Elmira Pond Spotter: ranch

Showing posts with label ranch. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Grenny the Mule

Wood Sled

Breaking Trail

The Wood-Sled Trail

Would Rather Ride Than Work

Waiting to Unload

It's one of those sapphire-blue-sky days that electrifies all the white snow. From my rocking chair at the fire, I watch snow scatter in a great white gusts lifted from the pastures and pond by a swirling wind. Snow dust eddies like a current in a stream, flowing out the driveway to wash across the road and train tracks. It's the coldest day I've experienced in Elmira, but still 10 degrees above zero.

Grenny the Mule helps keep the house warm.

Todd has our big male GSP, Grendel, hitched to the wood sled. We admittedly grew lazy this winter and have used our truck, the Blue Goose, to haul wood from the horse barn to our west-side porch. But the battery is dead so we have to haul it by hand. Todd built the sled and Grenny becomes our mule to power it.

Walking alongside Grenny, Todd lifts up on his harness. Mostly this is to keep the nose of the sled up, so it doesn't become a snowplow. The dog-mule pulls the majority of the weight, managing several loads from the horse barn to the porch.

Working on the Ranch

The sled is a plow of sorts, packing a wide trail that curves across the pasture. Packed snow doesn't swirl with the wind, but it it makes a fine track for the wind to follow as it chases snow dust toward the house. It reminds me of the sort of tracks pioneers would have made on their ranches before modern machinery and Model-Ts. I feel like Ma Ingalls standing on the porch watching Pa and his mule work.

Bobo is having none of this old-fashioned business. After trotting down the trail after Grenny, she realizes that he's mule-minded. He's not interested in playing; he has a job to do. Bobo stands by the car as if to say, look if you guys aren't going to play, let's go for a ride. She's not into this pioneer work.

Grenny waits patiently while Todd unloads and stacks wood, which is not typical behavior from the dog. But in this moment he's a working mule and he waits. I wonder how many other chores we can devise for Grenny as he and Todd head back for another load.

Back inside the wood-warmed house, I settle into my own work and listen to the winds howl, knowing we have enough fuel to get through this cold snap.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Do Not Worry

Elmira Pond

Horses in Clover

Blue Heron with Open Beak

Bird Definition of Insanity

Watching Catbird

Morning Pond Activities

Blue Skies or Knapweed?

Tender Bee in Clover

He's Watching...Are We?

Matthew 6:25-27

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

My eyes fell off the birds of the air today.

The owner of the horses pulled up in her truck, followed by another. She was showing Snapper to a couple looking for "an athletic horse." But they are not here to swap words with me or hear about the happenings of a pond. I'm an awkward bystander in my own pasture.

I had just settled into my chair under the apple tree after watering garden plants, roses and tree swallow mud-nest foundations. Crazy catbird woke me up at 5 a.m. to tell me that the sun was shining enough for him to attack my bedroom window. Slinking outside, blurry eyed, I caught Blue Heron with another great blue heron. The photo documentation turned out blurrier than my eyes. After dog-breakfast, Grendel settles into watching catbird strike a different window as if living out the definition of insanity--hit the window, hit the window, hit the window and expect different results.

So when the trucks pull in, I look away from the pond. Suddenly, I become aware of my gardening grubbiness, yet feel like I just got caught slacking off under a tree. The horse-owner is a trim young woman who wears jeans, boots and enough make-up to look the part of rodeo queen. I wear a summer farmer's tan and probably look like I live under this tree; the rodeo clown carrying a camera and cup of coffee, barefoot.

The man says something to me about rain and I acknowledge that a few drops fell earlier. He nods, looks at the horses. The woman asks what I'm taking pictures of and I say, birds, and they look at me as if I said I photo-document pixies that live in the willows. The man changes the subject by pointing out that I have knapweed. "Bad stuff," he says, "I have to spray mine constantly."

I speak western and know I'm being chided, judged for choking my pasture in noxious weeds. I'm being offered the sensible solution, but to me it's as insane as catbird. Why spray weeds with chemicals if they keep coming back. Then it occurs to me, that I've stopped the chemical process here. The pond is superbly pristine. How do I explain that? What rancher cares about a pond? Birds? Bees? I'm wasting pasture, sitting under a tree watching birds.

They leave and like an alcoholic I grab a drink--a deep shot of worry.

Someone turned us in to the owners last month, saying we abandoned the place and left junk. Was it the horse-owners? Who was peeking in our windows? Who thinks my spare furnishings are junk? Before they leave I see the man jawing at the horse owner, pointing at knapweed. Are we in trouble? Will she tell the owners of the ranch? Oh, my God, please don't let them spray...the birds, the bees, the pond...

Worry is wicked drink. Suddenly I don't see God in blue skies, I see the devil in weeds. I see gophers, I see a highway that might one day get expanded. My mind rushes in circles. Where is the shovel? Will chemicals be okay? After all, how many years prior were they applied?

Worry just leaves me defeated. I can't solve the deaths of thousands of bees; I can't kick Monsanto or Bank of America in the knees; I don't know where I will live after this place; I don't know if I can revise my novel. My humor and heart have flat-lined.

All we ever have is today. Worry does not add a single hour to our lives. Today, I missed out on the birds of the air for worry's sake. But I know the promises I stand upon, feeble as my feet are, the rock is solid. God's mercies are new every morning and then I shall look up, look up, look up. It may sound insane, but I know I will get the same results I do every time I seek God--for I will find him in the chirp of an osprey or the waggle of a blue heron feather.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Rodeo in the Rain

All Day Pond Report:

Blurry Osprey

Cream Bloom Inside

Wet Roses

Rain.

Rain.

Rain.

The big news is that we drove off pond to Sagle and hauled a washer and dryer out of a rental unit for just $200. A great bargain as it is a matched set, only 4 years old and very nice. I've never had a matched set! Todd is my muscle-man; I guided and helped strap the set into the back of our truck, "Blue Goose."

Returned to Elmira Pond and the mountains shrouded in mist. The roses are drenched, but no less beautiful. One even joined me inside to decorate my window. The merganser is huddled on the log, head rotated so that her saw-bill is resting on her back. An osprey flew in and I struggle to unplug my camera and shoot out my rainy office window, but watch him catch a fish first try.

The rest of today's blog is dedicated to the spirited horses, kicking at the rain. They do have a barn to seek shelter, by the way. Enjoy the "Rodeo in the Rain," brought to you by three-year-olds, Snapper (the wet sorrel mare) and Pistol (the equally wet grullo gelding).