Pony escape, new Tack Room digs and a Coyote visitor

Sunday began business as usual. Well we did sleep in which we don't normally do, but we were tired. We ended up being called away to Shelton, CT on the whole of Saturday/Shabbat for us. We sat at Jason's work place and watched the storms roll through while he did some maintenance work there. Shabbat work hours are not the norm, but in "Babylon" it is sometimes a necessary evil. Jason was exhausted, missing his usual Shabbat rest so we slept in a little on Sunday morning. I was obliged to catch a few extra winks with him. :)

We finally rolled out of bed and we shoved off to go fishing once again. We headed out to pick up some things at Walmart and amongst our getting we picked up a trolling motor. We had so much trouble rowing around and around the bodies of water that Jason felt we would all be happier with some "help." We headed to Little Pond and on our way we overshot our turn and ended up near a yard sale I had seen the previous weekend. They had some items I was extremely interested in and I asked Jason to stop last week but he was not inclined to. This time, I spied the same items and asked him to PLEASE stop so I could at least see what they were asking. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse and the total package would cost me $10! Awesome!! I told them we'd have to pick it up on the way back from the pond and they obligingly pulled the items out and set them aside. So off we went to Little Pond again,
we launched our boat, with motor attached and glided with ease over to the lily pads where we fished last time with great success. Only... we forgot our anchor! Doh! The current was strong and we were struggling to stay in one place of course. The water was flowing to a small stream and we were getting pulled out towards the mouth of the stream. Every few minutes we were using the motor to drive us back out of the lily pads so we could be at the edge of them, not in the middle of them. So plan "B" was to head out more towards the center of the Pond and if we drifted it would be fine because it would take us a lot longer to end up in the lily pads. Just as we set up in the middle of the pond another boater sped out with a person on a water ski. Our small quiet fishing trip was turning into a tumultuous, bumpy ride. We bounced up and down in the wake of the speed boat. They flew by once, then turned and flew by several more times. We were trying to keep our bow pointed into the waves so it wouldn't bounce us and capsize us. Everytime we got settled in to fish, they would buzz by. It was getting irritating so we headed back to shore, loaded up our boat and were going to head to another body of water. We went to get cash right quick so we could grab those yard sale items and then we headed back toward the house. The plan was "drop off the yard sale stuff and then go to East Brimfield Lake." By the time we were almost home we realized that this was not going to work out time-wise. We still had stuff to do at the house and our little "sleep-in" in the early morning put us off schedule. So when we got home and unloaded, we simply stayed home and got to work knocking out chores and our to-do-lists.

My to-do list, after chores, included cleaning and re-organizing the tack room. The yard sale finds I had found would go in the tack room with my new arrangements. I was very excited! Here are some pictures of the CLEANED up tack room with the new furniture!

 

The table (with the Saddle Pads) was one of the Yard Sale finds! :)

Yard Sale find Baker's Rack! Awesome! I'm going to get some plants for it soon!

Sign in desk - I already had this for a few months but found it for FREE!

I hung the curtain a few months back but I'm not sure I posted a picture, so here you go! I bought this back in TX.

So as I was downstairs working in the tack room, Jason was upstairs organizing his shop and putting away fishing gear. When he went upstairs he saw a strange sight...

There was a Pony, peaking in through the partly opened barn bay-door on the 2nd floor. If you enlarge the picture you will see the fence. He managed to knock a board down and he got down on his knees and squeezed out of the pasture fence. The horses have grazed most of the pasture and they are looking for more lush grazing. The area outside the pasture is available but it is not fully fenced so we haven't been letting them out this way for that reason, naturally. We have plans to wrap the trees with electric tape and let them have more browsing. Also, we do have another pasture that they can go graze in that is fenced, but there is a problem that causes two issues. It is the new septic tank that was installed prior to us moving here. It has a pipe that sticks up and the Pony thinks it's the perfect height to get that pesky itch he can't reach in other ways. So when we let him in that pasture, we are constantly having to reset the pipe which really can't be good for the septic system. Our solution is, we just don't let them in this pasture. The other problem is that the septic tanks makes a big hill and makes the fence in that area shorter. Some of the horses, you would think, wouldn't mess with that, but I would NOT put it past these guys. They have surprised me before, much like the above picture. Goat-like antics of crawling under a fence board. Silly pony. Thankfully he didn't decide to head down the forest path AND the back barn door was closed so he could not end up somewhere else. Like on our back deck where he could possibly injure himself. So we fed the horses and later when we deposited the pony back to the upper pasture where he would spend the night, Jason and I walked the fence line and walked up to an opening in the pasture that makes me feel uncomfortable. It is by our neighbor's house that sits up behind us on the hill. They are on the same plane as the upper pasture. There is an old fence there but a portion of it is open and it has an electric fence running across the opening. Knowing my guys, with the history of fencing rolling/testing, etc it makes me feel uncomfortable to have it "open" like that. So I have two new cattle panels that would fit perfectly across the opening to give us an added sense of security. When we went up to measure that opening we took three of our dogs with us. Natsar, our livestock guardian, and our two Aussie boys, Ty and Ronen. We walked up and surveyed the rest of the pasture to see the state. There is still grazing but not much, the grass is grazed down nice and trim. There is still grass outside the pen, but still not tons of substance.

After all was completed, we wrapped up and headed to bed. We were all sleeping sweetly and then Alayna came rushing into our bedroom and said that the neighbor dog, a little terrier-miniature pinscher mix, was in our yard and barking at our Livestock Guardian dog, Natsar. Jason jumped up and grabbed a flashlight and ran out the door headed towards the barn. Meanwhile, I was upstairs and went over to the window to see what was going on. Then I heard the "yip-yip-yow" sound. It sounded strange and I recognized it to not be a "small dog" from across the street, but a bigger, unknown dog. I strained to look out the small bathroom window and I could see Natsar walking around on the ground level of the barn. He was checking in with our female Aussie, Ocean. Not satisfied with not being able to see more, I then rushed to our upstairs patio doors and stepped out on the deck. I strained to look down near the barn and then I noticed something watching me up on the hill. I tried to make out the figures. Initially it looked like three deer grazing. I strained to see in the dark, with my sleepy eyes. When running out to the deck I glanced at the clock, it was 3 AM. Just then, Jason exited the house one level down from me. He shined the flashlight out into the field, up the hill and those three figures were suddenly clear to see.

In the foreground stood a COYOTE and about 75-100 ft behind him stood our horses, observing the coyote. The coyote, which was now disturbed at our flashlight expose', was looking towards the barn and standing where he could clearly see the house AND the barn. I believe he was probably "inviting" Natsar out. Sometimes Coyotes will send out a decoy. They will lure a dog out and then the rest of the pack will jump on the dog and kill or injure it. This "may" be what this coyote was up to. So when the flashlight shone on him, I got a good look at him. He looked pretty much like our coyotes do back in TX. He was on the bigger side, but not enormously large as I had been told. He was probably around 55 lbs. (If you haven't already read it, check out my previous blog post.) The disturbed Coyote trotted off into the darkness and everyone settled back down, including us. We were tucked back in bed, but it took a little bit to drift back off to sleep. I'm sure the Coyote was also looking for our barn kitties hidden through out the brush, among other items on his agenda. I'm thankful that was the extent of it for this night.

Since this occurrence I was reminded of an incident about a week or so back. Again, it was about 3 AM and Jason and I were fast asleep. We had our windows open so we could have some cool night air blowing through. Suddenly we heard a shrill dog cry, immediately followed by gruff and pointedly aggressive barks. Jason and I both catapulted out of bed and ran to the windows. Jason ran out on the patio and I ran to the bathroom window. Natsar was very upset and distraught. Jason went down and checked on Natsar, there wasn't anything obvious going on. Natsar voluntarily went inside the barn, he had been laying on the corner of the barn near the chicken yard. The chickens were in the coop, sleeping, well the Rooster was crowing due to the commotion but the hens were quiet.

So, Jason and I discussed the scenario and we figured that something, probably a coyote, might have come up and maybe took a nip at Natsar. Maybe something like the scenario in this video, except Natsar was more than likely sleeping. At the end of the following comical video, the dog gets a good nip from the coyote. The coyote, seeing that he won't easily get the dog's bone, then trots off and goes elsewhere.

We added a game cam to a location that would watch this area so if the coyote comes down again like we believe he did, we should capture him in photos. Also, another confirmation to our assumption on the Coyote Scenario is that a few days after this incident we found coyote scat behind the barn. So, now we have seen one of our resident coyotes, in person. What to do next? We'll see, stay tuned...