Celebrating the Awesome Osprey Project

Our beloved osprey family is never out of our minds, even when they are relaxing for the winter in the warm waters off the Gulf of Mexico. They are such a dominant feature of Dunrovin that the minute they depart each fall, we start the countdown to their spring return. This week we have a great excuse to relive their time with us last summer. Michael Academia, the principal scientist on last summer’s Awesome Osprey Project and a graduate student at the College of William and Mary, has spent this last semester analyzing the data that we collected last year. He will join us during a live broadcast to report his preliminary findings.  He will also discuss his suggestions for improving the project’s format with SuzAnne.  Please join us!

Below, to refresh your memory, is the recording of the discussion between Michael and SuzAnne from the end of June last summer.

Visiting the Hashknife Ranch

Stuff breaks; and when you have lots of different kinds of equipment with many moving parts that are routinely used and often exposed to really cold weather, you have to deal with lots of broken stuff. Everyone who lives on a ranch that is miles from the nearest “fix-it” shop knows that they have to rely on themselves to be the “fix-it” person.  Often a ranch runs for days on spare parts, jury-rigged equipment and a rancher’s creative imagination. 

Let Brandon take you into his cold, crowded, and seemingly junky garage as he gets the job done. You will soon learn why the backyards and garages of all remote dwellers are stacked sky-high with junk. You never know when you will need to modify something to take on an entirely new life as something else!

Training Mystery

As Ashley continually improves her training skills, Mystery keeps up with her in developing new avoidance techniques. They are a wonderful pair to be learning together. Mystery is a smart, vigorous, and active horse who is not dangerous, but somewhat defiant and wanting to have his own way. He gives Ashley a run for her money which only means that he challenges her to do her very best. It is all coming together for both of them. Brandon's excellent coaching is apparent in each new session as Ashley’s techniques become more and more refined, and Mystery’s becomes more and more understanding of what is expected from him.

Clicking with the DIVAS and Mackenzie

Last episode, the DIVAS started putting together all their new tricks and did their first Parkour runs. Maude took gold by doing over 10 separate behaviors in a cued chain for one treat at the end. But Gertie was in close pursuit with 8! They went around obstacles, over multiple logs, ran to climb up the gravel pile, and returned to a mat all in one go!

This week, we keep the donkey Parkour rolling with more runs and more obstacles. This will be our last episode of Parkour for a while, so we are going to have an official obstacle course set up and see how the DIVAS do against one another. Be sure to tune in this Sunday at 4:00PM Mountain as hijinks are bound to occur!

The holiday season continues with more merriment to come. We hope to find you at the ranch week to celebrate with us.