Of bees and horse

Saturday 25 May 2013

Snow on the mountain and rain all day.

First the bees and then the rain.

I go check the bees and only one flies out and immediately flies back inside. I imagine her tell the others it is only me with the dogs in the grey pouring rain.

On Thursday, we visited my horse at the clinic in Osoppo. I have owned her since she was six months old, she is now 13. Only on Thursday did I realize she answers to the name, Rose. One man is explaining that my horse's name is Mary Rose and my name is Rosemary. Everyone laughs and one says, "so I call her Rose."

Later, while my horse is waiting in a stable for yet another echogram I call her, "Rose". She has her back to me, drowsy on her feet. Suddenly she swings towards me with that expression that makes me think she is smiling. Or, is she laughing that it has taken me this long to learn her name?

 

What???
Twins? Horrors!!

When I have a new animal friend I call different names until they respond to one.  OK, so they come anyway after they have figured out that the noise I am making and the treat I am waiting to give them must mean "Come here".

However, as with a few of my horse-loving friends, the horse's name was not important. It is more our relationship with that horse, which is mainly wordless. This is what is most important. But finding that my horse answers to Rose, feels like a gift.

Why two echograms? During the first, the vet shows me the two dark globes, the embryos; bad news. They seem to be attached; more bad news. We wait, they move apart; better news. One has to be eliminated; bad news. We could wait to see if one is eliminated naturally; good news. But maybe when they move around they will attach and ... bad news.

So the second echogram was to see if the embryos had moved apart and if one could be easily eliminated. My horse is patient, the best, I am told. I stand with my head close to hers. I try to explain what we are doing, silently. No need, she doesn't want to know. Someone is giving her a hard treat to nibble on.

Last night I received another message from the vet. "Only one embryo". Relief, we are still pregnant.

Big Bear tells me all the tension went out of me when I received that message. Maybe he does not know how tense I can be while my horse is pregnant. I was not aware of this myself until I saw Rose's first and second foal standing beside her in the field. That strange unease drifted away and I understood that I had been hopelessly worried about my horse for a whole year.

Maybe this time will be different, this is Rose's third foal, or should I say ... our third.

Dog walk on a bicycle

15 May 2013

Nelly and the mountain
Taken 2012

I took the dogs for a walk, the buttercups are in bloom, shining in the sun, I had forgotten my camera and my cell phone. I will now have to wait, because I see the grey clouds are gathering again and the rain is about to fall.

I was riding my new, old, black and grey bike, leading Porgy the black dog. Nelly was out in front, she is always free running because I can trust her to come back when I call her name. When the dogs are running together, there is a point when they run shoulder to shoulder and I have to call them back, or they'll not return until they are ready.

If I call Porgy I will be ignored, but if I call Nelly she will turn around and come and ask me what all the fuss is about. Porgy can be counted on to return with her because he thinks he might be missing something.

I have found a bench, where I can watch the shadows of the clouds change the shapes of the mountains. I plan on taking a canvas there, but I don't know where my portable easel is, so I will take a sketch pad and make a series of sketches and then paint from the drawings. I usually do this. I prefer sketching to taking photos of landscape. I have discovered that a good photo does not always make a good painting, unless you take a photo 'like a painter paints' and then it may as well remain a good photo because it runs the risk of being copied.

Yesterday, I walked the other way, the usual dog walk, down the road to the end, across the field, turn right at the bench and walk to the end of the asphalt path. Turn left into another field, follow the path that seems to have been made by someone on a motorbike and then someone has crossed it wearing pointed feet. I bend to measure the tracks. They are as long as the first two joints of my index finger. I have seen where these creatures lay down, the shapes of their curled up bodies have been left in the grass. Only two, slightly apart in the long grasses.

I have to ask myself if they were there as I entered the field. Did they just get up and are they looking at me from the shelter of the newly leafed trees?

Once in the winter I followed the tracks of a large beast in the snow. He dragged a hind leg. At one point, looking down through the trees towards the river in the valley I am sure I saw him. Standing, silent and still as a tree. So still, I think I may have imagined his dark brown eye.

Horses will stand in the same way. Immobile they will watch you with a faintly amused expression in their eyes. I have caught them looking at me in this way when I enter a field and do not see them immediately, because they are Appaloosas and their dappled coats are invisible in the leafy shadows cast by the trees. At least this is how it was when I lived at Poggio.

When the dogs went for a second walk with the man I set about collecting vegetables in the garden. Bitter dandelion leaves, which I have just cooked, drained and will cook again with onion and hot pepper. My favourite is risotto made with stinging nettles.

Outside the top of my mountain is hidden in a grey cloud. Is this rain for tonight or will it rain all day tomorrow? The painting will have to wait.

A ramble

2 May 2013

Cherry blossom, Spilimbergo

If someone was to ask me what I have been doing with my time I might be hard pressed to explain. It is not as though I have a job that I go to everyday. I have a job that flies in at me from out of the blue, sometimes unexpectedly or else expected for a long time.

I work hard for a few days and then the job is over. Sometimes I am blessed with a supervisor who will answer all my questions within a reasonable time and will pay me as the job is handed in, or soon after. Once in a long while I have a supervisor that does not answer my questions about the particular document and does not acknowledge they have received the job. I am perplexed about the second type of supervisor. I am glad to say that this does not happen very often.

Squeaking about having to pay rent or buy food is useless. Experience has taught me that folks become huffy and angry, as though the needy person maybe telling lies about living on the edge of a precipice, or out of a paper bag.

Once I told someone in charge of payments that I needed urgent funds for a scuba-diving vacation. It just happened to be true, but it was not a vacation, it was an overnight in a hotel so that I could take my first diving exam with about 20 other people. I was amazed to see this person go through the stack of papers on her desk and pull out my payment form, which was at the bottom. Payment was effected immediately. I still wonder about this. If you need money to eat, people will look the other way, but if you need to do something frivolous, people will go out of their way to help you out. What does this say about us as a species? I am still trying to work this one out.

So, lately I have decided to add other strings to my bow; hence the bees. So we have gone to our classes and bought two hives. Our bee man told us to be prepared, to fill our honey store boxes with frames. I see that the wax sheets are already pressed with hexagonal patterns so the bees only have to build out from the template. This saves them time and energy. While we were engaged in attaching the waxy sheets to the frames we were accompanied by three wild bees that came to watch. Unfortunately I forgot to check the direction they flew when they hurried away as the sun set.

When the bee man is ready for us we will pick up the two brood boxes with the new bees, we will bring them home and set them up in a field on a ledge created with rocks and found objects. The hives will be set against a cut stone wall, falling down at one end. Tall pine trees stand behind the wall, which will protect the hives from the fierce north wind. The entrance to the hives will face the sun's path across the sky.

I worry that our bees won't have much to eat, which is why I have been going around photographing anything that looks like a flower in bloom to make sure it is bee friendly. Our bees will make honey from hundreds of different varieties of flowers. I was surprised to find how tasty dandelion honey is, although it may smell like dead socks to some people. This reminds me of Jackfruit and how it can stink like a pig sty until you have tasted it and then all you can smell and taste is wonder and magic.

Perhaps life is like this.

You think you are living a difficult moment, and then something happens to lift the veil, change your perspective; the dark clouds become bright sunny skies, the rain a rainbow and a frown a smile.

Suddenly we are surrounded by friends, magic, love, miracles and bees.