Right Angle

Krazy Kat

This does not bode well for future generations of Barn Swallows....

I guess I have all winter to figure out a way to keep Oliver out of the nests.  Maybe I could attach a broom to his tail and he could at least clean up the cobwebs for me.

Oliver is the craziest cat.  He still wanders off on a regular basis, often disappearing for days on end.

Then, I'll see him trotting up the middle of the driveway or down the donkey lane in the pasture.  

More often though, he just shows up like he's been beamed down from space.  

 Hmmm, come to think of it, that could explain a lot.

When he is here, Oliver is everywhere.

Not only climbing the walls, but dashing about under everyone's feet.

He did a zoom-by this afternoon and managed to zip between all 12 hooves on the farm.   

Then he went donkey trekking with us.  I can't tell if Oliver is really brave or insanely foolhardy.  

Probably both.  He does make me wonder just how many of his nine lives he has left.

Donkey in the Window

No, she's not for sale.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

This was the other really interesting fungus that I ran across this summer.  At least, I think it's a fungus.

This log lies right over one of my main trails and I have to step over it nearly every day.  I've been stepping over this log since 2008 and this is the first time I've seen this.  It's the first time I've ever seen it anywhere. 

It started as just a faint hint of yellow that I wasn't sure was real and gradually progressed to the whole tree being covered in bright gold powder.

I might of thought it was some kind of mold except that the underside of the log grew into this...

This fungus proved to be exceptionally difficult to photograph.  Its inner light proved impossible to capture and none of these pictures even begin to do it justice.  The more subtle hues were colors that I have no name for and none of them showed up on film.

The white area shimmered and swirled with an opalescent sheen similar to mother-of-pearl.  The gold really did look metallic and both changed completely with the tiniest shift in angle.  The yellow powder came up out of this to cover the tree, I'm guessing that the powder is actually billions of spores.

I tried to capture a bit of the color shift, but the luminosity does not come through. Try to imagine this lit from with like a living fire opal with its own inner glow...

I tried anyway.  This year didn't bring out as many fungi as I usually see, but this and the white one were certainly the most beautiful and memorable I've come across in many years.  They are both gone now, but I will certainly be on the lookout for them next year. 

The Perils of Apples

Several people wanted to know why the apples were dangerous to the equines. A few apples a day are fine for a healthy horse or donkey, although they can be an issue for animals with insulin resistance.  I am sure that my herd are all still managing to steal at least 8-10 apples a day as is.  However, I picked up about 150 pounds of apples under that one tree.  If Tessa and the donkeys got into that many apples, it would very likely kill them and there are a couple of reasons why:

1. First, how would YOU feel if you ate 50 pounds of apples?  Unfortunately, donkeys and horses are rather foolish about apples and they will keep eating them way beyond the point of no return.  At the least, they would end up with a severe stomach ache.  
2. Since their stomachs are very small and not designed for a mass influx of apples, their GI processes would be highly compromised and slowed down even more than their normal very slow  progress.  The apples would ferment inside the gut, causing huge amounts of gas, which would likely cause a torsion of the bowel.  In other words - life threatening colic.
3. The massive intake of sugar in the apples would cause laminitis.  Huge intakes of sugar and/or a severe disruption of the GI tract, triggers a complicated cascade event that ends up as swelling inside the hoof capsules.  Since the outer wall of the hoof is hard and cannot give under this pressure, the swelling literally tears the inner structures of the hoof all to hell.  It can get so bad that the bone inside the hoof detaches and actually comes out the bottom of the foot. This is excruciatingly painful, and in severe cases, the only humane option is euthanasia.  

So, that's why all those apples were keeping me up nights and giving me nightmares.  If any of you are thinking that it is a waste to feed them all to the pigs, don't worry.  I still have several trees over by my pond, out of donkey reach, that are just as loaded.  Besides, apple-fed pork is mighty tasty:)

Stop! Thief!

While the herd has been circling round the apple trees, dreaming and scheming how to break in, I've been lying awake at night worried that they will.  Death-by-apple would be unbearable, time to take action.  I picked up three heaping muck buckets worth of apples under just one tree that usually produces no more than a dozen.  These are headed for the pigs over at FB's, far away from little velvety donkey lips.

Most years, the deer get to all the fallen apples before it becomes an issue.  This year, there are too many apples even for the deer to keep up with.  I don't think that has ever happened before.

As usual, my efforts to protect the donkeys from themselves was not appreciated. 

"STOP!  Thief!  Put those apples down Ma.  Step awaaaay from the tree."

"You just come out of there real slow, apples in hand and no one has to get hurt."

Join Us for a Fall Ride

It was a beautiful Fall day here, about 55*, sunny, no bugs....It sure would be nice if we got more of these.  Riding Buddy and I took the opportunity to do one of my favorite rides. 

For a lot of reasons, this is the first time we got onto these trails this year.  They can be a bit hard to get to because you have to be able to get up and down a 1.5 mile long, very steep hill that has really brutal footing. 

It's a tough hill for the horses and is not helped by the fact that the beavers have dammed a stream across the bottom of it, which is why I can no longer drive down the hill to the trail head.  Tanner and I used to hike down here a lot, but Connor and I haven't made it down here yet.  The road (if it can still be called that) is too rough.  You have to ride or hike quite a ways to get to one of my favorite little streams.

Thanks to the latest rather ambitious, scary and somewhat experimental hoof work I've been doing for Hawkeye, he was finally able to make the big hill with no problem for the first time in years. I've really got to write about that for everybody interested in hooves.

 
There are a lot of rough areas on this trail, but you don't get to see any of those since riding and taking pictures in those spots don't go together.   There are some nice gentle stretches though as well.

This used to be a main road back when horses and carriages still ruled the highway.  This was part of a large old resort and farm.  All that is left now is the pretty lane, a weed choked pond and a bit of old stone foundation.  It is all owned be the state now.

There was a pine plantation at the top of the lane, but it all got logged off this summer.  They must have burned the stumps for some reason as well as they all showed signs of charring.  I'm not sure why they did that.  As wet as it was when these were cut, it had to be on purpose.  Maybe some kind of infestation.  Looks awful brutal at the moment, but I think they'll probably plant hardwoods in here and it will come back.  New York State has many flaws, but they do a fairly decent job of managing the forest land.  Much better than the private sector, which tends toward rape-and-pillage logging techniques that leave the woods maimed for generations, if they ever recover.

The last time we were on this truck-trail was right after a major storm and there were dozens of trees down on it.  We had to do some creative detouring to get around them.  Today, these were the only trees that hadn't been cleared off.

 A quick bite of Beech leaves to keep the strength up.

Down the hill and back across the creek over the scary bridge.....

 ...and back up the big hill, which looks deceptively innocent in photos.

It's good to see this big guy tackling the tough hills again.  This time last year, he was unwillingly retired and we thought his riding days were over.  A nice Fall ride was a good reward for all the hard work that has gone into getting him back on the trails.