Au Revoir, Little Black Mare

 LBM, the Little Black Mare, has gone to a new home.  This is something that started in motion a couple of weeks ago, and that I wanted to wait until it was a done deal and she was at her new farm to post about.

Her owner had told me this past spring, that since she never had time to come over to this little place here and do anything with the LBM, that she was probably going to try to find her a new owner.  Meanwhile, she wanted to keep the LBM in training with me, so that the LBM would have the best possible chance at the kind of new home the owner wished to find.  

All summer and thus far into the fall, I've kept up the regular rides with the LBM, especially taking her out trail riding, as a trail riding home (rather than a horse show home) seemed like it would be the best fit for the LBM's temperament and build.

In the middle of October, I got a text from the owner, asking if I might have time to take some pictures of LBM and send to her, so that she could forward them on to a prospective buyer.  She had been in contact with this person, who had turned out to be someone she'd actually known in the past but lost touch with several years ago, and felt like he would provide an acceptable home for the LBM.

Being that I was not super busy, and it was a beautiful day, I was able to run outside, grab LBM from her pasture, brush her up and take a couple dozen pictures.  One of which is above.  After putting LBM back in her pasture, I went through the pictures, chose about 7 or 8 of the best ones, and sent them to her owner.  The owner was very pleased with the pictures (I'd done them as close to professional sale ad pictures as I could with just me to handle the horse), and the prospective buyer was too.  He requested to set up a time the following Saturday to come meet the LBM, see me ride her, and possibly ride her himself.

That day came, another awesome weather day, and everything just seemed to align perfectly.  The owner liked him.  I got a sense that he would be a good match for the LBM both personality-wise and skill-wise.  He liked the LBM.  And, importantly, the LBM seemed to really like him; she calmly did everything he asked of her even though he was a total stranger.  A match made in heaven, if you will.  

A verbal deal was made between owner and buyer, the three of us set up a date and time for him to return with a check (for the owner) and a trailer (to take the LBM to her new home in).

Five days before she was scheduled to leave, I split up the LBM and the Poetess.  They had been pasturemates since about the second week of operation as a horse farm at this little place here.  To (hopefully) make the LBM's departure a little easier on both of them, I started a pseudo weaning by separating them, but just by a fenceline.  This forced them apart, yet they could still see each other in the adjacent pasture and could touch over the fence if they felt necessary.  They took that right in stride, often grazing calmly on opposite ends of their pastures from each other, not at all worried that they could no longer be side by side all day.

The first 10 minutes of separate pastures.

Because the LBM's owner had prepaid for October's training sessions, I continued to work the LBM as scheduled.  I did adjust the focus of the rides to less arena work and 90% riding outside the arena.  Her new owner was hoping, as long as the weather stayed favorable, to maybe take her on some trail rides with his friends and their horses yet this fall.  So I rode her all over my property, looking at every thing that could possibly be spooky and trekking right on past it without any blow-ups or getting eaten by any monsters (like the buck we scared up in the woods).  

On our last ride around the property, I took some pictures from on her back, with plans to share them with her owner (seller).

On the path between my pastures and the neighbor's grain field.

In the back side of my woods.

On November first, the sale was completed.  The LBM followed her new owner into his horse trailer, and away she went to her new life.  The Poetess watched, intermittently called out for her friend in the first two hours after the LBM departed, then settled back to grazing.  Exactly the reaction I'd hoped she would have when I decided to separate them days ahead of time to make the final separation less traumatic for them both.

Goodbye, Little Black Mare.  I'm so excited for your new life of adventuring and exploring more trails with your new owner.

Books Read in 2026: October

 Freckles by Cecelia Ahern. I love Cecelia Ahern's novels.  Unfortunately, there are a few that I cannot get from my library because not only does that particular library system (county with about a dozen branches) not own a copy, apparently no library in Michigan that participates in the state interlibrary loan system does either.  So I will in such instances buy a used copy off eBay.  This is one of those 'hard to get' novels: I had to buy it.  In a way, I found the novel much different than her others; most of it reads rather dark and depressing.  I hurt for the main character and hoped that the hole she seemed to be falling/digging herself into via her personal choices wasn't going to end badly.  I won't spoil the story, but the closer I got to the end of the book the more I liked it and I could see the author's trademark storyline (or, at least what I count on her books to contain) become revealed.

One For The Money by Janet Evanovich.  Other than a short Christmas-themed novel, I had not read any of this widely known author's books.  While I hadn't been very impressed with that one holiday book I did read, I've heard glowing recommedations about this series and I was determined to finally give it a real try myself.  Well, turned out I DNF'ed it after about three attempts to read it.  Just not my style, I guess.  A bit too crass, and fluffy at the same time.  Sorry Janet Evanovich fans, Stephanie Plum is just not for me.  In a way, I guess that's a good thing, as now I don't have to worry about getting ahold of the two dozen-some books about her.

Murder on Millionaires' Row by Erin Lindsey.  This is a book I had picked up at a book swap either this spring or last fall.  Set in the late 1890's, it sounded like it could be interesting. For most of the book, I really liked it.  There were a few parts I found a bit unrealistic (interactions between classes, genders and races being specifically mentioned appropriate for the time period, yet a page later being more modern day), and I was willing to overlook them because it was fast paced and I was interested in solving the whodunit portion, as it is supposedly a mystery book.  After more than 250 pages, I just couldn't go on.  Not only were the interpersonal depictions getting annoyingly modern, the paranormal aspect of the story that had just been a passing mention in the beginning--and I thought went along with the time period as lots of people at that time believed in spirits, etc.--kind of took over and depictions of that detracted from the whole mystery aspect for me.  Paranormal is not my genre, and I lost interest in finding out whodunit.  I was really disappointed because the book had started so promisingly and I had been looking forward to a mystery set within that time period.

The Jump by Natalie Keller Reinert.  I stumbled across this one at my local library, saw the horse on the cover, read the blurb, and it sounded appealing.  It sucked me in.  Comparing my personal experiences through 40+ years, I found this book to be believable (horse themed fiction books written by people with little to none actual horse farm/training experience drive me up the wall) and accurate in its decriptions.  Can't wait to look up more by this author!

A Little Complainy-ness

 This week has not been bad.  Just a few irritating things that I'm going to get off my chest.  If you're curious, read on.  If you've had enough irritations of your own this week, feel free to skip.

ONE

These stairs finally got me.  We built them out of railroad ties 20+ years ago.  They are part of the retaining wall, also built out of railroad ties, that hold back the earth between the upper level of yard behind the garage and the lower level of the patio and backyard (we have a walkout basement).  Being wood, and already old when we got them--they had been used under honest to goodness train tracks for who knows how long before being deemed no longer usable for that purpose, then removed and sold for $5 each--the railroad ties have decayed over the decades since we built with them.  Several of the steps are no longer horizontally level, and a few not only tilt side to side but also back to front.  

Replacing the retaining wall and stairs has been on our project list for about four years now, but it will be an expensive and time consuming project and we haven't been able to do it yet.  First there was DH's shop to build so that we could  finish off the barn for housing horses and not kayaks, canoes, lawn mower, snowmobiles, tractor, bicycles. . .  And then there was the whole horse fencing and stalls and tack room project. . . 

Well, on Wednesday I was heading down these stairs and I fell.  About 3-4 steps from the bottom, my foot slipped on an uneven railroad tie and it plus my other foot went flying out from underneath me.  In a split second of self-preservation (trained into my brain from going off horses over the years?), I shifted my weight so that I would neither pitch forward and whack my head on the patio pavers, nor backward and whack my head on a railroad tie.  Instead, I sat down, whacking my tailbone --OUCH!-- and my right elbow --OUCH!

Nothing broken, just some scratches through my shirt sleeve, some lovely bruises and a tailbone that does not appreciate riding a sitting trot currently.

TWO

So much junk mail in the mailbox this week!  Not only annoying political flyers (whose saving grace is that we can burn them in the wood burner for a teensy tiny bit of heat), but this crap that was made to look potentially like some sort of (wedding?) invitation that was hand addressed but when you open it is actually from a company that makes replacement windows wanting to sell you some.  UGH!  Waste my time opening it to see what it is, only to toss it into the burn garbage pile.

THREE

This trash bin was supposed to be taken out the evening before.  It's my husband's responsibility to take it from behind the garage, where it sits during the week, to the end of the driveway.  I'm the one who actually goes around the house and barn and gathers up the trash and puts it all into the bin, DH just has to take it to the road once a week.  

I had told him, as he saw me with a full trash bag in my hand before dinner that evening, that I was going to put the bag into the trash bin, and then the bin would be ready to go to the road.  A couple of hours later, I asked him if he'd taken the bin to the end of the driveway.  "I forgot.  I'll do it in the morning," was the response.

In the morning when I went out to feed horses, I noticed the bin was still behind the garage.  So, while I was cooking his breakfast, I reminded DH that he needed to take the bin to the road.  He said he'd do it when he left for work.  An hour after he left for work, I went out the garage door to head to (my work) the barn to get horses turned out and there was the bin, still behind the garage.  

I ended up lugging it to the end of the driveway (500') before walking back to the barn to turn out horses and start my next several hours of barn work.  The man swears he hasn't developed increasing memory problems this year, but I'm finding that hard to believe.

FOUR

My foldable wooden drying rack broke.  WAAAHHHH!  This is probably the third drying rack I've had in the 35 years since I left my parent's home at 19 (the others having succumbed to the dangers of existing near young children).  I love this thing, especially for drying delicates and other Do Not Dry in Dryer items of clothing.  I'm tempted to grab DH's wood glue and have a go at fixing it, but then it won't be foldable any more as once glue is involved the support won't rotate around the dowel.  Maybe I should just put a new one on my Birthday/Christmas List (since they are both in December I have one list) and hope the gift faeries/elves/my loved ones bring me a new one.

Okay, that's all my complainies for now.  Thanks for listening (reading?)

Check, Check, and Check

Last weekend, we got a few major/minor tasks crossed off our to do list.  Major because they are important, minor because each of them was relatively small.  All of them needed to be done before winter weather hits.

 Cellar insulation

Last January, I noticed that in several places down in my cellar, the insulation was missing.  Or that rodents had chewed through it. Both of which were letting in a major amount of cold air.  Since my well tank and the water lines that go into the house are located in the cellar, all that cold air in January was a problem: my water line froze in one small spot.  And, because DH was out of town at the time, I 'fixed' the problem the way that was available to me at the time: I stuffed rags/old clothes into each spot that had an air leak.  

I was able to thaw the water line, and the rags stayed in place the rest of the winter.  Actually, until this past weekend.

DH used some pieces of that thick pink insulation board to make patches to cover up the leaky spots.  He also used a can of expandable foam insulation to seal things up where the pink board didn't fit.  Now there should be no frigid gusts of air to freeze the pipes in the cellar during the winter.

Feed room faucets insulation

A couple of times last winter (both in January if I remember right), the water faucets in my feed room froze.  Inside the tack room, the water for the sink still flowed just fine, so we figured the problem was in the wall where the water lines run from the tack room to the feed room.  DH thought he had put enough insulation in the stud cavity, but apparently not.  He'd used fiberglass batts, which were kind of hard to snug tightly around the pipes.

His plan, when the (supposedly frost free) faucets froze, was to wait until summer, and stick some expandable foam insulation in the wall specifically around the plumbing.  Summer came, and he forgot (his short term memory has become a worry of mine this year, but that's a topic for another post).  I reminded him in September, and after his memory had been refreshed, he said it was on his list to do yet this fall.

So I was really happy when, can of Great Stuff in hand, he announced he was going to add insulation to those faucets.  As you can tell from the photo below, there's a little bit that needs to trimmed off the wall on the tack room side.  Hopefully now we truly do have freeze proof water in the feed room!

Stall #1 floor

This stall has been a tool room/storage area ever since we got the mats laid two years ago.  While we were building the tack room--for about an entire year--we not only kept a table full of tools in here, but also many, many totes (awaiting those shelves to be built after the tack room itself was walled in) as well as the bales of pine shavings I use for bedding the stalls.

Being so long unoccupied by a living animal walking around on the mats, we had some opportunistic rodents tunnel their way in under the outside walls and move around the gravel under the mats to make themselves nice little runs and nesting sites.  And now that the tack room was (finally) finished and I no longer needed that stall for storage, having holes and tunnels under the mats was a problem.

We had some gravel leftover from making our gate pads this past spring, and I had earmarked it for fixing the stall floor.  I just needed DH to make himself available to help me remove the mats, shovel the gravel in the low spots, tamp it solid and level, then put the mats back in place.  He, of course, did not want to do this in the heat of summer, so it was very low priority on his personal to do list.

Well, the hot weather is long gone, and the little pile of gravel left in our parking area awaiting the floor repair needed to be out of there before the snow falls and the parking area needs to be plowed.  So, it made its way up to the top of DH's to do list (finally).

Removing the mats was no fun.  But the floor repair itself was pretty quick and easy.  And the mats were much easier to reinstall than they had been to install back in 2024!  I'm glad to have that done.  Now my priority is to get another boarder horse so that it can live in this stall, which should do the trick for deterring any new sub-mat excavating by rodents.

I Found a Quilt Show!

 Earlier this month, I saw, online, that there was going to be a quilt show at an elementary school in a town only about 15 miles away.  It was being put on by a quilt guild in the county south/southwest of the one I live in.  (Not the same quilt guild as the shows I went to in 2023 and 2025).

Being as DH was going to be out of town that day, I figured --other than horse and chicken chores--my time was my own, and I was going to spend some of it at the quilt show.

It was not nearly as large as the two quilt shows I'd been to at my county fairgrounds (here and here), but it was still a nice show with lots of lovely quilts to look at.  They even had a section that was heirloom quilts ranging in age from about 70 years to over 100 years old!  I wish I had though to take pictures of those, but I didn't.  I was just in awe that they had survived for so many years, and was looking at the fabrics they had been made of.

I did take some pictures of the new quilts, and I will share those with you.

This pattern is called Board and Batten, and is all squares and half-square triangles. It can be bought online. Frugal me, I took a few up close pictures of it (that I'm not going to post) because I can more than likely figure out the size of pieces used and replicate it that way (rather than buying a pattern), only using different colors.

The calm colors of this sampler quilt look so inviting.  Who wouldn't want to cozy up in a bed covered by a quilt like this?

This one also caught my eye.  I like the diagonal flow, as well as the toned-down and ombre rainbow color aspect.

This one is also a variation of using rainbow type colors.  It is all rectangles made out of triangles if that makes any sense to you.

The maker of this quilt has amazing talent!  She took a photo (of her husband), then using that photo, designed a quilt, found all the fabrics in colors like the photo, cut and pieced them together and, after 10 months, had made this!  It was fascinating to examine all the little pieces she used.  Talk about fabric art!

This is another that caught my eye.  While the colors aren't 'my' colors, I like the concept.  The quilting was also very interesting.  

This quilt was made using an Eric Carle fabric line.  My grandkids (and kids) would love it!

I took a picture of this quilt because the blocks are Crossed Canoes (although the quilter called them something else).  I have templates for Crossed Canoes, I used them to make a baby quilt a few years ago. This is a different setting than what I made, so I took a photo for inspiration of possibly using those templates in this way in the future.

A little snippet of a quilt that did a variation of the braid pattern.  I kind of liked it, which is why I took this close up picture; to remind myself of trying a braid horizontally (and with a neutral on one side) rather than vertically and with colored pieces on both sides.  Done like this, it brings to mind books tilted on a shelf, or maybe fallen dominoes.

This quilt was a combination of rows of piecing and rows of embroidery.  And while I myself don't really go for row quilts (the assembly style of this), I really loved the embroidery on it.

I did not take a picture of this quilt in its entirity, as when you backed up far enough to get it all in the camera frame the quilting did not show up.  But this is a whole cloth quilt, where you take one color of fabric and use that for the entire quilt (rather than piecing multiple fabrics together) and then you quilt it to make the designs and texture.  So elaborate up close.  It was a big quilt, probably queen bed sized.

This log cabin quilt was made of so many tiny strips.  Hundreds, maybe even thousands.  

This quilt was all applique and embroidery.  I can only imagine the hours put into it.  And the patience.  I think I'd probably try doing all those tiny little strips of the previous log cabin quilt rather than spending just as many hours on applique and embroidery like the maker of this quilt did.

Happy Friday Things

 This week has flown by.  It's been a busy one for sure, and in some ways feels like it may possibly have been 14 days long rather than the regular seven.

Here are some things that made me happy this week:

>Beautiful weather.  Truly, you couldn't ask for better October weather in Michigan than what we've had: chilly nights, cloudless (and mostly windless) days, and highs in the 60s.  I have done so. much. riding. this week, taking advantage of the great days while they last.

I am so in love with that blue sky!

>Because of the great weather, I've still been able to hang laundry out to dry on the clothesline.  And because I've been out at the clothesline, I discovered mushrooms under the leaves that have coated the grass there for the last couple of weeks.  I don't know what kind of mushrooms they are, and because of that, I won't be eating any of them.  But I still like seeing them.

>DH got home from elk hunting in Colorado.  While he himself did not get an elk this year, his hunting buddy finally did (buddy has gone every year with DH and until now never shot anything).  Buddy insisted that he does not like tenderloins, so he gave those to DH.  We enjoyed several meals of tenderloin this week.

>I made a trip to the nearby Amish market for spices, baking supplies, and raw milk cheese, and happened to be there on the day that they make cinnamon rolls.  So I brought home a pan of those to share with DH.  Two breakfasts I don't have to cook!

>The road I take to get to the Amish market is nearly covered in trees in a few places.  It was hard to get a good picture of the fall colors through there, but it was a really pretty drive.

>One of the days I was riding the Poetess, she actually took proper dressage contact (versus racehorse training contact) with the bit at the trot, rounded through her back and just gave me the most big beautiful trot!  This is something we've been working towards for a while, and it was such an outstanding feeling when it finally happened.  Of course, as all things go when training horses, the very next ride we couldn't reproduce it.  *sigh*  But at least now I know it's in there and she is capable of it.  I will hold that powerful yet floaty feeling in my memory and keep working at making that our normal trot.

I Got Set Up By Sixlet

This boy.  He's gonna be trouble.  Smart as a whip, and devilish too.

He's just two and a half, yet he took something DH told him, thought about it and an hour or so later had a joke on me.  It went like this:

We had him and him alone for a few hours one afternoon.  One of the first things he did after coming to our house, was to walk over to the counter in the kitchen where I keep my cookie jar, and ask his Papa if he could have a snack.

DH, noting Sixlet's chosen location by the cookie jar rather than the fridge or the pantry, where we typically dole out snacks from, told him that we didn't have any cookies because "Amma ate them all."  

I protested that I had not eaten them all; that the day before there had been two cookies, Papa had taken one and then given me the other--the last one.

We offered him some grapes, or an apple instead, both of which Sixlet declined.

They went outside to play for a while.  When they returned inside, Sixlet again asked for a snack, this time opening the door on the side of the pantry where I keep crackers and things like that.  I told him I had (mini) pretzels, and asked if he would like some of those.  He loves pretzels, so he eagerly accepted my offer.  DH put a handful of pretzels in a small bowl for him, and the three of us went into the livingroom.

Sixlet and I were sitting on the couch, with DH in his recliner, and Sixlet offered me a pretzel, then ate several of his pretzels, and offered me another one of them.  I like pretzels, so I ate what he gave me. 

When his bowl was empty, he asked DH if he could have more, and DH put another handful, which happened to be the remainder of the bag, into Sixlet's bowl.  

"That's all there is," DH told Sixlet.

Sixlet ate this second serving more slowly, offering me the broken parts of the pretzels and eating the intact ones himself.  As the bowl got close to being empty again, he paused, eating the last two whole pretzels before picking out four small pieces, which he offered to me.  I asked him if he wanted them, but he shook his head and said "for you, Amma."  So I ate them.

No sooner had I chewed up and swallowed those four pieces, than Sixlet turned to DH, holding up his bowl and tipping it upside down so DH could see that it was empty.  

"Amma ate all the pretzels!" he announced accusatorily, quite proud of himself.

That little squirt set me up!  He'd eaten all the unbroken pretzels, and then, when there were only crumbs left, he'd given those to me--without me asking for any--and insisted that I should eat them.  And once I had, he couldn't wait to show his Papa that there were no more pretzels.

If he can plot that in his head and execute it at just two, I can only imagine what he'll come up with as a teenager.