even more, she loves to be chased and shows off her incredible athleticism with dodges and direction reversals rivaling an NFL running back.
The problem with this is that her game of keep-away wrecks the game of fetch. I throw something once, and she brings it back for an instant game of keep-away.
Having neglected to properly train her to drop things on command and play the game I want, when I want it, I instead devised a work-around. I bring two, or sometimes three objects for the game of fetch. Her compulsion to chase, overrides her desire to play keep-away. If I have another object to throw, she is more than willing to drop the one she has in her mouth.
Of course, that simply led to her upping her game a level so that she drops the first item farther and farther away from me, hoping to pick up the second thrown object and then beat me back to where the first lies. It was funny watching her struggle to fit two balls in her mouth at once, until she eventually perfected that skill (thus my solution of bringing a third…).
To mix things up, sometimes we throw discs for her to chase, instead. She loves leaping for them, when we get the throws right. She makes us laugh when she scrambles to try to pick up both discs at the same time. I expect she will hone that skill, too. I might as well start looking now for a third one of those, as well.
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Almost Day
Some days just don’t flow the way we hope they will. Our Sunday turned into an “almost” day for me. I guess almost can be looked at as being better than not at all. I discovered that I almost read all of the text on the big green sticker on the box of the solar-powered fence charger I bought on Saturday. I saw the words, “mounts on t-post” and figured I was good to go.
If I had read the whole thing I would have realized it was a separate bracket to be purchased that allowed it to easily mount to a t-post. Instead of making another trip to the store, I took that time to rig my own solution.
It probably would have been quicker to make that trip and buy the dang bracket. I almost got the project completed by 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I had planned to do other things, expecting this to be an hour-long task. I almost didn’t let it bother me that the day was over half gone at that point.
I almost sprained my ankle when I stepped in a divot in our lawn made by a mole. Adrenalin shot! Felt very lucky to have not been putting too much weight on that foot at the time. Pesky moles. I know that balance in nature is a good thing, but I sure wish we could do without the moles.
We almost put up the posts for the wood shed, version 2. Made some progress, then had to undo that and start again. After several attempts, I came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t try to robustly attach all the legs and expect the roof to align properly. We need to find a way to get the roof up resting on the back posts, and then place other posts beneath, line everything up, and fasten it all together.
Cyndie was a fantastic help all day, and kept me from giving up altogether. There was no “almost” in her day. Between coddling my fragile attitude and lending her assistance wherever she could, she did laundry, made meals, tended to the horses, and helped me scoop up manure. It was one of her weekend days off and I think she did more work than me.
Saturday she helped me with my lumberjacking and we cut up the huge downed limb and then more trees near the south border where new pasture fence will be installed. Over the weekend, she also finally put saddles on the 3 horses that will be ridden, and had them do some walking exercises to remind them what wearing a saddle is like. It gave her a chance to check out the equipment she purchased, and to give the horses some exercise with the saddles before adding the weight of a person to their load. It’s been over a year since they have been ridden, so they are a bit out of shape at this point.
Speaking of points, I almost had one when I started writing this ranting post. It is only fitting that now I don’t really have a conclusion to offer about my “almost” day.
If Cyndie were available, I bet she would take care of that for me, too.
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Peaceful Morning
One by one the horses buckled their knees and settled down to rest in the relative warmth of the climbing September morning sunlight. Cyndie and I were working nearby to put up a little barrier around trees we want to protect in the new pasture. I noticed we unconsciously dropped our voices to a whisper.
While doing some cleanup of some dead wood in a patch of scrubby growth, we discovered desirable trees previously unnoticed. The more undergrowth we cleared, the more surprises we found. The first one to catch our eyes was a fabulous oak that was about 10-feet tall and had deep green leaves, a course bark, and some bushy looking acorns. After clearing the tangled growth that had been obscuring it from view, we felt a thrill to know it was there and looking so fine.
We continued to cut back weeds and eventually uncovered a different kind of oak, a couple feet tall and with much more yellow-green leaves. After that, a maple appeared, along with a frail looking elm and a single sprout of a poplar. It looks so much better with all the suffocating weeds cut back. 
It only took one day for the horses to take interest in that spot and I realized we would need to do something to protect the trees. We created a perimeter with step-in posts and hung a green mesh fabric around the circumference.
Today I will mount a solar charging battery to electrify the fence around that pasture. It will be time for the horses to rein in their energies and mind their manners over there.
On that subject, Cyndie reported that while I was out last night, she went to collect the horses from the arena/pasture grazing area for the night and found only 3 of them there! Cayenne had slipped past one of the barriers and ventured out into the hay field for a few unauthorized bites.
A little electricity does wonders to keep them from testing the fence boundaries.
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Pattern Change
We woke up with a hint of frost on our deck this morning. It is a clear validation of what we have been sensing the last few days. There is a change of season in process, and with it, our patterns of routine. I had to hunt down a long-sleeved shirt the other day. Of course, at this time of year the extra shirt comes on and off a lot, depending on activity.
I came in from outdoors and headed to the sink to wash my hands. Ah, there was my old peeve, back again. The cuffs of my shirt get wet when I wash my hands. Sure, I pull the sleeves up, but they slide right back down. Now I am able to appreciate what I have taken for granted all summer long, that I can scrub up without a care when I wear short sleeves.
A couple of days ago I asked Cyndie if she was comfortable in the house. She said she was, and I pointed out that the indoor temperature was 62 degrees (F). In the winter, Cyndie is quick to report her discomfort if the house temp drops below 70.
It fascinates me how our bodies respond differently to the seasons. What feels refreshingly comfortable now will be irritatingly chilly in the days to come. In 5 months, a temperature just a few degrees above freezing will feel refreshingly comfortable outside. This morning that temp tightens muscles and causes a wince. It has a bit of a bite to it.
Soon it will be time for me to find my winter gloves. I have no idea where they are.
For some reason I have a difficult time parting with old gloves. The finger on these opened up way too soon, so I patched it and got a good few weeks more out of them. Then the palm opened up and I decided it was time to retire them.
Just throw them away, John.
I looked over the right glove and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Maybe I can use the right glove around the fire pit. I already have one by the living room fireplace, but come to think of it, I never use it.
Maybe I can use the leather for some other purpose. I could cut off the fingers and…
Just throw them away, John.
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Big Surprise
During the afternoon on Wednesday, when the gales of “Sept-ober” were blowing, I heard a crash while I was out scooping manure in the arena. It sounded to me like something very large had tipped over in the barn. However, I couldn’t think of anything in the barn that would have made that sound. I began to question my perception and wondered if something could have fallen up in the shop garage.
As I walked back toward the barn I had the thought that I probably shouldn’t leave the doors wide open on such windy days. I like getting fresh air moving in there, but the place sure is a dust factory as a result. I couldn’t see anything amiss, so I wandered over to the garage for a look. Nothing out of place there, either. It didn’t make sense.
Something about the sound brought to mind metal shelves, or the metal roof and sides of the barn and garage. With no evidence available to match what I heard, I promptly forgot about it.
Yesterday was a completely different day, with a stillness that exuded peace and tranquility. I walked the horses, one-at-a-time, over to the north pasture for a couple of hours after my lunch. They were exceptionally well-behaved. While they alternately grazed and raced around, I busied myself in the vicinity by trimming the scrub growth that looks decades old along our north property border.
Can you see Hunter positioned alone, away from the other three?
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The wild plum trees are producing a bumper crop this year.
I don’t remember this much fruit last year. Heck, we didn’t even figure out they were actually plums until a few weeks ago. Now we are all excited for having trees producing fruit we can use.
Well, more trees, that is. We do also have a rather tall apple tree that looks like it grew wild in the woods between the back yard and the barn. It dropped a lot of fruit last year. This year’s crop looks to be a bit more subdued.
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The horses were cute when I got them back into the paddock. All four of them settled into a late-afternoon nap after all the excitement of the new grazing pasture. It was so calm and quiet that the few isolated bird calls came across as being extraordinarily loud.
I sat down on the arena grass, which in no time led to laying down, and just watched them looking so peaceful. Then I realized one reason it was so tranquil. I still had Delilah confined in her kennel.
I hiked up to let her out and started tossing balls for her to chase. She was thrilled to have the attention, and was being as playful as ever. I walked down the hill to get one of the balls she had dropped and that’s when I discovered a BIG surprise.
I know what the crash was that I heard on Wednesday afternoon, and it wasn’t anything metal.
We lost a huge limb off a big old maple tree.
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Joyous Horses
We are currently experiencing an outbreak of ‘October’ around here, as our temperature has dropped 20 degrees, the clouds are hanging low, and the chilly north wind is gusting mightily. When this kind of weather strikes in September, Cyndie and I always think back to the year we were married and how cold and wet it was during the week before our outdoor wedding. We figured our plans were doomed, but luckily our special day was classic September with warm temperatures and a crisp, clear blue sky. Just the type of day we envisioned when we chose the date.
It always gives me hope that we can still have some spectacular warm fall days even though conditions may have drastically shifted toward the coming winter.
Yesterday afternoon I spotted the horses cavorting around the arena at high speed, kicking up their hooves and romping around. It occurred to me that they might be feeling the chill and wanted to generate some internal warmth. I finished the fence on the north side of the driveway, and I’m pretty sure they were growing anxious to get over there, so maybe they were venting some of that energy, too. They have spent a lot of time in the last two days grazing and standing as close to the direction of that new gate as their usual confines allowed.
Even though it was after 6:00 p.m. when Cyndie arrived home, I had patiently waited for her before giving the horses their chance. It helped that Cyndie had decided to put a pot roast in the slow cooker in the morning, allowing us to eat a rushed dinner as soon as she walked in the door. Minutes later we were marching to the barn for halters.
I mentioned to Cyndie that Legacy and Cayenne were hanging out together most of the afternoon, so we selected them as the first pair to make the short trip over. All four of the horses were still pretty amped up, and the dance to get two horses out of the gate —the two who had been selected— and only those two, was a bit precarious. Hunter and Dezirea went a little nuts over being left behind.
The heavy gusting wind was feeding their nervousness, so introducing them to this new space involved a bit of jumpiness. They seemed a little conflicted over the desire to be cautious, the ample supply of lush grazing, and the urge to check out the full breadth of their new pasture. We left those two and returned for Hunter and Dezi.
When the four of them were safely reunited in the new space, we were presented with a beautiful parade of prancing joyous horses, Legacy leading the way. They alternated between grazing and running for a brief time before settling down to mostly grazing, while Cyndie and I decided to do some tree trimming.
As darkness was about to descend, I headed over to put some hay out for them in the paddock, hoping it might provide some small consolation when we ask them to leave the pasture. It wasn’t needed. As I walked back toward them, Legacy and Dezirea were standing near the gate, ready to return ‘home.’
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Temporary Fencing
While I was in having lunch yesterday, the buried electric lines were marked with flags and paint. I had been watching for them the whole morning while I was down cutting tree branches along the planned new fence line near our southern border. Nothing happened. I walked out of the house after lunch and —boom— there were the red flags. It was magic!
It’s a good thing we thought to have the wires marked, because they don’t run in a straight line at all, and my planned gate location was right over them. I moved in a bit.
Having the electrical lines marked instantly changed my afternoon itinerary. It was time to put up some temporary fence so the horses can graze on the north side of our driveway. The first thing I wanted to do was bury a couple of wood posts so we could hang a gate. The rest of the fence will be pounded t-posts. I dug about a foot and a half down and water appeared!
I set the post in the hole and hung the gate on it, just to see if there might be a way to make it work. Then I called our fence guy and he confirmed that I needed to come up with a different plan for a gate. I’ll rig up something using t-posts and the webbed fence line. That meant I was on to pounding posts.
That is one heck of a workout. I was pounding posts all afternoon. Everything was laid out for me from the preparation work we did on Sunday, which helped smooth the routine out a bit, however I ended up making a couple changes to the route.
We think the horses will like it. There are a lot of evergreen trees scattered through half of this space, and I moved the fence to include a variety of other overgrown areas. It will give them some places to explore, in addition to the areas of lush grass they will be able to graze.
Since this fenced area of grazing is remotely located, we will have to escort them on a lead line to move them in and out of it, as opposed to the other spaces we have where we can just open a gate from their paddock. I’m considering rigging up a line with something hanging off it every 6 feet that I could hang across our driveway to create a visual barrier to help confine them to the direction we want them to go. We DON’T want them getting away from us and heading down the driveway.
We still need to buy a device to allow us to electrify the fence, since it is on the other side of the driveway from our existing system. Legacy has proved that he will mess with pretty much everything he can get his mouth on. A little electric shock potential does wonders to help him mind his manners. Until the white webbing is electrified, we will not be able to leave them in there unsupervised for any extended amount of time.
It will be tempting for me to try to put them over there during the day today, but I will wait until Cyndie can be present for their initial introduction to this new space. That will allow us to move them in pairs, which will make them a little more comfortable while they learn a different way of getting to this new grazing space.
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Simple Project
We had a little excitement yesterday when a dog without a collar wandered onto our property while we were preparing to take down the temporary fence around our grazing pasture. Cyndie had driven the ATV down to the south side of our property and had Delilah roaming freely with her when a mellow old black lab wandered toward them.
Cyndie’s initial reaction was to grab Delilah’s collar in case our girl would behave aggressively toward an unknown guest infiltrating our property, but quickly caught herself. She wanted to avoid radiating her anxiety to either or both of the dogs. She took a breath and sent both dogs thoughts of loving kindness.
Delilah did fabulous. The visitor presented no signs of a threat, so the two dogs calmly performed the typical canine introduction of smelling butts and that was that. No big deal. The old lab came up near the barn and was checking the place out when I spotted a truck pull into our neighbor’s yard and turn around. The driver’s side window was down and the person had his arm out the window. Everything about it looked to me like a person looking for a dog.
Cyndie headed down our driveway toward the road, but the truck didn’t stop near our place and was out of sight when she got there. I last saw the dog headed back toward the direction he had arrived from, and as fast as the excitement started, it was over. We went back to work removing fence to clear the way for heavy machinery that will be creating a more defined drainage swale across that area of our field.
On the surface, it seems like a simple enough project. Take down the temporary fence, move it over to the north side of the driveway, set it back up there. In my mind, it seems as though Cyndie sees it as just that easy. I tend to feel like her antagonist and naysayer, as I am inclined to see all the hazards and difficulties inherent in the project.
- How will we handle the white woven fence tape when we take it off the posts? (We laid it back and forth in the ATV trailer. Needed to add the height extensions because it was overflowing the sides. It ended up working slick, except one moment of lapsed attention when Cyndie was driving over to the north side of the driveway and some of the tape spilled out the back and then got wrapped around a trailer wheel a few times.)
- How will we pull all the T-posts? (We used the 3-point lift on the diesel tractor.)
- How will we attach to the T-posts to pull them up? (I rigged up a chain and hooks.)
- How will we attach the post-pulling plate to the chain so it can be quickly released? (After several tries, came up with a spring-clip carabiner.)
- How will we get the horses in and out of this new grazing pasture? (We will use a gate and wood fence posts that were surplus material left by the previous owners.)
- How will we attach the gate to the posts? (Needed to drill a new hole in a fence post and move an old existing gate support to the dimensions of a short gate we chose to use.)
- How will we bury the posts? (We have a post-hole digger, but that phase is on hold until utility company marks where the electric lines are buried.)
We will need to rig up a system of supplying water to this remotely located pasture, but we have a plan for that. We don’t have a source of power to electrify the woven fence tape, but if that becomes a necessity, we can buy a portable system.
It is a simple enough project, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one detail after another that needs to be considered. It made for a full day, but we believe we now have everything in place to get this new grazing space horse-ready, once the buried utilities are all identified.
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Expanding Storage
Earlier this year we began removing the cinder landscape blocks Cyndie purchased to help us mark the labyrinth path, replacing them with rocks we have collected. I reused the cinder blocks to create a nook for staging composted manure. 
Yesterday, at Cyndie’s prompting, we finally got back to removing the rest of the blocks. I had no idea there were so many remaining.
We decided to use the additional cinder blocks to expand our materials storage, creating another bay for staging wood chips.
It is a wonder to see how quickly we can convert an overgrown natural area into a manicured space with a new function. Now, I need to find time to get back to grinding up the many piles of brush I have created in the last few weeks.
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Relative Something 