Skill Buildin’

Hello Friends!

(A Quick Disclaimer: This was written about a week in advance because I have company coming and didn’t want to miss a post, I’ll touch on festival stuff for this year (and, of course, any other shenanigans, in our next catchup)
Are you finally getting all the lovely warmth of summer time? We are having a bit of a weird one, but I am not complaining. Since moving here, usually by this time it’s been in the mid nineties, sometimes ranging up into the triple digits already, and it gets to where all the outdoor chores need to happen in the morning. But this year we’ve had mostly eighties at the time of writing this, and I have been absolutely loving it. It’s been quite pleasant because while I still do my chores in the morning, it’s not wholly unpleasant if something needs my attention outside in the afternoon. It’s only strayed into the nineties a few times and they feel more like the exception than the rule. The less fortunate component to that though is that it’s been a weirdly wet season for us, which I have mentioned, but it continues, lots of rainy days, lots of humidity, lots of storms. The storms aren’t out of the norm necessarily, but the moisture content sure is. 

As I am sure you noticed in the video snippets, Nellie is starting to wear her fly mask! It’s slow going, and we’ve had some setbacks, including a couple injuries to yours truly, but she’s slowly understanding that this is a part of life. She doesn’t seem to mind the mask, but the putting on and taking off is potential meltdown territory. But I am proud of her for trying, and she does try her little heart out for me. Just a recap, in case this is your first post here (hi!) Nellie needs to start wearing a mask (and probably a fly sheet eventually) as a way to block out the sun because she has a really sensitive patch of skin on her eye that is at risk of melanoma. I want to sunscreen her little pink nose too, but that’s still full on panicking, melting down, losing faith in the human race territory for that little mare, so baby steps. Oh the joys of taking on an abused pony, excuse me whilst I go rant at a family member about all the things I would do to Nellie’s previous owners if I ever got my hands on them.
Unfortunately, we’ve already chalked up a couple fun injuries for our mask project, the most annoying one being a very inconsiderately placed set of deep rope burns on my right hand. It wasn’t Nellie’s fault at all, for the record, she just got spooked and I wasn’t going to let her gallop off trailing a lead rope and potentially breaking her neck, so I skied across the arena and incurred some lovely burns on my index, middle, and ring fingers, and across my palm. Luckily, because I am mostly mixed handed, I was able to work around it, but I write predominantly with my right hand out of cultural norm, and I obviously use both hands to type, so that was rough. Even today, we’re about two and a half weeks from the inciting incident, and I managed to re-open part of my index finger again. Word of warning, learn from me, wear the bandages longer than you think you need to, they’ll help if you’re a fool who keeps re-injuring themselves.
(also, if you use the fingerprint scanner on any of your devices, add both index fingers, trust me, one day you’ll temporarily and accidentally alter your fingerprints too).
Ro’s settling into her work patterns slowly, seems like the anti-inflammatories are working because most days she’s pretty keen to start working, which is super sweet. She doesn’t like how close the research tents are this year (they lease my neighbors land and rotate where they pitch the tents each year, so next year they should be super far on the other side again, I think) and has been pretty spooky about it, because she can hear machines and workers and tools and things she’s used to, but she can’t find them so she gets antsy. We are working on being brave and our stamina at the same time. Both of those things mean I am gonna have some killer leg muscles this summer (too bad I’m wholly unfashionable and frugal or I’d be rocking some super cute short sets).

The farrier came out recently too, and has been working on making Nellie’s hoof a better angle for her special leg. He wants to ensure she doesn’t wear through her heel and I really appreciate his taking extra care to work on her. We won’t be able to correct the limp and stomp obviously, but if it’s more comfy and safe for her I am all for it.
I got to meet some other ponies recently too, and some doggos, a cat, and a couple cows, as well as some baby chicks! I didn’t get pictures because I didn’t have the owner’s permission to do so, and I would want to have some say in where my animals were posted, but it was fun helping out a little with their care and keeping and seeing how others maintain their critters. Christopher was house sitting out on the flats for a friend so I went out a few times to help and keep him company. Funnily enough, every time I went out, it started storming. It was a bit of a wild weekend for that, and the thunder was all sorts of rumbly. It’s funny, and a little sad, because my mom is allergic to literally every animal that lives on the farm, so it’s very much second nature to keep the community spaces of our house allergen free. We try to really manage animal allergens so that the house is pretty safe. We also make a point to keep hay and grass and dust out of the house as much as we can too. But, not everyone keeps a potentially unsustainable level of allergen management in their homes, not everyone needs to, and poor Christopher was quickly reminded that weekend that he is actually quite allergic to most dogs, cats, and horses. He is for sure allergic to hay, maybe to cows, and definitely to chickens. I think we spent just as much time working out his allergy meds as he did housesitting. I may have enjoyed the weekend way more than he did, although he was getting paid haha.

Oh gosh, what other things of note happened recently? As you probably saw in the video, we got most of the irrigation working now! Pasture sprinklers are still plugging up some, but that’s to be expected pretty much all summer long. The boys melted a pipe over the winter because they didn’t realize they had buried it in the pile, and that launched water all over. To their credit, I didn’t know that pipe was there either, and who knew there was no shut off valve between the garden and the pasture? The schematics show one, but we’ve been slowly debunking those plans with each passing year. I appreciate the previous owners setting that up for us though, even if they are a little different in practice, they are invaluable. The house sprinklers are a whole other story, the valves need replacing, the computer is confused, and I truly don’t understand the zones sometimes. The house sprinklers are a mystery all their own.I am super excited, because by the time this goes up, a dear friend of mine is coming to town to visit and work remotely with me. We are going to have fun at the festival, help my cousin with the parade float, and hopefully do a lot of garage sale-ing. We also might try some low key crafting while she’s here, it’s going to be such a fun stay-cation for me and vacation for her, even if we are vacationing around work schedules.
Until we chat again my friends!