Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale’
Vet Visited
Before our thoughts became totally consumed with this latest blast of a winter storm –which has drifted snow across the 4 foot banks of our driveway, filling it completely– we received a visit from our veterinarian for a well-check of our horses.
It was Thursday, and Cyndie and I had both stayed home from work in the face of the posted winter storm warning. We had cleaned up the stalls in the barn, and moved the horses inside out of the rain that was falling in prelude to the snow.
We weren’t entirely surprised to receive a phone call from the vet’s office checking to see if we wanted to reschedule. We weren’t the ones doing the driving, so we definitely wanted this appointment to happen, if the vet didn’t mind navigating the icy roads.
Cyndie headed down to our barns at the appointed time, to find the vet already inside, making her own introductions to our 4 horses. She really loved “our gray,” Legacy, saying he was “cute.” 
As the rain began to change over to snow, the vet stepped into each stall to listen to heart beats and lung sounds, feel their teeth, and do an overall survey of their condition.
The horses had blood samples drawn, and received a vaccination shot and dose of deworming paste. There were two valuable things we learned. First, we can begin to cut back on their feed rations. With the cold temperatures we have been facing this winter, we have been making sure they were well fed. The vet said our horses are not overweight, but we don’t want them to get any bigger. We can change the feed we are giving them to one that provides just essentials and nothing more.
She instructed us to be very careful about the transition back to grazing fresh grass. We cannot allow them uncontrolled access to the fields. They need to be restricted to the sacrifice area of our paddocks, with brief, but increasing visits to the grass.
The second thing the vet discovered is that the latest bale of hay we have been serving has too much foxtail grass in it. The awn, that stiff bristle at the top of the stem, can become embedded in their cheeks and tongue and create ulcers. Three of our horses showed some signs of sensitivity or ulcerations in their mouths.
We invited her to look at our remaining bales to give us her opinion of what we have on hand. From her review, we think it will be okay to just work around the worst bale and pick and mix from the remaining two batches of bales we have.
Next fall we will make another appointment to have the vet “float their teeth,” which is what they call it when they file down any sharp points that develop. With that, her visit was done and she drove off into the wicked weather. We are relieved to know our horses are doing well and that the two things deserving attention are well within our ability to manage.
That is a really good thing right now, because it allows our attention to get back to being all-consumed by the tonnage of snow that remains to be removed from our driveway and barn paths today. Yesterday I heard Cyndie wondering out loud about seeing if George Walker might want to bring his Belgian draft horses over to teach us how to drive the team while clearing snow with them. That’s not such a bad idea, because the way “horse power” is measured, he has a lot more in his team of horses than I have with my 44hp Ford New Holland 3415 tractor.
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Wicked Winter
Photo taken by Cyndie Hays
This is one for the record books, I tell ya. I’m a big fan of winter, but this one may have exceeded my capacity to cope. We went for a little walk late last night to check out the drama, and I couldn’t really enjoy it. It looked too much like last May when we received 18 inches of snow overnight and suffered a huge amount of damage to our trees.
It is heavy and sticky and will be a real challenge to clear our driveway and pathways.
Before I came in, I decided to try to shovel the front steps and sidewalk. That provides a reference so I can see how much more snow fell overnight, and it will make today’s effort to clear it that much easier.
It was a bear. VERY sticky. We had a few hours of rain yesterday morning, before it turned to snow, so it is soft underneath, but then freezes quickly when it gets exposed. Just an all around treat to shovel and plow.
While I was out there, somewhere beyond the reach of our porch light, in the woods to the north of our property line, a large tree cracked and crashed to the ground. Maybe it was just because I was there to hear it, but it sure made a very loud sound.
Before our little walk, the electricity toggled off and on a couple of times while we were watching a movie, which again reminded me of that storm last spring. One significant difference between that storm last year and this one, though, is that last year’s happened so late in the season, it was logical to expect it would be the absolute last one of the year. This year…? It scares me to imagine what we have ahead of us for what remains of the wicked winter of 2013-2014.
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Novel Approach
Almost every time we experience a significant snowfall, the snow thrown up by the plow clearing our road knocks our mailbox off its post. Luckily, our mailbox is made of molded plastic, and can be remounted with moderate effort, but the plastic is getting damaged a bit each time. Also, it is annoying to be forced to fix it after every storm.
I’ve been pondering coming up with some way to shield the mailbox from a direct blow by deflecting the snow that rolls off the plow blade as the truck races past. One idea was to make a decorative arching arbor over the mailbox. Another was to create some variation of a cone shape that I could mount on a post beside the mailbox so the blast of snow from the plow would be deflected around the wide, flat surface area of the mailbox. Both of these solutions would best be fabricated during any time of the year that is not winter. Since the problem of snow storms will be around for a while yet this year, I’ve been hoping to come up with something I could try immediately.
I decided to try making a deflector out of snow last night. When the sun dropped below the horizon, I figured I better get some pictures of the progress up to that point, while there was still enough light to see it, but these shots were taken before I finished it with a wider top to cover the exposed ends of the mailbox.
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My hope is that it will freeze solid enough before the first test that it doesn’t just collapse and add mass to snow that rolls off the blade into the side of our mailbox as the truck cruises by.
I won’t have long to wait. The storm warning we are under today is for 8-12 inches of snow, followed by heavy winds. The threat is significant enough that the Governor of Wisconsin has declared a state of emergency! That’s enough to keep Cyndie and me home from our workplaces and off the roads for the day, where we’ll be saving our energy for yet another session of plowing and shoveling to come. …And trying to figure out where we are going to put it all!
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Too Much?
Aaah winter. We enjoyed a little thaw yesterday. It inspired me to try to scrape the driveway up by the house. No good deed goes unpunished. The cable that lifts the plow blade on the Grizzly broke. But I’m not complaining. It was a wonderfully warm day for fixing that kind of problem.
I’m very happy to report that the roof of my wood shed is working just the way I hoped. The snow slides off and sunlight shines through.
I haven’t made it down to the labyrinth since the last 3 accumulations of snow, and I think it is going to be difficult to make out the path now.
Complicating that further, the prediction from my favorite weather blog says: “Winter resumes with a vengeance Thursday as the next winter storm smacks eastern Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.”
Another weather site forecast shows an 80% chance of 3-5″ of heavy, wet snow combined with strong wind. Oh joy. It is a good thing I like winter, but we all know that it is possible to get too much of a good thing.
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Spectacular Sight
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie arrived home from her travels, and in short order amazing things were happening with our horses. After surviving all of Delilah’s exhilarated energy when she walked in the door, Cyndie said hello to the cats and then it was time to check on the horses.
We made an on-the-spot decision to take the horses, one at a time, for a little walk outside the paddocks. It wasn’t anything significant, just a walk for a short distance on the driveway. She offered the first opportunity to Legacy, but when he played hard to get, Hunter won the honor. Of course, that did get Legacy’s attention and he was more than cooperative about the chance to go second.
As always, the horses that are left behind put on quite a show of anxiety about a member of the herd being outside the fence, calling out with a neigh and running along the fence line. I think the horse that is out on the walk likes the attention coming from the rest of them. Cyndie said they were loving the freedom.
After Legacy’s walk, Cayenne stepped up to the halter Cyndie was offering. It was tricky getting her out through the gate alone, as both Legacy and Hunter suddenly showed extreme interest in getting back outside along with her, and they weren’t listening to commands of opposition. Cyndie succeeded in managing the three horses and one gate, and got it closed with Cayenne alone with us on the outside.
Cayenne was so attentive and present with Cyndie that we decided to reward her with a stroll farther up the driveway than we had gone with Hunter and Legacy. That really got the other three riled up and they burst out of the paddock through the gate we leave open to the big field. They haven’t been out in the big field much lately, because the snow has gotten pretty deep out there. The new incentive of their drive to follow us on the walk overrode any previous hesitations they had about the snow, and suddenly we were watching the mystical sight of 3 energized Arabian horses running together, almost in synchronization, at top speed uphill through the deep, undisturbed snow. It was electrifying.
It was a most spectacular and rewarding thing to witness. They really put on a majestic display of their power and beauty for us. I had never seen these horses work that hard before.
When Cyndie brought Cayenne back inside the paddock, the other horses were again crowding the gate area. As Cyndie was wrestling to get the halter off over Cayenne’s ears, it appeared that Legacy nipped at Cayenne, an unfair gesture as she was in a somewhat defenseless position at that point. Cyndie appreciated Cayenne’s discipline to maintain composure in the situation, granting Cyndie priority and allowing her to safely complete the removal of the harness.
As we set out their afternoon feed, Legacy came up for his, still breathing hard after the exciting run in the snowy field. I think Cyndie’s return probably made quite an impression on them yesterday.
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Different Cat
When we first saw Mozyr at the feline adoption center, he was demonstrating some amazing athleticism and intelligence in his play. He also gave me the impression he had good confidence in himself. That all seemed to change when we got him home. His preferred spot for a long while was as far under our bed as he could get, up against the wall. Meanwhile, Pequenita, who is half his size, proved to be as bold as he was shy.
For all I know, she contributed to his apparent loss of confidence. There was a brief spell when she seemed to take control of him, banishing him from the bedroom altogether. At the same time, he would bully her off the food, so it seemed like there was an exchange of the dominance roles going on.
He was skittish about receiving affection, and resisted being picked up. He behaved very shy around visiting family and friends. I found myself referring to him as being a chicken, and had begun to think he was just going to be a distant cat that tolerates people as a necessary evil in order to get fed morning and night and have his litter box cleaned.
After a long period of these behavior patterns, he surprised me with a change, suddenly deciding to show up in the bathroom during my evening routines. He would often jump up beside the sink to check out what I was up to, and several times he even laid down right in the sink I was trying to use. He seemed to be indicating that I was his choice for a buddy, but it stayed entirely on his terms. If I tried to pick him up, or give him attention at a time of my choosing, I got rebuffed.
That all went away these last few months, when he seemed to get out of sorts around the time we had company, and then throughout a couple of his recent illnesses. He gave us a scare last Wednesday, when he appeared to be really sick. A quick online search turned up several instances where his symptoms were listed as having potential to be serious, but also could be something simple that a cat can get over in a day. We are lucky that it appears to have been the latter.
We made it very clear that we were trying to help him, and he seemed to respond overnight. He continues to seem better everyday and not only is more like his old self, he is that and beyond. He is a changed cat, as if this illness did something to him. I’ve never had him sit in my lap before.
Yesterday, as I was reading on our couch (and Delilah was outside in her kennel), Mozyr showed up –that in itself being a rare occurrence lately– and proceeded to lay on the book in my lap –an unprecedented occurrence! These last two days, he has met my gestures of attention with greater acceptance than he has ever shown before. I pulled the book out from under him and continued to read. He laid in my lap so long that I decided I should get a picture.
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Never assume your pets won’t change their behavior toward you, especially if you base that assumption simply on how they have behaved with you for the year prior.
Change happens.
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Hunter’s Run
I finally got around to uploading the video Cyndie shot of Hunter playing with the exercise ball out in the snowy field. If you recall, I tried to capture a video of Legacy playing with the ball a while back, and all I got was Dezirea walking up and putting her nose in front of my camera. That got Legacy’s attention and he walked away from the ball toward me.
Fast forward to mid-January, Cyndie and Elysa went out into the big field with the ball in hopes of getting the horses to play with it. At first, there was a lot of standing around the ball, watching it lay there, or being more interested in Cyndie and her camera. Then, with very little warning, Hunter gives it a push with his nose and then takes off running with it, as if he knew precisely what we had in mind.
It was a joy to behold, and quite a surprise to us. It seemed even more remarkable after the fact, because when he stopped, that was it. None of the other horses showed any interest in getting involved, and Hunter just did his one run and was done with it.
The scene returned to the four horses standing around the ball, watching it lay.
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Alone Again
It has happened enough that you’d think I would be used to it by now, but it’s different for me since we added horses. Cyndie is traveling out of town for work for a few days and I am alone again to tend to the animals. As if being responsible for the horses wasn’t enough, one of our cats, Mozyr, is showing new signs of some kind of illness. Before Cyndie left yesterday, she cleaned up some of his messes and then we went down and pulled the blankets off the horses. It is going to be above zero around here for a while!
It took some coaxing, but Legacy eventually allowed me to aggressively scratch his neck and shoulders after we removed his blanket. Cyndie warmed him up to the idea when she began massaging his aura about a foot away from his body. Shortly after letting me into his space to scratch him, he took an obvious step in and turned to provide me better access. A definite invitation.
I wandered back down to see the horses after they had eaten their evening feed, to take some pictures of them without blankets on. The girls were hanging out by the hay and the boys were both uphill from them.
Cayenne & Dezirea
Legacy
Hunter
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At bedtime, when I came out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth, I spotted Mozyr using the litter box we brought upstairs for him. That’s progress! After that, he wandered into the bathroom for a drink of water from the dish we keep there. Next, he took a few bites from the dry food, and then the canned food that I had put out at dinner time. These are all good signs. The night before, he appeared to have shut down completely, and then yesterday morning he seemed worse, and was messing himself and lying in it.
We probably would have rushed to the vet if Cyndie wasn’t headed out of town. I suppose I talked her out of it when I pointed out that we won’t spend money on treatments if there is something drastically wrong with him, so we may as well wait a day to see if he can shake it on his own. He is under close observation by me, and so far, things seem to be headed in the right direction.
Since I am alone, I’m hoping that’s the only direction things go for the next few days.
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Relative Something 