Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #1

 I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but about a year ago I happened upon a way of keeping my polo wraps tangle-free while washing them.  (Well, honestly, part of the reason it took so long is that until about a year ago I hadn't used polo wraps in a long, long time, typically using splint boots or brushing boots on the older horses I was riding.  It wasn't until I started working the Poetess, with her young four-year-old legs, that I went back to wrapping.)

Are you constantly frustrated with polo (or other long, skinny) wraps that get knotted like some demonic test of wit every time you wash them?  If so, read on for my (brilliant if I do say so) light-bulb moment of a tip for easier washing with less detangling.

Rather than tossing my polo wraps into the washing machine willy nilly (except for folding the velcroes over themselves so they didn't grab everything in the washer), I bought a couple of lingerie washing bags and put each set of polos into it's own bag.  Wonder of wonders, no more tangled wraps!

(Except for recently, when a bag came unzipped and ejected it's cargo into the washer, which prompted pictures and this post).

Now, instead of dealing with this Gordian knot on laundry day:

I simply unzip the bag, grab the end of a polo wrap and they tamely slide out one at a time in an organized manner like this:

Nice and orderly, not a big lumpy knot of snakes trying to touch the ground, the floor, and everything else that might dirty them while you try to extricate them from their grip on each other (and themselves).

This works a treat in the dryer too, not just in the case of line drying, as I was doing until the weather turned last week.  

Lingerie bags are cheap to buy.  And a set of four polo wraps fits nicely into one bag.  Definitely money well spent; it saves me both the time to untangle washer-knotted wraps and the frustration of having to unknot them before they can be rolled.

If you want to wait a little bit, and save some money, put a few lingerie bags on your holiday wish list and perhaps someone will buy them for you as a gift!  And if you've been jonesing after some new colors in polo wraps but can't justify the price when you all ready have plenty of wraps (that aren't new eye catching colors), put a set of wraps and a lingerie bag on your wish list!  

(I have seen some laundry bags for wraps listed on a few tack store websites, and I bought myself one, but, in home trials this summer, I think my cheapy lingerie bags bought at Wally World work just as well as my specifically-for-leg-wraps bag).

Well, That Was Unexpected

 I'm hoping to be back to posting fairly regularly (as in, roughly once a week like the last several years) sometime soon.  September was busy in mostly good ways and October has been an abrupt change in storyline. Honestly, this month so far is a blur. I'm tired and my body hurts. DD2 has moved back home after nearly two years of living with Brad, who was her boyfriend.  

Was.

It's been a long rollercoaster of a two weeks, first filled with DD2 in an emotional black hole wondering why she was such a horrible person that after three years (and some encouraging conversations in recent months about their long term future) Brad broke up with her after an argument (that in hindsight he'd goaded her into.).  Add insult to injury, the breakup came just a few days before her 27th birthday.

 After many tearful days and sleepless nights and feeling like she was a failure because he'd broken up with her, because she doesn't have a job (due to increasing health issues last winter through this summer), and because now she was 27 living back in her childhood bedroom, the truth slowly became clear.

It wasn't her that was a horrible person.  It was him.  And also the roommate and (she'd thought) friend that had moved in with them in May when they moved to a larger apartment at a different apartment complex.  The roommate that DD2 had accompanied to doctor appointments and to the hospital in July for a hysterectomy that ended up being more complicated than expected, had stayed with her in the hospital (since DD2 didn't have a job to go to), had nursed and tended during the six-week recovery from the roommate's surgery.   

Brad and the roommate had apparently been dating prior to him suggesting the move to a new apartment.  So, the entire time Brad, DD2 and roommate have been sharing an apartment, he has been cheating on DD2 with the roommate.  The roommate who made DD2 think she was her friend.  And then made DD2 feel so horrible that DD2's arguing with Brad had been so scary for her and DD2 was totally at fault in Brad's decision to break up.

Excuse me, what?  That was the story being fed to DD2 the entire first week after the breakup: that DD2 was a terrible person. Nothing was said about the true relationship between Brad and the roommate until DD2 sent them a group text to let them know that her eldest brother and her mom and probably a long time (since high school) friend or two would be coming on Saturday to help her move out all of her things from the apartment.

For whatever reason, that is when the truth came out.  Very viciously from the roommate, and even Brad wanting to know why she was inconveniencing them by bringing her family to their apartment on a day when they'd been hoping to relax.  The whole truth about how long Brad and the roommate had been an item.  

We moved her anyway.  Her best guy friend since freshman year of high school, DS1 (there for muscle in moving things and the intimidation factor of a Marine just in case of trouble), and I went in, and carried stuff out as fast as she could pack it.  We were on a mission to help her close the door on that bad situation as fast a possible and not let those two play her any longer putting her off and making it difficult for her to get her belongings (and off the lease).

This mom is really angry.  I cannot even begin to fathom what kind of twisted reasoning makes this behavior even remotely excusable.  A boyfriend who not only cheats, he convinces you that taking on this roommate that he 'knows from work' is beneficial to you.  A female roommate who makes you think she's your friend and then not only uses you for her own personal nursemaid she continues an affair with the guy she knows is your boyfriend, that you share a bedroom with.

The only good points I can see so far are that a) DD2 is no longer under his spell, b) she has realized how many of her friends and family he has alienated her from in the last couple of years and c) she sees an enormous support system in her friends and family (and even some of his friends who are shocked by this development and have reached out to her).

So, adjustments ahead.  DH and I aren't true empty nesters yet.   I guess this chapter of my life is about helping DD2 regain her physical health, get back into the work force and work toward financial independence in the foreseeable future.  

40 Years of Horses!

 A long, long time ago, I bought my first horse after years of being horse crazy, three consecutive summers of attending a week of Girl Scout camp where I did the Horse Camp option (the third year earning my way to camp by selling enough cookies to go at no charge to my parents, who'd told me they couldn't afford camp that year and I'd have to sell 300+ boxes of cookies to qualify for the week of camp to be 'free'-- I was an incredibly shy kid but I managed to knock on every door in a 5-mile radius of our house and take orders for cookies as long as my parents put up the time and gas money to drive me further than I could walk), and months and months of begging my parents to let me buy a horse.  They finally said "IF you can find a horse for the amount of money in your savings account, we'll think about letting you buy it."  

And so I did. After having a prepurchase exam done on him, he was delivered into my ownership on Labor Day weekend 1984.

The rest, as they say, is history.

My first horse, an 8 year old purebred registered Arabian

(with a tail that had been partially amputated after an injury a year or so prior to when I bought him).

I was twelve, almost thirteen when I got my horse. I think my parents figured horses were just a typical phase little girls go through, and that in a year or so I would grow out of it and we'd sell the horse and all the horse gear and be done.  They even put up stipulations I had to meet in order to keep the horse:

• Maintain at least a B average in school (I'd been an Honor Roll student all through school up to that point)
• Take riding lessons so I'd learn to ride safely
• Join 4-H and do the horse program

The first requirement was not an issue for me; I got good grades because I liked learning and school was something that (with the exception of multiplying and dividing fractions) had always come easy to me. Five school years later I graduated in the top 10% of over 330 students in my graduating class.

The second and third requirements, instead of pushing me away from horses (like maybe my parents secretly hoped), just sucked me in further.  So much to learn!  I couldn't get enough!  I went from learning to ride well on my first horse, to selling him and breaking out not just the next horse I bought (paid for with the earnings from the first horse, which I sold for more than I'd paid for him, but also by months and months of cleaning stalls for the lady I bought him from--my trainer) but also the young horse my mom bought in 1987 intending it to be her own horse.

In addition to joining 4-H and being extremely active there, I was one of the founding members of my high school equestrian team, which finally got approved and became a real thing my junior year.

My second horse, a 7/8 Arabian, 1/8 Quarter Horse I bought as a coming three year old

and then trained under saddle both western and hunt seat.

My Mom's horse, which ended up being too quick for her;

which I then started to teach to run barrels  but never quite finished 

(In the above pictures I'm 3 months pregnant with my first son; the reason why we soon scrapped the barrel racing training and the mare sat for over a year unridden.)

Then there was a haitus in ownership for several years, most of which I continued working at horse farms but not owning a horse of my own and not riding much.  I had met and married DH and then popped out babies #2 and #3 in rapid succession.  A week before baby #4 arrived, we became the owners of a pony I'd known from back in my 4-H days.  He was in his late 20s by then and ready to be retired from the showring.  So he became a backyard pony my kids loved on and learned to ride on.

The Pony

When my youngest child was 3, the barn owner I was then working for, was looking to downsize her (very large) herd of Holsteiners.  She offered me the choice of one of three she would sell for the same price.  All mares, all in the 10-12 year old range, all very green broke eons ago and not ridden since they were 3 or 4 years old.  I chose the one whose build and personality I liked best. I didn't have the full asking price at the time, but I put $1000 down and worked off the remainder of the balance over several years.  And that is how I became the owner of a papered warmblood horse.  I trained her mostly on my own, with some intermittent riding lessons (as I could afford them/work them off) for help.

The Mare and I, about 8 years after I'd bought her.

Shortly after putting down The Pony due to Cushings and advanced age (32), I caught up again with my second horse, the 7/8 Arab.  He'd been at a therapeutic riding center for over a decade and was in his early 20's.  They were going through some financial difficulties that necessitated dispersing some of their herd.  Being that he was now on the older end of their roster, I inquired if they might be willing to sell him to me.  So, he came back into my ownership, for my daughters to ride, and has been known here as The Old Man until his death in 2018.

The Old Man

In 2007, I went into a 3-way ownership on an 8 year old registered Quarter Horse.  He was supposed to be for my daughters to ride, the daughter of a fellow boarder to ride, and the farm owner to occasionally trail ride as her health allowed.  I ended up buying out the other two owners over the years, and he shows up in several stories posted at this little place here until I sold him in 2017.

The Quarter Horse

My two year partnership with the California Horse followed, from summer 2017 until 2019.  He is mentioned in many horse updates.

The California Horse,

all 18 hands of him!

Almost immediately after the California Horse left Michigan for Oregon (where his owner's parents had bought a farm), I purchased Camaro, the second purebred Arabian I have owned and trained.  The photo below is from our one and only show, in June 2021.

In June of 2023, The Poetess became my next horse.  Maybe my final horse, we'll see.  Looking to train her as far as I can (based on how my body holds out and how she ages).  DH would like to retire in about five years and hopes that he and I will be doing a whole lot more traveling after that.  I'm not so sure I'll be 'done' with horses that quick. Maybe ten years from now.  In 10 years I'll be almost 63.  Not a whole lot of women that age still riding and doing barn chores on a regular basis.  Fifty years of constant horses/horse chores might be enough.  Time will tell.

'

Knitting Update, October 24

 

I worked on Sixlet's Christmas stocking until I was about halfway to the heel portion, then I put it on hold. I needed something much more portable (that didn't require seven skeins of yarn for all the colorwork) to take on vacation with me in September.

Since Faline had recently found that her beloved purple sweater I knit for her when she turned two (finished product can be seen in this post) has gotten rather short in the arms and body now that she's about to turn four, I decided to raid my stash of yarn and see what yardages I might have that would be enough to knit a sweater for a much taller girl and use that as my take-on-vacation knitting project.

What I found was some lovely light blue/turquoise yarn that I'd purchased about five years ago intending to make a sweater for K3 but never ending up having the chance to actually use.  Now that K3 is way way too big for that to be enough yarn for a sweater for her, I decided to use it for a new sweater for Faline. And only I --and now you-- know that K3 was supposed to get a sweater and hasn't.  So it's all good.

I am using the Sunday Sweater pattern again (same pattern as the purple one), only making it in the size 4/5 using the longer body and arm lengths included in the pattern.  I have roughly 3" of body left to knit, at which point I will probably set it aside for a week or so and go back to working on Sixlet's stocking.

As far as reading goes, I finished two books in September:

• My Gun Has Bullets by Lee Goldberg is, I think, his first novel.  It's quite satirical and comedic.  I'd say it's sort of a murder mystery, but not nearly the same as his Eve Ronin series.  I could definitely see the progression in his writing from his early works to his novels of the 2020s.
• The Man From St. Petersburg by Ken Follett.  It's been over four years since I read anything from this author and now I can't imagine why it took me so long to pick up another book of his.  I love, love, love his writing.  History, intrigue, well developed characters. . . need I say more?

Currently, I have just started reading Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.  I've heard this book mentioned a few times around internet-land in the past six to eight years, so I decided finally to give it a try. I'll say that the foreword is rather long and didn't keep my attention very well; if I had skipped that part I'd probably be further than Chapter One by now (five days after getting the book from the library).

Sewing and Stitching, September Update

The Airplane Quilt top is now a flimsy! Meaning all the piecing is done and borders are on.

I have all the components needed to finish this quilt: backing, batting and red-white-blue variegated thread for doing the quilting.  The next several weeks are going to be quite busy, so I doubt I will actually get any part of it quilted before the October sewing and stitching update. Sandwiched and pin basted, maybe, but most likely not quilted.

A few weeks ago I grabbed the pile of worn out jeans that has been accumulating for a couple of years and cut the seams and waistbands out of them.  I would like to make DS2 and Surprise a jean quilt for their Christmas gift this year, and might finally have enough scrap denim to make one.  No way to know until I start cutting the pantlegs into the 6" squares I'll need and see how many squares I get. That's the next quilty thing on my docket.  

Other than cutting the squares from all that scrap denim, jean quilts are super fast to make.  Being heavy with all that denim, I don't put batting in them, so once the squares are cut and sewn into rows all I have to do is sew on the flannel backing, tie every other square, and the quilt is finished.  If I have enough denim, it should be no problem to whip this one from start to finish in a month's sewing time.

But before I cut denim squares, I need to make some repairs on horse turnout sheets before the weather gets to be the cold & rainy type.  So far we've had rain on warm days and our chilly Fall-like days have been dry ones, but I know before very long I'll be wanting waterproof sheets to put on horses so they don't get chilled in the cold rainy weather Michigan can have when there's a hurricane working up the eastern seaboard in late September and October.

There has been no cross-stitching done since I finished the beading of the Celtic Santa, although I am contemplating doing some small designs on perforated paper that I could make into Christmas ornaments to give to each of the grandchildren in December.  I need to put a bit more thought into that and also look at what other projects (both crafting and outdoors/homesteading) are slated for the next several months to determine if that's a feasible thing for this season or not.  I don't want to take the time to stitch those and get some done unless I am able to get all six done, if you know what I mean.  It's an all-or-nothing task.  Not that Sixlet will know if he misses out this year, but Buck will.  And Faline most definitely will.  That girl is about the most detail oriented three year old I've ever known (except maybe myself but I don't remember things from when I was three.  Four years old, yes.  Three years old, no.)

August Frugal Accomplishments

 August didn't seem like an especially frugal month, as I ended up purchasing a bushel of cucumbers to make pickles out of since my cucumber crop (and most of my garden this year) was a bust.  However, when I looked at how much I spent ($56 in cucumbers, roughly $4 in dill and less than $6 in vinegar) to end up with 36 pints of dill pickles and 24 pints of hamburger dills compared to how much similar size jars of pickles at the grocery store cost, it was still a frugal win.  And it's nice to have all that down in the cellar instead of having to worry about running to the store when we are in need of pickles.

We did harvest a couple peppers and cherry tomatoes from the garden, and I got a tomato, a green pepper and two cucumbers for free from a local roadside free veggie stand someone puts their extra garden produce into for community members to take.

As always, we ate mostly from the freezers, pantry and cellar.

I gave DH a hair cut.

During a trip to Goodwill (in which I dropped off some items no longer needed at this little place here) I scored 4 mini casserole dishes for just $1.99 total.  I'm hoping to try making some personal size casseroles or deep-dish items in them this Fall.  My theory is that with four of them I can make a normal size recipe, divvy it up into four dishes for cooking, maybe have to slightly adjust the cooking time, and end up with a meal for me when I'm alone plus three more to go in the freezer for future use in DH's lunchbox on the days he has to go to work in person.

DD2 came over one day while the Olympics was still underway and enabled me to watch some of the streaming Olympic coverage (specifically the equestrian events) with her using her Peacock service via her laptop connected by an HDMI cable to my tv.  In exchange, I let her use my washer and dryer to do some laundry while we watched.

The city about 9 miles away had a series of free outdoor concerts once a week this summer, and DH and I attended two of them; a polka band and a folk/rock band.  Both were very good somewhat local bands, and the concert series is something we are going to try to remember to check into for next summer.

I bought from a friend a complete dressage bridle with bit and the exact style of leather reins I've been lusting after for years, plus an additional headstall and headstall/cavesson combo, all barely used, for about half the cost of the reins alone if purchased brand new by themselves.  I really don't need another dressage bridle but for that price with the reins I've been dreaming of. . .

I mended: 

• two pair of riding gloves, 
• a cornhole bag that a seam was coming loose on, 
• a sports bra the bottom of the zipper had come unstitched,
• two pair of DH's socks that had small holes in the toes, 
• a doll of Faline's (that had belonged to her mother) whose cloth body had given out at one side seam (did a 'skin graft' with a patch made of muslin) and the stitches holding one plastic leg to the body had broken (superglue to the rescue!), 
• and a favorite Minnie Mouse tutu of Faline's that the stitching on one tier of tulle had torn free.

DH bid on and won from a local online auction a wooden workbench/cabinet with drawers and a Formica top plus all the contents therein for $25.  It is definitely worth a whole lot more than that and it was fun to see what treasures it held--a drawer full of wrenches of all sizes including some homemade specialty ones that had been welded together, a drawer full of snap-ring pliers and other pliers, sockets the size for working on tractors and large equipment (which he doesn't own and had been sort of making do without), a 6-ton bottle jack and a bunch of tools I don't remember off hand.  There is also a small sink in the top which can be covered over with a matching piece of the Formica, the whole thing is on casters for easy moving.  Plus in one drawer he found an interesting vintage wooden item that I identified from the far reaches of my childhood memories to be a pipe stand (my paternal grandpa was a pipe smoker when I was very very young).   Doing some googling told us the pipe stand could probably be resold (after a cleaning and some polishing of the wood) for at least what DH spent on the entire workbench.

As part of an ongoing project related to the building of DH's shop in 2022 and getting our barn finished off for horses in 2023/2024, we worked on prepping to extend our driveway to go past the horse barn and reach DH's shop so that both building are easily accessible by vehicle all year long.  This included extending the culvert that runs under our existing driveway.  Rather than hire that work out, we decided to DIY-it.  The existing culvert had been damaged on both ends over the 22 years since the driveway was built, and in the process of digging it up to a good point we could attach the new extension to we found it also had been squashed in the center section (probably the weight of cement trucks turning off to deliver to the barn and shop. . . ).  So we just replaced the entire culvert while we were at it.

Burying the newly lengthened culvert required dirt to be brought in, and we were able to 'reallocate' quite a bit of the needed dirt just by taking the topsoil off the route of the new driveway to the barn and shop.  There's still some more fill needed, and we'll more than likely grab that from the area I've been referring to as the outdoor riding arena since the topsoil needs to come off that too before bringing in the sand footing for there.

All in all, I guess August wasn't without some frugal wins.

Knitting Update, September

 I finished my Churfirsten socks!  They were finished before the end of August, and I remembered to take photos for posterity!  The first photo shows the pattern really well, but isn't very true to color.  The second photo has the color pretty much spot on.

Right after grafting the toe on the second sock, I went to my yarn stash and dug out the tote with the instructions and yarn for making Sixlet's Christmas stocking.  It's so nice that I've made this pattern four times all ready; all I need to do is to chart out the stitches for Sixlet's name and just follow my notes from making his parents' and siblings' matching stockings and it will come together easily.

Hoping that I can get this all knit up before Thanksgiving.  Barring any unforeseen time-consuming things happening between now and then, it shouldn't take more than two months of evenings to make.  I've all ready cast on and worked through the cuff portion and the first six rows of colorwork.  I forgot how much I like doing colorwork (although I'm out of practice keeping all the yarns from twisting together just in the course of knitting one row).  Perhaps next year I'll finally knit the sock pattern with tons of colorwork that I've been meaning to knit for about 10 years now. . . 

I don't feel like I've done much reading since the last yarn along, but I guess I've done enough to get through three books:

You Only Die Once by Jodi Wellman, is kind of an inspirational read, I guess.  It's meant to get you thinking about the things you want to do/see/be in the however many years of life you have left no matter what your age.  Judging from the number of notebook pages I filled while doing the exercises in this book, I definitely did some thinking as I read (mostly confirming thoughts I'd all ready had swirling in my mind for years).

The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason is another great Inspector Erlendur mystery.  I found it completely engrossing and had a hard time putting it down.  In addition to the great story-telling and keep-you-guessing mystery portion, there's a quite interesting bit of Cold War era socialist/communist theory and practice in the storyline that I think Americans could take heed (warning) of today.

The Museum of Lost Quilts by Jennifer Chiaverini is the latest installment of her Elm Creek Quilts series.  Long time readers of her quilt series books will recognize several parts of the story.  While they are woven together in an interesting way, I did find reading some of it a little redundant.  If you can't remember storylines of books you read years ago, this probably won't be an issue for you.  I just tend to have the kind of mind that hangs on to stuff and dredges it up from the far recesses if I try to read the same book, or watch the same tv show or movie more than once. (That tends to drive my husband up the wall as he'll be channel surfing on tv and land on a show for about a minute and a half before I'll say "seen it" and request a change of station.)

Lilacs in August?!?

 In early August, the leaves on my lilac bushes started to turn brown and curl up.  By the middle of August, they had all fallen off.  Then, a week or so later, I noticed little green buds forming on the tips of the branches.

And this past week, the lilacs began to bloom!

Never in my 52 years of life have I seen lilacs bloom in August.  They always bloom in May.  Then they are done for the year. But, there they were, right in front of me, indisputably flowers on my lilac bushes.

Apparently, it is possible for lilacs to bloom more than once in a year.  If they lose their leaves due to extreme stress (typically drought, bugs or disease), and they can and do rebloom.  We definitely have not had a drought this summer; this has been a crazy good season for regular and abundant rain.  Must have been either bugs I didn't see, or an airborne virus.

Huh.  Learn something new everyday.  And to be walking around in August heat and humidity while smelling the lovely unmistakably Spring scent of lilacs is quite a strange experience.

Horse Update, August

As in July's update, K3 has been coming once a week to 'help' me with training the LBM.  This is good for the Little Black Mare, as it reminds her that she has to listen to humans of any size, not just adults and not just me (as a rather strict human when it comes to minding personal space or who's the boss in the horse-human relationship).

It is also good for K3 as it gives her something she can be responsible for (keeping her 'job' schedule of working the horse once a week), something of her own interest to learn and work at, and it gets her into the mentally calming atmosphere of being around a horse.

Each week, when it's her day, K3 and I talk about our game plan for that training session.  And then I put her in charge as much as possible.  She has to get the horse.  She has to groom the horse.  I do the saddling as she's not strong enough and the saddle is too heavy for her to lift over the LBM's back and set down nicely.  The LBM came to this little place here being rather nervous about the whole saddling thing and it took months for her to learn to stand still, that I wasn't going to fling this saddle at her and whack her in the back and sides with it's parts and pieces.  So, for now, I do the placing of the saddle and K3 does the girthing.  We are working on K3 getting coordinated enough to do the bridling.  That's coming along, but I still stand behind K3 and help hold the LBM's head still and in the right position while K3 fumbles with holding the bit in one hand and the crownpiece in the other and keeping everything from twisting.

Once the LBM is saddled and bridled, the three of us walk out to the 'arena' that is behind the barn (so there's a fenced in area in case of mishaps and a loose horse) and K3 does the longeing.  This is something she has been learning, and, while I typically still stand behind her and man the whip as needed (which entails just raising it as needed as encouragement to move out on the line or to change speed--or keep moving when the horse gets lazy and slows--not cracking it or touching the LBM with it), K3 makes the decisions on how long to walk, when to begin trotting, when there's been enough trotting, when to halt and change directions.

Then it's time for K3 to get on.  We are still having her begin each ride on the longe line.  That is when we do a quick recheck that the LBM is listening to K3's aids for walking, halting and trotting.  It's also when K3 rides in trot, as she is still learning her seat and trying to stay balanced at that bouncy gait. I don't want her using her reins for balance (and inadvertently banging the horse's mouth), so rather than have her try to trot and keep her balance and steer right now, we're sticking with being on the longe where she just needs to think about balance and going into and out of the trot.  We'll tackle steering--ie going solo--at the trot when she's developed her seat a bit more.

Depending on how much trot we work on and how tired K3 is from that, we either end the session there, or I remove the longe line and K3 rides solo at the walk for a bit.

Solo walk work involves a lot of turning, halting, and going over a single ground pole.  Both to make sure the LBM is listening to her rider (vs just following me around) and to give K3 practice at these skills (and being the boss of the pair, not just a passenger).

On the days when K3 isn't the rider, I work with the LBM on developing more balance at the trot and canter as well as riding through visually confined spaces in a relaxed manner.  She was doing awesome riding out and around the property until about mid-July when the corn in the fields got tall enough to not be able to see over.  And thick enough that you can't see through it.  And the leaves long enough that they wave in any sort of wind.  Scary stuff for a prey animal like a horse.  And we're practically surrounded by corn this summer, including in our own 15ish acres that we lease out to a crop farmer. 

So I had to take a step back from riding her anywhere and everywhere and concentrate on getting her to be calm while working our way closer and closer to the monster-hiding corn. Which meant sticking to super familiar areas with great visual distance for a few weeks as well as keeping a fence between us and the corn.  This week we finally rode between the fence and the corn for a short distance at the end of a training session, then turned and went back to the barn before she had the chance to get anxious about what might be lurking inside the wavy seven foot tall green wall.

Poetess just had her very own long post, which pretty much brought you up to date with how she's doing.  I will add that this morning I rode her for the first time without anyone else being on the property.  DH had to go in to work in person today, and I really didn't want to lose out on a training session with the Poetess in his absence, so I figured I'd work her like I normally do and see what happens.  She was very good and it was no big deal.  In retrospect she had no idea if he was home or not, so his absence only matters to me (as a safety measure in case the horse manure hits the fan--causing me to hit the ground--which so far she's shown no inclination to initiate.)

Barn-wise, there hasn't been any new construction done.  I've disappointingly had to replace dozens of the T-post insulator caps in the past three weeks.  I will have to get in contact with where I purchased them from last fall, as they are supposed to have a 5 year warranty and we haven't even gotten through twelve months of use yet.  It's not the horses pushing on the fence that's breaking them where the fence tape runs through them, either, as it's always in the mornings that I find the top 'rail' of the fence sagging with another broken insulator and the horses are always in the barn overnight.  If anything is putting excessive force on the insulators, must be deer hitting them.  Which, if they are designed for a horse to push on/bounce off of the fence without breaking, a little 100-some pound deer shouldn't be beyond the integrity of the caps.  

The Poetess After One Year

Late June marked the one year anniversary of the Poetess's arrival in Michigan and the beginning of our partnership.  I had wanted to write a long post in honor of that in July, but *sigh* it didn't get done.  

On the outside, since I'm not cantering her around yet, and not showing her in even Intro Dressage classes, it might look like she and I haven't made much progress since the day of her arrival.  But au contraire!

Looking back, we've actually made quite a bit of progress. Especially if you factor in that we've never had an indoor arena to work in, so we're pretty weather dependent.  Add to that the fact that we haven't had a fenced outdoor arena either and at this little place here I don't --so far-- even have a real arena with good footing, just a mowed patch of clay dirt.

There's also the health issues I was having last summer (could barely walk 50 feet without coughing, muscle weakness, etc., etc.) that slowly started to resolve themselves over the winter and are much better now (cough free and can lift 50 pound bags of feed again, YAY!) but was whammied in May with a knee issue that took away a lot of physical ability in it's own way.  All to say, it's not like we've had five days a week every week since her arrival to work on training. . . 

Here is our notable progress, starting with on the ground:

She stands still in the cross ties.

It's been months and months since she nervous pooped either in the cross ties or on the longe line (and she actually has never done this under saddle).

Speaking of manure, it is of normal consistency all the time, compared to being loose when she first arrived and then varying between normal and cowpie-ish for many months.

In turnout, she not only is willing to be caught, but 9 times out of 10 she comes to me if she sees me approach the gate to the pasture she's in.

She figured out what treats are.  😁

She picks up all four feet and patiently holds them up for me to clean (compared to jerking them up and back down; and also compared to only picking them up if I stood on her left side as was the norm at the track).  She also stands quietly for the farrier.

This mare, who had no idea what hand grazing was all about, now hand grazes like nobody's business!  I think she'd almost rather graze with me holding the lead rope than she would loose in the pasture.

She stands like a statue for having her legs wrapped as well as for saddling and unsaddling.

While she still doesn't like her ears messed with much, she will let me brush them with a soft brush, and sometimes even lets me put the roll on fly repellent in them without yanking her head up and down in avoidance.  Interestingly enough, bending them forward for haltering and bridling has never been an issue

Not only does she lead from either the left or right side quietly, she also walks, trots and canters calmly on both sides while longeing.  It took months, but she finally figured out that going to the right is just no big deal and the same rules and expectations apply as when she's going to the left.  There are still some days where the longe session begins a bit up and tight, but most days (and even the ones that start tight) she is looser in her body and stretching forward and even sometimes downward over her back.

Under saddle she is figuring out her new role too.

She stands still to be mounted and, while she still thinks she's supposed to move off once I'm up, she has begun to occasionally continue to stand until I have both feet in the irons and tell her to walk!

She halts quietly under saddle.  And stands calmly to be dismounted!

She's caught on to steering with seat and weight aids quite well although there's still a day now and then when she still doesn't want to bend right very willingly.

We haven't ridden outside the greater fenced in area yet, but we are riding at a walk around the majority to the inside of it!  

We do trot work about 50% of each ride now, and she especially loves going over a series of ground poles.  Bending lines are another favorite. 

Her balance is getting better and she's figured out trot is a gait in itself, not a precursor to going into a gallop (occasionally she pops into a canter over the last ground pole but comes back to a trot pretty quickly when asked).

Over the course of the year, and especially in the nine and a half months that she's been living at this little place here, we've become a team.  She nickers at me in the mornings when she sees me walking from the house to the barn for breakfast.  Sometimes she comes to the fence and nickers at me when I'm out in the yard doing various tasks.

She is insanely jealous when I ride the Little Black Mare instead of her, especially on days when I'm giving the Poetess the day off and I just work the LBM.  Apparently I belong to her just as much as she belongs to me.

                                                 

Sewing and Stitching Update, August 2024

I decided, in late July, that I wanted to get the beading done on my Celtic Santa right away rather than waiting until closer to Christmas time to finish it.  So, on a couple of hot and humid afternoons when I was in the house out of the mid-day sun, I worked at sewing on all the little tiny beads.  Now all I have left to do is trim the perforated paper down to just barely outside the stitching, braid some of the leftover embroidery floss to make a hanger and glue on a piece of felt for the backing.

Also during hot days I spent some time down in the basement sewing area working on the Airplane Quilt.  Once all 42 planes were sewn, I couldn't wait to get them put together into rows and then the rows into a top.

While trying to take a picture indoors, I discovered I really don't have a place to 'hang' a quilt this big for photos, so I made the best of it by draping the top over a set of tall shelves plus a tall 'dresser' that sits next to the shelves.  It looks a little wonky in the picture below, but the rows really are straight, lol.  

I have the skinny white inner border strips cut and ready to sew on (we've had a cool spell lately, so I've been outside a whole lot in the past week).  Then I will need to go through my solid red fabrics used in making some of the airplanes and see if there's one that is big enough to cut the wide outer border strips from.  If not, I might play with making the border scrappy using all the reds rather than just one solid one.

June & July Frugal Accomplishments

Well, I never did get June's frugal accomplishments posted.  And now we're 10 days into August and July's frugal post is also AWOL. So, I'm going to roll both months into one post. 

As always, we ate mostly from the freezer, cellar, and pantry.

I baked bread roughly every two weeks.

All laundry except jeans and towels went on the clothes line to dry.

Since summer electric rates went into effect on June 1st (meaning higher rate for electricity used between 3 and 7 p.m.), I tried to get laundry washed before 2 p.m. and not do any tasks requiring electricity until after 7:00.

In June I:

Gave DH a haircut.

Bought a bag of Oneida silverware (about 6 full place settings plus several serving pieces) at an estate sale for $10.  I'd been saying since last Fall that I wanted to get more silverware (but only secondhand) because what I have had for decades isn't enough now that we have over a dozen adults/older grandkids using 'big forks' when eating here for family gatherings and holiday meals.  Personally I hate trying to eat with a plastic fork/cut meat with a plastic knife, so it's totally worth it to me to store extra silverware that gets used less than a dozen times a year.  And as a bonus, this 'new' silverware is almost a match in pattern for my (Oneida, wedding present) silverware I've had for 31 years!

Used a 30% off code at State Line Tack to purchase some new riding gloves and a few miscellaneous  barn supplies (enough that I met the free shipping threshold).

Took advantage of Dover Saddlery's 60% off sale to get myself some summer riding apparel (apparently last summer's colors), including some polo shirts that can also be (and were!) worn to church.

Utilized an email offer for 20% off and free shipping at AZPepper.com to restock on DH's favorite Gunslinger green jalapeno sauce

Moved the remaining meat from the upright freezer into the chest freezer (finally ate enough elk to have room!) and unplugged the upright freezer until it's needed again.

 

A friend of DH's bought a new house and sold his home that was less than 10 miles from us.  He had some largish items he didn't want to bother moving/wouldn't need at the new place, so he gave them to DH.  A box blind for hunting, a portable generator (which will be given to DD1 since she and Honorary Son don't have a generator and both of our sons do), a pressure washer and a brand new never installed laundry sink (that will go in my tack room once we have the walls and ceiling built.)

DD2 brought her laundry to do here while having her all-day sewing lesson , saving herself roughly $20 instead of using the not-free washers and dryers at her apartment complex.

In July:

I gave DH another haircut

Took advantage of a deal at SSTack.com and saved $110 as well as used loyalty points to get $20 (of $25) off freight charge to buy a 4-tier saddle stand for the tack room.  What a lot of space that saves!

We got a $38 "reliability credit" on our electric bill from DTE because we lost power 6+ times in the previous 12 months.  A happy surprise to get a credit on our bill for this, but I do think it should be called an "Unreliablity credit". (Side note: since the middle of July we have randomly lost power three times, twice lasting longer than the 'minimum five minutes' to count as disruption of service according to DTE.)

DH and I went to a free polka concert at the outdoor band shell in the community park at the next town over.

I bought a baker's dozen of bagels (to put in the freezer for quickie breakfasts) at Panera on a Tuesday when they're cheaper, and used a 'Free Bakery Treat" coupon to get a chocolate croissant while I was there.

After 15 months of not knowing how many flicks of the switch it would take to activate the ballast in the (fluorescent) kitchen light each time we went to turn it on, DH finally replaced it. Actually, he rewired it for LED bulbs instead of buying whole new fixture.

Knitting Update, August

 Churfirsten Sock 1: DONE!  YAY!

Sock 2: cuff complete, and about 1/3 of the way through the (very short) leg.  I honestly have done very little knitting in the last several weeks.  Apparently I've spent all my couch time reading, as evidenced by the list below.

Books read:

• Bake, Borrow and Steal by Ellie Alexander.  Another Bakeshop Mystery, a good light read.
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. Saw this one on Ginny's blog (Ginny the originator of the Yarn Along idea) and requested it from the library.  If you only like a more modern writing style involving female characters, this book most likely isn't for you. I did enjoy it, the style of writing reminded me of a lot of books read in my youth.
• The Riding Instructor's Manual by Gordon Wright & Samuel Kelley.  I've had this in my personal library for a long, long time and got it out when I first had K3 start working the Little Black Mare with me. This book is mostly themed for the English/jumping rider, and was written many decades ago.  Some info was still relevant to my project with K3.  (Side note: went on Amazon to find a link to add for this book and WHOA!! Check out the price!! I knew it had been out of print for while but didn't know my copy was worth so much!)
• 500 Miles From You by Jenny Colgan.  She has become one of my favorite writers when I want a feel-good read that isn't fluffy.  Another story based in Kirrinfief Scotland and there are cameos of familiar characters from her previous two books that I read.  Pretty sure I literally read this book in two days.
• The Burning by Linda Castillo.  This is her latest Kate Burkholder novel and is as gripping as all the others.  
• The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center. Her latest novel, was engaging, funny and hard to put down.  Another that I devoured in 2-3 days.

Currently reading You Only Die Once by Jodi Wellman. I've barely started it, but so far I like her writing style.  Not sure if the perkiness and the in-your-face will wear on me after a while.  Will have to report on that next month. 

Horse Update, July

 The bugs have been awful at this little place here pretty much since May.  One huge drawback of having a warm winter: not enough prolonged cold weather to kill off the bugs.  And so we are having an especially buggy summer this year.  Mosquitos honestly aren't so bad, but the black flies and stable flies and green head flies and deer flies are horrible.  I'm going through fly spray like crazy and no matter which one I use, it seems like a few hours later there's flies landing on the horses again.

The Poetess wears a fly mask with ears in turnout because she has ear plaques (had them last summer; not sure what her history is on those) and I don't want them to get worse/irritated by fly bites.  Her mask keeps her happy when she's out in the pasture.  But when she's being worked, her ears are unprotected and she really doesn't want me to rub roll-on or cream bug repellent into her ears, especially the one with the majority of the plaques; it's sensitive.

The LBM doesn't seem to care much about flies in her ears when she's out grazing.  But under saddle, that's a whole 'nother story!  The head shaking to remove bugs sometimes got so bad that she wasn't listening to me at all while riding.

So, shopping to the rescue: I ordered two ear bonnets.  One for the Poetess to wear while working, and one for the LBM.  And just like that, the LBM was no longer being driven out of her mind while being ridden.  And Poetess's ears are protected during work sessions without me having to try to swipe goop into them every couple of days.  What a game changer.  I highly recommend ear bonnets if you are having similar issues with bugs in the ears driving your horses batty under saddle.  Mine aren't fancy, and aren't the sound deadening kind.  Just something lightweight to seal up those ears from bugs.

Along with the bugs being a problem, we went through about two weeks of nightly invasions by raccoons.  My nice heavy duty snap-on lids for my grain bins failed me; the darn raccoons figured out how to get them off.  I'm not sure if it was the biggest one(s) doing this, or if it was a joint effort of many little raccoon hands. Even on the nights they didn't get the grain bin open, I could tell they'd been wandering around inside the barn because in the morning when it was turnout time and I opened her stall door Poetess would put her nose down to the cement floor and walk up and down the aisle, smelling.  

This couldn't continue; raccoons in the barn and barnyard/chicken coop area was not a good thing.  So, I baited two live traps, put them nightly near the front door of the barn and in 8 nights of setting out live traps I was able to catch five raccoons, two of which were adults and three were juveniles.  They were quickly given lead poisoning.  DH patrolling in the evening just before dark was able to dispatch six or seven more who were given lead poisoning without being trapped first.  That seems to have solved the critter raids on the barn problem.

In the last three weeks, K3 has been able to 'help' me with the LBM's training twice.  LBM's owner and I had talked about putting K3 in the saddle to see what the horse would do with a much less experienced rider than I.  We agreed to start this on the longe line, and then progress to K3 riding solo.  So far so good, a few interesting things have come to light (the LBM spooked the first few times I had K3 raise her arms while in the saddle; shorter legs giving the walk command got ignored) which have given K3 things to do in the saddle and me to desensitize during my work sessions with the mare.  We are planning on having K3 in the saddle once a week for the remainder of her summer break.

While DH was on 'vacation' (mandatory first week of July), one of the many small/medium size projects he worked on was finishing up the final two stalls of the barn by laying the floor mats.  Luckily, that week had decent weather, a break from the low 90's with high humidity that we'd been having and was a comfy lowish humidity upper 70's on the day that we put in the mats.  We still got sweaty and tired, but at least neither of us got heat stroke!

DH cutting a mat to needed size, using the tractor forks and a pallet as a work table.

(Yes, that's my foot in the foreground, my knee was super blown up still and I frequently had to sit with it up on shavings bales to rest it while working in the barn.)

If you recall, last summer we'd found these stall mats on sale and purchased the total number of mats we'd need to do all six stalls even though we were focusing on getting just two stalls built that year. We didn't want to come back in a few months (or more) when we were ready to mat the remaining stalls and have to pay full price (which at that time was $15/mat more than the sale price) for those. Well, when measuring and cutting mats for the very first stall, DH miscut one of the mats and it was then too small.  We set it aside, hoping that it would work for one of the future stalls as each stall wasn't quite exactly 12'x12'.

As each new stall was matted, that miscut mat was still too small.  It was beginning to look like we were going to have to make a half-hour trip to buy just one new mat, at the regular price, in order to finish matting all six stalls.  

We were literally down to the last mat needed in the sixth stall, when, to our utter joy and amazement  (because we'd been measuring it for four whole stalls hoping it wasn't too small), it wasn't too small for the final corner!  In fact, it needed just quarter inch or so trimmed off part of one edge.  Whew!  So glad that mat wasn't wasted after all!

The 'thank goodness it's not too small for here' mat! (A bit dusty from storage not in a stack.)

That's all for this month's update.  I was going to mention more about the Poetess's progress, but that was making this post extremely long, so I decided to give her her own post talking about how far she's come.  Look for that soon.

Family Time

The end of June and beginning of July found DH and I having a lot of family time.  It started with beef brisket being on sale, and DH deciding he wanted to smoke a brisket on the upcoming Saturday and invite all the kids and grandkids to spend the day and have a meal. 

Everyone was invited, and told to bring a side dish to round out the dinner of smoked brisket.  All except DD2 and Brad were able to come.  The afternoon was full of kids, grandkids, ball, and smelling the brisket smoking in the smoker.  

We had baseballs, softballs, the appropriate bats as well as a batting tee, and anyone who wanted to got a chance to pitch, bat and catch.  Which was just about everyone although I only ended up with pictures of one grandson and one son-in-law actually hitting the ball.

At this little place here, we bat away from the house, into the large backyard.  If you hit it over the septic mound, it's a homerun.  If you hit it into the cornfield beyond the septic mound it's even more impressive but the fielders don't really like you because they have to go searching in the corn to find the ball.  At one point, DD1 got a little fed up with her husband because he kept hitting them into the corn for her to have to retrieve.

Buck and Rascal practicing t-ball.

Buck is a lefty.

DD1 pitching and Honorary Son hitting,

DS2 and Faline watching.

Will it go into the corn?

Once the brisket had reached the optimal internal temperature in the smoker, DH wrapped it in a towel and set it inside a cooler (without ice) to rest for an hour before serving.  He couldn't resist offering everyone a smell at the end of the rest period before removing the brisket and slicing it for serving.

Smelling the brisket, trying not to squish Sixlet in the process.

The four oldest grandkids: K3, Toad, Rascal and Faline, were invited to spend the night at this little place here, and DH built a small fire using a hollow stump.  Once it had burned a bit, smores were made with K3 and Toad doing the marshmallow roasting until they tired of cooking for the smaller kids.  After that, DH roasted a few opting to save on his back and knees by just sitting in the grass.

After church the next morning, DH and I took those four grandkids hiking at a recreational area about half an hour away.  We let the kids determine how long we hiked and were pleasantly surprised to have Rascal and Faline walk for about two miles.  Shortly before getting back to the trailhead we'd begun at, Faline announced that her "knees are tired", so DH put her up on his shoulders for a little ways before having her finish the trek on her own feet.

Faline is quite a character and is known for saying what's in her head at the moment.  Being three, she also has some funny mispronunciations and word mix-ups as her vocabulary builds.  A couple gems from the 24 hours she was with us:

 

(At bedtime, which was later than normal, and she wasn't wanting to lay down and give it in for the day yet, at which time I told her that I was really tired and wanted to go to sleep.) "My body says it's not going to sleep; you can go to sleep Ahma, but I'm not going to."

(While leading us in the common Lutheran table prayer) ". . . and Moses endures forever." (rather than ". . . His mercy endures forever.")

(When debating what toppings to get on pizza for the grandkids to share after hiking) "I don't like pickles on pizza, but I can pick them off." (referring to green peppers).

For July 4th, DS1 invited us all to his house for a cookout in honor of the fourth and for Toad's 10th birthday (his birthday is the 5th, but that was a work day.)  Again, everyone except DD2 and Brad were able to attend.  DS1 grilled hot dogs, brats and burgers and introduced us to an alternative way of cooking corn on the cob: shucked, placed in a cooler, boiling water poured over it to cover, then the lid of the cooler closed and kept shut for an hour or more.  It turned out really well.

Buck enjoying some corn.

There was some more batting happening, as DS1 had recently purchased a pop up style batting cage and a pitching machine for the kids to practice their batting skills.  All three of his kids have been playing summer ball through the school.

Apparently when it's your birthday, you can bat barefoot,

 shirtless and in shorts like Toad as along as you wear a helmet!

Back at home after that party, DH and I decided to relight the remainder of the stump from the Saturday before and get it the rest of the way burned.  Alas, it was not to be as we had no sooner gotten a fire going than the sky opened in a downpour!  We relocated into DH's shop to wait out the storm, sitting inside the opened back door.  Once the rain had passed by, there was a really bright rainbow.  A few minutes later, a fainter rainbow appeared just to the left of it.  In the photo below, you can just barely make out the double rainbow portion near the edge of the tree's branches.

We did, eventually, get that stump burned on Saturday evening, a full week after first lighting it.  It had gotten rained on and put out at least twice since then.