Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #4

 Here's something I spent maybe $10 on (but I'm pretty sure it was closer to $5) that has made my horse-related life so much more pleasant:

A whip rack.

Such a simple thing, but oh how much more pleasant is my life since I had DH install it on the barn aisle wall near the cross ties.  Prior to that, the longe whip either laid on the floor along the wall, where it was constantly in the way for the daily sweeping of the aisle, or leaned up against the wall inside the tack room, where I'd half the time forget to grab it until after I was outside with a horse in hand on the longe line.  Which meant trekking back into the barn with the horse, apologizing to the horse for the confusion when it thought it was time to longe, and try to go into the tack room to grab the whip without the horse following me through the doorway.

Once DH used his little torpedo level (because, level; I mean, I'm not a dressage rider for nothing!  Picky, picky, picky!) and two little screws to install it, I no longer forgot to grab my whip on the way out to longe a horse, and my whip was never blocking where I wanted to sweep.

And bonus! Now I can bring a horse in from longeing, snap the whip into the rack and put the horse in the cross ties all in one easy maneuver.  No setting the whip down on the floor so I could tie the horse, then having to pick the whip up later and put it in the tack room (or sweep the floor!).

As you can see from the photo above, there's lots of room for lots of whips.  I think it has slots for a dozen (? don't quote me, Google it for yourself if you're in the market) and will hold various lengths and types of whips.  I currently have my long longe whip, a shorter longe whip and my 40" (? again, I didn't take measurements before writing this post) dressage whip stored there.

Could I have stored whips in an old bucket?  Yes.  I've worked at several places that kept them that way. Could I have stored them in a fancier 'whip canister'?  Yep, again, worked at places that were a little more upscale that had a more decorative and metal bucket called a whip canister that whips sat in when not in use.  But both of those tend to collect dust and debris in the bottoms after a while (and occasionally a mouse nest if the whips aren't taken out and used regularly) and they can be very easy to tip over especially if the whips are all leaning in the same direction.

To me, this whip rack and the vertical storage it supplies is ideal.

What I Did This Summer

 In honor of the old-school first week back to school writing assignment, I present to you my (more outline style than final copy style) report on What I Did This Summer. (Caveat: I did a lot more, but this post is pretty much just those things I did that I didn't really post about here during the summer.)

>Rode horses (Poetess and the LBM) 5-6 times each week, with the exception of a week or two where I only rode 3 times.

>Kept the garden weeded and watered.  YAY!  After having the last two summers where my health was s**t in one way or another and subsequently the garden went to s**t, it was a major goal of mine to keep up with caring for the garden this year.  I did it!!  Not to say there wasn't ever a single weed in the garden, or that there aren't some out there now, but I kept them under control and they neither went nuts nor crowded out and smothered my veggie crops.  Good job, Me!

>Visited a couple of the newer 'farm markets' that have sprung up in my area in the last handful of years.  Their schtick, mostly, is 'local'/made in Michigan products and produce.  While I didn't really buy anything at either one (kinda disappointed in the 'farm' product aspect and didn't see any veggies or herbs I needed--desperately seeking fresh dill heads being the impetus for the visits), I got a new perspective on how bougie DH and I live.  I mean, looking at the prices on the 'artisan' handmade breads, the 'gourmet' packages of seasoning mixes, the artisan pickled veggies, I  a) was surprised at how much this stuff that I make as a matter of course goes for at retail and b) realized that a lot of what we are so used to that we take for granted is unique and custom made to a whole lot of people.  I may work my tushie off, but I'm blessed.

>Finally (after years of failed attempts) kept flowers in containers alive at my front porch!!  Yay Me!  I have tried, every year for at least 10, to have flowers on/at my front porch.  And every year, I start off good, but somewhere along late June, I just can't keep up with remembering to water them (or, DH and I go away with grandkids on vacation) and, well, that's the end of that.  Fried, crispy, dead dead dead flowers.  Not so this year!  This year I DID IT! What's kind of funny is that some of the pots I didn't get planted with the flowers I'd wanted.  Somehow, instead, I found morning glories sprouting in them.  Morning glories are fine with me. And ironically, when I purposely try to plant morning glories I don't get much germination, but these, 'wild' seeds that fell into the pots of soil I had sitting awaiting me to put in flower transplants, they sprouted dozens of little plants and soon were trying to vine their way up the balusters of the front steps.

>Went strawberry picking for the first time in several years and without other family members for the first time ever.  It was way faster and more convenient (schedule-wise) than going with others, but I have to say it lacked in the fun factor a little.

>Went to five (or was it six) free local concerts with DH.  While it took some effort to get our dinner made and eaten on time, and the horses' dinner prepped and them in their stalls early in order to get to the concerts by the time they started, it was a nice experience to 'take the evening off' so many times.

>Made a couple of recipes I'd been wanting to for a long time, but kept putting off because I felt like I should 'save' them for when we would be having company (but then those company plans would get changed).  Finally, I decided to do them for me.  The first was summer-themed sugar cookies that I decorated with colored sugar before baking rather than frosting after they were baked.  I made (and saved because so much!) the colored sugar for these.  The second was Scotcheroos (no pictures of those).

>Picked (and ate, no preserving!)  mulberries, black raspberries, raspberries and blackberries growing around the property at this little place here.  They made a yummy addition to my typical breakfast of yogurt and granola.  I also made a batch of mulberry muffins which was basically taking a blueberry muffin recipe and substituting mulberries for the blueberries.

>Took random pictures of wildlife I happened by in my day to day living.

And that, with the exception of maybe one or two more things that will get their own dedicated post, is what I did this summer.

How about you?  What things that maybe weren't momentous or impress-the-world worthy did you do this summer?

That's a Wrap

I am done with pickles for the year.

The cucumber vines started dying off week before last, and I finally picked everything over about 1.5" long and pulled the vines yesterday.  Today I canned the last batch of dill pickles.  There's some 'regular' sized pickles in each jar, and a ton of little dinky ones.

This brought the total pickles made to 15 quarts and 7 pints. Typically I don't put pickles in pints, but since I wasn't sure how the harvest would be this year, I did.  Each day I canned, if I was short on cukes to fill another quart, I used a pint jar rather than not pickle the 'extras' at all.  DH will probably eat a whole pint in one sitting.

Not a banner year, for sure, but considering that I had to buy cucumbers to pickle last year, and in 2023 I didn't get even half this number of jars, I'm pretty happy with it.

A Quick Day Trip

By the end of July, I knew I was in dire need of a break from my real life.  Not that there's anything bad going on, it's just been a very busy year for me and I could tell that I'm spiraling into burnout.  I needed, for sanity sake, to get the heck out of Dodge soon.  Because Fall is coming, and with that is a whole bunch more stuff to juggle, care for, attend in person, and otherwise keep my nose to the grindstone while possibly being called in on sick-grandchild-home-from-school (or retrieve from school) care at any moment.  

No more waiting and hoping to catch a break. I had to make one.  The simpler, the better, and more likely to come to pass. So I gave it some thought and came up with my target idea.

Goal: to go look at pretty rocks in the water and not have to think about keeping anyone entertained or safe from drowning. 

In other words, no family members could tag along or otherwise be invited if they weren't capable of being totally self sufficient.  Because other than a trip away with DH last September, all my away from home 'down time' has included grandkids, or was some sort of  necessary home care business item (running up north to get a new dishwasher from DH's friend with the appliance store) and that's just not relaxing to me.

Based on a tip from a friend who also likes to look at pretty rocks in the water (and bring some home), I decided that Lakeport State Park, in Michigan's Thumb, was the destination.  Truthfully, I had an exact place I've been wanting to go to for the last several years, but it's too far away (500 miles, up in the Keweenaw) to be a feasible trip this year (or last year, or the year before. . .)  So, the Thumb it was, since that's close enough--only a couple of hours from this little place here--to drive to and back all in the same day.

I picked two options of days in August, looked into possibilities for horse care on either of those two days, nailed down the day, and booked my horse feeding and stall cleaning body double (aka DD2).  The date was now written in stone on my calendar.  No cancellations, no postponements. It was a hill I'd die on if necessary.  My surviving the rest of 2025 really did depend on me being able to get away ASAP.

I decided DH could come along, if he wanted, especially if he was willing to drive.  I've never had good night vision and hate driving at night, so if he was willing to be the driver, I could comfortably stay away longer and get home after dark.  

In all honesty, I'll confess that I very hesitantly invited him to join me because he's great at inviting others along (even when he knows I'm not wanting company) and then telling me we're not actually going to be alone only when it's too late to back out.  Remember, having others along was absolutely NOT the focus of this needed break.

This past Sunday was the day reserved for this event.  I planned and packed a lunch plus snacks, as well a list of items we needed to bring, and DH and I left for the east side of the state right after church that morning.  It was kind of a coolish, cloudy, and windy day (and silly me who absolutely gets cold in the wind forgot to pack any pants or a long-sleeved shirt or jacket), but that worked out pretty well.  The beach was fairly empty for at least the first half of the time we were there.

Even though we'd both brought bathing suits, neither one of us actually put one on or went swimming.  With the chilly-ish (low 70's) air, the water actually felt warm, but as soon as I stepped out of it, even only having been ankle to mid-calf deep, I was shivering.  I told you I get cold in the wind. *shrug*

I spent several hours wading at the water's edge, occasionally getting splashed up to my waist by a particularly big wave (they were forecasted at 3'-6').  DH looked for a bit too, but mostly sat on driftwood logs and either looked for ships or looked at his phone. 

I'm a really neophyte rockhound, I don't know a whole lot about the different types, what's rare, etc.  So, when I look at pretty rocks in the water, I look for those that in some way speak to me.  Be it color, pattern, whatever.

This particular beach I noticed lots with rings of color.  That seemed to be the theme for the day.  There were a few with spots, and several with fossils, and lots and lots of granite, but many had one or more rings.  I'd get a bunch I liked, and take them to the log DH was seated on to show him, then set them on the log next to him and go back to see what else called my name.  Eventually, I knew I had to pare down my finds and only take home a realistic number.

Below are pictures of the rocks that came to live at this little place here (plus a few as gifts for DD2, who did horse chores for me that afternoon so I could be gone).

After we decided we were done looking for rocks, and neither of us wanted to go for a swim, we left the beach and drove down into Port Huron.  It was a little after four, and I didn't want to head for home yet, so we went downtown to the waterfront where there was a walking path and benches that you could sit and look at the water (which, at that point wasn't Lake Huron, it was technically the St. Clair River).  On the other side of the water, not far at all, is Canada.

The first thing that caught my eye as we were looking for where to park, was a metal sculpture that looked like it could be a horse.  So, of course, as soon as we had parked the car (we took Sweet Madame Blue on this excursion), that was where I headed.  

It was located around a slight bend of the walking path, between the path and the river, and it was a horse!  A life-sized scrap metal sculpture.  Some person had recently picked some of the nearby goldenrod that was in bloom and stuffed it in the horse's mouth, making it look like the horse was grazing the brush.

We sat a bit, hoping to see freighters or other commercial ships in the water (this is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway), but we only saw a couple docked on the Canadian side, none actively traversing the water.

We did see a few Border Patrol and Coast Guard boats patrolling, and a cormorant that was busily fishing back and forth in our area.

Cormorant looking like a tiny Loch Ness Monster

While at the river, we looked up possible dinner places on DH's phone.  There were a few that sounded really delicious, and fairly cheap (looking at the prices on their menu) until we noticed that they were on the other side of the river, in Canada. While we easily could have gone across (the Blue Water Bridge is in Port Huron), we decided an international crossing just for dinner probably wasn't the best use of our time, and we found good sounding food on the U.S. side instead.  DH had wanted to go somewhere with a patio overlooking the water, so we ended up driving a few miles down to Marysville and eating at the Junction Buoy.  It was good.  And in the U.S., LOL.

After that we drove home into the setting sun, which constantly stabbed us in the eyes despite our sunglasses and the sun visors on the car.  It was just low enough, other than the first 5-10 minutes, that the visors didn't extend low enough to block it out.  Rather than taking backroads home for the scenic view, with our sun-glare limited vision, we decided not to risk the deer that would be plentiful in the evening on a country drive and just took the expressway instead. 

And that was my day away.  It was just what I needed. And I'm so glad I went, because the next day I got a text from DD2 asking if I could pick her kids up from school/the babysitter the following Monday so she could go to a dentist appointment after school/work.  Grandma duty calls!

Free Oak? Yes, Please!

 On Friday afternoon, DH found that he had no work meetings scheduled.  And then, he was contacted by a friend who lives near where DH works, and was told that there was free oak firewood available. A tree service had been contracted to remove some very nice, very large old oak trees from a neighboring homeowner's property and that if DH could come that afternoon while they were there, the tree service would even load it onto his trailer for him.

Well, you don't have to ask DH twice if he wants free oak.  It makes great firewood, lots of BTUs for those cold mid-winter days (and nights!).  He quickly decided to take the rest of the day off, hook up our 16' trailer, and head over to where that tree service was giving away wood.

When he got there, the guy in charge loaded the trailer up with some huge chunks of tree trunk, as well as some 'smaller' logs --about 12"-18" across-- from limbs, and told DH that if he wanted more, the guy would be working for several more hours trying to finish the job that night so he didn't have to come back on the weekend to do it.  So DH picked up his nearby buddy, brought buddy and the wood back to this little place here, and they unloaded that trailer with the tractor, a chain and the log tongs as fast as they could and headed back for more.

By the time they had the trailer reloaded, the tree guy was just about finished, so DH knew he would be gone by the time DH drove the 40ish miles home in after work traffic, unloaded, and drove back a third time.  So he thanked the guy, gave him his phone number and said that we'd gladly take more oak if the guy had future similar jobs in the area.

I had a late dinner waiting when DH got home the second time (buddy didn't come with DH as he had family plans for the night), and then I manned the log tongs while DH operated the tractor to unload the second load of wood.  It was dusk by the time we were done, but I took a picture anyway before DH moved the truck and trailer.  I wanted them for scale so anyone who views the photo can get an idea of just how much wood was in those two loads.  It's quite a large pile.

Here's a picture in the light of day on Saturday morning.  Without the truck behind it, it doesn't look quite a big, but it is.

This pile we'll let age until next summer before we cut, split and stack it.  It's a good start on firewood for the 2026/2027 heating season.  Gotta love free oak.

Peaches, Done!

 I love peaches.  But they have to be properly ripe, which typically means I don't have fresh peaches until August.  I never buy them from the store, those are always too hard, picked too soon to be as flavorful as I like them to be.

So, unless I can peaches, I go without them a lot.

DH does not like peaches.  He could care less if there was never, ever a peach at this little place here again.  In fact, when our (struggling for many years) peach tree finally croaked this past winter, he wasn't sad.  At all.  Unlike me, who is still wondering if we will be living here long enough to make it worthwhile for me to buy and plant a new peach tree.  With DH hoping to retire in 5-6 years, and then who knows how much longer we'd live at this little place here, probably not.

For this year, I decided to buy peaches from a sort-of nearby farm/orchard and can them.  At least that way I have some that I can eat now and then throughout the next eleven months.

 And, I confess, before I bought a half-bushel for canning, I bought a quart box to taste test.  I ate that quart of peaches one by one (not all in the same day!), standing next to the kitchen sink, which in my book, is the proper place to eat a perfect peach.  Because a perfect one is juicy and the juice will run down your chin and your arms, and you just don't want to drip that sticky juice onto the furniture or the floor.  So you must eat a fresh peach leaning over the kitchen sink.  Let the sink catch those sticky drips.  Easy clean up.  And then you're in prime position to wash your face, hands, and arms when you're done.

Anyway, I spent the vast majority of Friday afternoon canning peaches.  Some of my half-bushel felt like they were too hard to can, so I left those to ripen more and will just eat them fresh in the coming week or so.  But the vast majority were just right, and so I put up 17 pints of peaches.

More Hay

 I ended up buying the wagon of hay I talked about in my post about Saturday's activities.  After DH got home mid-afternoon on Sunday, we went and got it from the farm of the people who do custom baling in the neighborhood (including my own field).  K3 was interested in helping unload it, so she came along.

It was a hot and humid day, but there we were, in our jeans and long sleeved shirts, to protect our skin from the stiff prickly cut ends of the hay bales.  Honestly, there were 'only' 117 bales on the wagon, so between the three of us we didn't expect it to take very long to unload and stack the hay in the loft at this little place here.

And, really, things were going well the first 50 or so bales.  And then the elevator broke. 😭😭 A link in the chain that carries the bales came apart.  After about 20 minutes of fussing with it, including unhooking the PTO shaft from the tractor so we could hand turn it to get the chain in the right spot, DH and I were able to get the link reconnected.  At which point I asked if he thought we should put a couple of zip ties on it, just in case.

To which he said No, wasn't necessary.

Well, I think you can guess what happened next.  Only took two more bales and deja vu, there we were with a disconnected link in the chain.  And now the chain had also jumped the cog at one end of the elevator, so now things were uneven, as the elevator has a chain on the left and a chain on the right with bars that run between them.  The left chain was 'up' two links from the right chain and the bars were all wonky.

More fussing with the elevator for DH and I while K3 waited patiently in the loft for us to be back in business.

We finally got the chains evened out, the right one back on the cog wheel, and the disconnected link pulled back together.  This time, DH put a big honking zip tie on it (while I bit my tongue.  Hard.)

After that, it really didn't take long to finish unloading the wagon and get that hay all stacked in the loft.  In the process of all that elevator chain-link issues, we'd gone past dinner time, and it was now after 7 p.m.  Which meant it was time to get the horses their dinner and bring them in for the night. 

K3 helped me with that, and then she requested that DH take her home so she could take a shower and change into cooler (and less nasty sweaty/full of hay chaff) clothes.  Given how gross and hot we all were feeling at that point, we didn't even try to talk her into staying for the pizza we'd planned to order--pizza being our easy-out go-to dinner after putting up hay.  So DH quick changed his own clothes and took her home.  

While he was gone, I called our favorite local pizza joint and put in an order, which he would pick up after dropping off K3 and before coming back home.  Then I jumped in the shower to cool off and clean off.  I swear I couldn't get that shower water cold enough, I kept turning it down a hair, and it only felt cooler for a few seconds before I felt the need to turn it down again.  I was going for 'Lake Superior in early June' temperature (IYKYK), but never did get it that cold before my turning the dial down incrementally ended up just turning the water completely off.

Oh well.  I did feel cooler and less covered in green 'herb' sprinkles (aka hay chaff) than I had prior, and DH arrived with the pizza right about the time I was dried off and dressed.  In shorts and a tank top.

Glad we had the opportunity to buy the hay, it looks to be good stuff.  Glad we got it up in the loft.  But man, a cooler day to do that would have been nice.  (Or, at least, an elevator that didn't break and add about an hour in the blazing sun.)