Onion Harvest

 Like the garlic, my onions have had a pretty good year.  I planted five varieties; two red and three yellow, most with at least 4 months storage capability.  As I did with last year's onions, as these get near the end of their storage life, I'll chop and freeze whatever we haven't eaten yet. (Side note, I still have a couple quart sized bags of chopped onions in the freezer from the 2022 crop).

After pulling the onions from the garden, I've been (almost) daily spreading them out on our covered front porch (weather and schedule permitting) so that they can dry down and cure. In the evening they get gathered up (to avoid the dampness of dew/fog in the night air) and put in the garage until morning.

It's been about two weeks since harvesting them, and at this point most of them are cured and ready to be put into the basement for storage.

There's a lot, if I had to guess, I'd say probably somewhere in the area of 150-175 pounds.  It takes a good bit (half hour?) to set them out for their daily airing, and I'm really glad that there's not so many needing it now.

The pictures that follow show what my porch looked like the first week of curing.

Redwing (L) and Highlander (R)

Yellow Spanish (foreground) and Blush (in the back)

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Patterson

Just for kicks, I looked up what current onion prices are (I haven't bought an onion in over a year).  Yellows are $1.59 each for large ones (approx. 1 pound) or $3.39 for a 3 pound bag for small ones.  Red ones are on sale right now for $1.74 each for large ones (approx. 1.25 pound according to the ad) or a 2 pound bag or smaller ones for $3.19.  

Let's do some math, estimating that I have only 150 pounds (I think there's more) of onions total, 2/3 of which are large and 1/3 are small.

50 pounds small

    25 pounds yellow x $1.13/pound = $28.25

    25 pounds red x $1.59/pound = $39.88

100 pounds large

    70 pounds yellow x $1.59 = $111.30

    30 pounds red x $1.74 = $52.20

Given those figures, hypothetical value of my crop would be $231.63

I paid $40 for my onion starts, ordered from a company I've been using for probably a decade or more.  So if we deduct that cost from the value of the crop, I'm ahead $191.63.  Not bad.

Poetess Notes

The Poetess and I have been busy in the past month.

Here's what we've accomplished:

She longes on both sides equally well now!  No more confusion on what she's supposed to do when I'm on her right side.  She will walk,trot, and canter without stopping and trying to spin about 2/3 of the way around the circle and I can stay in the middle rather than having to follow her closely on a shorter line to keep her moving.

She lets me touch her ears.  Albeit somewhat grudgingly, but she's slowly learned that I just want to brush them (or put roll on fly repellent in them), I'm not going to grab them and twist (what I suspect may have happened in her past).

She hand grazes like a boss.  Not a care in the world other than sucking up as much grass as I'll allow her to.

We've been working on getting her to stand still with one foot held up (as if the farrier were working on her).  She's not bad for the farrier, but she's a bit wiggly, so I decided she needed to learn a bit more patience and that she can stand on three legs just fine when a human wants to hold her other foot. 

Similarly, I'm teaching her the phrase "Stand" in conjunction with getting her legs wrapped in polo wraps before work (and after work, when removing polos.)  It was too frustrating trying to keep the correct tension while wrapping -- and sometimes just plain getting the polo pulled out of my hand and having to re-roll it and start over, so OTTB or not, she needs to learn to stand statue still when I'm wrapping (or unwrapping) her legs.  After five sessions of saying "stand" (and backing it up with a little bump of the lead rope if needed) before attempting to wrap each leg, she's caught on well and today she actually was that statue for all four legs.

Speaking of wrapping legs; her tail has grown and it now gets in the way when I'm trying to put on her polos.  So now it gets put in a loose knot after brushing and then let down again after I wrap her legs. She stands for that too.

We have advanced to wearing a bridle. I know she's worn one before (she was trained and worked at the racetrack, she just was never fast enough that her trainer entered her in any races), but I wanted to take her back to ground zero and start all over again. Which, for me, meant longing in a halter and teaching her voice commands before putting a bridle on and longeing her off that. With her aversion to having her ears touched, I wasn't sure how she'd be about being bridled (possibly being one of those horses that likes to throw their head up and try to run backwards in avoidance).  So the first time I tried bridling her, I did it in her stall with the door shut.  Surprisingly, she was good and didn't mind at all when I touched her ears to tuck them under the crown piece of the bridle when putting it on.  Good; as she obviously doesn't have any negative connotation to the bridle touching her ears.

From that initial bridling, we proceeded to longe with the bridle on under her halter and the longe line attached to the halter.  In fact, if you look closely at the above picture of her going to the right on the longe, you can see that she's wearing a bridle and a halter.  After a couple sessions of that, with no issues, I decided the time had come to longe her with the line attached to the bit (run through the near ring, over her poll, and attached on the off side) to see how she'd react.

longeing off the bridle

She did awesome.  Until I went to change direction, which meant unhooking the longe line and running it the opposite way through the bit rings and over her head.  With one hand on the right bit ring, I held her while using the other hand to remove the longe line, then put it through the right bit ring and over her head.  At which point something startled her, she threw her head up and yanked the bit from my hand.  As soon as she realized she was free, she looked at me for a nanosecond, then wheeled and high tailed it for the barn.  Being that the arena has no fence around it, I was suddenly plunged into every horseman's worst nightmare: LOOSE HORSE!

If this has ever happened to you, you know exactly the panicked feeling this evokes.  The self-bashing (I should know better than to hold her by the bit while switching the longe line; I should have stuck the halter back over the bridle).  The immense fear that the horse is going to a) run into the road and get hit by a car, b) run and run and never be seen again, c) slip and fall and injure itself.  The swearing that comes out of your mouth as you follow in the direction you last saw your horse go, trying to move as quickly as you can to catch up.

Thankfully she ran up to the barn where the other horses ran up to greet her.  Unfortunately, they all then turned and raced off in the opposite direction, three inside the fence and the Poetess outside, heading for the road.  Luckily she stopped at the road and didn't try to cross it or run down it.  And by the time I got to her, everyone was trotting merrily up to the barn again.  

So, I was able to catch her, but I swear that was the longest ten minutes of my life, and I thought I might have a heart attack before laying hands on her.  Once I got up to where she was trying unsuccessfully to graze with the bit in her mouth, I was able to tempt her with a horse cookie into standing still while I threw a halter on over the bridle.  PHEW!

The rest of that session included walking (with a chain over her nose) back to the arena where we walked and halted and walked and halted and did not step a foot outside the arena without me being right at her head.  Slowly my heart rate returned to normal and she cooled out from her exciting romp around the farm. I do have to say, as she was loose and doing an extended trot, I did have the fleeting thought that she's a beautiful mover. . . But hopefully the loose horse scenario will never be repeated.

In fact, her next work session had nothing at all to do with longeing and was completely and totally spent with me and the Poetess in a much smaller fenced in pasture area where I turned her loose, then after a minute or two called her name, followed by the command "Come", and held out a horse cookie.  When she came to me, she got the cookie, lots of pats and "Good Girl!"s and I would hook the lead rope on and walk her a few laps, then unhook her and turn her loose.  Repeat this for fifteen minutes, going through an entire pocketful of cookies.  Hopefully if she ever does get loose for real, she will come when commanded to.  Or, at least, stand still and not run off to the road.

We have, since then, begun longeing again, with the bridle under the halter.  I have yet to attach the longe line through the bit rings, but plan to give it another try yet this week.  With a lead rope clipped to the halter during the transition from attaching on one side to attaching on the other, of course.

Also, because she needed more polos than I had (mine are kind of old and some have 'died' since the last young horse I used them on) I did some shopping.  Oh boy, the colors that are available now!  My old ones are of the bright blue, bright green, bright red variety.  This time I got some nice lighter colors, more girly, if you will, for my mare.  And since they were on sale, and matching dressage pads were also on sale. . . well, what can I say?  There's a little dressage queen in me.

pads to match her polos

Barn Upgrades

 We've been working sporadically on the inside of the barn all summer.  Sometimes many hours in a week, sometimes very few, depending on the weather, DH's work schedule, previous commitments for summer weekends (or weeks), and family needs.  

Way back in early July, shortly after the Poetess arrived in Michigan, I ordered the stall front kits.  They shipped amazingly fast, like three or four days later, and were here less than a week after I ordered them.  Phenomenal!  I ordered the plain Jane stall fronts in black, no drop down doors (previous experience with them was 'meh, not necessary') or feed openings (also previous experience only much more biased in the negative).

stall front grills, unboxed and waiting for installation

Meanwhile, back before that, before I had even seen pictures of Poetess and or thought about buying her, DH and I had done a (very) little work on the stall floors for the two stalls on the East side of the barn.  Mainly, we had taken down high spots in the clay, filled in low spots, and made sure it was fairly level and about five inches below the height we want our finished floors.

Stall floor prep

Four of those inches were going to be filled with gravel, for better drainage.  So DH ordered a load of gravel (23a with fines).

Hopefully enough gravel for all six stalls

And we began hauling it into the two stalls we'd prepped.  That was a pain.  It was hot, the gravel was heavy, where we needed to dump it was hard to reach with our (newer bigger) tractor without running over and squashing too much of the hayfield.  Most of what we put in those two stalls ended up being hauled by hand, in the wheelbarrow, by DH.  Not a fun job, and it was one that took a long break between start and finish.

Late July

Second week of August

It was a job that really could have been done in one day, had we had the right equipment (and were younger) and the weather was cooler.  But, we got it filled, screed, and tamped.

Mid August

Ready for stall mats.

The plan is to put stall mats on top of that, but I'm having trouble finding the ones I want. They used to be sold by just about all the farm stores around.  This summer as I've been looking, I can only find ones that are smooth on one side (definitely not good as the top side) and have large raised 'buttons' on the other (previous experience with this style at barns I've worked at is that it's a pain in the ass to clean--wet/peed on sawdust packs between the buttons).  So we haven't purchased stall mats yet as I'm hoping to find, within driving distance or with affordable shipping, mats with the correct textured top surface.

Since I don't have mats yet, and I wanted walls up before mats are installed (don't want the walls on the mats, makes fixing/replacing the mats difficult if they shift or tear), we instead installed the kick boards to cover the steel barn walls, and then built the stall fronts.  

DH also put in the divider wall between the two stalls, custom made to my wishes (patterned after divider walls in one barn I worked at).  I didn't get a picture, but it's solid wood about the first 4 feet, then 2"x6" boards with 1.5" wooden spacers between them (placed at each end and in the center) for the next 3ish feet.  The spacers are for light, ventilation, and a less boxed in feel for the horses (and to save money over buying grills for the dividing walls).

Oh my!  It's starting to finally look like a real horse barn!

I would like to stain and seal the wood before any horses move in.  So that's next on my personal to-do list for this project.  Meanwhile, DH is going to run the wires and install outlets, light switches, and lights.

September Stitching Update

Overall, there was extremely little sewing going on at this little place here in the past month.  Right after the August post, I found the missing page of directions and finished putting together Faline's dress.  

I happened to be babysitting her and Buck the next afternoon while DD1 was in a meeting at school, so I gave it to her just before they left for home.  Faline loved it.  In fact, as you can see from the photo below, she insisted on putting it on right then and wearing it for the remainder of the day.

It fits her really well, and even has enough room in the bodice (the part I feared might be too tight) to put a shirt under and wear even as the weather cools this Fall.  Faline will be starting preschool this month, so it works out really well as something comfy but nice to wear to school.

I cut out pieces for some more Gift of Life bear clothes for K3, Toad and Rascal's bears.  So far I have only finished a yellow sweatshirt for Toad's.  He was here the next day and saw it, so it went home with him before I got a chance to get a picture.  A good hour at the sewing machine and I'll have lots more bear clothes done.

What really got a lot of my 'free' time recently is the folk art rooster counted cross stich that I've been working on since July.  This was a really nice piece for picking up and putting down as time allowed; typically I would work on one certain piece--a vine, a small flower, one color of the rooster--and then set it down when I ran out of time that day.  It was easy to keep track of where I was in the chart that way, and gave quite a sense of accomplishment even if I only had half an hour to devote to stitching.

All the stitching is completed.  Now I need to come up with a circular frame to finish it with.  I could use an embroidery hoop, but I'm not quite sure that's the exact look I want to frame it with.

Early in August, I kitted up a new Santa cross stitch ornament.  I needed something that would travel easier than the rooster piece (less likely to get dirty) as we headed up north for a weekend of canoeing/kayaking and going to the Bump & Run derby at the county fair where DH grew up.  I worked on this new Santa actually very little on that trip.

Last week, DS1 had sinus surgery, and had asked me to be his transportation to and from the hospital.  Since it was an outpatient procedure and we weren't sure exactly how long we'd be there I brought along the Santa and stitched on that while waiting in the surgical lounge.  

I got a ton done; previous to that day only the red parts of the hat were stitched.  Everything else was stitched during the hours I waited for DS1 to have his surgery and be in the recovery area.  (He came through it fine and so far has had no issues post-op.)

Now that the sun sets much earlier in the evenings, there will be more time for sewing and stitching (and knitting, and reading, and. . . )  I'm itching to start working on some Fall birthday and Christmas present sewing and quilting.

Hay Hay Hay

 I've always (well, okay, not always, but for many years, probably more than fifteen) wanted a hay elevator on wheels.  They just seem so much easier for a woman to use than one that you have to drag around and lift into place, bearing all it's weight--like the one we used to have that came to us very old,  very used, and very banged up when we started cutting our hayfield in 2006.  

That one was just barely long enough to reach from the ground to the bottom edge of the hayloft door opening.  It had an electric motor, and needed two long extension cords (because 100' was not long enough) to reach from the nearest outlet (in the garage) to the front of the barn where the base of the elevator sat while in use.  It was really heavy, and when not in use it was stored in the hayloft; which required both DH and I to get it up into (him lifting with the tractor bucket, and me trying to cantilever it over the edge of the doorway then pull it into the loft--oh how I hated that).  It also was a pain to get any hay out of the loft with it stored in there, as it took up most of the length and width of the narrow aisle between rows of hay.

I was kind of glad when that one died bad enough that DH declared it not worth fixing.  And I hoped and prayed, and looked for a good deal on a hay elevator on wheels.

Several years went by without an elevator, which meant DH stood on the hay wagon and tossed as many hay bales into the loft as he could, and the rest just had to be stored (on pallets) on the ground floor.  Late ,last summer, he got into the habit of looking at online consignment auctions within about an hour of this little place here.  And one day he surprised me with the announcement that he had been the high bidder on a hay elevator.  For $250, we were now the proud owners of an ancient New Idea hay elevator on wheels!!

It was located only about 10 miles away, so DH was able to tow it home, slowly, on the backroads.  The day it arrived at this little place here was one of the best days ever!  I had a hay elevator on wheels! My days of lugging/dragging/praying it wasn't going to pull me out of the loft a regular hay elevator were over!  I was sooooooooooooooooo glad he'd bid on this (it had been a few years since the other one croaked, and in that time he'd tried to talk me into several used elevators of the undesirable kind we'd had before).

The most beautiful thing in the world!

This elevator is pretty mammoth.  Honestly, it's longer than we need.  BUT it tows like a dream, can even be pushed by hand if we really want to, and the angle is adjustable.   I love it.  Did I mention it's on wheels?!?

Putting up hay this summer was so much easier with this wonderful hunk of metal.  What a difference in time, and body wear, tossing bales onto the elevator and letting it carry them to the loft and dump them inside makes.  I think DH and I did first cutting hay in about half the time it normally takes us.

For second cutting, DH had to be out of town, so I called in DS1 and DS2 for help.  That way I didn't have to throw a few bales on the elevator, then run up to the loft to stack them, then run down and throw and few more on, repeat ad nauseum.  K3 and Rascal came to 'help' too (Toad was at a friend's house that day).  Rascal ended up corralled in the bed of the pickup so that we didn't have to worry about him a) wandering off, b) getting too close to the PTO shaft while in operation, c) falling out of the loft, and d) in the house alone getting into things a four year old shouldn't. K3 helped in the loft for a while, dragging bales to her dad so he could stack them; and when she was tired of that she went down to help DS2 unload the wagon .

We got through the entire first wagon, and about halfway through the second wagon, when one of the chains on the elevator jumped the sprocket up at the top.  DS1 and I managed to get it back on, but after about three more bales taking the ride up from the ground to the loft, the chain jumped off again.  DS1 and DS2 set to work trying to figure out why this was happening, and found that one side of the elevator had a good three inches of slack that the other side didn't have.  Since the tensioners were froze up (rusted into position), they doubted that one side had vibrated looser than the other.  After unhooking the PTO shaft from the tractor, and beginning to manually turn it by hand while watching on the bottom end as DS1 watched (and pulled) at the top end, DS2 was able to find a broken linkage in the chain on the looser side.

UGH.  Well, it was good while it lasted.  And, it will be useful again in the future, after DH and I repair it.  But for now, the boys and I just pulled it out of the way, moved the hay wagon right up under the loft door, and DS1 tossed the remainder of the bales into the loft as DS2 handed them to him.  Being nearly 6' 4" tall really saved our bacon that day.  We were able to get all the bales up into the loft and hay season 2023 at this little place here has officially come to an end. Phew!

Later this year, or over the winter, DH and I will work on getting the linkage replaced (and see if we can bust loose the tensioners that are rusted over).  We should be good to go again when it's time to put up next year's hay.

September Knitting Update

 I knit exactly six rows on my Traveling Woman shawl in the past month.  Six.  That's it.  It's high tomato season here, so there's been lots of all day canning sessions and no energy at the end of those to even pick up my knitting needles.

In the pictures below, you can see just the beginnings of the lace on the shawl. That's those six rows I've done.  Maybe half of the lace chart, which is supposed to get repeated in its entirety four times before doing another, longer, lace chart before binding off.  At this rate, maybe I'll have myself a light weight lacy shawl to wear for Christmas, LOL.

Actually, gardening season is drawing to an end, maybe one more intense month (grapes, pears, apples) and then I'll be done processing food and will have more time for crafts.

 There are two books in the top picture.  One I literally just finished, and the other that's next in line for me to read.

Just finished is The Sewing Machine by Natalie Fergie.  It was okay.  I almost put it aside, but then decided to see it through.  It got a bit better close to the end, all the disjointed pieces clicked together and made sense, but overall it wasn't anything that really kept my attention.

About to be started is Forging On by Catherine Robinson.  It sounds like it could be good.  I hope so.

Also read (apparently I was too hot and tired to knit, but not to pick up a book) were:

• The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell, which I found quite interesting (probably mostly because I am familiar with the area and some of the historical events in this book).
• The Bodyguard by Katherine Center.  Another light, quick read by a favorite author.