Animal Speak

It's a Saturday morning in May and when I went to bed last night, very late, I told myself I would sleep in a bit. This past week, I have been going to bed much too late as just about every evening I've been binging on astrology charts and reminding myself of all the glyphs involved. When a Sagittarius dives into the next topic of interest, it is all consuming.

As it goes in life with animals, your plans are mere pipe dreams.

So it was at some time shortly before 7:00 a.m. that something woke me up and got me out of bed to look out my window. And there he was, Alibi, standing still but whipping and winding his neck around the way he does when he's got something to say.

A couple of weeks ago, just as I was heading to bed a little earlier than usual and feeling proud of that, I feel him trotting back and forth across the paddock. Then I hear his high pitched and forceful nostril snort. Something is not right out there and Alibi wants everyone to know.

I went out onto the deck, the goodles were standing back and watching Alibi for any signal telling them what to do next. I turned on all the outside lights while I hurried back in to put on jeans, grab my mag light, headlamp, gloves because you never know, sturdy shoes ready for whatever. Out with me go the dogs. In the event it's a cougar or coyote, or wandering human, I hope their barking will disrupt the intruder's thinking.

Alibi comes up to me but not taking his eyes off behind him. He's making sure I'm fully aware that he is not comfortable. With his energetic tether, he leads me to the corner of the paddock and directs me to look across the road to the treed landscape. Like any momma protecting her herd, I put a gentle hand on him recognizing his skin is tense and twitching, but just enough so he can feel that I have things under control now and he can let down a bit. He knows this.

With fresh batteries in my headlamp, I head out through the gate onto the road shining my mag light through the bushes and up into the trees, back and forth, looking for any reflective eyes looking back at me. I check back with Alibi to see where his gaze is focused and explore further.

In the end, I find nothing and I head back through the gate not knowing what caused his alarm. He came back over to me and over came the goats. The four of us stood together in the quiet night, letting go of any fear. When I could feel their tension slip away and I could hear Alibi's breath soften, I knew I could start contemplating bedtime again.

Getting back to this morning, unlike the other night, Alibi was not snorting. There was no audible sound from him but he most certainly called me. As I noted his neck wringing, with really really tired eyes I started to take in the scene. He had managed to get his hind leg caught in the electric net fencing around the pear trees.

For my convenience only, I do not have the fence energized. For the most part, they all assume it's always hot...until they don't.

Here we go again, dress up, head out. The goodles are once again standing back and side by side, not in fear this time but in concern. They understand that getting closer to him may stress him out.

Alibi knows me so well he knows I'm there to solve his every problem. He recognizes his hind leg is caught. If you know anything about an animal, you know that anything around their legs generally sets them to panic, particularly animals considered prey. Their legs are their escape. But rather than panic and try to pull out of the fence, which really would be typical of many other horses, he was standing still trusting I would hear his call.

As I approach, not speaking a word, he poops. Ha! Finally he can relax. He cooperates and lifts his hind leg for me so I can untangle the fence and kiss him with reassurance that he is safe to move. Once again, the goodles come over now that everything is clear, and the morning carries on like any other day.

The thinking goes that I might as well scoop poop, let the girls out, and put out some hay while I'm out there.

Tomorrow. Maybe I'll sleep in tomorrow.

If you want to hear what a horse snort sounds like to alert others to danger, this is a good example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtxecUYUH8A

Alibi freezing mid-bite to key in on a deer friend across the road

Animal Communication

Today I had lunch with my friend, April, and as usual our conversation covered a multitude of topics over the course of a couple of hours. One of them was about animal communicators and animal communication, and horses. We talked about just how sensitive horses are, and how intuitive they are.  They know what's on your mind before you get down off the porch.  I was telling her just how trippy Alibi is and how I can ask him to do something and he does it.  I mean, verbally ask, not through body language related to conditioning.

When I got back home, I went out to enjoy my animals and noticed Hy Note's eye area and right side of his face looked discolored.  They roll in the dirt and sometimes he's just dusty, but this was different.  I moved his thick forelock out of the way and saw a little blood in his tear duct and then upon a complete body check, I noticed his cannon had blood from where he must have been rubbing his eye.  Looking again, I saw a very small cut on the lower eyelid.  Another half a millimeter and it would have been his eyeball--it was that close.

Naturally, I asked Hy Note what the heck he did.  What poked him in the eye? For a while it was just late afternoon horse scratching and loving time, so end of discussion there.  I realized it wasn't serious; I would get a warm cloth and wipe his eye and wash his face and soothe him a bit.

When I came out with the feed cart a little later, instead of standing over the bucket he has declared to be his, Hy Note walked away and over to one of the feed bags hanging on the fence.  It hadn't yet been filled, so this was significant.  He stood directly in front of the bag and then looked over at me to be sure I was paying attention.  I acknowledged that I saw him and that I would come look, so he left the empty bag and came to meet me at the feed cart and resumed his usual routine.

When I went over to the feed bag with the suspicion that whatever cut his eye was there, sure enough I found a long strand of chicken wire that had snapped off the netting and was sticking straight out right beside the feed bag.  Knowing how the horses eat from the bags, I was certain this was the culprit.

I have a gal coming for a few hours each week to help me with chores and we started moving the chicken wire that runs along the bottom of the field fencing to the outside of the fence.  The goats put their horns in it and pull, Faramir puts his hoof in it and pulls, it does no good on the inside of the fence and just gives me a constant maintenance project. Yesterday, we got as far as the section just before the feed bags.

One thing you learn when you have horses: if there is anything at all that can remotely possibly cut, hurt, or trip a horse, they will find it.

The other thing you learn is: if you pay attention and listen, a horse will tell you everything you need to know.

East Meets West

A couple of weeks ago I came back from a quick trip to Boston with two live lobsters in hand. I told Larry that the next day we needed to go out and pick up lobster crackers. We talked about which stores might possibly carry them--here in Central Oregon. So, the next day we set out to do a few errands and our conversation went like this:

Me: "Hmmm, I'm not sure where the best place is to find lobster crackers."
Larry: "What about Food for Less?"
Me: "No. They wouldn't carry something like that."
Larry: "Would Safeway or Trader Joe's?"
Me: "Doubt it. I'm not sure Target would even carry them. Maybe back east, but not out here. I think we need to find a gourmet kitchen store or something like this."
Larry: "Really? Are they that hard to find?"
Me: "Out here I imagine it might take a few stops."
Larry: "Oh. What's the difference between lobster crackers and oyster crackers?"
Me: "You don't crack oysters. You shuck them."
Larry: "Are you talking about the little salted crackers you put in clam chowder?"

After quite a bit of laughter and cultural appreciation, we opted for the easy option...a new pair of pliers and a new dental pick!