Not Cheeseballs: A Grandkid Tale

 See these?  These, despite the orange coloring on the package, and being snack-sized bags, are not cheeseballs.

Apparently, to a five year old, who is on a long car ride with her Papa and Amma and eldest girl cousin, on a quick glance, they give off the impression that they contain cheeseballs.

This is a story from our family vacation to Myrtle Beach last month.  K3 and Faline rode with DH and I to South Carolina.  DD1 had packed a bag of 'road snacks' for the girls, all being things that she had recently gotten from her community's weekly free food giveaway for famlies with small children (these sorts of things have popped up during the summers in many communities around us since covid, no income limits on who can get them). You cannot pick through what is offered each week, you are simply handed a bag for each child that you have.  This week snack-type items the bag contained were apples, small packages of baby carrots, little bags holding 5-6 grape tomatoes each, cheese and prezel dippers (like you'd put in your kid's lunch box), and these bright orange and white crinkly bags of small crispy feeling snacks.

Faline was super excited about this bag of (to her) mystery goodies that DD1 had sent with her with the instructions that she (Faline) couldn't eat any of the items until Papa or Amma said that it was snack time.  So excited that we were only about five miles down the road from this little place here, and thirty minutes since breakfast, when Faline started asking if she could have a snack. 

About two hours into our long drive the first day of vacation, DH and I finally told her she could choose one snack from the bag. Faline handed me one of these packages and asked if I could open it for her.  She called it cheeseballs, and I didn't read the package at all, just opened the top and handed it back to her.

Shortly after, from the backseat, DH and I heard this exclamation:

"THESE ARE NOT CHEESEBALLS!!!" said emphatically with great disgust. 

Followed by "How could Mom do this to me?!?"

Which, coming from a five year old. this statement of seeming betrayal was incredibly hilarious.  

And, when Faline handed me back the package that I'd opened for her, I could see why she was shocked and felt betrayed.  The bag did not contain cheeseballs.  It held buffalo-flavored fava bean crisps. BLECH!  Yeah, if I'd been expecting cheeseballs and popped one of these spicy crispy beans into my mouth, I'd be sorely disappointed too.  Especially if I was a kid who couldn't read the package and was going only by the coloring and the cartoony figure on it..

I confess that out of curiousity, I did pop one into my mouth.  Uh, that's a big NO from me too.  Not the bean part necessarily, but the strong buffalo flavoring on it.  I'm not a fan of buffalo chicken or anything else buffalo, apparently including fava beans.  Cheeseballs would have been a thousand times tastier.

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #11

Clamps!  Also known as grip clips, depending on the brand.

I love these things.  These are the kind that screw into the wall and grip the handles of things, thus holding them in place so they don't fall over.  I have them in my garage (broom, rake, spade), in my mudroom closet (broom, mop, etc), and in my barn (manure forks, brooms, etc.).  It's the barn application that I'm going to talk about here.

I could, and did for more than a year, just lean my barn cleaning tools against the wall.  That costs zero money to do and keeps things relatively orderly and upright.

Relatively.  

Which, over time, was not satisfying enough in the neatness or efficiency departments for me.  So in 2025 I took the clamps I had on hand that I'd originally bought for using in my garden shed (and hadn't yet because that project is still unfinishined, DH having lost interest and forgotten about completeing the little details once the walls, roof and doors were assembled together) and installed them in the barn.

I did use two different sizes, the large and medium, if I remember right, depending on how thick of a handle particular things had.

manure forks (and in the bottom right you can see the head of the extension duster)

the old broom I use for 'sweeping' up the saturated bedding in the pee spot(s) in stalls

There are still a few things, like the scoop shovel I use for wet bedding, and as a dust pan when sweeping the aisle, that get propped against the wall because their handles are super thick and I don't have a big enough clamp, but most items are hung and held in place with the clamps.

So now instead of everything being two or three tools deep and having to daily shuffle things to get to other things, and quite often having something get knocked over or tripped on, I have neatness and ease:

ah, tools neatly hung

It's so much more efficient, and satisfying, to have all the handles in a single layer and be able to quickly grab just the tool I want rather than shuffling through them all leaned against the wall .  These clips/clamps are another example of those little things that don't cost much at all but make life so much better.

I Know That My Suburban Lives

 Apologies to anyone familiar with the great hymn I Know That My Redeemer Lives who might see me as being flippant and irreverent.  That is not at all my intent here.  I love that hymn, which is why the title above, in my head, becomes a song sung to that tune.

I know that my Suburban lives!

What comfort this sweet sentence gives.

She lives, who once was given up for dead;

she lives and I'll drive her instead!

Allow me an explanation.  This is our 2005 Suburban that was my vehicle for nearly 20 years.  She's rusty.  She's got over 302,000 miles on her (original!!) engine and transmission.  

When we ordered Sweet Madame Blue in 2023, the Suburban went from my daily driver to my winter beater.  And then, in May 2025, her brakes started grinding, and DH didn't have time to replace them.  So she sat for a few months.  Then he decided that maybe he'd take her to the local auto repair shop and have them replace the brakes instead of doing it himself.  But it wasn't a priority, so she sat for another few months.  Then it was time for Sweet Madame Blue to go into hibernation in the garage for the winter, and, rather than do anything about getting those brakes fixed so I could drive the Suburban all winter, he decided it was just easier if I used the blue truck as my winter ride.

At one point, January, I think, he decided that rather than fix those brakes on the Suburban, he would just put her up for sale, as is.  We'd gotten a good twenty years out of her.  She's been from one coast to the other with us: Michigan to Florida, Michigan to South Carolina (multiple times), Michigan to Oregon. Multiple other states, even a few locations in Canada. She'd been through four teenage drivers and a (male) driver (and his buddies) who didn't always make the best decisions, and she had all the dents to show for it.  But yet, every time I (or anyone else) turned the key, she fired right up.  She wasn't ready for the scrap yard yet.  She just needed someone willing to replace the little things as they continued to get worn out over the miles and years. (Which, given recent history, was no longer DH.)

So, she sat at the end of our driveway, a for sale sign in her window, all winter and most of the spring.  Finding out that Craigslist now charges for automobile for sale ads, DH declined to list her online with them.  And, since he doesn't do Facebook, he declined to list her there either.  We're out in the country on a side road; we don't get much traffic other than tractors and our other rural neighbors (who mostly all have four-wheel drive vehicles of their own already).  Which means there wasn't much awareness of or inquiries into our Suburban.  One guy (a rural neighbor) wanted to know if we'd trade her for a dump truck load of gravel (uh, no.  Not unless that guy wanted to also give us some cash with that gravel, which he didn't).  But other than that, no interest at all.  So DH finally brought her back up to the house and parked her in our parking area.

And then, in June, he and the blue truck had an intimate encounter with a deer.  If you've been reading my blog this summer, you know how that turned out.  So, once we'd made our final decision on what to do with the totaled blue truck (you can read that here), I looked at DH and said:

"Why don't we take the Suburban in to get her brakes fixed, and she can be my winter beater again this year and I can also use her this summer and fall for hauling things like bags of grain that I used to get in the blue truck?  That way I don't have to arrange for you to go after work (and before the feed store closes) to get that sort of stuff  with me with your company truck."

Wonder of wonders, he agreed with me.  Probably because for over a month he'd found it rather inconvenient to haul farm related things for me.  A week later (because, if you know my DH, he only moves quickly on his own whims), we dropped her off at the local auto repair shop that we've used for more than a decade for things DH doesn't have the time (or tools in some cases) to fix himself.

And now, she's back on the road again!  I don't feel quite so helpless in terms of hauling things, I don't have to make arrangements with DH to go with me buy 50 pound bags of animal feed.  Because, honestly, that was really cramping my style, not to mention fuc messing up my horse training/barn work schedule.

I know that my Suburban lives! 

What comfort this sweet sentence gives.

She lives, who once was given up for dead;

she lives and I'll drive her instead!

Jedi's Progress

Jedi has been here for just over four months.  I am very pleased with his progress since he arrived in mid-April.  When he came, he was skinnier than I had expected (hadn't laid eyes on him in a couple of weeks since K3 and I had gone out for a test ride on him).  He was also way jumpier, tense almost all the time when being handled and didn't seem to know how to cross-tie.

April, a quick picture in a brief moment of stillness in the cross ties 

(at that time he would stand still for up to a minute, as long as there were other horses in the barn with him.)

I'm very happy with his weight gain, he's starting to look round now, and his spine no longer is a ridge that runs down his back.

nice 'flat' spine, not a ridge of bones

He also stands nicely in the cross ties most of the time, even without other horses in the barn with him.  I can trust him to stand quietly for a grandkid to groom him and not knock them over with a sudden jump sideways or forward, and he doesn't ever pull back on the ties.

Early August, he now stands calmly all by himself (no other horses in the barn) most of the time.

Also note how more filled out his body is compared to the April picture.

 He trusts us (me, DH, K3, and lately Faline has started handling him) now and isn't tense around us.  He does still have moments of forgetting to respect personal space--usually when being led out to the pasture--but even those are becoming fewer and farther between.

K3 and I have taught him to longe calmly rather than race around us in frantic circles.  He is learning to take polite contact with the longe line, and also to stay out on the end of it for his circle rather than crowding us or trying to cut through the center with a hugely drooping line that he could get his feet tangled in.

He stands quietly at the mounting block for kids to get on, and Faline to get off.  He still fidgets when I go to mount him, but not as badly.  We're still overcoming old habits and his prior (lack of??) training.

a business-like walk

K3 rides him around at walk and trot, his steering has improved and he hasn't walked (or trotted) through her reins in a while.  His trot, which was so tense and very sewing-machine-like (legs going straight up and down), is becoming more relaxed and longer strides forward with his legs.

K3 riding a long trot stride!

He has improved so much, in fact, that earlier this month I decided he was probably safe enough (trustworthy enough) to try putting Faline on.

Faline, posing for a picture pre-ride.

With me leading him, and DD1 walking on his right side as a spotter, Faline has ridden him twice now, about 10 minutes each time, at a walk.  She's never been on a horse before, so she's a little intimidated by his size and the newness of sitting up on a living thing that moves on its own.  Both rides have been very successful in terms of her enjoyment, and his good behavior.

We are on the right track, for sure.  I believe he will be (probably next year, since I don't see any of the grandkids riding much in the cold weather) a good horse that they all can ride and be safe on.  Which was the whole point of buying him.

Bye-Bye, Blue Truck

 Well, we finally got everything all sorted out with what to do with the Blue Truck after DH hit a deer with it back in late June.  Insurance claim, repair estimates, the insurance company declaring it totaled, do we want to salvage it (buy it back from the insurance company and take market value untotaled minus market value totaled as our settlement), let the insurance company have it (and get a settlement for entire pretotaled market value), if we salvage it do we want to repair it ourselves or pay a body shop to repair it or just sell it as-is to someone else (theoretically getting the same dollar figure overall as if we had let the insurance company have it). . .

There were a lot of scenarios to run through in making our decision.  That took several weeks, especially as we had our family vacation to Myrtle Beach not too many weeks after the deer hit took place.  There was just a ton going on during that time frame and trying to figure out each what if for the Blue Truck's future couldn't always be the front and center thing of conversation between DH and I.  So the calendar turned to August before we finally made our decision and wrapped everything up with the insurance company.

We salvaged the truck.  We did not let the insurance company have it.

DH talked to a few family members in regards to their interest in the truck as is; each of them had expressed, in the past, an interest in purchasing it if we should ever sell it.  Would any of them be interested in it now, knowing what repairs it needed?

Yes.  One of them would.  They didn't care about the cosmetics of the dented pieces that still work perfectly fine.  With no mechanical damage, the truck still operates exactly as a truck should.  They knew someone who, for their labor, would do the repairs on the safety features if the family member bought (new or from a salvage yard) the parts.

But did we really want to sell it?  Or did we want to see what a dealer (probably the one whose collision center had done the repair estimate for the insurance claim) would give us for it as a trade in if we ordered a brand new truck?  Afterall, DH has been rolling around the idea of a new truck, perhaps a three-quarter ton, for a few years now.  Plus, in the Spring, it will be four years since we bought Sweet Madame Blue, and part of DH's 'level' with his employer (and the accompanying company vehicle) requires us to purchase a new (of that brand) vehicle every four years. . . 

After many hours of soul searching (mostly on DH's part, as my opinion could only be given so many times without it starting to feel like a character attack), it was decided that we would not repair the truck ourselves.  Because a) DH really doesn't have the desire to do that stuff--work on auto repairs--anymore, b) lacking desire it would be something to easily put off for months and months and (you get the picture), c) I absolutely refuse to drive it lacking some necessary saftey features--part of the repairs that would be a pain in the ass to do and likely be put off (such as replacing the seat belts).

We decided not to pay a collision center/body shop to do the repairs because other than the seat belts and side airbags, they are easy enough for a person with desire and a little knowledge to do themselves.

We decided to sell the truck, in it's current condition, to the family member who wanted it for the same price as the insurance had deducted as it's crashed value in our insurance claim.  Late last week, DH delivered it to them.

So, bye-bye Blue Truck.  Thank you for your service.  Sorry you met that deer in late June, sorry that we won't be owning you anymore.  Hopefully family member does right by you and appreciates the work you will do for them.

Blue Truck, when it was new

Anansi

In late July, I stopped in my local library to return the book I had taken on vacation with me, and while I was there I saw a tray with about six tiny cups holding baby spider plants.  I also noticed that the library--which is very tiny as libraries go--had been somewhat rearranged in the about three weeks it had been since I was last there.  There was now a big spider plant in a pot in the front window behind the checkout desk, and, I suspected, that big spider plant was the source of the little 'potted' babies.

The tray had a sign that said "Free", and each little spider plant had a popsicle stick in it with a small envelope hanging from the stick that said "Adopt a baby spider plant".  Inside the envelope was a small booklet on baby spider plant care.

Each little (paper, looks like a ketchup cup from Burger King) pot had a small, infant sized wrist band taped around it, and each of those bands sported a name.  Every name was a character in a book, and while I didn't recognize all of them, I suspect they had something spider-related in common.

When I read this one, Anansi, I knew that I would be taking a baby spider plant home with me.  Because Anansi is not only a character in a book, but it is also a song by Raffi.  When my kids were little, we listened to a lot of Raffi. We had many Raffi cds. The lyrics to Anansi immediately popped into my head:

Anansi, he is a spider,

Anansi, he is a man.

Anasi, he is a lazy one,

Do as little as he can. . .

The song goes on of course, look it up if you don't know it (beware, it will stick in your head!).

Yep, that little plant, that Anansi, was definitely waiting for me to show up and claim it.  So I did.  He went home with me, cherished like an unexpected prize.

Once home, I opened the envelope and found the care booklet. Also inside the little envelope, was a teeny tiny certificate of adoption with the plant's name on it and other parts to be filled in by the adopter.  The envelope, booklet and adoption certificate are all very cute and remind me of the little things inside the pages of the Jolly Postman books.  Whomever at the library came up with this idea for rehoming their (unwanted--not enough room) baby spider plants did a brilliant job.

This little Anansi has gotten a new, bigger, more durable pot.  And a place with indirect light.  I had been wanting a spider plant for a while, it's been many years since my last one died (cats?  young children?), and now I have a new baby one to enjoy.

Games Horse People Play

 There are many 'games' that people who spend copious amounts of time around horses are familiar with.  Probably the most well known is "Catch Me If You Can" (which sometimes is also called "Tag, You're It"), where the horse person goes out into the pasture to catch the horse and bring them in (usually to ride, sometimes for the farrier or the vet), and the horse, spying the person from across the pasture comes part of the way to the person, then spins and runs off in the opposite direction.  If the person gives chase, following the horse, this can go on for a long time. That one is one of my most hated games, and I refuse to play it unless absolutely necessary (there are ways to train this out of a horse, but you must be diligent in the process).

There's also "Find the Shoe", in which the horse loses one of their shoes, either by getting it sucked off in mucky spring mud, or steps on the heel of it with the toe of a rear foot while running and wrenching it loose (in which instance it may go briefly airborne).  Either way, there's a metal shoe out in the pasture somewhere, and the person is tasked with finding it.  Over the years, and working and multiple farms with shod horses, I've gotten to what is probably expert level in that game.  It's time consuming, but I can succeed.

Another is "Where's My Halter?",  where the horse, turned out with a halter on either rubs it off on something (their leg, a tree, the water trough, a fence post, the edge of a run-in shed or other building) or entices their pasturemate(s) to play Bitey-Face and pull the halter off for them.  Then the horse person must search the pasture to find the halter so they can put it back on and lead the horse from the pasture back to the barn or whereever else the person had it in mind to take the horse.  I also avoid this one by not leaving halters on during turnout (a few exceptions being if the horse is new and unfamiliar with the barn routine or hard to catch [see "Catch Me If You Can"]).

The latest one I have had the dubious honor of playing (thanks, Tubbs) is "Fly Mask, Or Pile of Horse Poop?"  Tubbs always wears a fly mask over his face when he goes outside, even in the cold weather when there are no flies.  This is because he once had a cancerous tumor on the lower lid of his right eye, which, during treatment of said tumor, left him with light sensitivity and decreased vision in that eye as well as missing a small chunk of eyelid.  So he wears his mask as both protection from bugs and other things that might get into that eye and as sunglasses against the UV rays.

Tubbs, however, would prefer not to wear a mask.  He likes to try to rub his off.  He also has a tendencey to shred them.  A couple of weeks ago, his owner brought him out a brand new mask to replace the one he wore into dilapidation.  The 'old' mask was a light grey color.  The new mask is a stylish black (he's a black horse, so this one, at a glance, blends right into his head).  Unfortunately the mask not only matches the color of his hair, it matches the color of every manure pile in his pasture.

So, one recent evening, when I went to bring the horses into their stalls for dinner, I found Tubbs mask-less.  Which meant, ready or not, I got to play "Fly Mask, Or Pile of Horse Poop?" and try to find his mask in the expanse of pasture.

In the three pictures above, can you tell which black splotch is a pile of poop and which is the fly mask?

If you said the fly mask is in the third picture, you'd be correct.  But without getting up close, it's hard to tell which is which.  Definitely not a fun game when you are searching an acre of pasture.  Then again, none of these games horses like to volunteer their people to play are very fun.  Just another reason horse people are crazy.