Horse Update,May

 It has been a tremendous month since my last horsey update.  Lots and lots of things happening, all of which have been good things!

Barn-wise:

We finished the electrical on the west side of the barn.  This means I have outlets on each end of the aisle, and lights in the stalls which are operated by switches (rather than plugging and unplugging an extension cord run from one light, through the rafters and over to the--formerly only--outlet by the electric panel).  There's still the electrical on the east side of the barn to complete but that is put on hold until we get the walls (and ceiling) built for the tack room as that wall between the tack room and the aisle needs to hold a lot of the wiring.  Hopefully that will appear in a horse update post before winter comes again. Fingers crossed; summer is a really busy time keeping up with growing things.

The Poetess: 

We are riding!!  So far only on days that DH is working from home, and only within the (very spacious) confines of the greater perimeter pasture fence, but I'm in the saddle on my  OTTB mare!  The very unflattering photo shown below is from our first ride (note to self; DH not only needs to learn how to effectively be a handler/spotter for me getting on greenies, but he also needs a course in horse photography).  I'm not sure who was more nervous for that first ride, me or DH who was right there in case of trouble.

All rides since that first one have been solo, with DH in the house rather than in the 'pasture arena' with me.  The Poetess has been great; very attentive, very eager to figure out the new things I'm asking her--like stand still while being mounted and dismounted, steering with legs and seat, going in a circle when asked rather than long straight line (or giant oval).  We have not gone faster than a walk yet, because I want to cement that listening to seat thing as well as a good whoa and stand still before I see what happens after I ask for higher gears.  Honestly, we've only had 6 total rides, the longest of which has been 20 minutes (we always longe first to check where her brain is and what she's feeling like), so I don't think we're going horribly slow.  There's been so much new and unfamiliar riding I've been asking her to do (halt?  Why would anyone ever want to do that?? Seems to be her most common question to me).  Plus we've been practicing walking away from where the LBM is in turnout and then walking back to that fence without 1) being reluctant to leave the safety of a group and 2) rushing when heading back towards another horse (which so far hasn't been an issue).  I'm not quite sure what her response will be if the LBM starts running in the pasture, as one of Poetess's favorite turnout games is to race the LBM. (Spoiler, Poetess wins every race.)  Very likely I'll find out the answer to that soon.  Weather and DH's job location permitting, we'll be trying out a trot later this week on our next ride.

a between-the-ears photo from our 4th ride

The Little Black Mare (LBM):

This horse is awesome!  In the saddle, that is.  On the ground she still often forgets about personal space and how to stand still while being saddled.  As evident by the bruising she left on about half my foot in late April.

ouch

But under saddle, I really love her.  She's always eager for a ride outside the gate and still hasn't balked at anything I've asked her to do.  

Go through knee-deep water for about 20 feet in the flooded out spot on the way to the woods?  Okay.

Go in the woods (even though we've only hand-walked a small corner of the woods once)?  Okay.

Walk the ENTIRE path through the three sides of the woods?  Okay.  (This is alone, no other horses with us, and too many trees to be able to see back to the safety of her buddy in the pasture.)

Go through a spot in the woods that very strongly smelled like dead critter and could very possibly have a horse-eating monster lying in wait for the LBM?  Okay.

Trot circles in the 'outdoor arena' even though it had grown up to almost mid-cannon height and was full of dandelions in bloom?  Okay.

nice yellow sock you got there, LBM

So, horse training and farm life have been great lately.  I am having to learn how to maintain turf arenas, which I've never encountered before.  We're nowhere ready to rip the topsoil off what is designated as the outdoor arena and work on drainage, base layer and sand for the top, so this year it's going to be a grass arena.  Ditto the work area behind the barn in the greater pasture will remain grass because once I have a sand outdoor arena (with a fence around it as a visual deterrent for any horse that might unexpectedly feel the need to run for the hills as it were) the work area behind the barn will be pasture again.  Looks like until the Spring flush of growth is over, I'll be brush-hogging both those spots on a weekly basis to keep it short enough the horses aren't either trying to eat it while in a walk on the longe or getting their feet a bit tangled up in it and stumbling when trotting with a rider.

Sewing and Stitching Update, May

 In April, I finished all the backstitching on my squirrel counted cross-stitch.  Which means it's done!  In terms of stitching that is. In terms of completely made into a framed piece on a wall or as a cover for a pillow, or however I'm going to use it, well, that's going to be a while.  I haven't decided yet how I want to display it.  I'm leaning toward framing this one and the fox I did winter of 22/23, and using them as seasonal decor.  That's an area that is new to me, as typically I don't have much in the way of decorations (You could probably describe my decorating style as Spartan, or Amish).  Most everything has a function, and looking pretty hasn't really been considered a function.

On Monday of this week, I started working on another cross-stitched Santa ornament.  This one is Scotland Santa of the Celtic Santas series by Mill Hill.

Last month, I had mentioned that I was going to begin an Airplane Quilt intended for DS1.  I pulled fabrics from my stash, and other than figuring how many planes of each color I needed to cut out, that's as far as I got.  The pattern calls for 42 planes, I'm going to make 4 matching ones in gray/silver, 19 in various blues and 19 in assorted reds.

Rather than cutting pieces for those airplane blocks, I decided the time had come to finish a long-time UFO.  Mostly because it's been taking up a large chunk of my cutting table for a couple of years and I'm getting tired of working around it.  I don't want to just move it somewhere else temporarily, because for at least a year before I put it on my cutting table it was a top, batting and backing all rolled together in the upstairs bedroom I used to use as a sewing room from 2012 to 2021ish.  Honestly, I think why I just let it sit so long even though I had all the necessary components to finish it, is because it's bigger than a baby quilt, bigger than a throw blanket, and I didn't know how to go about quilting it on my home sewing machine that doesn't have the most spacious throat in the world.  I also didn't want to quilt it with stitch in the ditch, which is pretty much all I'd done successfully until about a yearish ago.

Finally, I just decided to bite the bullet.  It would be how it would be, and if that wasn't the best quilting in the world, so be it.  It was to go on one of the twin beds (in the former sewing room) we have here for the grandkids to sleep on when they spend the night, and they are hardly quilting critics.  I tried my hand at echo quilting and then just did what I wanted in each separate block.  Some blocks have more quilting than others, depending on how I felt the fabrics in those blocks should be accented with stitching.  Most of the quilting was done on my sewing machine, but on the middle of the center block and the final corners I did quilt by hand with a backstitch, using a quilting hoop I'd picked up at Goodwill a few years ago (4 hoops, of varying sizes, in a bundle marked $10!!  That was cheaper than the price of the smallest one brand new!).

This quilt now just needs the binding made and sewn on. It will most definitely be featured in next month's sewing update in beauty shots as a finished quilt.  And then I will start the Airplane Quilt with a whole lot more space on my cutting table!

The Tree Trimming Project

 As mentioned in the Frugal Accomplishments for April post, DH rented an aerial lift and cleaned up storm damage in some trees at DD1 and Honorary Son's house.  He'd been wanting to get it done before the trees leafed out, which would have made it harder both to reach the branches in need of cutting and in terms of those branches, once cut, falling down to the ground without getting further hung up in the tree.  The weather needed to be not wintry, not raining, and not too windy, as well as the ground needed to be not too wet because the yard would have to be driven on in order to get the lift where it would need to go in order to reach the trees.

After several weekends of uncooperative weather, DH decided on the last day of April, a Tuesday, that the time had come, the weather was perfect, the ground was firm, and he was just going to have to take an afternoon off of sitting at the computer doing engineering stuff.  So he rented the lift, grabbed his chainsaw, and the adventure began!

Faline and Buck were intensely interested in both the lift and what Papa was going way up in the tree.  Most of the time I was in charge of keeping little bodies clear of the area where cut limbs were falling.  A few times I had to pull on a rope attached to a hung up branch in order to coax it out of the tree and to fall in a more desirable direction.  Buck and Faline liked that; when I wasn't in need to the rope, they were 'tying' it to the patio chairs and pulling them across the deck.

Over several hours DH was able to cut down all the damaged limbs from last August's tornado, as well as trim up some healthy limbs growing too close to DD1 and Honorary Son's house, plus a few dead-but-still-intact limbs from one of the trees in their front yard.

The kids got to stay up a bit later than their normal 7 p.m. bedtime, and Buck got to push a few of the control buttons on the lift; he didn't want to go up in the bucket with DH.  Faline, on the other hand, was all about going up high!  She wanted to see over her house into the backyard, and DH took her just high enough that she could see over the roof.  

Even Honorary Son got a chance to 'ride' on the lift; he went up to the roof and replaced the chimney cap that had blown off.

Two days later, DD1 sent us a video of Buck.  Apparently he'd been paying even closer attention to the tree trimming process than we'd thought: in the video he was 'cutting' all the living room furniture with a toy chainsaw, while making very realistic chainsaw noises.  Every time the chainsaw was touching furniture 'cutting' it, you could hear Buck rev it up. And every time he was done 'cutting' and moving on to the next piece of furniture he changed the noise to a chainsaw idling sound.  This was coming out of his mouth, not from push buttons on the toy. For someone who's barely 18 months old, to have noticed and filed away for reference that detailed of information on chainsaws is pretty impressive (and cute! The video is soooo cute!)

Frugal Accomplishments, April

 Here's what frugal wins we had in April:

We worked some more on the barn finishing project in April, and used another $25 off Home Depot promo when we bought electrical supplies and one last bucket of stain.  Now all the stall walls have been stained/sealed, and I have lights, switches, and outlets on the entire west side of my barn!  It is so nice to not have an extension cord hanging down from the rafters anymore.

I found the Yarn Thief's chosen cat food on sale for $2 off per box at the farm supply store one week and I bought both boxes they had in stock. Then the following week the grocery store had the same food Buy One Get One 50% off plus I had a $3 off coupon at that store!  So I saved enough on four boxes of food (nearly 2 month's worth) that the 4th box was almost free.

Using a 30% off code I had at an online tack store, I was able to cover the cost of shipping on some oversized barn supplies I needed but weren't available locally.  (Okay, I didn't exactly need hunter green water buckets for the newly finished stalls, any color will hold water, but I wanted to match the buckets I all ready had--which were purchased many years ago.)  I did also add a portable saddle stand to that order and it cost $20 less than I could get it at any of the local places.  

DH sharpened our lawn mower blades himself.  He always does that, rather than taking somewhere and paying to have them sharpened, so I almost forgot to include it in the money-saving list.

We continued to eat from the freezer, cellar, and pantry.  

And a big frugal accomplishment was that DH tracked down who to talk to about trees that are being cut down on the road behind the church we attend. The entire several-block-long road is having work done and there are many really large old trees marked for removal.  He told the guy in charge of trees that if the wood was unwanted by the homeowners and the tree company was in need of somewhere to dispose of it, we live just outside of town and would gladly take any hardwood.  A handful of days later, this happened:

A semi-trailer load of free wood!

Since then, we've received several more partial loads of wood.  Probably about the equivalent of an entire winter's worth of heat.

Also wood/tree related, and a huge savings if you look at it from a We Did It Ourselves Rather Than Hiring It Done perspective; DH rented an aerial lift and cleaned up several trees in DD1 and Honorary Son's yard that had been damaged when the tornado went through there last August.  Those trees had branches broken off and hung up or not quite broken off but dead, more than 30 foot in the air.  Because there had been nothing actually fallen on their house from the tornado, their homeowners insurance wouldn't pay for a tree service to take care of the damage (and make it safe by removing the risk of those high widowmakers coming loose and falling on someone).  So, although we spent about $300 on renting the lift, to hire it out would have cost over a thousand dollars.  And now DH isn't worrying about things shifting in storms this summer and coming loose and falling on any of our descendants squashing them to death.

Knitting Update, May

 

I haven't done much knitting lately in the past month.  The reality is that I have done some lately, as in the past week.  I've gotten the leg part of my Churfirsten sock done, all couple inches of it since this is destined to be an ankle sock, and am about 10 of 30 rows into the heel portion.  

This is the season of long daylight and much to do outside, so it will probably take me until Fall to get two short socks knit.  And that's okay.  No deadline.  If they're not ready to wear with shorts during the hot weather part of the year, they are great to wear to bed on a chilly winter's night.

I have managed to read several books since April's knitting/reading update.  I finished The Tattered Quilt, which was okay (not spectacular but finish-able).  Then I cruised right through Julia Monroe Begins Again by Rebekah Millet (chic lit, and pretty good) as well as An Evil Heart  by Linda Castillo (another Kate Burkholder mystery, can't possibly go wrong with this one).  After that I read Growing Season by Melanie Lagerschulte which I was so-so on; it had potential but was kind of trite and never quite got to what I felt it could be.  Most recently read was The Secret of Snow by Viola Shipman which was a good book.  

One I've been trying to read and am not really getting into--I started it 10 days ago, spent 5 days trying to get through about 50 pages but it was so just not capturing me, then I put it down and read a different book start to finish and just picked it up again for another try is The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell.  I'm not sure if it's the characters or the author's writing style, but I just can't quite fall into it and I'm kind of thinking it's one I'm just going to decide not to finish.

For the month of May, I'm going to try to just read books that I have at this little place here (rather than books borrowed from the library).  I want to get through some of my stack and have several books read so I can take them to the local book swap this Fall.