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.

Sewing and Stitching Update, July

My Celtic Santa counted cross stitch has all the cross stitching completed.  Now I am working on the backstitching and plan to do the beading and get it finished in the coming month.  

In June's update, I showed 10 airplanes that I had sewn for the Airplane Quilt.  How many airplane blocks have I made since then?

Eleven!  That brings the total to 21, which is half the number I need to make.  It makes me feel good that I was able to sew that many.  

21 Airplanes

There was a day in late June that I had wanted to spend some time sewing, but ended up spending about 6 hours instructing DD2 in how to do 'clothing' construction.  She had purchased fabric to make Brad an apron for his birthday, and through circumstances ended up waiting until pretty much the last minute to come over and sew it.  As she hadn't sewn anything before other than the log cabin throw quilt she made for the wedding present of friends a few years ago we had to start with washing, drying and ironing the fabric as all fabric for clothing should be preshrunk.  

Then came learning how to read pattern instructions, identify and cut out the correct pattern pieces for the item being made, layout the fabric with the correct side up, pinning down the pattern with the correct side up, cutting around the pattern pieces, transferring marking lines from the pattern to the fabric before removing the pattern pieces. . .  And then the actual sewing. 

Since DD2 had also brought over about 5 loads of laundry to do while here (instead of paying to use the machines at her apartment complex), she spent about 15 minutes of every hour changing the load in the washer, hanging stuff out on the line or putting it in the dryer (depending on how long it would take to line dry).  So the 'sewing class' took way more time than we'd anticipated.

But, she finished her first ever apron in time to gift it to Brad on his birthday, and while I couldn't sew and quilt blocks that day I did manage to sew a total of eleven new airplanes in the last month.  

Faline sent me home from her house a couple of weeks ago with a tulle tu-tu style skirt that she'd ripped the top layer almost completely off of.  Her request?  "Please sew this for me; I need to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween."  The layer in need of reattaching is red with big white polka dots, so it would be rather difficult to be Minnie Mouse without it.  That is on my sewing list for the coming month, as well as seeing how many more airplanes I can get sewn.

Knitting Update, July

(Apparently I didn't have this scheduled to post on Wednesday like I thought I had.  Better late than never!)

Well, I didn't get sock #1 of my Churfirsten socks finished.  Lots of things happened in June, including a death in the extended family that required lots of changes for DH and I for about two weeks, both helping Mother-in-Law while her long time friend was in the hospital/hospice care and traveling up north to attend the funeral.  

I did, afterwards, get the foot knit on the sock, though, so only have to do the toe decreases.  Need to pick up the pace so I can (maybe) get the second sock knit before the middle of August.  That's the timeline I have set in place for beginning Sixlet's Christmas stocking so that it's finished by Thanksgiving.  

So far, Sixlet has auburn hair that wants to curl in the humidity.

There wasn't a whole lot of reading going on in June, although I did finish The 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames.  It was interesting in a history of the Middle East kind of way, although it wasn't quite so much about Agatha Christie as I had originally thought it would be.

I also read Begin Again by Helly Acton.  I really liked this book and found it hard to put down.  In a way, it reminded me of Cecilia Ahern's fantastical novels.  

This week I began reading Bake, Borrow and Steal by Ellie Alexander.

Whole Lotta Color Around Here

 In May, I took a whole lot of pictures with the intent of sharing them here.  And then I had a whole bunch of issues with getting said pictures uploaded to the blog.  And, I have to admit, it was a really busy Spring and I didn't get online much to work on posts.  

All of which means that now, in July, officially Summer, you get to see Spring pictures of flowers that are all done blooming.  On the upside; in the last couple of weeks I've been getting lots of emails for ordering tulips and irises to plant for next Spring, so if you see something you like--and I correctly recalled the name of it--now's apparently the time to shop for these flowers.

Tulips:

Rembrandt

Kingsblood

Blue Aimable

Irises:

(lost my notes on variety)

Red Masterpiece

Raven Girl

(peachy that I can't remember name)

Montmarte

(lavender that was given to me nameless)

(another lost notes one)

Dracula's Kiss (I think)

a white variety given to me decades ago

Surprisingly, as in the nearly 21 years we've lived here we haven't seen them due to the aurora borealis not getting this far south, or if it did, our weather was totally cloudy at the time, we were able to see the Northern Lights. Not only did we see them, they were the best any of us had ever seen.  So bright, lasting for nearly an hour, and so many different colors from green to red to pink and purple.  It was a spectacular light show watched right from our deck. 

The picture below is actually my favorite one I took that night.  It was taken from the yard behind the garage, facing south, but there's still some visible northern lights.  And, if you look closely you can see DH's silhouette and the little light from his cell phone camera as he's trying to take a picture to the north.

Horse Update, June

As mentioned in my May Frugal Accomplishments post, I found the perfect chair for my tack room. I'd been thinking for months about getting one, and had nailed down the requirements:

• all wooden so there would be no upholstery or cushions for mice to destroy (because, barn = mice, it's inevitable.)
• comfortable for sitting on to change into riding boots, as well as to just rest on as needed
• in good, sturdy shape
• CHEAP (no brand new stuff, we're looking used furniture here)
• local, because it wouldn't be cheap if I drove an hour for it

I'd been looking on Facebook marketplace for a few weeks and hadn't found anything that fit the bill.  Craigslist was no help either.  Nor were the community yard sale or free pages (on Facebook) for the communities around me.

Then, I got an urge to go to Goodwill. Which, since Goodwill is somewhere I no longer drive past five days a week--now that I work at my own farm-- and I had no other errands in that area that needed running, I ignored the urge.  For about five days I ignored that nagging feeling that I should go to Goodwill; until I did indeed need to drive that 15ish miles away to go grocery shopping. But before the grocery store, I stopped at Goodwill which is just down the same road.  And there, I found it:  the perfect chair for the tack room!

I knew it was perfect because, since it was the exact same design as the dining room chairs I'd had for over a decade when the kids were teens, it definitely met my comfort factor as well as the no upholstery or cushions rule.  (I had only replaced those dining room chairs as they broke, not because I no longer liked them.  In fact, the non-broken ones are still in my basement as back-ups for when I need more seating on holidays and family gatherings.)

Not only was it the perfect style, it also didn't wobble one bit when I grabbed the seat with one hand and the top of the back with the other and shook the hell heck out of it. Good and sturdy.  

The price?  An affordable $5.29.  The best part of all, which took away any doubt in my mind that it was meant for my tack room?  The legs and back had been painted a hunter green, and the seat had been left oak.  My barn in tan(ish) with hunter green roof and trim. That's my farm color scheme.  The chair fit perfectly.

An interesting tidbit; when I got it home and peeled off the price sticker, I noticed that it had been put out for sale six days before I'd gone to Goodwill and found it.  The exact day I'd first had the thought that I should go to Goodwill. . .   (Did the hairs on the back of your neck just raise a little?)  Definitely meant to be in my tack room.

That chair is the only new addition to my barn lately. I had been hoping that DH and I would put in the mats for the remaining two stall floors before the hot summer weather hit, but that didn't happen.  Could have, except I was doing too much around this little place here and aggravated my right knee to the point that it threw on the brakes and sidelined me from any strenuous work for a few weeks.  Well, anything strenuous other than riding horses (but no posting! knee said uh-uh to that), feeding horses, and cleaning stalls, and cooking and laundry in the house (with DH carrying the clothes hamper), oh and feeding and watering chickens. (I am severely not good at resting my body; there's just too much that needs to be done.)

Several nights running, DH had to bring horses in for me because by dinnertime I was crippled up and couldn't walk out to their pasture.  It was an injury reminiscent of a few years ago when my left knee blew up, so after a week of 'resting' and ibuprofen to no noticeable improvement, I dug out my sheet of beginning physical therapy exercises from when I had PT on the left knee.  Four days of 'resting', plus ibuprofen, plus PT at home and I was on the mend again!  But, now it's hot and we're not feeling like lugging 100 pound rubber mats into hot stalls in the heat of the day.

With my knee good enough to post the trot again, I've been riding the Poetess multiple days a week.  And, as you read in the previous sentence, we trot a portion of each ride.  She's been very attentive and patiently trying to figure out the unfamiliar stuff I'm telling her to do.  Her halt has gotten much better; I don't have to make a hasty exit out of the saddle when I stop her for dismounting at the end of the ride.  She stands calmly while I get off (as long as I don't take much more than a minute).  She has really picked up on the concept of yielding her body and bending to slight leg pressure or weight change in my seat.  We look very much like a beginner baby horse going to the first weeks of Kindergarten still while riding, but compared to the very first ride in April, miles of progress has been made.  We have had 14 rides now, and I'm fairly confident I can ask her for a canter without having her bolt thinking it's racing time.  Will probably give that a try later this week.

The other day, after getting a new pair of full seat riding tights on clearance for just $20, I made the discovery that over three years, in the course of buying new stuff on sale/clearance, I inadvertently made the Poetess and I a very Dressage Queen matchy-matchy ensemble:

1.A lavender saddle pad and polo wraps for her (bought last summer--2023)

 

2. a light purple shirt I had bought myself on sale BOGO in 2022

 3. My $20 tights (2024) that were described as "mauve" and looked, online, like a summery light pinkish color, turned out in person, to be more of a lavender.  So of course needed to be worn with the light purple shirt bought in 2022 and the lavender pad and wraps must be put on the Poetess for our work session.

Unfortunately I had no way to get a picture of me in the saddle so you could see the full effect of all our DQ matching attire.  You'll have to settle for a between the ears picture from that ride.  Note her ears directed towards me, concentrating on what I'm doing, listening for direction.  Our between the ears picture from May's post had her much more focused on what was around her than the person on her back.

The Little Black Mare is still here, still getting ridden by me three days a week.  We walk, trot, and canter every ride now, although canter work has so far been contained to the makeshift arena within the perimeter fencing of the greater pasture area.  Trotting we also do in the unfenced 'outdoor' arena and also while 'trail riding' around the property.  Now and then she has a slight spook (rabbits darting out from under spruce trees, something clanging next door and near her back end when we're riding very close to the property line, scaring up deer in the woods that leap away with white tails flagged and bouncing through the trees) but she's quick to calm down with a quiet word and me staying calm in the saddle.  I have noticed, though, that areas she went through with not a care in the world back in March, April and May, she is a little more wary of now that there's vegetation nearly chest high on either side of us, and trees and bushes fully leafed out that could possibly be hiding horse eating creatures and also block her distance vision.  I'm interested to see how she responds once the corn planted in the field grows up high enough to create a tunnel effect on our path to and from the woods.  It's all good practice for her, and also gives me a chance to hone my reacting-to-spooking skills before I take the Poetess outside the fences. 

The 'fenced' arena behind the barn, within the perimeter fencing.

Our "safe" zone, although the hay field on two sides is kind of sketchy; could be hiding monsters.

Sewing and Stitching Update, June

Do I have sewing and stitching stuff to show you!  

First up, I finished a long-time UFO: a Black, Bright and Batik quilt that began as a block swap in 2013.  Originally I had received 12 blocks in the swap.  I knew, at the time, that I wanted to make a bed-sized quilt out of them.  But then came news of Grandbaby #2 (Toad) being under construction, and my focus went to making a baby quilt for him. 

And time went by, and I found out my brother and his wife were also expecting (actually, at the same time Toad was due), so I quickly added another baby boy quilt to my agenda.  And then more time went by, and some king sized jean quilts were made for the two kids who got married, and then more time went by, and I needed to make a third grandbaby quilt (for Rascal).  And then I totally forgot I had swap blocks stashed away.  (And made some throw sized quilts, and a baby quilt for Grandbaby #4--Faline.)

Along came February 2022, and I uncovered the Black, Bright and Batik blocks.  I decided that those blocks needed to become a quilt and there was no time like the present. So I designed up a twin-size quilt that required 20 blocks and some sashing.  I had 12 blocks, and a nice chunk of black-on-black fabric leftover from a previous project somewhere along the way since 2013. So, diving into my fabric stash (that had grown exponentially since 2013) I came up with blacks, brights, and batiks that I then used to create eight additional blocks.  Got them all sashed, sewn together, bordered with the perfect fabric that matched everything in the blocks, and had a finished top.  I even bought large amount of a cheery lime green and yellow batik and made the backing.  And then I layered it, and rolled it up without basting because guess what; my time was needed for planning and constructing Grandbaby #5's (Buck) quilt.  The Black, Bright, and Batik quilt, that just needing basting, quilting and binding, became a rolled and then folded mass on one end of my cutting table.  Relegated to UFO status again.

For about two years. (Grandbaby #6, Sixlet needed a quilt of his own too.)  And then, in late April, I grabbed the wad that was the BB&B quilt, unrolled it, saw how close it was to being done and decided that this is the year the Black, Bright and Batik quilt gets finished.  So I did. I stopped worrying about making it perfect and just went for done. 

Confession: I didn't take apart the layers, nor did I iron the top and backing, then re-layer.  I just unrolled it as it was, pin basted it, then off to the sewing machine we went. As a result, there's some not-so-perfectly smooth areas on the backing.  I decided not to fret about it.  It's a utilitarian quilt, not a show quilt.  Nobody laying under it is going to notice a few sewn-in wrinkles.

Most of the blocks have echo quilting in some form or another.  A couple are heavily quilted where it accented that block's pattern or fabrics, others are more understated in the quilting. Once it was quilted, there was enough backing leftover that I thought about using that to make the binding but ultimately decided to go with a solid black. To help it pop.  The binding is sewn down with the same variegated rainbow thread that I used to quilt the top (a pale yellow in the bobbin) and boy, that black sets off the stitching.

Binding finished, I took it outside the next morning for beauty shots, then into the washer it went (with several color catchers).  That night, it graced the twin bed that's used for a grandkid when they spend the night here.  And, truth be told, I've slept under it a few times since then on nights that DH was snoring so badly I was tired of getting woken up every 30-60 minutes and I removed myself to a quieter room. It's a nice, cozy quilt. Sleeps well.

fairly true to color photo

 

showing some of the green backing

Once the BB&B quilt was finally crossed off my to-do list, I began working on the Airplane Quilt I'm hoping to give to DS1 by the end of this year.  I need 42 blocks with airplanes on them.  So far, I've made 10: 4 gray, 5 (of 20) blues and 1 (of 18) red.  As there has been time, I've been cutting pieces for a couple of blocks, then sewing those blocks, then cutting pieces for a few more blocks.  Even if I can only squeeze out 15 minutes for sewing, I can throw together one block using pre-cut pieces.  Or, I can grab a fat quarter or piece of scrap fabric, and cut pieces for two blocks.  

In the past week, I've done some cross stitching on my Celtic Santa.  Due to self-imposed restrictions on physical activity (disclosure: I really aggravated my knee and could barely walk, so spent a lot of time on the couch with my leg up being iced, or heated, or just rested) I had a lot more crafting time than I normally would in this season of the year.  Since the sewing machine is down in the basement, and stairs were  restricted to only for getting to the bedroom at night and then back to the main floor in the morning, I couldn't do any sewing. So I cross stitched instead.  Santa is pretty close to halfway through the stitching.

Now that my knee is much happier and (fingers crossed) nearly back to normal, I have a lot of catching up to do in the garden (weeds!!!), but hopefully I can spend some time down in the basement and get some more airplane blocks cut and sewn yet this month.