WordPlay

Dear New Neighbor:

I bet when you saw Beagles in my back yard, you thought, “Oh, good!  She’s used to barking dogs and she won’t mind mine.”

Wrong.  And wrong.

Contrary to common belief, a happy and fulfilled Beagle is not a habitual barker.  (However, if you give them something to bark AT, you’re going to hear it very clearly!)

Also, my dogs live behind the house.  There, they don’t come face-to-face with neighbors who are walking, jogging, or having a little peripatetic quality time with their own dogs.  I very deliberately planned that location for their hangout even though the space is long and narrow and funky beside the Arroyo Minor drop-off, because…less stress for them.  Less stress for the neighborhood.

Peace and quiet for all.

And, as it happens, my dogs do not in fact bark as a recreational activity.  Oh, adolescent Dart flirted with that past-time when he first arrived; we managed, prevented, and otherwise stopped it from becoming a habit until he grew through that phase.

So, wrong.

Also wrong?

To move into your home, dump your huge dogs there unsupervised for a week where they’re in a yard that runs directly along our shared dirt road, and leave the neighborhood reeling under thunderous, relentless barking.

Then, when the first person mentions the problem, simply say that the dogs will settle in, especially now that you’re back.  Then leave them out all day while you’re at work.  And then, when the second person expresses distress, again say that the dogs just need time to settle in.

The weeks pass.  The neighbor across from you, a pleasant retired person, must close her windows in spite of the need to regulate her household temperature.  She can no longer putter amongst her flowers or keep up her yard without an unending chorus of barking.

The neighbors south of you deal with the impact on their own dogs, who are riled and easy to upset, and burst into barking much more readily.  Their new rescue dog experiments with barking as habitual entertainment, taking his example from your dogs.

The neighbor southwest of you—that would be me—takes a single ride in her north pasture and comes back inside with ears ringing and eyes crossed and then her horse is trapped in the paddock for the next four weeks, longeing in a small space.  She has to close up her house to get work done.  Outdoor chores are no longer a restful time during which the muse wanders through stories.  Her migraines do not thank you, either.  Young Dart ponders, again, the value of recreational barking.

Attempts to make friends with the dogs are fruitless; the shy one never gets close, and the very nice one takes tidbits with gentle teeth and then barks at everyone anyway.

It isn’t their fault.  They’re over-stimulated, thrust into an unfamiliar environment, unsupervised.  They’re up against the road where the world is in their face instead of restricted to the many acres behind the house.

MANY ACRES.  BEHIND THE HOUSE.

The weeks pass.  And finally, you receive a letter clipped to your gate, from the one neighbor who hasn’t yet spoken to you.  (That would be me.)  It’s as kind as it can be, but it states in no uncertain terms:  Your dogs’ barking, while you are gone, is relentless.  It’s distressing.  It’s affecting the quality of life of the entire rural neighborhood—where everyone loves dogs but everyone also loves their quiet life.  It is time to do something.

NOW.

Dammit.

If you’re on my FaceBook or Twitter feeds, you watched this one unfold.  The evening clouds  coming in over the mountains weren’t a surprise–we knew about the rain.

When the hail started, that wasn’t a surprise, either. Biggie marble-size hail is common enough around here.  It squalls through in pretty short order.

I mean, usually.

This time, there was nothing usual about it–although as golf balls started to spang off glass and we crated the dogs away from the windows, we still thought it would pass.

Because, I mean, usually.

But within moments I was pressed against the leeward office window, watching DuncanHorse hurl himself around a paddock slippery with accumulating inches of hail–scrabbling, falling, and beyond rational equine thought.  Talk about feeling helpless…oh, I cried for DuncanHorse!

This lasted for approximately…forever.

(Yes, I’m pretty it was about that long.)

The hail piled up in drifts that would take days to melt, sandblasting the world.  When it finally–FINALLY–eased, I went out to comfort Duncan with his blanket (he’s too dignified to call it a blankie, but same effect), and gave him bute and a bonus snack of hay.  I won’t say he leaped into my arms upon my arrival, but it was a close thing.

The next days were all about discovering damage: Garbage can, holed; gutter drains, bashed; van, battered (to the tune of $6600), one solar tube cover split.  The roof damage is of yet undetermined–the special insurance catastrophe teams are here,  but taking weeks to work through the backlog.

Our scrub Oak, scrubbed. The dear little thing does still have a leaf or too...if you look closely.

My lush fall wildflowers turned into food processor fodder; we lost a little yard tree and are crossing our fingers for this year’s other painstaking transplants.  The wild juniper/pinon arroyo lands around us were thinned to a veil–neighbors across the valley are suddenly visible.  The wild grasses  were flattened, the roadside ditches held mini-glaciers of hail flow, and the giant sunflowers canted wildly out of the ground under their own weight.

Our thriving, bushy catnip

Smashed Asters probably ought to be the name of a band

OH.  The agility equipment.  Battered, shattered, shredded. I saved the table (it’s already repainted) and the A-frame (ditto), but the dogwalk…maybe salvageable, maybe not.  Insurance folks check it out this week, along with the teeter, tunnels and broad jump–and the barn, which gurgles mysteriously and has water in its structure somewhere.

Um.

As for DuncanHorse, it took five days before he shook off the soreness and the shock, but he’s back to being his opinionated self and would not care to admit he was ever in need of a blankie and a hug.

All in all, that storm left behind a little slice of damage remarkable for its completeness. No exposed car or household in this little area escaped; no skylight survived.  While most of the damage occurred tightly local to us, the storm also hit weirdly northwest of us to wreak havoc at Kewa Pueblo.

However.

In the end, it’s all part of living along the Sandias. If the beauty of these high desert foothills is dramatic, so can be the weather.  It’s also part of horsekeeping at home–and of being so drawn to the outdoors that the damage to the trees and flowers and the small creatures who perished now feels so deeply personal.

Tucked in by the house...a wee gaillardia, the lone survivor

Of course, that doesn’t stop us from crying about it, or floundering to fit repairs and recovery into the following weeks, or wandering around in shock at the gut-deep understanding that no matter how well you prepare and provide for your outdoor kids, when nature comes along, it’s not always enough.

Patty at the Write Horse sure knows it, too–Friday gives us the storm from a Risotada Training point of view.  But until then, we’re all still just putting things back together.

PS Dear Editor: v. sorry my proofs were pushing that deadline…

…Monday

Lonely Hummingbird Feeders

Or not, as it might happen.

It is the Spring of Waiting. The first spring. The one when I don’t really know what’s going to happen, when.

Like…when do the hummingbirds find us?

We have three feeders now, ready and waiting. One very pretty but impractical, and two silly plastic red things that are SO EASY to use, keep the ants away, don’t drip…

Heeeere, leetle hummingbirds! Come have a pleasant little sip!

Well. As of today, I know they’re here. I saw a black-chinned over in the dead tree…heard a broad-tail slicing the air overhead…

FIND MY FEEDERS, DAMMIT!

Oops. Did I say that out loud?

Um.

And then there’s the front yard. I use the term “yard” loosely. It’ll be xeriscaped, but right now…well, actually, dirt counts as xeriscaping, right?

Almost two weeks ago, my visiting maternal unit and I planted wildflower seeds straight from the seed heads. And since then I’ve watered and waited and…

Well. Here we go. Uh huh.

Maybe a little more time? Maybe I over-watered them? Maybe I under-watered them?

At least the native grass and other wild little green things are happy…

Fortunately, out and about on the land, there’s plenty to see. Not that I’ve identified it all, mind you. Just vaguely. A recent beautifully calm morning gave me the ubiquitous house finch, a Bullock’s oriole, the two hummingbirds, and two scrub jays giving a crow a very hard time, coincidentally right outside my office where the arroyo drops away and the tree tops are barely taller than I am. Skulking around the bottom of the big arroyo gave me a new PURPLE FLOWER POWER! to identify, along with others, and more of the existing and currently flourishing evening primrose–a gift of our wicked winter.  W00t!

Have camera! Have binoculars! Have feet! Have arroyo and flats! Go, me!

Poppies! Poppies! Poppies! (Well. Not. But who could resist that line?)

posted on Wednesday

Yup. Got me my cactus fork.

Got me my little hatchet.

And today, the juniper nursery and I gave each other a nervous hairy eyeball and faced off.

I like my little hatchet.  Buh-bye, little trees!

Of course, I feel guilty.  I always feel guilty, cutting trees.  But in this case, they’re all clustered together so tightly that it’s not healthy anyway–I don’t see that growth pattern anywhere else in this area and I wonder if that land wasn’t disturbed somehow in the past.

And in this case, they’re right in the middle of my agility area, which is a vaguely L-shaped patch of mud and grama grass (now shorn of prickly pear) in the south pasture area, already formed around several large stands of juniper and pinon.

So…yeah.  It’s me, my hatchet, and the juniper nursery.  Besides, I’ll pick out some of the larger ones to stay around–appropriately spaced, too.  I want to leave this gorgeous, fragile high desert land as healthy as possible (which is why DuncanHorse is currently closed in his paddock and not running loose on the wet, erosion-prone soil).  The baby trees are already serving another purpose: dragged to the head of forming gullies, where they’ll slow the run-off.

When it comes to this sort of project, I tend to over-do it.  For one thing, I’m using tools that mean something to me.  This hatchet was my grandfather’s, and is older than I am.  (And I swear I checked the handle before I started work.  Really I did.)  So working with it means more than just being out on the land, out in the quiet…out in my zen zone.  It means thinking about my grandfather…thinking about the places and spaces in which I’ve used this hatchet over the years.

Besides.  With me, it’s always just one…more…leetle…tree…

So maybe it’s a good thing that the hatchet head came flying off in mid-stroke.  It’s certainly a good thing that I ducked the flying hatchet head.

Anyway, I got plenty done, but I didn’t over do it, and Yes! I still have a reflex or two left!

Anyone here have any favorite old hand-me downs?

(I was going to ask “anyone have any favorite old tools?” but a scared little voice in my head popped up and said, “No!  Don’t do it!” and indeed, that seems wise after the back-scene responses I got to “cactus fork,” to which I can only say OW OW OW OW.  You silly people.)

posted on Monday

Not a word combination that comes often to mind.

But the agility area is rife with a low-lying prickly pear and hoo boy, it’s gotta go.  It starts with the hoe:  lift the flat pads of the winter-shrunken cactus with hoe, find that tap root…and then just the right, swift combination of hack-n-slice.  Prickly pear be gone.

Actually,  that’s when the hard part starts.  Because what then?  Can’t leave the things lying around.  For one thing, they’ll just root where they are.  For another, then they’re still…well, lying around!

But by golly, don’t go picking the things up.   The spiny scary parts aren’t even the problem–it’s the horrid little hooked fuzzy spines that you never see until it’s too late.  No matter what.  No, leather gloves are no protection.  Maybe I’ll try kevlar sometime?

So today I discovered a new use for a trusty old tool…my half-size manure fork.  It used to be assigned to yard duty when Duncan grazed in Flagstaff and ABQ’s South Valley (“mowing the lawn” had nothing to do with machinery), but here, it has no such use.

However, the poo fork (because yes, I am too lazy to say “manure fork” more than once) has now found new life!

Behold!  The Mighty Cactus Fork!

I might even be smug and satisfied, if it weren’t for the juniper nursery located behind and to the left of where I stood to take this picture.  I’m kinda getting the feeling that the hoe and the cactus fork aren’t quite gonna do the trick…

Hmm.

Quick! Don’t look at the Scary! Turn around instead! It’s…

Much better.

posted on Friday

What’re you gonna do. The dogs are clamoring for training, and the road is pure muck, and the agility yard is hovering somewhere between knee-deep in snow and melted into sludge.

Not to mention the next trial is looming, in the big scheme of things–when you’ve got dogs to condition and tune up.

So out we go into the arroyo. It’s more like a pre-arroyo–it has some really steep parts but is mainly more gentle, and it’s within the horse pasture. Now, just the other side of the horse fence, that’s where we’ve got a several-story drop and sheer verticals, a tangle of junipers growing out with no visible purchase, deadfalls, and gutted-out soil.

We’ll stick to this side, I think.

We head out the north side, loop around the back…running leaping happy dogs, sniff sniff sniff *wag* BAWH! And we play the Come Game, which means I wait until Connery has found the very best most interesting SNIFFY thing and I call him, and there are cookies.  (Belle doesn’t really  need this game, but she gets a cookie anyway.)

Along the fenceline, through the arroyo, and climb back up out, where we emerge into the agility yard south of barn. Not much there now–a few half-buried jumps, set low. The dogwalk; the teeter. The table, half obliterated by snow.

Connery, of course, throws himself over the dogwalk, all full of BAWH, and then we play with handling in the little jumping square. Wraps, turns, switches, front crosses…drive out to that far jump and pull around to the teeter. None of it’s very fast, but it doesn’t matter. They’re having fun, and they’re learning to work agility under conditions that will leave them unphased by inclement weather at trials.

Half of the obstacles they perform in tandem; they head for the table together; they run the dogwalk in single file…Belle watches while Connery works the jumping square, and she’s thinking, “I’d rather keep my feet tidy right at this moment.”

Then we cut through the arroyo to skim behind the house and hit the gate we used to get out, and towel off, and if it’s not agility…well, it’s snowgility.

Here he comes to save the day!

Racing for it…

Wuh-oh

“No, really. Pick me up.”

Obligatory artsy piccie

End of the Day: Hat hair and happy Beagle

Posted on Monday

Snowmageddon, New Mexico style!  I guess I’d better get used to it:

Although to judge by the reaction of folks who have lived here for a while, the weekly and bi-weekly succession of storms this winter is hardly standard operating procedure. It’s just the area’s way of greeting us in our new home, and giving us a really steep learning curve…

(Those are both cholla cactus, by the way. The yellow bits on the end are the fruit.)

Back to Miss Belle
Thanks to comments from Belle’s previous piccie, I am inspired to explain what all that alphabet soup after her name really means.  Details aside, it means this:  A little girl who tries so very hard! All she really cares about is to know she’s a good girl–she always is!–and to be with me.

Here’s the soup!  (Or, you know, just scroll down for the latest piccie)

Cheysuli’s Silver Belle, CD RE PAX MXP4 MJP3 OFP EAC EJC CGC

CD: Companion Dog.  The AKC novice obedience title, first of three levels.  Belle melted anxiously for her first stand-for-exam, then blew through her next three legs  in the ribbons.

RE: Rally Obedience Excellent.  The AKC Rally Excellent title, the highest of the three levels.  Belle went straight through, mostly with reds and blues.

PAX: Belle’s crowning achievement, AKC Preferred Agility Excellent.  This takes extended, consistent excellence at the highest level of agility performance, with twenty double-qualifying runs (Qs in both standard and jumpers agility for that day).  Belle competes in the Preferred classes because her legs are so short and her body so long, and I refuse to jump her any higher for her own safety; I think AKC fails the long-bodied dogs in this way.  Belle is a blue-ribbon double-Q girl, very consistent, and earned this title in spite of many months of repeated down time due to health issues and limited runs per weekend for the same reason.

MXP4: AKC  Masters Excellent Preferred is for the standard agility class.  It takes ten qualifying runs (Qs) to earn one MXP.  Belle is on her way to #5.

MJP3: AKC Masters Jumpers Preferred is as above, only for the jumpers class.  Belle is close to #4.

OFP: AKC Open FAST.  FAST is a fairly recent class offering not held at every trial; we only started running it last fall, at the trade-off of not entering in the regular classes (I don’t push her on entries).  It involves strategy and distance work.  Belle went straight through her runs from Novice to Open titles, blue ribbon girl.  We haven’t had an opportunity to work toward Excellent yet.

EAC: NADAC Excellent Agility Certificate.  NADAC is an alternative agility venue for us, and one in which we don’t currently compete.

EAJ: NADAC Excellent Jumpers Certificate.  Same as above…

CGC: AKC Canine Good Citizen certified.  This isn’t a title, per se; it’s a certification.  It means Belle has demonstrated to a tester that she has the social and obedience skills to be considered a canine good citizen.

And here she is again!  If you look closely, you can see her grinning…

The Friday Post

Ahhh, Camelot.

(If that means nothing to you, hasten ye to rent the Camelot DVD. Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero…just do it.)

This previous week, the weather wrought much difficulty. The mud, in which my car has been stuck not once, but twice–in our own freshly graveled driveway.

The wind, which took down our beloved ArroyoNet–and which, though we patched it as best we could (including several sojourns to the roof antenna), has never been the same. No more phone, and basic email and browsing are not to be taken for granted.

(Comcast continues to be a FAIL. A persistent one.)

The ice, which freezes the yard gate closed on a daily basis no matter how many times I chip it free–there’s trenching to be done, but not until the ground thaws.

The cold, which froze someone else’s water line in our tiny community well system and took out our water, killing the fridge icemaker and the water filter.

And then, of course, the settling of disturbed ground, which created Duncan’s sink hole and sent him on his rough tumble.

So yeah…that’s been the weather, these weeks after we moved in.

But one morning last week?

Ahh… Camelot.

For one bright shining moment…