Southern Lights

Patsy Cline, in her signature emotional voice, sang "Walkin' After Midnight."  So smooth.  Most nights I am out walking, but I don't do any walking after midnight.  I'm in bed.  Walking at night here in the country is peaceful and quiet.  There is less traffic.  But my favorite part of walking at night is the sky.  You can see, over the course of the month, all the phases of the moon.  On certain nights, because we're away from most light pollution, you can see the magnificent stars and even planets in the sky.  

Most nights, I see numerous planes crossing the sky and often wonder who is on the planes and where are they going.  I've seen satellites and shooting stars.  But what I saw the other night is something that I've never seen before.  There is a little course, a trail that I walk each night.  One lap is about 1,000 steps in working toward my 10,000 step a day goal.  Barely had I gotten started when I noticed that something was odd, different.  Was I going crazy?  The sky in the north was red!

It was after 10 pm, and I ran in to get Tricia to come look and confirm that I was not losing my mind.  She was in bed in her jammies.  I told her, "I think you're going to want to come see this."  After much coaxing, I was successful in getting her to come out in the front yard.  She didn't have shoes on, so she jumped on my back and I carried her out near the road and out from under the trees.  I pointed it out to her.  She saw it too!

What could it be?  She got on a Jersey cow website, of all places, in which people from all over the United States were posting pictures of the Northern Lights.  Northern Lights in South Louisiana?  Could it be?  Yes.  We learned that there was a massive geomagnetic storm caused by a solar flare that impacted the earth's magnetic field allowing people like yours truly to witness something that we may never see again.

I quickly got on the phone and called Mom.  She had on her bucket list to see the Northern Lights and even went to Iceland to see them.  She didn't have success.  But lo and behold, she was able to see them here in South Louisiana.  Go figure.  I captured the photo above to prove that if you can't go see the Northern Lights, sometimes they'll come see you.

Walkin' After Midnight

I didn't really go Walkin' After Midnight.  That's an old Patsy Cline song that I like, but something that happened made me think of that song.  It is quite a story and I'll tell you about it in tonight's post.  I try to have my head on the pillow between 10 and 10:30 pm.  I've got no problems sleeping, even if I drink coffee in the evening.  Since I made a job change, I've tried very hard to make some positive changes.  I'm 55 and as I age, I notice by metabolism slowing and find that things that in the past I would find easy - are now hard.  

One thing I've changed is I try to get between 7 and 8 hours of sleep each night.  I try also to eat better and make better food choices with smaller portion sizes and limit snacking between meals.  I mess up a lot, especially on holidays and family gatherings (and when special desserts are in the house!)  Another thing I try to do is walk every day.  I installed a step counter on my phone and my official goal is to walk 7,500 steps a day.  Unofficially, I aim for 10,000 steps since that is 4 miles.

Sometimes I hit the goal easily.  Other times, I find myself at the end of the day with only 2,500 steps.  That means I have to get going.  Right now, it's nice in the late afternoon.  It is still cool, low humidity, and no mosquitoes.  Soon that will change, but at least for the present, it is a nice time to walk.  I generally walk laps around the yard.  Most days, Tricia joins me and we talk while walking.  One lap is about 400 steps.  I can check out the animals, the garden, the trees, wave to neighbors, and see a pretty sunset while walking.

Daylight turns to dark quickly, though, and sometimes I'm out walking like last night when the sun goes down.  Tricia isn't keen on walking at night, so she goes in and turns on the floodlights for me so I can see without running into a tree or walking off into a ditch.

Last night's walk involved some excitement.  We had just returned from a family gathering.  It was nearing 10 o'clock and I was walking for a short while and about to call it quits.  I was about to the western furthermost part of the yard and about to turn back south when something caught my eye.

It darted out from the ditch and stopped right in front of me and lifted it's fluffy tail.  It was small, black with a white stripe.  A skunk.  Bête puante in Cajun French.  There was nothing I could do.  He sprayed, and I ran the other way.  It was not a direct hit, fortunately, but the wind was blowing and the smelly mist did get me.  I headed back to the house, opened the back door and Benjamin said, "Ugghh!  What's that smell?"  I told him and Tricia what happened and Tricia had me take my clothes off outside and head for the bathtub.  She told me that I may have to sleep in another room!  

I emerged from the bathtub smelling better.  My clothes, however, may have to be thrown away!  What an adventure.  This afternoon when we walked, Tricia made it very clear that she was going inside BEFORE it got dark.  I though that was a good idea and followed her indoors.

How Technology Can Help You Get Up Off The Couch!

There's a lotta laziness going on around here!  Rosie kerplunked herself down in the pasture after she spent the better part of the morning eating hay.

The rest of the girls, although they look a bit more lively and energetic, are struggling with gravity.  The struggle is real.  They just don't have a lot of "get up and go."  Ever feel like that?

Here's another angle showing the herd of couch potatoes lounging in the pasture.  You can see the trail of what looks to be four-wheeler ATV tracks running alongside the fence.  Except they aren't ATV tracks.  It is a trail made by Tricia and me while we're walking side by side.  Lemme tell you a little bit about it.

Although we're very active in the garden and with the livestock, we don't have a real strict exercise regimen.  At 51 metabolism changes and you find yourself not exactly the spring chicken you used to be.  Time for drastic action.  I'm not a technology guy.  I asked my son, Russ, the other day if he knew if there was an App that would track your steps.  "Of course," he said.  It is free and he showed me how to put it on my phone.  It is called Runkeeper:

Okay, this thing is cool.  I've posted a screen print of our walk from yesterday.  It locates you on GPS and graphs your steps, shows total miles walked, how long it took you, what your pace is, and how many calories you burned.  It retains all the information each day and sends you emails telling you if you set any records and/or announces cumulative totals.  

We've gotten in a good habit of walking each day.  When I go back to work, unfortunately, I won't have time to do this anymore - except maybe on the weekends and when the days get longer.  Tricia keeps a very fast pace.  I have a hard time keeping up with her sometimes.

Runkeeper challenges you with emails and texts and encourages you to get up off the couch and get moving.  I kind of like this thing.  The cows, well... they aren't quite so energetic.  They need the Runkeeper app.

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU!

Teaching Clarabelle to Lead with a Rope

In THIS POST we showed how we began the slow and arduous task of breaking Clarabelle.  Animals (and people) have strong wills.  Like our other animals, we want Clarabelle to lead easily with a rope and the best way to do that is to start when they are young.  That is when you can impose your will on them instead of vice versa!

These animals will grow to be easily five times your weight and will be able to drag you all over the pasture.  It is much easier to teach them good habits while they are young and manageable.  I liken it to the story of the elephant.  When the elephant is small, they place a rope around his foot that is anchored into the ground.  The young elephant tries and tries, but cannot break free. He sort of gives up and when he is older, even though he can probably break the chain that he's anchored to, he doesn't even try, because of what was instilled at that young age.  There's a lesson buried in there for parents somewhere, but we'll not go that direction today.

In the earlier post mentioned above, we recounted how we tie Clarabelle up each day to a tree or a fencepost for about an hour.  She pulls and pulls, trying to get loose, but it's to no avail.  She soon begins learning that she can't win in this tug-of-war contest and stops pulling.  At this point, she'll lead easily back to the barn when I put her up for the night.  Well, after doing that for a couple of weeks, it is time to take her for a walk.  It is not easy.  This is not a task for someone expecting great results overnight.  Here's what I usually get at first:

As Stubborn as they Come

I pull hard on the rope and she pulls hard back.  It first seems like a stalemate, but I'm not giving up. I'm still a little bigger than her, too!  I pull for a little while hard, just enough to where she remembers pulling against the tree or the fencepost.  She remembers that she's not going to win the tug-of-war, and then I give her some slack on the rope.

Let's rest a little bit, Clarabelle.

While there is slack in the rope, I rub her neck and speak gently to her, touching her belly, her legs and back.  In a little while she's beginning to equate slack in the rope with favorable, pleasant times and a taut rope as unfavorable, unpleasant times.  I never whip her or raise my voice to her.  I want her to attribute times walking with me as a good experience.  I give her praise when she walks.

In time she's walking a couple of rounds around our property, with pep in her step. Sometimes she even lifts her tail and wants to run out ahead of me, but I pull her back in.  I want to teach her that she is to follow me.  With each passing day, she's improving, and it is very rewarding to see progress being made.  The weather has cooled off somewhat in the late afternoons when we have our little strolls.  People wave as they drive by on the road and we wave back (or at least I do), as we watch the sun cast long shadows across the grass outside the fence.

Me & Clarabelle on a September Afternoon

With perseverance and hard work, Clarabelle's stubbornness is just a shadow of what it once was!

Breaking Clarabelle

Clarabelle is our little Jersey heifer that was born on June 20th.  She is a cute little thing, full of personality.  Each night we separate her from her mom, Rosie, so that she doesn't get our milk and she plays games, running from us while kicking up her heels.  She is an affectionate little thing and enjoys to have her neck rubbed.

It is easier to 'break' a calf to lead as young as possible and we decided to start breaking her on her 2 month birthday.  I had a goat halter on her, but she is growing so fast that it doesn't fit her anymore, so I purchased a 'breaking halter' specifically for this task.  It has a special ring that allows the tension to be released quickly.  I'll show you why this is important in a minute.

Calves, like people, can be headstrong, stubborn, ornery!  If I put the halter on Clarabelle and tried to make her walk, she would dig in her heels and resist, causing me to pull and strain.  Eventually I'd be able to drag her, but there is an easier way. You just have to be patient.  It doesn't happen overnight. I halter her and tie her about head-height, leaving about 12-18 inches slack in the rope.  We make sure that we're nearby and constantly checking on her as we don't want her to fall and potentially choke herself.

Clarabelle doesn't like this at all!

Clarabelle likes her freedom.  She doesn't like being tied up and try as she may, the Chinaberry tree she's tied to is not going to move.  That's the point.  "Breaking" Clarabelle means exactly that - we are breaking her will.  She will understand, over time, that resistance is futile.  She is not going to win in a tug of war against a tree...

Or a fence post, for that matter.  Each day we'll leave her tied for an hour or so. While she's tied, we talk to her calmly and rub her down, massaging her neck, petting her back, touching her legs and belly.  She comes to look forward to this just as you would if someone would massage your back everyday at a certain time. Despite the lack of freedom caused by the rope, she at least can look forward to the treat of rub-downs and pleasant talk.  The first several days, she pulls mightily against the immovable object, straining with all she has.  Eventually, she doesn't pull quite as tight.

After a while, she doesn't pull at all.  As I mentioned, this takes patience.  We'll continue to do this every afternoon for weeks.  When I untie her and try to walk her to the barn where she is separated in her stall, I hold her with about 12-18 slack and walk her.  At first she walks pretty good, knowing she can't out-pull me, and I reward her with kind words of encouragement.  Then her stubbornness kicks in and she pulls against me.  She gets real dramatic and falls over on the ground in desperation.  I laugh and nudge her to get up and she complies and we eventually make it to her stall. 

For getting to the stall, she gets a good neck massage.  I've read that you can also reward them by feeding them a range cube, but I've not tried that.  

Clarabelle's stall in the barn

We will continue working with her.  As with anything difficult, it is important to be consistent, persistent, and patient.  Perfect practice makes perfect and good habits instilled at an early age will continue throughout her life and like I mentioned, it is much easier to break a 130 pound calf than a 300 pound calf.  The Jefferson Davis Parish Fair will be coming up October 6 - 10th and maybe we'll bring Clarabelle for Benjamin to show if she's walking with a lead rope by that point.