Waiting Outside our Dining Room Doors

This is Duncan (our Highland bull) and Princess (his flirtatious girlfriend).  They are chewing their cuds watching us, waiting for alfalfa.

This May Not Look Like Much to You

It is  my 1st garlic bed.  It must be 5 x 7.  I hope that is a lot of garlic.  This weather has me pretty confused.  I didn't want to plant to early and have them come up too early and die.  So I waited.  Two days ago I checked and the soil wasn't frozen.  Today was supposed to be a nice day.  Garlic planting was my to do list.  Well it was about 45 degrees F and windy!  Felt like 36 and the soil was frozen.  I had to stand on a fork to poke holes in the soil.  After all the garlic was planted, I tossed homegrown compost personally turned by the chickens on top and then hay.  After the picture I put a board on top of the bed to prevent the hay from blowing around.

What Can I Say

Kwele, our great great great grandma doe.

The Rest of the Story - Falling off a Horse

I've been taking riding lessons for the past 3 months.  Ever since we have been on the farm I have gone back and forth about getting a horse, but I could never justify one.  Finally reading a blog I found the idea to take riding lessons for a number of years so that you will know what type of horse to get.  So I looked around for riding lessons.  The closest one to me was Benediction Farms (great name).  I called and had such a lovely conversation with Elaine that I stopped by to see her place and meet her.  She spoke Feldenkrais and that was it, I asked when I could start lessons.  Oh incidentally she teaches dressage.

I had absolutely no intention of learning dressage. I thought it was fou fou.  But I connected with this lady and her oldest student is 70!  Well I have found out that dressage is not so fou fou after all.  The skill comes from war.  All of the fancy (to me) things that the horses do actually have a purpose in combat.

Well I quickly learned that I knew nothing about horse riding (sorry, Dad). Even though I haven't ridden in multiple decades, muscle memory still seems to exist.  The hardest thing was to learn to ride in contact with the horse through the bit.  The loose rein thing was really stuck in me. And I knew that I would have trouble with the heels down, toe pointed in position.  But with Feldenkrais my body is starting to assume that position.  At least sometimes.

It took 2 months but that silly minimalist saddle is now comfortable.  I do love that weight or lack thereof. The horse I normally ride is Dancer.  Dancer is close to 30 years old and is one quarter Clydesdale. He is 16 plus hands tall, which translates into - you can stand at his shoulder and not see over his withers.  He is starting to lose some sight.

So my riding is coming along - the basics were really hard.  But things like diagonals and changing diagonals have come easy for me.  This last lesson I was practicing diagonals and Dancer kept moving from a trot to a canter.  I was probably doing something inadvertently.  Elaine thought I looked OK in the canter so she showed me how to ask for it..  I was cantering along, loving it and Dancer shyed.  He jumped sideways and I realized I was coming off.  I'm sure if there had been that big Western saddle horn I would have stayed on.
But oh well, that first unanticipated dismounted happened and it wasn't bad at all.  I landed on the right "largest muscle in the body" in a fetal position.  If I had remembered to slap the ground it would have been a pretty good martial arts fall.  I sat on the ground and breathed through it for a few minutes and got back and did it all again, including cantering.  Elaine thinks that Dancer's poor vision and the sunlight and shadows caused it.

This morning only that "muscle" is sore and I am quite proud of myself.  Got that out of the way!  I love riding especially cantering,

It's Looking a Lot Like Christmas

It is about 28 degree F. this morning.  I got really chilled taking pictures.  Right now my best pictures are on "intelligent auto" motion stabilizer.  Thank goodness my camera has such a thing. 

It is looking a lot like Christmas.  And snow expected for the 25th..



















I believe these are albino Canada geese.  We've checked the bird book and they don't match Snow geese.  There are quite a bunch of them on the corn field.

Marrow

 

Utility Room Garden

My Gardening Learning Focus for 2012

When the nest isn't available - make one

Baby Exotic Chicks

 This girl will be a Puffy Head.  That is what I call Polish chickens.  We got exotic chicks for egg layers.  We find them to be great workers and their eggs are delicious, a littler small but with the same sized yolk.
 My husband built me a great functional chicken brooder.  The wooden frame has slots that the tank rim fits into.  There is always a hinged door to take the waterer in and out.  I put a stepping stone on the top and the chicks live in the cattery.  Yes, I'm still continuing my inter-species living experiments.

Is there such a thing as a rattlesnake moth?

New Home

 I'm not the only one who loves watermelon.

The Latest Bug Eater in the Garden

This is the 1st thing I saw amidst the squash this morning.  I had deep watered the squash yesterday with a soaker hose.  When I saw this I reached out and tweaked it thinking is was a piece of the soaker hose.  On closer look this appeared through the squash leaves.

A common Kansas garter snake! I am unreasonalby afraid of snakes. To put this in context, I once as a young girl tried to run through a barbed wire fence to get away from a snake.  Well at least what I thought was a snake.  I had two stripes of scar on my upper arm from the barbed wire for many years.  I was in New Mexico visiting my cousins and everyone had briefed me on the rattlesnakes in the area.  Of course I saw one.

I irrated the snake trying to get a picture of him smelling me - tongue out.  So he went away which made me more uncomfortable since I didn't know where he had gone.

This is my best picture of the snake flicking his tongue at me.

I"m so proud of our goats!

This morning I was going to have dandelions and soft eggs for breakfast.  The idea come from Barbara Damrosch's column.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/foraging-for-dandelions-that-edible-weed/2012/05/01/gIQAAWmOwT_story.html

I had noticed a few dandelions in the yard, but when I went to pick them all I found were teeny tiny leaves - not much of substance.  I had to go all the way to the end of the driveway, where the goats should never ever be, to find dandelions that amounted to much.   Since I had seen some dandelions around the house I thought maybe the goats weren't doing as good a job as I hoped.  Wrong!  I just needed to compare those scrawny things that the goats left to some real dandelion's. 

Perfect Birthing Time ; Windchill 12 F, Snow, Windgusts 44 mph

Our 18 year old cow decided that these were the perfect conditions for giving birth.  She was missing from the supper Wed. night so Alan took the ATV down the pasture to find her.  Highland tend to hide their calves and are very self sufficient at calving.  Due to the weather Alan brought the calf up closer to the house.  Flat Back (momma's name) was very happy for him to do that.  We put baby and mom next to the hay bales so the baby could have warmth and the momma could have feed.  Then we started going out every 30 minutes to check on the calf.  The hardest thing for us about calving or kidding is deciding when to intercede and when to allow the animals and nature take their own course.  We want robust animals, not ones that need humans to help with natural functions.  So we watched and waited.  Finally because the calf wasn't standing on it's own and was shivering and because we were having trouble walking in a straight line and losing perception of where we were in the yard due to the blowing snow, we brought that baby inside.  Inside means into to the utility room - that perfect room right nest to the entry door with a concrete floor and a floor drain.  That room can handle almost anything. 

He (bull calf) is sitting on my knee after a good blow dry.  That seems to be the only use my hair dryer gets. 

Ok, he is up but he can't quite get all four legs under his body at the same time.

The cattle dog is getting to know her newest charge.  Once the calf's mouth was warm and he had a suckling response it was time to go back to momma.  Yes I go around sticking my fingers into baby's mouths.

The next morning's proof of life photo.  The calf was a little too bonded to me.  When I came out with the light and camera he immediately got up and started coming to me and momma was right behind him.

The next day all is well and the calf is positive who is momma is!

Roosters

 Jack Jr. and Wesley, Welsommer facing off.

 That is a guinea playing referee.

Now the guinea is chasing Jack Jr.off.  The guinea has a hold of Jack Jr's tail feathers.

Things I Want to Remember.

Caring for the animals at 4 in the morning on a perfectly brisk morning, my path illuminated by a clear sky and a three quarter moon.

The coyotes singing as I come out of the house.

Pairs of eyes staring at me from the nanny pen.

The dogs in working mode on their walk.  They looked like they could travel for miles and miles.

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Recylcing Cardboard

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 I always have trouble getting the cardboard to recycle in a timely manner.  It overruns the utility room.  So this is the way I am recycling my cardboard now.

 Yes, that is Sweetie Pie checking out the cardboard being recycled.

Cardboard, straw from cleaning the chicken coops and goat manure layered in the new compost pile.

Supervising Alan's Work

Yes that is our Sweetie Pie.  She comes to her name now.