Random Stuff

 Is this a happy things on Friday post?  Is it a May recap post?  Who knows?  I'm not sure.  Let's find out together!

My irises are beginning to bloom.  I added quite a few new-to-me varieties last year, through trading rhizomes with a friend and through buying some from local and online nurseries.

Many Mahalos

variety unknown, probably very old

ditto

Easter Candy

Locally, schools are wrapping up for the summer.  The district that all my school-aged grandkids attend, and where DD1 teaches at, finished this week. Faline graduated from Kindergarten, and insisted on choosing her own outfit to wear to the celebration in the elementary school gym.  

I've been working a lot on getting the garden planted, including transplanting the plants I started in the house.  While the basil I sewed from (old) seeds didn't grow well, apparently their cup made a handy spot for a grey treefrog to take up residence while the rest of the plants were hardening off pre-transplanting.

strangest looking basil plant I've ever seen

using my 2+ decades old Farm Bureau yardstick to space the tomato plants

DH and I found two spots around the property where there are golden oyster mushrooms growing on old stumps.  They are quite yummy and I've been incorporating them into our dinner menu.

lovely clump of mushrooms

underside

All spring, DH and I have been wanting to have a fire in order to burn some brush and accumulated paper garbage (in the winter we put the 'burn garbage' into the wood boiler, but that has been shut down for a few weeks now that warm weather is here.)  Either it's been too rainy, or too windy, or we've been too busy on the good weather evenings to light the brush pile.  Finally, on Sunday after dinner the wind was calm enough to safely get things lit and burned off.  I took advantage of the 'down time' while watching the fire to do a little knitting on the second sock of the pair I am making for my Dad.

Tis the season for raccoons to become a pest issue.  One morning this week I went out to feed horses and found that my feed room had been pillaged.  Luckily they hadn't gotten into the containers I keep the grain in (due to the nature and placement of the containers), but they did manage to get into one of Crockett and Tubbs' supplement buckets and spill some onto the floor as well as make a mess in their endeavors to get to the food stuffs.  So, out came the live trap.  I baited it with dry cat food (a favorite 'treat' of raccoons) in the hopes of catching the perpetrator that night.

Imagine my surprise the next morning to find I'd gotten a two-fer!  This sometimes happens with a mama coon followed by her young into the trap, but it's the first time we've ever had two full grown raccoons squeeze into the trap close enough together that the door snapped closed on both of them.

Partners in crime?

The trap has been rebaited and set every night, and we have caught five adult coons near the barn, plus one more in the (smaller) live trap I set near the front porch after finding coon manure right in front of my front door.  Rude little buggers!

On the way to Faline's graduation the other afternoon, I had to drive a different way than I usually take due to a road construction detour.  I spied this happy stump on the edge of a field and just had to pull over for a quick photo.

Hoses, The Bane of My (Farming) Existence

 Hoses.  Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

At least, on the farm, you can't do without them.  As frustrating--and sometimes back-breaking--as they can be, hoses are a necessary evil if you have animals and plants to water on a frequent basis.  

There's the hose needed for inside the barn that can reach from the spigot to each and every stall, for the daily filling of the water buckets.  Depending on the length of your barn, and therefore the length of your hose--that one can be pretty easy to deal with.  It still needs to be coiled up neatly and stashed out of the way between uses, but it's usually a short enough hose that it's not terribly heavy to move around.

But then there's the hose(s) needed for outside, the long hose combination necessary to get to the water troughs.  Because, in the summer especially, who wants to hand carry 10 gallons of water per horse per day to each trough?  A hose does the job much more easily, and, since it's doing the carrying its much easier to fill a 100 gallon trough once a week or so than hand carry that 10 gallons per horse daily.  Once you get to know your particular set up combination of hose diameter and length, distance to trough, and water pressure provided by your well pump, you can figure out how many minutes it takes to fill each water trough.  Armed with that knowledge, you can make efficient use of your time by geting the hose stretched out and into a particular trough, turn on the water, then go do something else (like clean a stall) while the well pump and the hose do the work of refilling the trough.  You don't need to stand there while the water flows. Just come back and remove the hose (and typically start the process over at the next tank) after that specific number of minutes has passed.

But that's when it works.  When it doesn't, you have to hunt down and remedy kinks in the hose.  Which, it seems with any hose manufactured in the last 10 years or so, happens every single time you try to coil up your hose or roll it onto a hose reel.  ARGH!  I haven't figured out yet what the flippin' deal is with these modern hoses, but kinking wasn't such an every time all the time thing in my previous decades of horse farm work. Not to say it didn't happen, because it did, but not every single time the hose was used (or multiple times in one use).

And when the hoses are actually behaving, once the kink has been tamed, the next frustration is the snake-like twisting that hoses want to do.  Can they just roll up nicely in a continuous cranking of the handle on the hose reel?  NO!  They must twist themselves around every which way, so that periodically you must stop turning the handle and straighten the hose back out into a twist-free unknotted line, then resume cranking again.

No picture to go with this next woe, but periodically you also have to deal with a hose that has sprung a leak.  Now your water pressure is being lost due to a pin sized hole in the hose that sprays water out before the end where the water is supposed to exit.  A pinhole that, when you keep using the hose-- because, let's face it, neither duct tape nor baling twine is gonna fix it, and you so much dread going hose shopping and trying to pick out a better, more durable, less kink-prone hose in an afforbable price range (truly,  there's no 'affordable' 100 foot long hose out there)--suddenly gets to the point that there's a geyser shooting out of your leaky hose and the water trough is not the recipient of the majority of the water.  This not only makes it take forever to fill a trough, but it leaves a huge muddy mess somewhere along the hundreds of feet where the hose lies on the ground in order to reach said trough.  Worse yet, a holey hose that sprays water inside your barn where puddles are definitely not okay.

When that happens, you must go hose shopping.  Not only must you go hose shopping, you must remove all 200 feet of hose from your hose reel--because it, of course, is the hose that is hooked to the water supply connector on the hose reel and not the hose closest to the 'top' of the hose reel that sprung the leak--unscrew the leaky hose from both the hose reel water supply piece and the other 100' hose attached to said leaky hose, then uncoil the new hose and attach it to the other hose plus the hose reel, and wind all that back up again onto the reel.

Without tangling any of the now 300' of hose (old plus new) spread out in the vicinity of the hose reel.

And, if you are dealing with 100' or more of hose that needs to be used/moved frequently, you are going to want a hose reel.  One hundred feet of hose (especially decent quality hose), while possible to coil into big loops and throw over your shoulder, is kind of heavy.  Add a second hose and now you're stooped under the weight of it.  And let me tell you that no, it wouldn't just be easier to drag it.  It's still heavy and now you've added the resistance of the friction with the ground.

So, hose reels.  Also not cheap.  It's best to just resolve yourself to the truth that you are going to have to hand over your hard earned cash for a hose reel in the three-figure price range.  Don't think you can get by with one in the upper two-figures.  Learn from my mistake (that was, luckily, fully refundable) with those lower end reels; they aren't made well and won't hold up.  In my case, my cheapy hose reel didn't even make it through ten days of nightly filling two water buckets in the barn before it started spraying through the reel itself where the water supply connector had cracked.  That one went back where it came from immediately the next morning.  In it's place I (wincingly) bought a heavier duty model for twice the price and have been loving my hefty hose reel for almost two and a half years so far.  

That's just the barn area hose-related part of life.  There's also the (large) garden hose issues.  A garden of size needs more 100' hoses.  Those hoses also will kink and twist and at times run over and break off your tender veggie plants even when you're trying to be careful where you are dragging the hose through.  They too will eventually spring leaks.  And so will the splitter attachment for the hydrant at the garden so you can attach two hoses to one hydrant and water two spots simultaneously with sprinklers. Typically a new gasket in the splitter will fix that.  Those are cheap and easy to replace.

Sprinklers.  Don't get me started on the headaches with sprinklers. Attaching them to the hose(s). Leveling so they don't spray long in one spot and short in another on their rotation.  Durability (or lack of).  And, again, gaskets.

Farm life is never boring, even when you're talking about working with inanimate objects.

The Rest List

 As per usual, things are busy again.  May is always a month that seems to ramp up quickly to the overwhelm stage.  The grass is growing and needs mowing once a week, if not sooner (thankfully, this is a task that DH prefers to own rather than it being in my group of assigned tasks).  The flowerbeds (totally my task) are blooming with perennials, but that, unfortunately, also includes weeds that need to be pulled sooner rather than later.  The garden (95% my task) needs to be planted, then weeded and watered and mulched. The LBM is back in training, and there's also the Poetess and Jedi who need to be worked frequently each week (Jedi needs me a lot right now as he gets a refresher course before I start sticking the rank beginner level grandkids on him).  Speaking of grandkids, they have a lot of sports going on in the evenings, and some Saturdays, that DH and I are trying to attend at least one competition of each grandkid before their current sport season is over.  And there's Faline's kindergarten graduation coming up next week too.

My head is swimming.  Sometimes I feel like I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  I know I need to do some 'me time' in this hectic month, but I have trouble taking a break without feeling guilty for the things I'm not getting done during that time.

Such was the topic of conversation earlier this week with my therapist (I started taking advantage of our mental health benefit in January; I mean, if it's there why not utilize it?  Especially when I could tell I was heading for burnout /body breaking down to halt me again.)

I know, from past experience, that I have a tendency to people please and to take care of everyone (and everything) before taking care of myself.  Which, when done to excess, is a very unhealthy tendency indeed.  I also know that, when I do sit for a minute and take a break, that I later (sometimes later is 2 minutes after sitting down) feel guilty for taking that break.  For spending a little time on myself in a way that isn't showering, brushing my hair or teeth, or eating a proper meal (such has long been my definition of good self-care: I'm clean, groomed, and fed; more than that is selfish use of my time).  So I asked the therapist how I go about 'teaching' myself to do the self-care things that are restful.  How to retrain my brain, how to rephrase taking a break from selfish or unnecessary to appropriate and allowable?

She asked me a few questions, one of which was if I keep a To Do list of tasks.  Oh yes!  I have multiple lists of tasks, some are daily, some are weekly, some are long term, some are time consuming things, some are quick little things to fit in here or there as time allows (the quick little things is aptly titled A Million Little Things).

Then she asked if I have a Rest List: a list of things I like to do, find relaxing, and would do if I had more time.

Um, no.  No I do not have such a list.  It never occured to me to make a list like that.  Is that even something I'm allowed to think about when there's so many other things needing my time and attention?  I mean, look at my bajillion To Do lists. . . 

Her answer was YES!  YES YOU ARE ALLOWED to have a list like that! You are allowed to rest.  You need to rest, especially when your life is busy.

Huh.  Who woulda thunk it?  But when I did think about it, it made total sense.  I know horses need rest when they are in training, and that the harder the task (physically or mentally) you are asking them to do, the more important it is to give them rest breaks (hence the walking on a long rein thing in dressage).  I know that other people need (and deserve) rest breaks when their lives are crazy.  I've even filled in to give other people breaks from their life demands from time to time.  WHY?????? do I not think to allow myself the same?

So, between this session and the next therapy session, my task is to make a Rest List, and also to 'practice' resting.  In order to emphasize to myself the importance of rest, I'm going to actually schedule it as appointments with myself in the same way I schedule barn chores, meal prep, training sessions with the horses, grandkids sports games, appointments with other people (social, ew, not my default mode) etc.  When the scheduled rest appointment arrives, I will pull out my Rest List and choose something on it that fits the scheduled time slot and sounds appealing to me at that moment.  And then I will do it, without feeling guilty (ha, this is going to be the hard part) for taking that time to rest rather that plug away at yet another chore or social obligation that 'needs' my attention.

Some things I have written so far on my rudimentary Rest List:

• go for a walk
• sit on the porch swing and observe what's going on outside
• read a book
• do some counted cross stitch that isn't a present for someone
• do some sewing that isn't a present for someone
• work on a jigsaw puzzle
• do some knitting for myself (ie. not a present for someone)
• watch a movie/video (video meaning YouTube)
• color a picture
• read a magazine
• take a nap
• lay in the sun/stare at the clouds in the sky
• draw something (my goodness, it's been ages since I drew artistically and not Pictionary-esque)
• make candy of some sort (it's been years since I've made any candy just for the fun of it and not for Christmas gifts)

Do you have a Rest List?  What are some of the things on your list?

Playing Detective

 Several weeks ago, Crockett went off his feed.  While he does regularly not clean up all his hay, leaving some spread across the stall, it's not like him to leave most of his grain.  Especially for feeding after feeding after feeding.

A little worried that something might be wrong with the oldest occupant of my barn, I put on my Sherlock cap and started investigaing what might be the cause.  His vitals were all normal.  His expression good.  His manure looked normal both in appearance (texture, color, density) and in quantity after a night in his stall. (Outdoors, who could tell his manure in the pasture from his pastures mates'?)  He was moving around fine, and out in the pasture he was behaving as he normally does.

So let's consider the feed itself. Since it was the exact same grain that the Poetess and Jedi also get, and they were sucking down theirs like kids eating sugar coated cereal, I figured it wasn't an off-bag of grain.  

Likewise the hay was the same cutting and texture that Crockett had been eating all winter, plus it was the same bale that Poetess was also being fed at the time.  Still, I examined the left behind hay in his stall for signs of mold or bad plants.  Nope, not that.  And looking at how much hay was left where in his stall, the largest pile was in the vicinity of his grain feeder.

Hmm.  What was it about that corner of his stall that he was perhaps objecting to spending time in and therefore not staying in it long enough to eat all his breakfast and dinner?

Well, a couple of days before this stall time hunger strike started, I had had DH install a second set of cross ties in the aisle of the barn.  One side of which hangs right next to the corner of Crockett's stall.  The corner that his feed goes in.  

And then the wind blew, gusting in through the front door of the barn.  And that new cross tie was picked up in the wind, then dropped, and the metal end (that fastens to the horse's halter when it's cross tied) banged against the wall of Crockett's stall.  And I remembered that I'd heard that sound frequently in the last few days as the weather had been pretty windy but mostly too warm to merit shutting that front door all the way.

Could it be. . . ?  Crockett is sort of nervous about certain things.  Like chickens moving around right outside the front door where he can see them from his stall.  Could the banging of the cross tie against his stall near where his hay and grain are served be the cause of his going off his feed?

Well, I had an easy way to test that theory.  I clipped the (banging) end of the cross tie to the ring on the wall where the upper end was attached.  Now it still moved a little in the wind, but did not bang.  If I needed to use it for holding a horse to be groomed, I could (almost) as easily reach up and unclip it as I could reach down to retrieve that same end were it hanging full length.

That night, Crockett ate all his grain.  He pulled, and left, the usual amount of hay across his stall.  But that particular corner was empty of hay (eaten) the next morning.  As normal.  

He also ate normally at breakfast.  And dinner.  And every feeding since I clipped up that cross tie instead of letting the end hang down along with wall.

Mystery solved.

Thankful Thursday

 Grabbing on to the regular Thursday theme over at Frugal Girl of things I am thankful for this week. It's been a busy week, where I often have felt like I'm just not measuring up to all the tasks at hand. But, as I need to remind myself, that doesn't mean it's been a bad week.  There's been lots of good too even if the good is easier to forget right now than the list of haven't done it yets.

This week I am thankful:

*For several sunny mornings.  Waking up to sunshine puts an extra dose of energy in my tank.

*That I went to the podiatrist and had three spots scraped off my feet.  I have a tailor's bunion on one foot, and several calluses that slowly grow to the point they are causing uncomfortable pressure spots when I walk around.  A few years ago my primary care doctor referred me to this podiatrist for removal of a tiny piece of glass that had gotten into the ball of my foot (and caused a callus where the skin grew over/around it), and that was where I learned that problematic calluses can be trimmed very easily in-office. Doesn't even require anesthetizing the foot and I really don't feel the careful cutting out of the callus as the doctor is doing it.  After months of gradually building discomfort from said bunion and calluses, it feels so wonderful to walk out of the podiatrist's office with (three little divots in my feet and) zero pain.  This is an experience I highly recommend: if you have feet with painful hard calluses, and you have insurance, get yourself to a podiatrist!

*All the blooming trees and flowers right now.

*That it's time (weather-wise) to harden off my tomato and pepper plants that have been growing (from seed) in my living room.  The temperatures are right to where I can move the plants out of the house and let them cycle between the front porch (warm daytime) and garage (still chilly night time) for a week, then another week totally out on the porch before planting them in the garden in late May.  It's always nice to disassemble the little greenhouse and get my living room back to order (and unblock the sliding door the greenhouse sits in front of in time for the warm late spring days that make us want more airflow inside the house.)

*That DH was able to bring home DD1 and Honorary Son's mower, diagnose the issues it was having that made it not run, fix those with just a tune-up, and return it to them so that he didn't have to keep running to their house once a week to mow their grass.  He'd tried repairing it in their yard where it originally stalled out, but didn't have all the right tools there despite Buck and Sixlet 'helping' him out.

The Garden Begins

 Well, honestly, the garlic was planted last fall, so my 2026 garden began then.  But, like most people, I forget that detail and typically consider the garden underway when the first spring plants/seeds go in the ground.

So, for me, the garden began this past weekend, when I planted my onion starts.

After many days of traveling, 5 to be exact, the onion plants I'd ordered back in January for late April/early May shipping arrived. I don't quite understand why the USPS considered the Columbus OH to near Lansing MI route to be Columbus to Detroit, then Detroit to a post office literally 14 miles away from my village post office (and 4 miles from the Lansing hub), then from there to the west edge of Michigan, and from the west edge to Lansing--the middle of the state--then from Lansing to a different post office 7.5 miles from my village post office, then finally to my village post office as the best route for plants shipped priority mail--in the postal service's own box for shipping live plants and marked as such, but that's what they did.  Given that Columbus is literally less than a 4 hour drive from me, 5 days in shipping seems rather excessive.  Who am I to know the most time and fuel efficient way to transport packages though?

Anyway, my baby onions had arrived right during a very rainy spell and it was too wet to plant them right away. And then we had forecasts for two nights below freezing in a row.  So the onions, unboxed and spread out so they could breathe (there were some slimy spots in the bunches by the time they arrived from their meandering trip across Michigan), lived on my dining room table for most of a week.

Highlander and Patterson

Red River and Long Day Sampler

As you can tell by the green tops, they were trying to grow towards the sunlight even without being in the ground yet.  Even so, I was a little concerned that they might dry out too much if I wasn't able to plant them soon.

Finally, at the end of the week, the ground had dried up sufficiently, and the low overnight temperatures had risen to a safer for tender plants zone.  So DH re-tilled the spot (which had been prepped for the onions original expected arrival date) in the garden where I planned to grow them this season, and, with that sufficiently weed-free and fluffy, I got the rows staked out and the onions planted.

And then it rained some more, but not terribly, just enough (I hope) to have given the onions a nice drink and get their roots grabbing into the soil and growing.

Books Read in 2026: April

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.  This book is HUGE.  Over 1000 pages.  So, while I started reading it at the beginning of the month, I had no illusions that I would actually finish it in April.  Truth was I had several books requested through the library that were all going to be a bit of a wait until my turn, so I figured I would read Pillars of the Earth until a library book come in, then set it down, pick it up again if the next library book requested wasn't ready, etc.  I knew setting it aside wouldn't mean never getting back to it, because I have yet to find a Ken Follett book I didn't like. They all draw me in.  Even through I have set it down for several other books this month as they became available through interlibrary loan, I managed to read more than 500 pages!  That's how much draw it has on my attention.

A Good Animal by Sara Maurer.  I saw a blurb for this new book online in either late February or early March.  It sounded right up my alley, so I looked to see if my local library could get it and then I put in a request for it.  It took about a month before my turn came, and I started reading it the same afternoon I picked it up from the library. Was it right up my alley?  Oh yes, yes it was.  With very few exceptions I connected with this book so hard. Everything in it I could relate to either personally or from observing the people around me through my decades of living in/near mostly rural little towns.  I will most definitely be looking for more novels from this new author.

This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page.  I also saw this one online, thought the storyline sounded like a take-off on P.S. I Love You (only with books instead of letters), and really was curious enough to compare the two that I requested it from the library.  Although the premise is the same (as I suspected), the way the story is written around that common idea is different and I very much liked the book and discovering the monthly surprises for the main character as well as how the plot developed throughout.

Judy Blume a Life by Mark Oppenheimer.  As a Judy Blume fan from way back who has (I'm pretty sure) read all of her books, I was very interested in reading her biography.  I put in a request through my local library, and waited for it to be my turn.  At 80ish pages in, I'm slogging along.  I hate to sound negative about one of my long time favorite authors, but this biography is barely keeping my interest so far.  It has been interesting to see where some of the inspirations for her books have come from.  Other than that I'm finding this book to be dry and more like a report than an engaging story.  Will I keep reading?  Probably.  Unless I don't get through it before it's due back to the library.  In which case it will be a DNF forever.