Wordless Wednesday

Hawk and Other Tales

Thank you all for your kind comments regarding Pride.  It will certainly make things different around here.  I'm just so glad that we were here, and not in Oliver when he colicked.  He did have a mild bout back in the Summer, the first ever in his life, and I did worry about the possibility of it happening again while we were away.  Today we talked about some of our fencing and gates.  Gates that we can leave open now, fencing we can put up to make things more coyote resistant.  As we could usually see him from the back of the house, unless he was stood in one of his shelters, I'm sure one of these times I'll see movement in the back field, through the trees, and think 'oh there's Pride'.

It was just me and the dogs this morning, going for our bush walk, as Larry had an appointment.  Luna is still going ahead, looking for Pride like usual I think, although there is no fresh scent, so she probably doesn't know quite what to think. (She did have the opportunity to sniff his body)  But he had been a part of her life, every day for the past five years, so old habits will die hard.

The last few mornings I have noticed a hawk hanging around in the same tree at the far (east) end of the back hayfield.  This morning I heard it's cry and was reminded that I had wanted to try and get pictures.  I ran back to the house to get the camera.

There it was in the usual tree. Now I don't know my hawks, but I Googled it and I think it's a Redtail

Jake and Luna had run off ahead of me, around this corner and past the base of the tree, and the hawk flew off and across the hay field. 

I always have such difficulty capturing birds in flight, especially when I am using the zoom.  I've zoomed in on a still bird, and then it starts flying and usually I can't get it in the view finder before it disappears.  This time I used my brain and zoomed out for a bigger field of view, found it, and then zoomed in again and moved the camera with it and managed to grab one shot. I also need to remember to just hold the shutter down to keep taking shots when something is moving like that, instead of just taking one.  Sometimes us old ladies are slow learners.

It flew across the hayfield and landed in the maple tree at the other (west) end

When I was coming back with the camera, I thought I saw another one, and eventually saw a dark blob at the top of a cottonwood at the east end, partway into the bush.

It was one mighty tree.  

It seemed smaller than the first hawk, so maybe it was a male.  Apparently they are 25% smaller than the females.

In the meantime, Calli has tired out.  The back left leg starts to drag first, and then when the right leg starts to drag too, it's time to give her some help.  The tail is a handy handle.  No, the end is not bent over at 90 degrees like it looks in the picture.   We just grasp the end to put enough of a pull on it to keep her rear end up.  We've tried the cart through the bush, but it's just too rough through there.  She doesn't mind at all, it just happy that she can now move along faster.

When we come out of the bush, the female? hawk is still at the west end in the maple tree.

As we get closer she flies off.

Heads across the hayfield, back to the east end

And ends up back in the same tree she started from, just higher up this time.

In the meantime, while I was attempting to take brilliant hawk photos and failing, Calli lost her rear end to a mud puddle. (Why do they NEVER look as mucky in the photos as they really are?)  Guess who got washed off with the hose before she went back in the house and hated every minute of it?

And I'm sure you could guess who invited herself to the water park and LOVED every minute of it.

Empty

I had planned on doing another blog post tonight, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be telling you this. 

We had to have Pride euthanized today.

The day started like any other.  I let Jake and Luna out of the back door, and Luna barked.  Pride was just out in the hay field, he heard Luna, and trotted into the barn.  The dogs were out, which meant someone was coming with his breakfast.  Usually Larry feeds him. I think of Pride as Larry's horse.  Pride was born to the little palamino mare that belonged to Larry when we first met.  He had her bred before we were married.  Larry had Fancy and Pride, and my horses were Twiggy and Red.  Even though Pride was the only horse we had left, I still thought of him as Larry's.

This morning I went out first and fed Pride his soaked pellet mixture.  Soy hull and beet pulp, and his senior horse pellets.  He dove into it like usual.  About 10:30 we headed out with the dogs for our bush walk.  Pride ate the apple he expects as payment to allow us to pass by unmolested.  Larry always saves a couple of slices to give him on the way back. Nothing was unusual.  

Around noon, while I watched him out of the kitchen window, he did a few subtle things that weren't quite usual.  He pawed the ground a few times.  Normally that might be a prelude to getting down to roll, but since it was pouring rain, rolling wasn't something that would be normal.  He wandered around, things just didn't seem right.  He headed out to the back field and laid out on his side on the grass, in the rain.  Not normal.  David and Larry went out there, and then got him up and gave him a dose of Banamine.  They brought him into the barn and after a bit he seemed more at ease and a bit dopey.  They listened and there was lots of rumbling in his gut.  Something you  want to be able to hear. I left to deliver eggs to customers in White Rock, and visit my mother.  I talked to Larry mid afternoon, and he said he had spent 15 minutes talking to the vet, who said to continue to observe him.  A bit later Larry decided that Pride was seeming worse.  He called the vet.  I talked to him at 5, and he said the vet was just arriving, and he had gone out to the barn and Pride had broken through the sliding door and was somewhere out there in the rain and descending darkness.  They found him on his side out in the back hay field again.  With some difficulty they got him up and back down to the barn.  He was examined and at some point given a pain killer.  The vet conferred with another in her practice.  The diagnosis was a twisted intestine.  Larry asked what might have caused it.  She said it was basically bad luck.  A horse has a loop of unattached intestine, and perhaps gas or food or both in certain positions may have caused it.  No way to sort it out without doing very expensive and difficult surgery.  Not an option for an almost 32 year old horse.  The decision was made to euthanize him immediately.  

The next paragraph describes how a horse is euthanized.  You may want to skip it.  

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A catheter was inserted in his jugular.  The vet filled us in as to how it would go.  Larry led Pride out to the driveway.  That was as much as he could take, and he handed the lead rope to me.  I felt I was able to be there, be strong for Larry.  The first syringe was injected.  The second was injected and the vet took the lead rope from me and I got out of the way.  She had explained that sometimes the horse may not go down properly, although they have probably already passed on before they hit the ground.  He dropped straight onto his side.  I removed his halter and we covered him with a couple of tarps.  A truck will come in the morning to take him away.

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We were there when Pride was born in March of 1982.  We had been checking Fancy for all the signs of imminent foaling.  Her udder had waxed up and there was white milk.  We spent the night sleeping in the barn.  Nothing happened that night, so Larry called in sick to work, and stayed home the next day.  I worked about 5 minutes away.  Larry called me in the morning at work, labour had started and he was worried and could I come.  (Not that I knew any more then he did)  I was able to leave work, and things went fine and we were there when Pride was born. It was the first animal birth either of us had been present at. The vet came shortly after.  

At some point I wanted to name him Expensive Hobby, as he seemed intent in racking up vet bills.  Turned out that there was already a well known Quarter Horse by that name.  We settled on Wyndson Hobby as his registered name, and Larry's mum suggested we call him Pride. He was the first foal either of us had experience with.

We worked with him a lot ourselves and he had a very brief career as a halter horse (judged on conformation).  He was sent out for training to the owner of his sire, and I did ride him in some horse shows. 

 Meredith rode him her first year in 4H, but he came up with a subtle chronic lameness, and she had to switch horses.  The second half of his life was spent mostly as a lawnmower.  At one point we seemed to be constantly taking him to the vet (who lives not far from us, so we could easily ride him or trailer him there).  He seemed to get bizarre things wrong with him, and he might not have been called Expensive Hobby, but he was determined to live up to that name.  The years passed as well as our other horses, and eventually he was on his own.  He seemed okay with that, but did keep up a casual aquaintance with the horses next door, one of which will turn 32 in May.  His body carried his years lightly, but his teeth did not. First it was hay that he couldn't eat, and over the course of a few years, despite expensive dental treatments, most of his diet was of the mushy variety that didn't involve chewing.  I was constantly asking Larry if he had made Pride's mash, as some of the pellets had to soak for a couple of hours to be completely soft, and Pride was getting fed three or four times a day.

It will take a while for us to get used to not having a horse around.  I've had between one and four horses in my life for the last 42 years, and it's not much different for Larry.  Even Luna will miss him, I'm sure.

Pride, may your pasture be forever green, and your teeth be good enough to chew that grass!

Back

First I was going to say 'back home', and then 'back in town', but neither seemed quite right.  We are back at the place we live the most, after spending a week at our other home, which is actually in a town, whereas this place is out in the country.  So we had a week away, a nice change, we hadn't been there since November.  We have a cottage/second home in Oliver B.C.
We left a week ago Friday.  We always aim to leave early and arrive before dark, but it rarely seems to work out that way.  This time I thought we were mostly ready to go, had packed most things in the truck the night before, and theoretically we didn't have much left to do before we could pull out in the morning.
About mid morning, Larry went out to put a warmer blanket on Pride.  He'd been wearing it through our cold spell, and somehow had managed to put quite a rip in the neck piece.  It was something that I could fix with the sewing machine, but first the blanket needed washing, as there was no way I was going to try and sew it like it was.  Quite frankly, it reeked.  I tried to jam it in the washing machine, but there was just no way.  A one layer horse blanket would have been fine, but this was a thick padded winter one.  There is a laundromat in nearby Aldergrove that washes horse blankets.  Larry had taken it there, and for $12, he was able to leave the blanket and come back a bit later to pick it up, nice and clean and folded up and tied in a bundle with a string.  Now I'm a person that hates to pay someone to do something that I think I could do myself, but in this case even I thought it was a deal at $12.  I had sewn up the rip, with Larry helping to maneuver the heavy blanket around while I operated the machine.
He went out to put it back on Pride, as there was maybe going to be some cooler weather while we were gone.  I happened to look out at the time, and as Larry walked through the gate and over to the barn where Pride was, Jake and Luna ran out into the hayfield where there was a coyote, and there they were, chasing it in circles around the field.  Larry was oblivious, so I opened the back door and yelled out to him.  He came out of the barn, Pride hot on his heels.  Pride had expected to get an apple and Larry hadn't given it to him, he was pissed, so he wasn't letting Larry escape without getting that apple.  So Larry is trying to hustle out to the field, and Pride is right there next to him, showing no respect for his personal space.  Larry lashes out at him, and Pride jumps away and lets his back legs fly.  At that point I was worried about who was going to get hurt first, Larry or Pride or Jake and Luna.  I started yelling at the dogs, and amazingly, managed to call them off the coyote.  I don't know why it hadn't made a dash for the gate before Larry got there, but no, all three canines had continued to run in circles.  The coyote bolted to the bottom of the field and went into the big pile of blackberries.  Larry and his sidekick Pride headed down there.  In the meantime the coyote worked it's way up behind the blackberries, along the fence line to the top of the field, and then decided to bolt for the gate and up the alleyway, Jake hot on his heels.  By this point Luna had said to heck with the coyote, there was a horse to herd.  I screamed for Jake, always fearing an ambush when they chase a coyote out towards the back of the property.   He came back and then ran out again.  To end an already long story, everyone one was unharmed, including the coyote, and also the chickens it had been eyeing up.
So there we were, just about to leave for a week, taking all three dogs with us, and we had a coyote, (it was not the same on that I talked about before, this one was bigger and healthier looking), coming into the hayfield  right next to the chicken field.  We had considered putting up a temporary fence to make it more difficult for them, but that would also restrict Pride's access to the back hay field, and we really wanted him to be able to move around as much as he could.  This is an old horse that lives on mashes, can't eat hay, and nibbles on the grass, most of which end up as cigar like rolls that he drops out of his mouth because his teeth are in poor shape.  So walking from one field to another nibbling on the grass gives him something to do during the day.  My solution was  a radio on a talk station, and on a timer, under the overhang of the chicken coop roof.   We came back after the week, and we weren't missing any chickens.  Maybe it helped that I had walked out to the back bush and dumped a partial bucket of tripe (cow stomach) that I had been cutting up for dog food.  A nice stinky mess that I was sick of dealing with and needed to get out of the fridge.  A peace offering of sorts to the coyotes I guess.  Or at least something to feed a few of them for a day or two.
As you can imagine all this set out departure back, but we did finally get on our way about lunchtime, and got to Oliver at dusk.  It is 4 hours of driving, over a couple of high mountain passes.  The weather this time of year can make for an 'interesting' drive, so we do a lot of checking of weather reports and road cams before we decide when to leave.  The roads were great except for about 40 minutes worth of a bit of snow and slush in the highest parts.
Our drive home yesterday was even better, with clear roads all the way.  We lucked out and a break between weather systems coincided with the day and time we had wanted to head home.  A few hours after we crossed Alison Pass at 1429 metres, the traffic cam there showed that the snow had returned and the road was white.  Back here was wet wet wet and high winds to go with it, and today was the same.   Yuk.

The Christmas Project Part Two or How not to paint a Union Jack

The continuing story of Meredith's Christmas present......

My original idea was to paint the union jack on the wood first, and then put stain over the whole thing to sort of mute the flag down a bit.  Forgot all about that, as I was excited I'd actually found some walnut stain, and merrily went on my way and stained the top.  Oh well.  I wanted to have part of the stained wood top showing, so decided to just paint the stripes, and the stained wood would be the blue part of the flag.

As you may have noticed in the previous post, there are very specific measurements to drawing the Union Jack correctly, and I wanted it to be like the real thing.  The lid was 18" wide, but 54" long.  I based my measurements on that 18" width, and just extended the horizontal and diagonal stripes until they ran over the edge of the top.  I thought I had found an easier way to do all the taping compared to some pictures I had seen.  First I would tape all the outer edges of the white, and I started to fill them in.  Then I thought, why paint it all in, just paint the part that needs to be white.  I was painting with a dry brush, which means you barely dip it in the paint and then brush most of the paint off onto a cloth or paper, and then paint your actual piece.  The paint goes on very thin, almost like a stain, and allowed the wood grain to show through.

And then suddenly I realized I had forgotten the diagonal white stripes. Frick.

 I taped those off, and got a wet cloth and rubbed away some of the sharp edge left were the diagonal stripes meet the horizontal and vertical ones.

I wanted the white to look like it was painted all at the same time.  I wasn't totally successful with that.

So then I taped off for the red stripes, and realized that I hadn't painted some of the white parts wide enough.

 I started to put the red on with a dry brush also, and of course the white underneath some parts of it made the red look pink.  Back to the wet cloth.  Rubbed off the red paint I had put on, and then rubbed even harder to take off all the white paint that was in the red areas.  Painted the red in, and then had to go back and retape three of the diagonal stripes and fill in the white I missed.See the white paint missing in the top two and bottom right diagonals?

After it was all dry, I gave the top a quick sand.  Then I decided that the stain didn't look as dark as I liked, so I taped off all the stained areas and gave them another dose of stain.  Hmm, just thought now that I could have stained over the paint as well at that point, as per my original plan. Didn't think of it at the time.  In the process, I had the can of stain on the floor, well on the rug, and proceeded to kick the can of stain over.  So then I had to get out the paint thinner and try get the stain out of the rug.  The house smelled of paint thinner.  Good grief, how NOT to paint a Union Jack. I was sure that Meredith would smell it when she came home, and ask about it. (She didn't). 

 The chest was in the family room, which really does not get used by Meredith, but is where my computer is, and the modem and the D-link.  The only reason she would probably go down there was if the Wi-Fi was acting up.  Sure enough, that happened, and the there she was, sprawled in the computer chair with her feet up on the chest, waiting for the internet to start back up.  I had covered the chest up with an old shower curtain, and it was in the same spot where there had been another piece of wood furniture waiting to be worked on, which I had removed and put in the garage.  Sort of that hiding in plain sight sort of idea I guess.  She obviously didn't notice the difference in height from the switched out piece.

I could only work on the chest while she was at work, so I was rapidly running out of time.  I had some gray paint, added a bit of blue to it, added some plaster of paris to make some homemade chalk paint, and painted the bottom.  It turned out bluer than I had wanted.

Here it is with the first coat of paint on, and I think it is before I put the second coat of stain on the top.  The lighting is bad and the chest wasn't quite that blue, but still bluer than I liked. 

Those fake cupboards and drawers were perfect spots for appliqueing some maps of England.  The previous month, when my favourite thrift store had it's half price sale, I had sat down in the book section and gone through all the atlases and bought the one that had the most maps of England in it (for $1).   Of course I realized after that some of those maps are on the back of a page I wanted to use.  I had a couple of different options, but did want to include the map that showed Harrogate, in North Yorkshire, where I was born.  Luckily the pages were just wide enough to fill in the space.  In a big box of road maps, I had found one from southern England, and it was just wide enough for the two 'drawers' in the middle.  Since I had nothing wide enough for the top two 'drawers', I left them looking like drawers, and cleaned up the original handles and put everything together for a dry fitting.

I took everything off the front, mixed more grey paint in and did a second coat that came out more the colour I wanted.  The top got a coat of Antique Paste Varnish ($2.50 from Habitat for Humanity), and the maps and handles were put back on temporarily.  That is how it was presented to Meredith on Christmas morning.  We are not an overly demonstrative family, but I think she liked it:)  In the next couple of days I got a few more coats on the top.  I got the maps glued down and got several protective coats over them.  The paint was lightly distressed to help the details pop, and then was waxed and buffed to give it a subtle sheen.

The pictures aren't the best.  I didn't want to ask anyone to help me lug the beast outside.  The weather wasn't great anyway.  I had very limited room and a lot of junk useful stuff in the background that I wanted to crop out.

And look, there is a sea serpent in the ocean East Northeast of The Wash. Yep, I managed to get at least one of Nelson's hairs embedded in the clear finish.

Maybe not everyone's cup of tea (make that English Breakfast!) but I loved doing it and am pleased with the transformation:)

The Christmas Project- Part 1

I'm terrible with Christmas presents.  Just am not good at coming up with something to give a person.  Some years back when the kids turned into adults, we put a $50 limit on Christmas gifts.  Over the years, I've made some presents.  Coming to mind at the moment is a horse blanket I made for Meredith one year when she had a horse in 4H.  Another year we made a hockey net for David out of PVC pipe and some heavy fishing net we had bought at a garage sale.  Usually the homemade gifts involve me rushing to finish them off, late on Christmas Eve.  Not sure how it went with the horse blanket, but I do remember Larry and I, late at night both working hard at lacing that netting around the frame for the hockey net.

This year I had an idea for something homemade.  As you may know, I've dabbled a little bit into the furniture painting world. I read all the blogs....some things I like, some I don't.  I am a lover of real wood, but I've been fascinated at how you can give something a whole new look with paint. Over the year I've accumulated a pile of stuff that I want to play around with.  And I do mean a pile.  It was covered in a tarp, which keeps blowing off, and since it is quite close, in the barn/shop, to where Larry feeds Pride, there is no way Larry has been able to miss it.  Sometimes I can 'hide' things in plain sight, and it probably would have been okay if the tarp had stayed in place.  Larry would have just assumed it was some of David's automotive collection underneath it.  I think.

So back to my idea.  Meredith will be moving to her own place in the coming year. (There, it's down in writing, therefore it WILL happen).  She is interested in all things British.  She spent a few days in London at the end of a Contiki  Europe tour in 2011.  She spent a rushed week there last year as part of the great landrover hunt.  She has a trip around the British Isles planned for 2015.  She, along with me, has admired some of the furniture makeovers that included Union Jacks painted on them.

My original plan was to find a trunk or chest that could function as a coffee table and storage, and 're-do it' for Meredith.  I would paint a Union Jack on the top.  I did find one on Craigslist, but they were asking $100.  I felt that was a reasonable price for what it was, but it was double my price limit. I waited to see if they would lower the price a bit, and then I would offer $50 with fingers crossed.  That wasn't meant to be.  I hummed and hawed way too long and it sold.  Then I came across a cedar lined chest for free.  It had some damage from puppy teeth, but I jumped on that ad right away.  I was the lucky one, I thought.  So we head to Langley one dark rainy night, about 20 minutes away.  The chest was much smaller than I had thought.  I had seen a picture, but hadn't thought to ask for measurements, and I guess I had just imagined it the size I wanted it to be.  But, we were there, it was free, so I took it anyway.  After much looking it over and realizing it is just a very cheap copy, put together from a kit, with major damage to the particle board trim, I'm going to send it off to the thift store.  Someone will be happy to have it to store something in. Back to more hours perusing Craigslist.

There were quite a few trunks or chests that were for sale.  Most were too much money.  Some were in my price range, but were too far to go, or I just couldn't make it work out.  Then one popped up for $25.  I was lucky and saw the ad almost right after it was posted, so contacted the seller right away, and we made arrangements to go and pick it up.  About 35 minutes away this time.  When we got there, the chest was much taller than I thought, not suitable for a coffee table, and really too high for a bench to sit on.  But it did have some features on the front that got me interested in applying another technique.  It was made by Huppe, a Canadian company out of Quebec, and was about 40 years old.  It was built like a tank, was in great shape, and since we were there and it was only $25, I took it anyway:)

Looks like a dresser but it isn't.  Just the lid opens. I had already started sanding the top here.

All nicely cedar lined though.  That little shelf lifts out.

So there it sat, in the garage, for weeks.  There was no room in there to work on it.  Eventually we had to clean out the garage to fit the market trailer in.  The market trailer is a small utility trailer that we take to the farmer's markets each week.  In it we keep the tents, tables, racks, stands, the jam left over from the weekend, the sewing.  Everything except anything new that I am taking the next weekend.  It's a life saver, as it means when we get home after a market, we don't have to unload all that stuff from the truck, and then reload the next weekend.  Since we continued to go to farmer's markets right through until the middle of December, and we had a below freezing spell of weather, I had to get the trailer inside so that I didn't have to worry about the jam freezing.  After the last market, it took me a few days before the trailer was unloaded for the winter, and now empty, it was taken back outside to be stored until the next season.  The chest had been under a blanket and had been a horizontal surface to hold Pride's bags of feed and the five buckets used to make his mashes each day.  That was moved  and now I had room to start sanding it.  The top was sanded down to bare wood and the rest was sanded just to roughen up the finish.

I knew I had some walnut stain.....somewhere.  Couldn't find it.  Did find this really old tin of walnut stain, so old I didn't even think it was usable.  I was so excited to find something the colour I actually wanted, that I forgot that I was going to paint first.

To be continued......

We Had A Merry Christmas

We survived.  We had a good time.  Everything all worked out in the end.  We got our family Christmas photo taken with us still speaking to each other, and all the animals in one piece.  At the time though, I was positive that Pride trampled on Luna after we were all done.  Larry was walking towards Pride with his blanket held open and up in front of him, ready to put it over Pride's head.  Luna was right behind Pride as usual. Pride freaked and I was sure he trampled on Luna's legs.  Instantly visions of sugar plums dollar signs and visits to the emergency vet flashed through my head.  I screamed at Luna and looked away (which is what I automatically seem to do with I see a disaster unfolding that I can't do anything to stop).  Either the ground was soft enough or Pride actually missed her, but Luna seemed to survive unscathed.

I had suggested that we use the tractor as a prop in our picture, but then Gruff, David's land rover was suggested instead.  That was a much better idea.  The land rover that David, accompanied by Meredith (who couldn't pass up a good excuse to go to England) bought and had shipped back from England in the summer of 2012.  It took nearly a year go get it here, deal with all the paper work and regulations, work on it and get it inspected three times, before it was finally legal to be driven in B.C.

As you can see, the snow of last week is gone, was gone by Monday I think.  There might be one small blob left at the bottom of the driveway that was the snow lady.  We are back to our typical Christmas weather.

In the afternoon David brought my mum over from her care home.  She stayed for dinner, and asked that we take a family photo.  Not the best, but she was happy enough with it, and I printed it out and stuck it in a frame and she took it back with her.

I didn't get much done in the way of Christmas baking, but thankfully others seemed to fill in for me.  I did make some Christmas decorations though.

They are made out of old paperbacks and in this case, brass candle sticks were used as a base.  These were a gift, but I also made some for us.  You can see some of them on the shelf in the background.  I made a couple of very small ones as this year's Christmas ornaments for M and D.  Here's a link to making the trees.  http://anextraordinaryday.net/how-to-make-folded-paperback-book-christmas-trees-a-tutorial/

On Christmas Eve we received a last minute invitation for dinner.  I hesitated for a moment, as there were a lot of things I needed to do that evening, but then realized nothing was more important than spending time with friends, and I would be foolish to turn down a wonderful meal cooked by someone other than me:)  And the extra bonus....

I got to snuggle with these!  Three week old lab puppies that are destined to become guide or autism dogs.

I was told I would be checked for stowaway puppies on my way out.