Brain Fried Farmgirl

I have had absolutely NOTHING to tell you lately.  My creative juices (what little I had) have dried up to a slow drip and it’s all I can muster to remember what day of the week it is most days.

All I have to offer you today is a somewhat blurry picture of a buck that was grazing with Holly and Synergy last night.  I sent it to the Great Bald Hunter last night and now he’s even more homesick than before.

 

And a few pictures of Rambo and his new fan club.

 

Ok, I’m done.  That finished me.  Have a great weekend.

Guineas

The latest batch of guineas finally grew large enough to be released from the outhouse coop last week.  They spent the first four days staying within 10 feet of the outhouse and raising enough ruckus to be heard by my clients while I was on the phone.

Eventually, they started to wonder about more and have found that they really enjoy being on the roof of the house, making even more noise than I thought possible from nine little guineas.

They come to my infamous “chickie chickie chickie” call and have become top notch beggers as well.  When they see me come out of the house, they come running over to stare at me until I throw them some scratch.

 

 

 

 

They still haven’t made it into the garden, but they’re doing a darned good job of cleaning up after the horses.  Now if I could just convince them that Japanese beetles are a delicacy, I’d be a happy camper.

I posted an update on Holly over at Rescue Recoveries, so go check her out. 

One more try

Since the chickens are doing a less than great job of keeping the bugs down, I decided to try Guinea hens one more time.  Glenn picked up 20 meat chicks and 16 guinea keets from the feed store today and is getting them settled in the side room as I type.  This time, we got some very high protein food for them and they won’t go out into the great wide world until they’re ready.  We’re going to “remodel” the outhouse, run some electricity out there for a heat lamp, then move all the munchkins out there.  While they’re growing we’ll get a new covered pen built around the outhouse for guineas until they are big enough to go forth and eat bugs.

The meat birds should be big enough for butchering at 10 weeks, which will be around the same time where I start filling the chest freezer with veggies from the garden, too.   I’m thinking a bigger chest freezer might be necessary in the very near future!

 

The people at the feed store told us that the meat birds have to be encouraged to stand up or else as they grow they’ll become very weak in the knees and unable to stand!  To encourage them to get off their lazy butts we need to keep moving up the feeder as they grow so they have to stand in order to reach the food.

The sad part about this is that I’m pretty darned sure nature did not make a bird this way.  Natural selection would have eliminated that that specific bird a long time ago.  So although I know I’ll be eating some fairly healthy birds that have never rec’d steroids or chemicals, I’m not sure I’m happy about eating a man-made “hybrid”.  How do you guys feel about that?  Would you stick with a more natural breed, or do you think it’s ok as long as we’re keeping them as healthy as possible and not shoving them full of steroids?

Random Lunch 11/4/08

I'm doin' the Happy Dance. I have a little celebratory dance that I jump up and do whenever something incredibly wonderful happens. I just finished entertaining the dogs with the dance and now I have to share.

THE NEW VET IN THE AREA IS COMING OUT TOMORROW!!!!!!

He just started making appointments yesterday and I am in like Flynn!! I just spent 15 minutes on the phone blathering on like an idiot in my excitement to finally have a vet that is taking new clients and isn't too far away. LIFE IS GOOD! He doesn't have all of his equipment yet, but has enough to do what I need done for now.

Whew, I think I'm calm enough now to post the random lunch pictures.


This will be a common occurrence in my yard during hunting season. Oh, yippee.




The guineas! I know you've been losing sleep at night wondering how they're doing. It's ok, you can admit it.

Egads, they're ugly.

As the world turns

I was just told by my friend April that the world revolves around her and she relies on me to produce a new blog post more often than I do. Apparently, she hasn't noticed the Friday then Tuesday post pattern I've fallen into and insisted on having one today. Doesn't she realize that my weekends are CRAZY and I need a day to recuperate before becoming organized enough to blog? So here goes a very unorganized post with a hodgepodge of everything (no change from normal, really).


I do have one thing to mention... I have potential adopters for at least two horses, Classy being one of the two! Wooohoo! One adopter is coming out on Wednesday to try out Classy. The other adopter is looking for a well-broke older horse just to mosey around the yard on. Megalia may fit this to a T, but I've been waiting for her to put on more weight before I evaluate her. She's gotten to the point where you can still barely see her ribs, but her butt, chest and shoulders have filled out nicely so I'll start working her tonight and see what we've got. They may also be interested in adopting Hunter for their little girl once he's broke next year. He looks a lot like the little mini that she rides now, but she'll outgrow him by next year. Both adopters currently have very fat, sleek, shiny, trimmed, HEALTHY horses. This is a big fat bonus when checking out potential adopters!


Guinea update: I realized that I left you guys hanging on the guineas. I believe I last told you that we had one left in the coop, the one that Thor dropped at my feet. The next day, one of the remaining five made it back to the coop and was trying desperately to get in with his buddy. They've been together since and are doing well and growing quickly. We're going to leave them in the coop until we either have more adult guineas to release with them, or until they've bred and raised some keats. This is going to be impossible if they are both the same sex, but I'm using the ignorance is bliss theory and continuing with my happily ever after scenario.


Glenn has been picking on me because my picture has not yet made it onto the blog, but his has. Especially the one of him in his boxers. Hey, that wasn't my fault, I warned him! And because I believe the camera can steal my soul, I hate HATE HATE having my picture taken.


Ok, so that soul part isn't true, I'm just camera shy. REALLY camera shy. I have no current pictures to share with you. So to make Glenn happy, and because I'm twisted this way, I thought I'd share a wedding picture taken back in 1995 when I married some other guy. This is one of the few wedding pictures I even kept, simply because Junior was in it. And I'm far enough way that it's hard to really see me. This alone makes it a keeper. :)











I leave you with a picture of the Jilly Bean (aka Jelly Belly) and a picture of Thor eating her brother, Jack. And a promise that someday soon the allergies will stop stuffing my head with boogers and I'll be a little more coherent.

The Last Frontier

First, a rant. Then the guineas.

More like, the last straw with Frontier! Frontier is our phone/DSL provider and I've had it. I was so excited when we moved up here and DSL had come to the area just two weeks prior. No more satellite! Woohoo! We had satellite internet in VA and frankly, dial up was faster and more reliable. But the one thing I will say about satellite, is that after a thunderstorm it was usually back up within minutes. I only wish our DSL was that reliable! Our DSL goes out with every bad thunderstorm that comes through. And it seems like I'm the only one to ever report it. Inevitably, I end up getting on the phone with some college kid who, after I tell him the t-storm took it out, I've already done the diagnoses and rebooted my modem several times and it's probably a local outage, he still makes me reboot the darned modem. Then he's surprised that the magical and all powerful reboot didn't do the trick. Sometimes they think I'm even fibbing, just for the attention. The last time I went through this I asked to speak to a manager. The manager was incredibly patient and put a note on my account not to bug me with the usual rebooting routine, which can sometimes take as long as 30 min. This just depends on how far through college the tech on the other end of the phone made it before flunking out from beer bongs.

Eventually, the tech concedes that yes, perhaps it is an area wide outage and not just my modem. Then they put in a ticket and tell me to wait by the phone, a field technician will be calling me shortly. Hours pass, days pass, I keep calling in looking for an update. Sometime after the fourth or fifth call, someone tells me that hey, they found the problem! And guess what? It WASN'T my modem! They always seem so pleased with themselves at this point. Like, hey, I couldn't get your modem to work because it was an area wide outage -- not my fault! But it is your fault that you took days to figure this out instead of just listening to me in the first place. Grrrr! Our DSL went out Friday night, I reported it Saturday morning, and it just came back up around 8pm tonight. And rather than getting anything done today, since I couldn't work, I had to sit by the phone and wait for the technician call. Which never came. Because they found that lightening had taken out some doohickey at the DSL station. I only found this out because I called them again around 4pm (my third call of the day, since they said on Saturday that it should be up by noon today).

Thank you for reading. I feel much better now that I got that off my chest.

Guinea update: things are not well on the guinea front. We lost seven guineas Friday night in the storm!!!! WHY??? We did get an awful lot of rain during the night and there could have been a flash flood under the coop. But why weren't the guineas in the coop where they usually are at night?? Saturday morning I found seven dead, soaking wet, but otherwise untouched little guineas. The remaining six looked fine and were pecking around behind me as I crawled into the pen to pick up the dead ones. BUT, they were not touching the food I had gotten them! I ended up getting more of the same 22% chick grower that they had before because I couldn't find anything with a higher protein. I did buy some 31% fish food pellet that the feed store guy said people fed their fighting cocks. But I had it separated from the other food in the coop, so have no idea why they weren't eating either one.

Rather than have them starve to death, I made the executive decision to let them out today. I opened up a spot in the fence, called them over with my bug bottle, let them come out, then shooed them back in. Let them come out again, then shooed them back in. The breeder said to do this so they would know how to get back in at night. And no one was watching, so I did it five times. I watched them in the yard for about an hour and they seemed very happy and were tearing into the bugs. Then they moseyed into the horse pasture and disappeared for the rest of the day. I assume they went into the woods where it was cooler. Around 6pm they started heading back and stayed awhile in the backyard getting their fill of bugs kicked up from the lawn mower. But something seemed amiss with one of the white guineas. She was lying on the ground with her wings spread out while the others were happily eating. Uh Oh. She'd get up and walk around if we got too close and seemed to be walking fine. I stayed out in the garden and kept an eye on them to make sure none of the cats took the opportunity for a quick meal and to see if they'd head back to the coop for the night.

I was playing twister with one of the pineapple tomatillo plants, trying to get all the little berries without knocking any unripe ones off when I heard Thor sit down behind me. It was a minute or two before I unwound myself from the plant, straightened out my appendages, and turned around. Thor had brought me the white guinea and placed it on the ground behind me. She seemed untouched and very much alive, but she was just lying there. Thor gave me this look that said "Mom, I think it's broken. Can you fix it? (for dinner? with maybe a little gravy?)" I picked her up and she never even squawked. She lay her head on my hand and I felt her heart beat in my palm. Her heart wasn't racing and seemed to be thumping just a tad faster than mine. Here was another decision to be made. Do I take her to the coop for the night or do I find her buddies and put her back with them? She seemed weak and I doubted she'd make it through the night if her buddies decided not to come back to the coop. So into the coop she went. I dipped her beak in the water then placed her on the straw in the highest nesting box. A few minutes later she had hopped down and was at the doorway looking at me. Of course I have bugs for you, little guinea. She gobbled up the Japanese beetles as soon as they fell from the bottle. Dare I hope?

Let the self-butt kicking begin

For days now I've been wondering why the guineas have been dropping like flies. We've lost 8 so far. We were told we'd lose some, no big deal. But EIGHT??? I thought maybe it was a snake, maybe it was the Noodle, maybe it was another critter that just enjoyed killing and not eating. Maybe it was a disease left over in the coop from the previous owners' chickens. What was I doing wrong? Why couldn't I save them???

Yesterday after work I walked out to check on them and the dogs were of course, right on my heels. I noticed one of the guineas was outside of the pen. Oh no. The dogs were bound to spot him first and I might not be able to call them off. But either the dogs were all struck by BDD's stupidity at the time, or they just knew not to mess with the guineas when mom was looking. As I got closer to the coop I was trying to figure out how to catch the little bugger, when he came running up to me! The usually come running up to the fence when I come out because they expect some delicious Japanese beetles to come pouring out of an old Gatorade bottle. But I was surrounded by dogs... wasn't the little guy afraid? Nope. I stooped down and picked him right up. He didn't let out a peep. Why? BECAUSE HE WAS STARVING!!!! There was nothing left of him, he was just skin and bones! WHY???

When we had gotten the keats from the breeder he had said to start them out on a chick grower, which is about 20% protein, then by the time they finished off that bag they'd be ready for cracked corn. I started mixing in the cracked corn when they were still in the house and that was all I was feeding once they were out in the coop. NO NO NO!!! I'm intelligent, I like to research things... why didn't I research the proper care for guineas?? Why did it take EIGHT of their little corpses to wake me up to what was wrong?

Guineas make bugs 90% of their diet. Bugs are protein. Corn is not. My guineas starved to death and I never realized it until I picked one up. What kind of horrible guinea mom am I?? I just sat out there with them today watching them eat jap beetles and apologizing for my gross neglect. They just strutted around chirping at me. Ignorant to my stupidity, all they knew was that their little bellies were empty.

I did some research on the web and found that the best food for guineas not on free range is a turkey or wild game bird feed, which is usually over 26% protein. NOT CORN!! For now they are back on what was left of the 20% chick grower and they're devouring it! The good news is that they're acting more lively already and hopefully we won't lose any more. Tomorrow I'll be off to the feed store to get a higher protein feed for them. Let's hope it's not too late!

Flying Rodents

On Saturday our neighbor brought over his baler and we baled up all the lose hay from our hay mishap a couple of weeks ago. We recovered 31 bales of hay from that mess. Woohooo! He also helped us unload the stock trailer. That boy can chunk some hay bales! He tossed 88 of them up from the stock trailer into the second floor of our small barn. He was throwing them a good 12' up and hardly broke a sweat! We still have another 380 that need to be moved from the big barn into the small barn, but at least we have a borrowed electric hay conveyor that we can use once we get 400' of extension cord for it!

We lost two of the guineas over the weekend. I have no idea how, both little bodies are still in the pen. I'd think if an animal killed them, the offender would either still be in the pen or the bodies would have been eaten or at least drug out of the pen. I'm wondering if the heat got to them because there's always a few birds that don't sit in the shade or go into the coop during the hottest part of the day. Any guinea experts out there want to shed some light on this?

Yesterday I canned 15 quarts of Methodist Pickles. YUM! The cucumbers are still growing and are covered in flowers so it looks like I'll get to try some different pickle recipes this year. I wanted to share the Methodist Pickle recipe with you. This is a pickle that I grew up on and LOVE. I got the recipe from my aunt, who got it from my grandmother, and so on down the line. I have no idea how long my family has been making this pickle, but it's darned good. The measurements are odd, I prefer weighing cucumbers in pounds, not quarts. But I usually just eyeball it anyway. My 15 quarts from yesterday were two different batches. A recipe batch usually makes 7 quarts.

5 qts sliced pickles
4 medium onions

Brine:
6 cups sugar
6 cups white vinegar
3 tbls celery salt
3 tbls mustard seed
3/4 tsp turmeric
6 whole cloves - I like to use 8

Wash and slice the cucumbers and onions, then sprinkle with pickling salt and let stand for an hour. Make brine and bring to boil. Drain cukes and onions and add to brine. Bring to a boil again for 5 minutes, then pack in sterilized jars and seal in a boiling bath canner for 5 minutes.

These things are so good that Glenn can sit down with an unopened jar and a fork and have the jar emptied in under 30 minutes. We gave away many quarts of these last year and heard nothing but rave reviews from everyone.

It was way too hot in the kitchen and I was ready to sit down somewhere cool by the time the pickles were done, so I didn't clean up as I should have. The canner stayed on the stove with the rack and about 6" of water in it. I always forget to remove the rack and it ends up rusting. Last night was hot and sticky and I'm the electricity nazi. So instead of turning on the AC I just left the front door open. Besides, it was in the 50's this morning. Who needs AC?

So around 9AM when I went into the kitchen for some juice I noticed that once again, I had left the rack in the canner. I cursed myself as I was lifting the rack out, then just started cursing. Period. In a very loud shrieky voice. Totally unlike me. When I was 5, my babysitter tried to teach me how to scream. Seriously. It's not something that comes naturally to me. So when I lifted out the rack and saw something live clinging to it, all I could do was squeal out some favorite curse words. Luckily, Glenn had already gone off to work. But I'm sure he'll laugh at me later.



Yes, it's my fault for leaving the door open.



But come on... we must have some really stupid wildlife up here in WV. First the moronic groundhog choosing to live under our porch. Now this dipshit flying into a house with 5 cats. And why the canner???



I guess I should just be happy he chose the canner and not our bed.



The poor little guy was soaking wet, shivering, and half drowned. And because I am who I am, I left him on the stove to dry out. I even turned one of the burners on the other side of the stove on low to give him some heat and help him dry. I should have let the cats have him. But even though they look like winged rodents and give me a case of the creepy crawlies, they do eat a lot of bugs and are good for the garden. Let's just hope this particular dumbass doesn't breed more idiot bats.

Houston, we have a problem

The Noodle. He wants some birds and he doesn't care if it's white or dark meat. And the problem is that he's the one cat intelligent enough to figure out a way to get to the birds. Take Jack for instance. This morning I found him lying in pretty much the same place as Noodle, but on his back with his legs in the air. Exactly how did he intend to catch the birds that way? Or maybe he thought he'd just flip over and wait for wild birds to come flying into his grasp instead? Jilly Bean sits quietly staring into the pen for awhile and you can almost hear the gears turning in her little head. Then she eventually gives up and goes away. Lucifer pretends to ignore the guineas. I think he's just playing hard to get. Woogie is 17 years old and afraid of his own shadow. The guineas terrify him.

After snapping the above photo, I grabbed the Noodle and tossed him unceremoniously to the ground. He have me a dirty look, a quick meow, then headed over for some comfort from his favorite buddy.




This is night four in the coop for the guineas and no loses yet. But if we do lose one, I know who to interrogate first. And it won't be dumbest groundhog in the world. Did I tell you about him? He had the IQ of a rock. I say "had" because he was dumb enough to make a home under our porch where four big dogs also call home. Well, duh. Brie took care of him. I was going to take a picture, but by the time I found the camera the only thing left of the little retard was intestines. Ewww.

Happy Guineas

One other thing we accomplished on Sunday was the temporary guinea pen outside attached to the chicken coop. Temporary, because the guineas kept escaping in the house and causing all sorts of trouble and the grand plans we have for the chicken pen will take awhile longer. They only had their one room to roam and couldn't get to the rest of the house, but they still made a mess. And they were getting too big for their cage anyway. This is the result of three hours labor on Sunday. Please don't laugh too hard.






The grand plans are started, but a long way from being completed (like most projects around here). See those 4x4 posts? That's as large as the pen is going to be, with a door on the front left corner, and netting over the whole top. The guineas will be set free once they are full grown, but we'll probably keep the chickens in the pen. I'd love to have them free range, but with all of the dogs, cats, and wildlife, the life expectancy of a free range chicken around here would be counted in days.




Aren't they cute? And they still come running over when I walk over to the pen. And yes, I still catch Jap beetles for them to eat.

Random thoughts for the day

"What do you think they are?"
"Food"
"Well, duh, but do you think they are white meat or dark meat?"
"Who cares?"
"Good point. Do you think mom put them in the cage to keep them in or us out?"
"I dunno"
"Do you think they'll grow more? They wouldn't last us long as they are now. And it's hardly sporting to kill something so small."
"I dunno"
"What do you know?"
"I'm hungry."
"Me too."


Don't worry, no guineas were harmed in the making of this post.



This is what the terrible three look like when they are behaving. Take a quick look, it doesn't last long.




Tonight's harvest. Kohlrabi (already peeled), beets, and baby carrots for munching on with some Ranch dressing tomorrow during work. That tomato in the back is not from my garden, but from a farmer's market. One of those roadside stands where you think you'll get fresh veggies. Nope. The tomatoes I got from them did a really good impression of cardboard.



I really have no idea what to do with those beets. I sliced them up and threw them in a ziploc for now. I'll look up some recipes later, but if anyone wants to share their favorite recipe, I'm all ears.


These two luscious little beauties came off my Tristar everbearing strawberry plants tonight. Usually I snatch them off the plant and pop them in my mouth before they even have the chance to know what's happening. But the other night I made the mistake of mentioning to Glenn that the strawberries have been really good so far.

"We have strawberries?? Why haven't you been saving me any???"

Oops. That was supposed to by my little secret. My guilt made me bring these in the house tonight, clean them up, and put them on the counter for Glenn when he gets home. They're still sitting there. Just waiting to be eaten. All by themselves. I wonder if they're lonely? Maybe I should go sit with them.




My tomato theory: the plants grow a foot a week. AT LEAST. These cages are 5' tall and it's not even July yet. I also feel that if the plants are this big then they need to be putting out some ripe maters. Is there a tomato plant union that I don't know about?




I had an awesome ride on Kita tonight. I've only been riding her a few times a week lately because of everything else on my plate. Even though she's 9 years old, she's still what some would consider "green". When down in VA I had very little time for riding because of work and my 3-5 hours a day spent commuting to and from work. The barn I was at didn't have a riding ring and no outside lights, so finding time to ride was difficult at best. Kita doesn't rear or buck, but sometimes the steering is broken and the gas pedal sticks. So we've been working on circles, transitions, and a little collection. She's got a great natural head carriage for a Standardbred and she's a decent mover. But my goal in life with her is to make her a steady and trustworthy trail horse that can also be used to pony the younger horses. Tonight, she was incredible. She was flexible, responsive, relaxed, and totally into it. She stopped throwing her inside shoulder around the corners, she never stuck her nose out and made faces while trotting, she stayed on the bit and collected the whole time, and she seemed very happy. Those are the kinds of rides that I live for.

I'm hoping to have time this weekend to hit the trails across the road on the neighbor's farm. A nice relaxing trail ride on my favorite girl is just what the doctor ordered.

Babies, Birds, and Baby Birds

No, I'm not pregnant.



But a great big happy dance happened on Monday when my friend's mare finally had her baby. Anne has been sleeping out in the barn for weeks waiting for the stork and on Monday morning at 1:30AM the little one finally made an appearance. She's absolutely adorable. But what foal isn't? I have lots of pictures from Anne, but don't want to steal her thunder. But I did get permission to put this one up on the blog. I love this picture and it was a total accident according to Anne (who I believe is a professional photographer in disguise).













Here's another great picture not taken by me (hey, I never claimed I was a good photographer). Ever since we hung up the hummingbird feeder on the porch we've been accumulating more and more hummingbirds. We started with one, then two days later we had three, now two weeks later we have seven that I've counted. They fight over the feeder constantly and when I sit out on the porch working I get dive bombed regularly. Glenn only had to sit out with the camera for five minutes before he caught this one. I may just let him take all the pictures from now on.








Over the weekend I took the table that Glenn had built for my seed flats, flipped it upside down, and wrapped it in hardware cloth. The guineas are much happier in their new home, even though it's really ugly.

Little guys are getting big fast, aren't they?? Some of the older ones are starting to spread their wings and fly a foot or two around their cage. Guess it's time to put a top on the cage.

Can you tell I really have nothing to say, but just feel guilty for not blogging in a few days? Oh, but I can tell you about dinner tonight because I was especially proud of it. Not because it tasted awesome, but because it was completely horrible to look at and Glenn ate it anyway. Glenn calls dishes like these my "concoctions". They're nothing special, but I guess when you're used to hot dogs and mac n' cheese, pasta with basil & spinach pesto and chopped tomatoes seems pretty fancy.

Ingredients:
boatload of fresh from the garden sweet basil
one or two spinach leaves, depending on size
cup or two of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
tons of Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta, combine everything else in the food processor. Chop maters. Put everything together and stir it up till it looks green and disgusting. See, so easy and quick. I felt so Rachel Rayish, but only because as I was adding the olive oil I called it EVOO.

Playing Catch Up

Go get some coffee now, because this is going to be a long one.


Ready? Too bad, I'm starting without you.


First of all, what a week. Between my job keeping me at the laptop well into the evening, trying to get as much ground work as possible in on Jewel and Meghan, riding Kita and Willow, building tomato cages, numerous errands, and working my buns off on Saturday, I've just been way too busy to blog. Strike that, I've been way too tired to blog at the end of the day. Let's start with Saturday.


My new buddy, M, came over on Saturday ready to work. I had met M before and she's young, full of energy, and loves horses. She wanted to volunteer here and work with the rescues as part of her community service for college. Slave labor? Sure, I'm all for it! Little did I know that I would be the slave and M would be carrying around the lunge whip. The plan was to clean up the upper barn area, inside and out, to make it less of a hazard for the new horses. The previous owner of this place was a scrap yard owner as well and he had no problems bringing his work home with him. This was a project that I had been putting off because it was just so huge that I knew if I tackled it myself I'd never get it done. Then depression and self-butt kicking would ensue and it wouldn't be pretty. So I kept the horses out of that pasture and convinced myself that I'd get it done before winter. Then the new horses came around and had to go into that pasture. I just hoped that everyone would have enough sense to stay away from the junk until I could get it cleaned up. M resolved that for me on Saturday.

All the junk in the barn has been cleaned up and pallets laid down in preparation for the 200 bales of hay we're going to start stockpiling for winter. Most of the junk outside of the barn has been cleaned up and all of the broken wooden pallets have been thrown onto the burn pile. Once the burn pile was about 15' tall M was worried that passing satellites would pick it up when we lit it, so we started another burn pile. After the next big rain there will be wieners, s'mores, and beer for all, come on over.


When we were done, filthy, tired, and sore (well, I was sore) we headed back down to the house and as M was coming through the gate a little red car stopped in our driveway. Two young men got out and said those magical words "got any scrap metal you need hauled out of here"? DO WE EVER. I understand that scrap metal is paying pretty well right now and we could probably make a pretty penny if we wanted to haul it away ourselves. Let me share something with you... there would be no "us". Glenn just got promoted and starts working full time in a couple of weeks and he got a part time job doing manly mechanical things. So "me" doing all this scrap metal cleanup, taking care of garden and horses, push mowing the whole danged farm (feels like it some days!), and working my full time job would just be pushing the envelope of sanity. So being the hard driving bargain hunter that I am, I told the nice young gentlemen that they could have all the scrap metal on the place... if they hauled off the trash as well. They took one look around at all the metal that was visible from where they were standing, thought about the deal for all of 1/2 of a second and said "OK". I'm convinced those two boys (Am I that old that I call 20 somethings "boys"??) are my karma for taking in those horses. :)


Speaking of the new horses, I have a few things to say. This first picture is Momma Doll the day she arrived here. It's not a great picture because once her halter was off she wanted nothing to do with people and wouldn't let us near. Is it me, or does she just look miserable (and very thin, that much is obvious). Yes, she's 30 years old. 30 year old horses DO NOT need to look like this. So of course I tried to feed her. Her teeth are a mess, which explains why she's thin. But she also had no interest whatsoever in food. She would graze, but she'd turn up her nose at sweet feed. Until a few days ago. I've been watching her in the pasture and the past few days I've noticed a change come over her. She became more active, more alert, and more friendly towards the other horses. On Sunday she decided not to turn her nose up at food (soaked Equine Senior - yum). In fact, she shoved her face in the bucket and did not emerge until the bucket was licked clean. Since then she's been fed three times a day and I've been upping the amount every day by just a bit. Now she walks right up to us and let's us pet her and groom her and she seems to enjoy it. And there's a new sparkle in her eye that says "yeah, I want to live".








Meghan and Jewel. I keep hearing from people that knew her, that Jewel is dangerous. Be careful. Watch out for her. She's a kicker. Not once since she's been here has Jewel even laid back her ears at us. She's always been inquisitive and mostly friendly, as long as we weren't trying to pet more than her face. So we'll see what happens when I start asking her to work and learn. Maybe that's when things will get rough?


Meghan is a turd about having her feet trimmed. She tries to fall on you, dance on your feet, jump on your head, and generally make things very difficult. But we got her done the other night and her feet look a hell of a lot better than they did. They weren't quite elf shoes, but they were way too long to be comfortable.








Got Treats?


I tried moving Manny and Chief in with the bachelors this past weekend. It did not go well. I figured since Manny was such a tyrant that he and appybutt would butt heads for a couple of minutes then be ok with each other once it was decided who was king of the dwarfs. Manny turned out to be an extraordinary wimp. He and Chief found a way out of the field and into Juniors realm, then scooted across that without being molested and hid themselves in the woods by the road. M and I panicked when we didn't find them where we had left them and drove around the fields looking for downed fences and missing wusses. Chief had a little cut on his nose when we found them, but they were both otherwise ok. They went back out in their old pasture so that Manny could continue to terrorize Stride and the young girls at his leisure.


This made me consider appybutt's aggression. If he's going to be so aggressive with outside horses, maybe I should take him back to worthless horse owner next door? He wouldn't be far, I could keep an eye on him and make sure he stays healthy, trim his feet every month or so and make sure he gets wormed and fed. This was really starting to sound like a plan. Until I walked out of the house this morning and saw this.





Appybutt was guarding the Hunter dwarf while he takes a snooze in the morning sun. Maverick was way up on the hill maintaining his blimpish figure and not close enough to protect Hunter from lions or tigers or bears if the need arose. So it's a darned good thing appybutt was there. And they are just so adorable together that I don't have the heart to separate them.




On to all things garden. My calendulas started blooming a week ago. I just love these little flowers, however they've never grown as big as they did this year. How could you not adore something that colorful and happy? And don't forget to throw some flower petals in your next salad!







Remember the Litchi Tomato that I'm trying for the first time this year? I haven't even gotten any fruit yet, but I love this plant already. The flowers are attractive and what's not to love about a plant that protects itself with thorns like that (click on pic to blow it up)?














Oh baby oh baby oh. Come on, maters! Hurry! I just can't wait much longer!

This was dinner the other night. Beets and beet greens, swiss chard, broccoli, peas, and kohlrabi. I threw a pork loin in the crock pot, smothered it with chopped parsley and rosemary, chopped swiss chard stems, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a little water, salt and pepper then let it cook for 5 hours and 35 min. This is when the smells became overwhelming and I couldn't wait for Glenn to get home from work. I wilted the beat greens with some onion, garlic, salt and pepper. I boiled the beets and peas of course, and steamed the broccoli. The oregano and chives were chopped up and thrown on the salad along with the kohlrabi. Can we say healthy and delicious? I love my garden!

Tonight I picked up the newest additions to the family -- 20 guinea hens! They're a week to 10 days old, and just little fluff balls of cuteness. In about six weeks our bug problem will be history!

I have really got to stop keeping horse treats in the Jeep.