Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale’
Merciful Melt
Thus far, the spring thaw has been happening at a merciful pace. We get a day or two of melting, and then swing back to a solid freeze. Each day that it gets above freezing, larger percentages of snow cover are being peeled back.
The latest hazard to emerge is due to the fact that the routes most commonly tread around here are some of the first spots where the bare ground is being revealed and thawing. That means the places we want to walk are getting sloppy and muddy on the warm days. Suddenly I find myself trying to walk on the snow that remains, in an ironic reverse of the usual logic. It is a blessing when everything re-freezes and we can walk across the hard ground without the slurpy mess for a day.
Sadly, Delilah’s kennel out back is not ideally situated for optimal drainage. There is some work to be done there this summer to create a better grade at the spot we selected, so the water won’t pool as readily. There is a raised wooden house in there for her, but she seems to prefer the stuffed pad that is out on the ground, and it ends up soaking in the edge of a pool of melt water.
Yesterday we were blessed with a gloomy, cloudy day when the temperature climbed above freezing, so the melting was definitely happening, but at a measured pace. I was again intrigued to find how well my simple shoveled gullies in the gravel driveway by the barn and hay shed work to channel water where we really want it to go.
Just like priming a pump, when a puddle is given an outlet for drainage, it seems to all of a sudden pull water from above, and then flow begets flow. Soon the channels come alive with running water and the areas above visibly begin to dry out.
It works for the period of time when we are enjoying this eased pace of melting. In the days to come when the sun comes out in full and the temps really soar, I suspect my little channels will prove to be rather under-sized for the job. Long term, I am envisioning some larger-scale grade landscaping in a few areas to create the same effect for the full capacity of our entire acreage.
That’s my dream, in theory, anyway.
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Lake Wintervale
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This time of year, there’s water, water, everywhere. Can you guess where this is?
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Go ahead, click on the image…
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Spring Arrives
Today is the first day of spring on the calendar, so that means only a few weeks, or maybe a month, more of days when we might experience significant snow events. Yesterdays’ little excitement is already melting fast. I did need to plow the driveway when I got home from work, but it was relatively easy and the remnants left behind on the pavement melted quickly, leaving the driveway mostly clean after minimal effort.
Unfortunately, I was doing some cleanup with a shovel and leaned into it, sliding the snow to the edge, when a disc in my back went kablooey. It’s impressive how quickly a person can go from standing upright, to flat on their back on the mucky wet ground. It’s also interesting how blissful it can seem to be laying down with no pain, regardless the fact it was on the wet pavement. I was feeling content to lay there for the rest of the night, but Cyndie happened along and inspired me to make my way back to my feet again with the enticement of Chinese takeout she brought home for dinner.
Today is not a day for whining, it’s spring! I’ll celebrate with a shot of Cayenne posing in the bright March sunshine. Green things won’t be far behind.
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Nature’s Course
There is no getting around the fact that we are at that time of year when the weather can flip from enticingly spring-like to “as winter as ever” in a single day. It can be a tough blow at the end of a harsh winter to be walloped by storms that give the impression the weather is headed in the wrong direction. Today is expected to be one of those tough blows, but it is not clear what the precise position of the storm will be. We are on the edge of a suspected path which could swing either to freezing rain or heavy, wet snow.
For the time being, I’m going to enjoy this image of our paddock from Saturday, when the snow had been cleared off the ground and the clouds were gone from the sky. We’ll have more of this type of enjoyment in the days ahead. We just need to tolerate a small setback to a winter storm for a few days.
That’s Dezirea munching hay, with Legacy standing by, on watch.
A couple of days later and it looked like this (although, in fairness, this one was taken with my phone looking through a dirty window from inside our sunroom):
At Delilah’s desperate urging, I let her outside to chase a squirrel, or squirrels, which had been tugging mercilessly at her predator instincts while she was trapped indoors. I followed her with my eyes as she sprinted deep into the neighbor’s woods to our north, much farther than she normally explores. The unconscious chase left her in new territory, and I would have been surprised if she just turned around and came back into our yard.
She disappeared for quite a while. When Delilah finally reappeared outside our windows, it wasn’t a squirrel she had as a prize, but the bottom portion of a deer leg. It is most likely that she happened upon a carcass that was left by some other predator(s), but she looked so much like a wolf out there, gnawing on that limb in the heavy falling snow, I felt a renewed appreciation for why our cats appear so wary of her.
She’s just doing what comes natural, but it can be almost scary seeing how incredibly proficient she is about it.
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Building Bonds
With the paddocks recently freshened up —can’t refer to them as clean, since the horses have already followed up Saturday’s major effort with a hefty new distribution of piles— we invited Cyndie’s niece and nephews to come inside the fence to brush the horses. It was a good chance to allow the 1000 pound animals to bond with the kids and receive the nurturing care being offered.
Hunter, in the foreground of the image at left, and Cayenne, far in the distance, were wonderfully cooperative. Legacy, hidden from view, was less so. He wasn’t on his best behavior.
I’m told that horses don’t hold a grudge, but I saw how frustrated he was with us Saturday when we locked the horses out of the paddock while we worked to clean it. I wouldn’t blame him if he was still miffed. While I was scraping manure with the New Holland, he was at the gate, huffing and snorting, scratching away at the ground with his hoof, and shaking his head to and fro. He definitely wanted back in. Cyndie said that when I was putting away the tractor and she opened the gate to let them back in, they didn’t rush in with glee, but casually sauntered in as if it was no big deal. I returned from the garage to report that we had worked an hour-and-a-half past their usual afternoon feeding time. Maybe that was what Legacy had gotten all worked up about. It was past the appointed hour for dinner and we were showing no signs of doing anything about it.
Yesterday’s temperatures had plummeted down to a solid freeze again, so when I stepped out in the morning to get a picture of the new manure pile we had created in the paddock, I was able to walk on top of the crust of snow without breaking through. I decided to hike out and up the hill into the big field, where the snow cover has receded enough to reveal areas of exposed ground. I was curious as to whether this would attract the horses or not. They have barely stepped in the big field ever since the last big snow accumulation. It had gotten too deep to make it worth the effort for them. I expect the horses would feel an increased vulnerability in deep snow.
There was one little trail the horses had trampled into the field, and that single route was what they now confined themselves to on the few occasions they did wander out. While I was taking some pictures from up on that hill, with the sun behind me, Hunter ventured up that trail, stopping where the path began to arc away to his right. Wondering if he was interested in coming further, I approached him with an invitation to join me.
Tentatively, he stepped onto the crusty snow beyond the packed path. Hunter isn’t light enough to stay on top like me, but he found it was no longer too deep, and carefully proceeded in my direction. In the distance, Legacy was keeping a keen eye on the scene.
While Hunter wandered around on the hill with me, checking the spots where the snow had melted away, Legacy and the other horses moved out to just beyond the paddock, but no further. I think they didn’t want to deal with the crunchy terrain, yet they were obviously interested in what Hunter was up to.
He was with me, and we were alone —make that, alone with Delilah— up on the hill. It was pretty special. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t grazing, my interest quickly waned, and I was soon ready to head back down. It didn’t feel right to just walk away and leave Hunter alone, so I tried to let him know my intention to go, slowly stepping down toward the paddock. In seconds, Hunter was following. In fact, he started to increase his gate and I needed to hustle along to avoid getting run over. I wasn’t sure if his rush was to make it easier for him to navigate the crusty snow, or if he was just that eager to get back with the herd, but his sudden haste took nothing away from the sweet experience we had shared in his choosing to join me up there.
It seems as though Hunter and I are building a special bond of our own.
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Many Firsts
In our new world of country living on 20 acres with horses, cats, and a dog, 2 tractors, an ATV, a spare pickup truck, plus 3 outbuildings, we frequently find ourselves facing tasks with which we have no previous experience. Yesterday’s ‘first’ was using the diesel tractor to clean manure in the paddocks.
Our horses arrived at the end of September last year, so this has been our first winter with them. After the fall season in which we tried to clean the paddocks almost daily, the winter weather introduced a whole new challenge to our system. The snow covers and freezes the daily accumulations and we pretty much stopped trying to do any cleaning at all.
I asked our neighbor, George, how they deal with the situation at their farm. He stated matter of factly that they just wait until the snow melts and then scoop out the entire top layer of soil and manure. I fear ours will be a muddy mess that will keep our machines out of there until summer, so I was weary of how simple he made it sound.
Last week, while out shopping for hay nearby, we drove from the east on the county road that passes just south of our place. It was the very first time I have traveled that stretch of road since we moved here. We had yet to see the view of our place from that direction in the year-and-a-half we have been here.
While we were out on that trip, we noticed a farm where they piled the manure right inside their paddock. With all our snow finally melting, the months of manure are getting revealed in our paddocks, so I suggested we consider doing the same. The mess in our paddocks is big enough that I figured we would need to use the tractor, but I was unsure about whether I could successfully navigate the challenging terrain. The driveway was melting and would be a mud pit. The snow was still deep in some areas and the wheels of the tractor might not get me through. The ice could leave me spinning in place.
While surveying the situation, Cyndie spent precious time brushing out the shedding coat of each horse. I tried raking some manure by hand, and quickly learned it was still too frozen to be very effective with that mode. It would definitely take the power of the tractor to make any measurable progress.
In hindsight, I think we picked the perfect day for this task because it was a day when the temperature stayed below freezing. The tractor was able to make good progress in scraping the top layer of accumulated manure, and in so doing removed a lot of snow. If we had tried this on a day when it was warmer it would have been a muddy mess.
We ended up with a giant pile in one corner, but that should shrink significantly when the snow portion melts away. I think we did pretty well with our first try at using the tractor to clean the paddock. It was, in fact, one of the primary reasons we anticipated needing that tractor in the first place.
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Embarrassing Excess
I am developing a complex about the number of boots, jackets and gloves that I seem to need to keep handy at our doors. Occasionally, Cyndie will clear the excess and stow it in a closet. When this happens, I try to respect it for as long as possible, but inevitably my plethora of outerwear re-accumulates, filling our entrances with my clutter once again.
This time of year is particularly difficult, because the transition from winter to spring brings a wide variety of conditions. I seem to be putting on a different boot every other time I go out. For deep snow and/or extremely cold temperatures, I prefer my Steger mukluks. However, they have a soft leather sole, and I frequently want something more robust for tasks around the barn, or with our machines.
My other options include another pair of insulated winter boots –with a rubber sole; my ankle-high muck boots; and (not pictured) my calf-high, steel-toe slip-on boots for when I’m going to be near the horses.
I really do wear them all, and often in the span of a few days. Around here, it can be almost summer-like one day, and the next, you might receive a foot and a half of snow (as happened here last year on May 2nd!).
It’s the same thing with jackets. The hooks by the door make it look like we are having a party or something, but no, two of those are Cyndie’s and the rest are all mine.
I’ve got a heavy canvas coat for the colder days, a light winter shell, my raincoat, and my favorite light jacket from Wilkus Architects. By the other door is my Columbia fleece and shell combination that is so old I decided to have it become the winter work jacket, letting it get dusted and rubbed by enough grime that you can hardly tell what color it once was.
Could I get by with just one pair of boots and one jacket? Not one that works well for all situations, that’s for sure.
Then I look at Delilah, who doesn’t wear boots at all. She goes in and out of the house, and her furry paws work just fine for every condition. Sure, we have to pull ice out from between her toes sometimes, and wipe her down with a towel when she comes in, but she makes those paws do.
I aspire to become as efficient as she is.
Although, I’ve got her beat on one thing. Her collection of chew toys and gnawed bones, antlers, and stuffed critters is ten times the clutter of anything of mine piled up around the inside of our house.
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Directing Flow
While walking through the muddy driveway in front of the barn I noticed that one of the “fixes” I tried last fall to control runoff appeared to still be doing the job this spring. Previously, the water on the barn-side of the hay shed would flow straight across the drive path into the paddock. I made a little channel at a diagonal across the driveway in hopes of directing the flow toward the far side of the paddock.
With all the snow piled up beside the driveway, there was nowhere for the water to go, so it began to pool up. I grabbed a shovel and set about remedying that situation. While I was working on it, Delilah showed up to help. She had already been racing through the mud that is beginning to appear in several places, so I guess I should be happy she likes playing in the puddles, too.
When it was time to head in, Delilah was a mess. Aaaah, spring. She has already started digging up the dirt that is becoming exposed at the front two corners of the hay shed. She appeared to be trying to get as dirty, muddy, and wet as was possible in the short time she had to run free after I got home and let her out of her daytime kennel.
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Window Replaced
The fractured window beside our fireplace was finally replaced yesterday! It was a long wait, because the glass was a special order, and because the builder’s other projects got pushed back by the harsh winter weather.
At least we had good weather for our task. It was a warm and sunny day here yesterday, with hardly a breeze. With the sun beating down on that side of the house, it was almost too warm inside, so having the window out actually felt refreshingly good.
The old broken window came out without a fight and the new one went in with equal ease. It took as long to assemble and take down the scaffolding they worked from as it did to make the glass swap.
For weeks I have been anxiously awaiting their arrival so I could ask them to look at one of the deck doors that was hanging up on the bottom of the frame. Then, just days before they arrived, I happened to notice something in the shop that held the key to solving the problem. Time and again since we moved here, I have walked past this bag that hung on a nail by the door. For some unknown reason, (trust that intuition?) last Friday I spotted words on the bright pink paper in the bag.
INSTALLER: LEAVE THIS FOR HOMEOWNER
Closer inspection revealed the words: ANDERSEN FRENCH DOOR INSTALLATION/ADJUSTMENT.
In the bag were tools and instructions for adjusting the hinges to re-center the door. I have been suffering with that dang door catching on the bottom for a long time, and wishing it would just fix itself miraculously because I didn’t have a clue how to remedy the problem. Meanwhile, I would walk by that bag hanging at eye-level every time I stepped into the shop.
Using the supplied hex wrench, I tweaked the vertical and horizontal positioning on the hinges of the doors on both sides of the fireplace. Then I hung that bag right back on the nail in the shop. I’m afraid if I move it to a different storage location, I’ll never find it again.
It just so happened that the door I fixed is the one the guys needed to go through countless times yesterday. That made me smile.
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Drippy Day
Sunshine had the snow melting off our rooftops in dramatic fashion yesterday. I started a project to assemble a new trailer for our ATV outside of the shop garage, but partway through, I noticed that the snow overhanging the roof had gotten so large it looked scary.
I moved further away from the overhang, out of harms way. At the time, the whole front section of the driveway was dry, but about midway through the assembly instructions my work space was becoming a series of draining water paths.
There weren’t as many collapses from overhead as I expected, but the afternoon was peppered with just enough dislodged masses of melting snow to keep me on edge.
In a follow-up to yesterday’s post about Delilah and the horses, I can report that Cyndie came in after feeding them in the morning, shortly after I had hit the “Publish” button, and she told me that somehow one of the horses sent the dog tumbling a couple of rolls through the snow.
She said Delilah got up with just a hint of a limp and carried on, leaving a bit more space between herself and the horses.
The horses were wary in the afternoon about coming up to feed under the overhang, so I suspect they have been enduring their own share of startling crashes of snow melt.
Everybody is a little out of whack around here. The cats are acting strange, but in a good way, making many more demands for attention than usual. I think they are starting to shed, and just want us to give them a good brushing. I was petting Pequenita and ended up with my hand and shirt covered in statically clinging cat hair.
I noticed the wee cat smelling Delilah’s paws just after the dog walked in the door from outside. Our cats don’t get to go outside, and I think she was curious about the scent from the great beyond.
Right now, that scent probably just smells like wet feet, but if the melt keeps up like this for long, very soon those paws will be smelling like spring mud.
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Relative Something 