It was beautiful when the skies cleared, and Rose and Maria went up to the Pole Barn to bring the encircled donkeys some water. I think they will be up there for a day or two. The banks come up to my chest. Rose had no trouble. I loved the way the skies opened up and I climbed up there and took a million photos and we talked to the donkeys and calmed them.
Hard to believe it was impossible to see 20 feet away this morning.
In the early afternoon, the storm broke. The donkeys peeked out of the pole barn – they still can’t get down – and we were surprised to see Minnie the Barn Cat climbing down the hill. Can’t imagine what she was doing up there. In a day or two, the donkeys will make their own path down. We hauled more hay and water up to them, and they are okay for now. We were happy to see the spring light. We have opened up the barn again. We believe in Spring again.
This one took us closer to the edge.
Frieda and I are having a good time training together, as you can see on this video. Dogs don’t naturally know how to do nothing, and I believe we are constantly cranking our dogs up and making them crazy by over-stimulating, playing too much, taking them to too many places they don’t need to go, treating them like piteous or rebellious children, over-monitoring and squeaking and shouting at them. I never thought Frieda could live in the farmhouse, let along hang around with me while I write and take photos. Calming training is the primary reason she has settled down, and is paying attention to me, and is learning how to live with us.
I don’t want Frieda to be obedient, I want her to accompany me through life, as my other dogs do. I want her to understand what working with me means, and I want her to be calm and centered. That’s the spiritual part.
So I am working regularly to calm her through simple repetitive commands and through a positive attitude in my own head. When I train her, I am calm, I am patient, I am clear. If I am not all of those things, the session doesn’t work and I stop. Frieda is my guide. As long as she is paying attention, wagging that tail a bit, looking at me, we are on track. If not, then I am off and we stop.
This video is of our daily calming training, which takes a couple of minutes and has transformed Frieda, whose hyper-arousal and anxiety made her a crazy dog. She is not a crazy dog. She is smart, loving, calm and responsive. she is paying attention to me. We work on very few things and we work on those things every day until we get them. We are close to come, sit and stay. At least, more of the time. I love working with her. We are getting there.
Come along for some calming training with Frieda.
Some winter storms are peaceful, some are surprising, some are frightening. Like the one raging here now. It has sealed off life – all the doors, gates and latches are frozen, trapped the donkeys up in the Pole Barn where they can’t get out. The wind is shrieking and the ice has hardened the snow to the point where it can’t be shoveled.
This storm has an awful mix of snow, sleet, bitter cold, ice and powerful winds. The drifts in front of the Pole Barn at at least five feet high, ten in places, and several times we both have fallen so deeply into them that it difficult to get out.
I think in such furious storms of the people who came before me for so many years, and I wonder how they survived. I guess many didn’t. We are lucky. These collisions with nature are one of the dramas of the farm, defining moments. I know we will get through them, but you do pause, and you wonder sometimes. Such a storm is just scary, it is so powerful it just seems to overwhelm the world. Even donkeys are helpless, and it was a surprise, so we never had a chance to get the donkeys into the big barn. At such moments, I always bring Rose with me. She goes anywhere, watches me, makes me feel safe and helps me live my life. I took some video of us climbing the hill several times, including my falling and the skittish donkeys in their barn.
Maria and I went up this morning to try and get the donkeys down. Too much wind, snow and ice. We brought some hay and water. I went back and got Rose, hoping she could get them to start moving down the hill, as she has done before (she got kicked for it, too) and Rose was, as always, amazing. She is responsive, and agile and businesslike. She also never takes her eyes off me, or strays far from me. When I got up the hill (you can also see me falling down in the video below) she charged into the barn ahead of me and got the donkeys moving. But I saw there was just too much snow and ice for the donkeys to get through – they could fall easily – so we came back down. We’ll try again later. I edited the film a bit, to try and convey a sense of the farm in a storm, beyond still photographs. Another way to tell my story. This would have been a wonderful video to take on my book for “Rose In A Storm,” which seems almost prescient this winter.
I thought it another opportunity for people to come inside of a storm with Rose as she tries to help me out yet another time. A good new us of my newest tool – video. A few years ago, I would not have imagined bringing others into an awful storm with Rose. She has gotten me through many times. So come along.
