Fall Photos

[altivo]

At last, there are photos of the haypile. Our fall color is weak this year, probably due to dry weather in late summer and mild weather in September and October. The leaves are falling now, and the oaks, difficult to color up in any year, turned mostly just brown. Still, I found some nice scenes to shoot yesterday when I finally got out into the sun with the camera. As usual, click thumbnails for larger views.

Here's the promised photo of 620 bales of hay piled to the rafters. As you can see, we've exceeded our orderly storage. By Christmas, though, the overflow in front of the posts will have been cleared away and eaten. Scales (left center) are used to weigh out portions, insuring good nutrition without excessive weight gain.


Horse's eye view of the haypile. What Tess sees for a good part of her day in the winter, when conditions make it difficult for her to be turned out in the pasture. I suppose it must be tantalizing at times, especially since the hay smells sweet and grassy. Sort of like staring at a mountain of your favorite food that you can't get to. Fortunately she usually has a haynet with a measured portion in it, so she's certainly not starving, but she does let us know when it runs out. Free access to an endless supply of hay allows Haflingers to become so fat they look like haystacks themselves, so diet control is essential.


The Boys of Autumn. Asher (left) and Archie browse on fallen oak leaves. This isn't supposed to be particularly good for them, but how do you prevent it? Even when supplied with fresh hay, they will often comb the yard for any fallen acorns before attacking the haynet. Fortunately, they don't have delicate digestions, and though they've been doing this for ten years now, we've never had any colic incidents.


Tess, the fall princess, in her element. While not exactly slim and elegant, for a retired broodmare she is looking good. And happy, I should add, which is very important. This shot was taken facing north-northeast, from the pasture gate at the south end a good 500 feet or so away. I just discovered a telephoto feature that I didn't know my camera had. Tess is starting to develop her winter coat, even though the weather has been mild so far. I guess the shortening days help stimulate the fuzz and feather style.


Autumn foliage, 2010. Standing just inside the pasture, looking south toward the barns. The lane to the left of the fence remnant is the path through the woodlot that I follow with Tess to bring her in and out. Not as colorful as some years, but in the afternoon light it has a sort of idyllic golden quality that I love. There's a character to this season that makes me feel both the tremendous age of the landscape, extending back for millennia and well beyond the arrival of European invaders, and the repeating cycle of the seasons that is more like the individual ticks of a pendulum. This is the stuff of which poetry and paintings are built, and I'm snapping lots of photos to inspire me through the gray days ahead.


Bridge over the dry creek, no running water this time of year. The garden plot is on the right side as you view it here. The woodlot is behind the bridge, and the creek runs through it. The scene in the previous photo is just to the left of what you see here. During the spring floods, this treacherous little footbridge is the simplest way to reach the garden and orchard, assuming they aren't under water too.


Just one more. The last haywagon of the year stands at the northeast corner of the arena, ready for our supplier to pick it up at his convenience. We're getting ready for snow now that the winter supplies are in place. As I was taking these photos, Gary was working on a new roof and some reinforcements for the sheep windbreak. Their roof collapsed under last year's heavy snows in the spring. We probably still need to do something about the woodshed roof, too, but I'm hoping to make it last for one more year. Autumn is busy, but beautiful too. The weather is usually pleasant, and the approaching storms are still far enough off that they hold no dread. The animals are fat and happy, and there's a lot to look at and appreciate.

Comments

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I'd share my Autumn shots with you. But I think you'd get bored of looking at brick walls. :D

Some very disperate environments we seem to inhabit.

[altivo]

Well, I know there's more to it than brick walls because I've seen your back garden. But yes, it's different here. I was so claustrophobic the last couple of years we lived in Chicago that it's a miracle Gary put up with me. I was literally scratching at the walls and waking up screaming. For me, that was very out of character. Certainly there have been stresses associated with being out here, and I'm not always happy with the neighbors even at the present distance, but it's much more tolerable and on occasion, like yesterday when I was taking those photos, really pleasant and soothing.

[moonhare]

disperate

Nice word!

[altivo]

Yes, it's a good word, but let's correct the spelling: disparate

;D

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm on the train to work, and really enjoyed the pics. Gave me that snuggly, bracing Autumn feel. You're a good photographer and the horses are beautiful.

And it's nice to see you cheerful.

[altivo]

The horses are beautiful, mostly well-behaved, and sweet dispositioned. Even Tess, who can be peremptory at times, doesn't act up without understandable reason.

Thanks for the compliment on my photography. I do like this little Kodak. Still haven't learned all the features, but it's much easier to use than the heavy old 35mm types I learned on. I think I owe any eye for composition to my father, who was always an artist at heart.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

Green hay? I don't think I've seen that around here for many, many years other than in insanely priced 2 pound packs for rabbits and guinea pigs in the supermarket. Looks like the kind of hay you'd just want to dive into if it was in a pile.

The bridge picture looks almost like a Monet motif. I know it's not exactly his white bridge, but it's pretty close.

Would share pics from here but the weather is so bleak it's hard to believe. Grey clouds, brown ground, rain, rain and more rain. It's depressing.

Captcha note: What the hell does 'seamiena' mean? Dictionary.com doesn't know the word.

[altivo]

This is grass hay, with no alfalfa (lucerne) in it. When we get it right from baling it does look green and smells really nice. Last year we did not get any this good, even though we paid a lot more per bale.

Was that captcha on the Dreamwidth site? If I remember correctly, their captcha is usually two words. "Seam" and "iena"? or "sea" and "miena"? Either is possible, but suggests a rather far reaching word souce. The word iena is French for "hyena." Or maybe it was Miena which is a town in Tasmania. Dunno, maybe they use a crossword puzzle dictionary. Sometimes captchas aren't real words at all, but just letter combinations made up to look like words.

[shadow_stallion]

Greener than I would have expected too. I would have guessed that it had at least some alfalfa in it. :P

[altivo]

Might have to do with the species of grass up here. Timothy hay is more yellow brown I think, and yes, alfalfa is sort of green but I don't like the smell of it. This smells like a freshly cut lawn, but it's quite dry and well cured. It's very much the sort of hay we used to get from our former supplier, who sold out without warning a couple of years ago. Maybe it's even from the same fields. Most of the hay around here seems to be made in rented fields that are being held by someone who wants to get rich by selling them off for subdivisions. Yuck.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

Nope, it was siemiena alternate. In fact it seems every time I comment here (which isn't as often as I'd like) one of the words is really, really weird. One of these days I should try asking for the site to play an audio file of them.

Captcha now is a bit more sane, though: unconic sin

[altivo]

Well, in the end, there's nothing rational about captchas. Nor for that matter, about the behavior that makes them necessary.

[schnee]

Thanks! Very interesting and nice. :)

[altivo]

Wish I could share the smells.

[hrrunka]

The light was good. Youve got some fine photos there.

[altivo]

Yes, the light was with me. It's amazing how much drama late afternoon or early morning lighting can add to outdoor photos, or even sometimes indoor ones...


(Click to enlarge)

[moonhare]

Scales (left center) are used to weigh out portions, insuring good nutrition without excessive weight gain.

We always just threw approximated sleeves at the hay racks in the back corner of the stalls.

Pretty pictures! Yesterday's blowing rain took out much of our colors yesterday. It's a weak show this Autumn due to the hot and dry July.

[altivo]

Depending on the horse, that can be fine. These guys are just too easy to overfeed. Some people say the breed was reselected in the 1930s and 40s to switch from durable draft ponies to edible meat ponies. Ewww. That is supposed to explain why they fatten up so easily on little food.