Farm Update – Page 7 – The Farmer's Blogger

Just Workin’

Posted on July 15, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

We had a very magical moment on the farm recently! Junebug had a solo ride with Ro! What a wonderful moment for all involved! June was so proud of herself, as she should be, because she had to be incredibly brave and she had to remember everything she had learned. She had to convince Ro that she was confident and capable enough to be in charge on her own. It’s hard to convince any horse of your skills when you’re just learning, but especially a mare. Especially a full sized mare when you’re just a bit of a thing riding in buddy stirrups. And especially when you’re a little nervous because your big cousin has always been there to catch you and now she’s half way across the arena (I’d have made tracks though, and I still had the lead rope in hand, just in case). Plus there’s just a lot of moving parts to riding and even when you have been riding for a long while, it can be easy to let the frustration bubble up if you miss a cue or can’t achieve what you hoped. Sometimes it feels almost like ballet or something, a constant practice towards unattainable perfection, something I still have to grapple with. Also, horses are living creatures with their own opinions and worldviews and sometimes you can do everything right and still “fail” because it’s a partnership that takes 200% (pretty sure there’s a star trek quote in there somewhere, oh well). Ro loves working with the little ones, and she takes it very seriously, but she will see exactly how far she can push an envelope, and June got a small taste of the stubbornness only a mare can produce. It’s the stuff of legends.

A rare mare share! The girls sharing one of the mineral licks!

I was told an old cowboy saying once “you can tell a gelding, you can ask a stallion, but you have to discuss it with a mare”. I think that fits Ro pretty well. She’s rarely truly naughty, but sometimes she would rather know “why” than just agree. June had to answer the “why do I have to listen to you instead of my mom” question a lot as well as the “what happens if I just refuse to walk on”. June handled it like a seasoned pro, and when both horse and rider got a little more serious than I liked, we hopped off to go practice other things.

I’ve had to laugh this week, as the most stereotypical, the-universe-said-no thing happened. So, I really should drain, clean and refill my stock tank. I like to do it in the summertime, when it’s hot enough that the inevitable, giant mess I make evaporates quickly. This year, since sometime in April, my auto waterer was leaking like a sieve and would flood out the corral if left on (a bad trait for an auto waterer, it has but one job). I’ve had to manually check and turn on the water several times a day, which is no big deal really, but planned on replacing it because I don’t want something to ever come up and leave the girls low on water, ya know? Anyways, I figured, since it floods out all the time anyway, I’d just leave the auto waterer on, let it flood out in the 100+ degree weather, it would cycle the water out, I could just suck it up and do the cleaning when the water was overflowing, and it would sorta save me having to manually drain and refill. I’m sure you see where this is going…. It stopped leaking. Works fine now. Has worked fine for days. I’m not complaining, they aren’t necessarily cheap to replace, but like, really? It’s just confusing. Oh well.

I also put up the pool noodles on the metal gates. It’s the tackiest looking thing, duct taping pool noodles to your fencing, but I prefer to not scorch my hand every time I wanna go through the gate. Plus with little ones I really need to up the safety factor around those things, because a burnt hand is annoying to me, but could be a whole day ruined for a little one. This year, instead of full sized noodles, the dollar tree was carrying slightly skinnier ones. I thought this was going to be a problem but it actually worked out better as the noodles had a stronger grasp on the fence making them easier to install. I had hoped to get green duct tape, but couldn’t find any easily accessible this year, so teal it is. Learn from my mistakes here, don’t zip tie them to the fence. Yes I’m sure the duct tape is going to melt and I’ll probably have to saw the pool noodles off at the end of summer, but I had to do that with the zip ties too, plus contend with the mares spinning the noodles and then cutting themselves on the little end bits, they weren’t as secure, and if you move them too much through day to day use, the zip ties will saw their way through the noodles all on their own. Trust me, find another solution. And then share it with me.

Alright-y, well that’s the news of the farm, thanks for hanging out for another week.

Until we chat again my friends

Squishing Ponies

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

In a happy turn, it looks like some of the garden that we thought was a goner is still with us! Some of our kohlrabi has come back, our potatoes are on their way, and maybe, just maybe the squash is holding its own. Pretty exciting considering the hard battle it had to fight.

It was about 101 degrees when I went out for these photos…

We’ve had a lot of little things to fix and figure out on the farm lately. We have a sticky valve problem in the sprinklers system which means no matter what your intentions are, you are watering the backyard. It’s also a little hectic because the particular zone that wants to always be stuck open waters the garden path and the driveway, which basically means if you are trying to get down to the rest of the farm, ya know, maybe you want to go to the barn, you are going to get wet. Really really wet.

Super fun things happened this week as well! My little cousin is coming out to ride again, and that always brings so much joy to the farm.

We goofed a little in that we had planned on her riding after I got off work, and the universe planned on that being the first day to climb above 95 degrees. It was unfortunately very very warm, so rider, horse, and yours truly all melted a little. It was not supposed to do that according to the forecast. I broke a couple of my working horses rules to pull that one off, but since it’s not actually terribly difficult work for Ro at this stage we were able to fudge it a little.

But we had so much fun anyway. Lots of smiles and giggles and high fives. She’s a little taller now, so her cues are starting to be recognized. Ro still ignores them in favor of listening to me, but at least when I say “squish your pony and cluck” we are squishing actual pony, and not just saddle leather. When I help her make the cue with her leg, we can actually feel Ro react, moving gently away, and that was an aha moment for sure. Soon she’ll be able to do it all on her own.

(Squish the pony is a very silly alternative to telling someone to kick, because as my riders get older it’s easier to teach them to escalate their asking methods to meet the pony’s needs, than to deescalate. Squishing the pony requires a constant, firm but not sharp pressure, and when the pony responds, is a very fair, clean cue with a simple end.)

She’s also got a lot more confidence in herself and her actions, which made for a much more interactive ride. She was able to let go of the horn more and use her reins, and she was able to raise her little voice and ask Ro to whoa. She even asked me if I could mark her reins so she could remember where her hands go (little hands have to put down the reins a lot in order to do other things). I was super proud of her for advocating for herself.

I promised her that soon she would be getting her own official, certified riding helmet and a set of safe boots. She’s so so so excited. As she’s working with a new found confidence, I really want her to be safe while riding. Injuries are absolutely inevitable, if she’s lucky she’ll never have more than a bruised ego and some squished toes maybe, but more than likely she will have a fall or two, pull or strain a muscle, scrape a knee, hopefully nothing worse. But a correct helmet and boots will just be one step in the right direction for ensuring she walks away from a dust up with nothing but a good story. So, one Saturday soon, when I can get some time, we will be heading to the tack store, which is just incredibly dangerous for my wallet.

I am also spending some horse focused money on finally getting the trailer up to snuff. It’s been the project that just keeps getting pushed back but the problem now exists that if I want to keep my current farrier, I need to travel to his place for the foreseeable future. He no-showed our last appointment and has been having a generally hard time the last little while, so I don’t mind making his life easier, but it’s also another project I really didn’t need on my plate. It’ll be fine though, realistically it’s the kick in the tail I need, what if I have to trailer to the vet? Or pick up an unexpected animal? Or wanna go trail riding in my childhood happy place? It’s time to get the trailer functional and the girls retrained.

This was simply too cute to not share even though it has nothing to do with the post

There’s always something that needs doing on a farm anyway, might as well be a trailer restore.

Until we chat again my friends.

Just like on COPS

Posted on June 24, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

!! Trigger Warning for drunk driving, car wrecks, and drowned kohlrabi. May want to skip this one if that sounds like too much, I’ll be back to lighter content next week. !!

A note: I feel fairly confident posting this story as I was somewhat involved and it was in the newspaper the next morning. If I come to find out other involved parties are uncomfortable with this post, I’ll happily remove it

Hello Friends!

Well, we have some good news and some bad news about the state of the garden. The good news is the tomatoes and potatoes seem to be quite happy and are well on their way to growing big and strong and tasty. They seem wholly unaffected by the weird weather of crazy storms, just happy to have some ground to flourish in.

On the other hand, we may have lost the kohlrabi and the carrots. They were already unhappy about the continued fluctuations between hot and cold, but after the last crazy heavy downpour they had just had enough, they simply were done with the nonsense. While I am bummed, I cannot blame them as I also am not a big fan of standing out in a torrential downpour. It’s just been a very rough year for the garden. I don’t think we are going to end up with much of our intended yield.

I have a few squash plants waiting to go in the ground as well, but the weather hasn’t been nice for getting that done.

Seems like it’s going to be a routine, all week long we work to fix the storm damage, washed out driveways, destroyed plants, rutted and flooded corral and arena, and then each Sunday it storms hard enough to undo all of that in about a 15 minute period. We spent yesterday under flash flood warnings, it’s no wonder the garden is a state.

Speaking of “in a state”, you will not believe my last Friday night. We had quite the hubbub.

So, my sweet mom was looking out of the kitchen window as she passed by when she stopped in her tracks. My mom has what’s called aphasia, which means there’s a bit of a disconnect usually between what she’s thinking and what she is saying or trying to articulate. Names come out wrong, yes means no, sometimes whole new words are created. Generally we’ve noticed that in more serious situations, her words come out a little clearer, doc thinks that it’s maybe that the sudden concern is helping pull language from a different neural pathway. Whatever the reason, you can imagine how fast we moved Friday evening when, clear as day my mom goes “Jeff, there’s a car”. Not the most concerning phrase on its own but it was dripping with panic from my mom.

Looking out my kitchen window, easy as you please, just on the other side of my pasture, perched at the top of my neighbors field, was a little hatchback on its top. Mom was right, there was a car. A car doing things cars are not really meant to do.

Two different agencies, my little red Durango, and the ambulance (which wasn’t needed in the end thank goodness)

Obviously, there was much ado after that. I called 911 and, because I didn’t know the extent of the wreck, I asked them to send out everything they might need to extract someone from a car. I didn’t know if there were injuries, or the car was on fire or leaking gas, or what have you, so when asked what services I wanted rolling toward me, my answer was firmly “all of it, I don’t know how bad this is fixing to get”.

Luckily I was grossly over-prepared. Worth a quick note here, as soon as I got off the phone with the dispatcher, we kenneled the dogs so they were safe. The horses had already opted to head to the barn, so they were safe as well.

While I was on the phone with the dispatcher, my dad grabbed my car (his was in the shop) and went out to assess the wreck. I was so afraid there were going to be kids in the car or, God forbid, someone no longer with us. At this point no one had seen the actual wreck so we didn’t know what happened, but we have a fair amount of older people on the roads around here and it’s not terribly uncommon to hear about an elderly person having a medical emergency and wrecking out as a result.

But amazingly, considering the car was, I’ll remind you, turned turtle, completely on its top, there were no serious injuries. When my dad got up there, he found a single occupant. She was definitely not totally understanding the gravity of her situation, as she was not in a state where she should have been driving.

I have a very strong distaste for those who drive under the influence, and she’s incredibly lucky she wasn’t more seriously injured or injured someone else. Around the time that I was graduating high school I remember thinking it was an absolute crime wave of drunk drivers killing classmates and family members of classmates. I don’t think you could go more than a week without hearing about someone else and let me tell you, that did more to teach us about drunk driving than Red Asphalt ever would have.

Overall this lady was incredibly lucky considering the choices she made. They landed in probably the softest dirt in the valley, on a back road where there wasn’t anyone else to injure. She wasn’t hurt, she landed in the nicest people’s field, where she probably won’t have to have consequences for destroying crops or property, and she was found by a retired first responder (my dad). If you’re going to make poor life choices, that’s probably the best possible outcome.

Look at how little visible damage was done in the soft sandy soil! So lucky!

Plus, here in Idaho they don’t take drunk driving very seriously at all, which greatly infuriated me to find out, but I digress.

Anyways, it took them several hours to get the car pulled up on the road, because the dirt was so soft, the damage was not as bad as it could have been but the amount of “stuck” the car was proved incredible. It was also super warm so the poor tow truck driver was simply not having a great time. But we had a pretty good time watching it all happen.

Anyways, that’s been pure crazy set of nonsense for the week. Always something new on the farm. At least most of my stories end with “and everyone was okay”.

Until we chat again my friends.

Tsch Tsch Tsch

Posted on June 17, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

What a week. I unfortunately got pretty sick again this week, but I think mostly due to the very long hours at work and the weather and pollen counts. It’s not been the most fun so I don’t have a huge amount to report.

My dad and Christopher were able to get some of the sprinkler lines up and running in the pasture finally. It’s so late in the season, but the weather just hasn’t been cooperating lately. But there’s few things more “spring-like ” than watching the sprinklers run for the first time. I used to love watching the hand pulls and wheel lines start sputtering to life when I was younger, after an early morning helping my uncle with the irrigation. I remember sneaking around trying to get dressed quietly so I didn’t wake the whole house, how my uncle did it was beyond me, but I really wanted to help move pipe in the morning so little Amanda would get up at 3:30 or 4 am. Now I do it for work all the time and, to be honest, still not a morning person at all. I dunno, it never stuck. I can do it, but I’m not built for it.

But I love the sound of the sprinklers moving along. To clarify, impact head sprinklers are my favorite. They spin along on the impact of the little spring mechanism, making that trademark “tsch tsch tsch” noise that is the perfect background for a good book, or a good nap. The little arm swings in front of the water before moving away and that impact pushes the head around its spinning path. It’s a lovely rhythmic noise that screams spring to me because some of the earliest tasks when the weather warms involves getting them set up.

Unfortunately because we keep returning to the cold, late snow and freeze warnings, and nasty storms we have halted most of the spring chores.

While I’ve been sick, I haven’t been able to ride much, as I start to cough and wheezing and it stresses out Ro. She mother hens me and while horsemanship is almost always good for the soul, it’s a little hard when neither horse is willing because mom sounds more like a velociraptor than a human. I’ve not had much of a voice at all.

So, instead of riding, I’ve started organizing the tack space. It got a little rough over the winter because someone tried to help me clean up, without telling me, and sorta completely changed everything. But it’s slowly getting back in order and the family member meant no harm.

I’ve labeled the boxes, so I can tell where most things are, my shelves are mostly back in order, I’ve hung up my halter hooks again and I put up my “whoa” sign on the wall. I haven’t cleaned since the last dust storm though because I was trying to not completely aggravate my cough (spoiler alert: I did though). Mostly sitting down jobs for me for now.

Speaking of signs, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned in a previous post that we’ve had a new family hanging around that feels the need to sneakily feed my horses, so I bought some “please don’t feed” signs I need to put up (and some “my fence is hot” signs too, no leaning please, although you’d think the barbed wire would dissuade them). I’ve had horses I knew killed by well meaning families feeding recklessly over the fence, plus Nellie has a history of colic now, so it makes me nervous. Plus it’s just a super dangerous habit to teach your children, you don’t know if my horses are aggressive, maybe biters, and you don’t know if my fence is hot, which mine always is.

I’ve tried in the past to educate, and let them know that if they want to feed the horses they are always welcome to come knock and I’ll usually be able to take a quick break from work to come hang out and let your kiddos feed the girls, and most people are receptive or at least reluctantly understanding. Unfortunately this family mostly just got really upset with me. Hence the signs. I wanna be friends with my neighbors, but more importantly I don’t want humans or horses hurt and if they find that offensive, well, I’ve hit an age where it’s no longer important to me to be liked. You can be the sweetest peach…. etc, etc, ad nauseum.

Watson having a nervous cuddle during a storm

Problem is, for now, I haven’t really felt well enough to stand out in the winds and rains to put them all up…. So my porch is a no feeding zone. It’ll come in time.

Anyways, I think I need some more warm tea, so I’ll end this here.

Until we Chat again my friends

Clouds

Posted on June 10, 2022June 10, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Can I just tell you about some of the crazy clouds we’ve had lately? I know that sounds like a dull topic but my mom is originally from Nebraska so watching weird clouds with a suspicious eye is ingrained. Even when we lived in the Puget Sound, where severe weather literally never happens, we were taught to watch the skies.

We had the most amazing shelf cloud roll over the other day, it was super windy and gross outside so I took pictures through the windows. We had just gotten inside, see, I had gotten home from running errands and hopped in the shower to get the day off, was just brushing my hair when my dad cam running in (which never happens, with the layout of the house, usually he will just get my attention by calling from the dining space and ask me to come to the kitchen when I have a chance, or he will knock at the door to my room so he doesn’t startle me at my desk, he never just runs in). He was worried about the horses in the pasture and he was right. Behind that shelf cloud was a major set of winds and rain.

Yesterday we had some major clouds as well, and funnily enough, it went a little opposite. I looked out at one while cooking and thought, “oh, that’s a crazy storm”. So I stepped outside to investigate, pulled the radar and my weather map up on my phone, consulted the birds and my girls, and the general consensus was that this giant wall of storms sure looked like it was going to bypass us. Remember, I live off the side of the valley floor, so a lot of times I watch storms roll up and down the valley without being affected. I figured this was going to be one of those cases so I walked back inside, finished cooking my meal, and sat down to eat. I had the spoon halfway to my mouth for the first bite when our emergency alert tone went off.

Those alerts are pretty accurate so I immediately changed tactics and went running out to bring the animals in and to batten down the hatches where I could. Unfortunately I was, and am, the only one in the house not majorly sick (this flu is awful this year) so while Christopher came down to help, I mostly just ran around doing things myself. I even took a small video, but WordPress and I are having a bit of an argument about it, so no promises it actually plays.

I think the girls are better weather barometers than anything else because while they usually come into the barn area fairly nicely, they do it with a quickness in a storm. Sometimes they will come in and attempt to close their own gate if they think I am being too slow because there’s been a few times I’ve misjudged the weather and ended up having to get them to the barn in a microburst or something.

Anyways, just as I got inside as the rain started to hit and it quickly got so bad it knocked out cell service and satellite. It was so loud that we could hardly hold a conversation, and we mostly just sat inside hoping passed quickly. We also ended up having quite a bit of hail, but luckily it didn’t get as big as they said so we didn’t end up with any serious hail damage.

Poor Joe especially hates the thunder, he gets very stressed out. He came and tackled me shortly before all this went down, at the time I was a little miffed because 100lbs of dog flying at my face was not fun, but I realized he was hearing the thunder in the distance and needed me to know immediately that this was a problem.Joe rarely actually tackles me intentionally, so you know he’s serious.

The emergency alert tones went off for most of the afternoon and into the evening as the storm slowly crawled through the valley. The dogs got used to the sound and that it seemed to go off before more thunder and rain so they would get all antsy when it would sound off again. I also realized that the horses can hear that noise, as I could hear it down at the barn as well, and I noticed they were starting to work out that it wasn’t a good noise as well. I guess that’s a good thing, maybe eventually I can get the dogs to head to their crates when that noise goes off and the horses to the barn. Either way, it’s a shrill noise that they now know is important.

The alerts also managed to go off every time I sat down to eat, and you have to get up and tune the channel in usually to get the information, so the amount of food I spilled Sunday evening was unreal.

We were lucky, the only damage was a washed out driveway and some minor flooding around the barn, some people in the area had more severe hail and thus hail damage as well as wind damage. I am, once again, so grateful we replaced the old roof with metal a couple summers ago.

Until we chat again, my friends!

The Nerdy Owl is a Know-It-Owl

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!
It’s very early in the morning. I’m awake because a hoot owl has taken to slowly circling the house and, unsurprisingly, hooting in the early morning hours.
Its supremely unsettling. I tend to wonder if it’s to upset the dogs, or if there’s vermin in the bushes around the house that he wants, but either way, being able to follow his path and knowing exactly when he’s outside your window…its unsettling.
This last fall, when I would be sitting at my desk later in the evening, I would often get the impression that I was being watched. My desk sits under the window, across the way from the window is some tall Arborvitae bushes and down a bit is a tree (possibly an Locust tree? Dunno) who’s branches reach out closer to the window. Well, the hoot owl learned that if he sat on top of the Arborvitae or in the outer tree branches, well, he could see right into my room. So several nights in a row I’d get an ominous feeling, start to hear the hooting, and I would look up from my desk just to make eye contact with him. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) I started closing my blinds shortly after sunset, no matter what. Previously I’d just sorta waited until the next time I got up to stretch, but now its been made a priority all its own.
I’ve been told that seeing an owl peer through your window is good luck. It doesn’t particularly feel like good luck to have a large predatory bird staring at you while you work. Especially when you have a very small dog sleeping on your lap (admittedly, I don’t think the owl could see Watts under the blanket under the desk but still). So, I thought I’d look it up and see.

One of the owls in the parliament (I can’t tell you how difficult this shot was to get, but I respected the owls space and comfort and used a huge zoom)

(It’s at this point that I tell you my “research” consisted of a Google search, this was in no way thesis level work and you should probably double check what I’ve written before proudly declaring it at your next party/meeting/carpool.)
Looks like, based on the first three links of my Google search, that owls are associated with the night, death, and fear just about as often as they are associated with bravery and good omens. It also seems to be a fairly even split, on cursory look, amongst the Native American populations as it varies wildly by tribe.
In a more blanket “spiritual” sense a lot of religious and spiritual groups seem to see the owl as a sign of good fortune and wealth, and one looking in your window is meant to bring joy and comfort. But I could seem to parse exactly why they hold that belief.
Look, I don’t know if I felt comforted at all about an owl outside my window and I don’t think I believe in lucks and omens and signs. I do believe I will keep a better eye on my small beans as they go through their morning routines. Especially as this owl gets bolder and has started yelling when I turn on my light in the morning. In fact, he’s chewing me out as we speak. I’m meant to let the dogs out for their morning business in about an hour, I always stand out there with them anyway (I never let my beans out at any time of the day without supervision, as I don’t have a fence and they all grew up with a fenced yard, and even if that wasn’t the case, there’s just too many dangers for them to navigate on their own), but honestly, I’m kinda thinking we might push it back a bit. Watson is really owl dinner sized, and this owl has already buzzed family members, so it’s clear he has no regard for humans. Just yesterday he watched me take the boys out and softly hooted from a nearby tree. I have only ever seen this owl from a great distance in the daylight but I know he gets fairly close at night, under the cover of darkness. So I think outside time with the boys will be a two or more person job for the foreseeable future. Safety in numbers maybe, that way we can always have an eye out.

We’ve had some other visitors around the farm too that have made the boys and I varying levels of nervous. There was a lone coyote around, maybe still is, dunno, that was getting a little bold and twice I ended up grabbing dogs and hauling them up on the porch and into the house with a quickness. I don’t know if he’s brave enough to try to steal or take on one of my dogs, but I don’t care to test it. I worry about Cordelia, the chickens, and the horses, but Cordelia spends most of her early mornings safely in the rafters of the equipment shed, the chickens are in the coop at night, and while the mares have run of the arena and corral at night, I am pretty sure my girls would win with a coyote, and I’d hear about it fast enough to get down there in help. Basically, I only worry my citified little canine pack because they don’t know any better and I get the distinct impression they would want to make friends.
We’ve also had a skunk hanging around. You can tell because of the way the farm often smells. Theres enough variety of critters around here that the skunk seems to regularly need to defend itself, or at least announce itself, and while I’ve not laid eyes on a skunk since my first year here (when one walked out from under my car and I called my boss to say I’d be late as I hauled to the house) I have absolutely no doubt this guy exists.
The deer have been more hit or miss but I know they’re around too. You can sometimes see their glowing green eyes in the grass and sometimes they still come down to watch me feed in the evenings. There are still tracks and droppings in my yard and evidence they’ve been snacking occasionally on my hay. So, they clearly don’t feel too threatened.
Well, the hoot owl seems to have chilled out, and I’m thinking it’s about time I started work for the day. Keep an eye out for critters on your morning walk, lemme know if you see anything cool!
Until we chat again my friends!

Spoiled Horse Diaries

Posted on May 27, 2022May 26, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

In today’s episode of “I sure wish someone would treat me like I treat my horses”, Nellie and Ro-Ro are out sunning themselves under what is becoming an increasingly rare sunny day, after spending the night and early morning all snuggled up in fluffy warm blankets due to the rain. They are also relaxing after yesterday’s very long day of having their hooves trimmed and conditioned and getting a chiropractic adjustment to address stiffness and any lingering winter creaks and moans.

That’s right, after a long day of spa treatments and evening of lounging, my girls got to sleep in and are now sunbathing. If that isn’t the life I dunno what is. Although, some time between now and the end of this post, a break will be taken and a ride will be accomplished. I hope.

Meanwhile, yours truly has been perpetually cold for about three days after spending a ridiculous amount of time standing out in the middle of several different storm cells. Life of a farmer, I guess, but do you ever do something and immediately go “this is the exact reason I’ll be sick in three days?”? I could feel it. Fingers crossed I’m wrong.

Photo Credit to Christopher, who occasionally texts me critter pics when I am in a stressful meeting

I’m so excited to see how Ro continues to move since she had a set of crossed ribs that we didn’t know about. She’s such a sweetheart and was just working away like it was no big deal, when we saw stiffness even the vet assumed it was just tender feet from all the wet ground they aren’t used to. Ro is such a trooper.

To clarify, we are having a devil of a time keeping their feet nice. It’s just been so soggy. Ro is shedding some of her frog and both my girls are prone to chips right now.

But so far, Ro is moving like a whole different horse! How long this lasts remains to be seen, we may need to schedule visits from our chiropractor more often, but she is running and bucking and kicking and having a great time during our lunge sessions and was way more willing and flexy under saddle. She’s needed a little longer during our lunge session to get her wigglies out, but I don’t mind because once she’s settled she’s got a very steady head on her. And everyone gets the zoomies on a sunny day when you feel good right? I mean, I don’t run per say but I definitely have a spring in my step and a willingness to tackle more projects and things when it’s a sunny feel good kinda day. All to say, I get her point, sometimes you just gotta run around like a total hooligan for a little while to get the crazies out. As her mama I appreciate she does it pre-ride.

Nellie is new to the blanket wearing thing…

Nellie, on the other hand, has had no interest in working whatsoever, and only interests in being a bit of a pill to Ro during her work sessions, although we are trying to remedy that. She is allowed to have “I don’t wanna work days” both my girls are, because of their respective leg injuries. If they are hurting I don’t ever wanna make things worse unnecessarily. But since the vet Nellie has been borderline snotty about it all, so we are stepping back and working on reminders like “pushing someone over to get the the fence is not nice”, “trying to run into your sister while she lopes is dangerous and not okay” and “pulling all the tack off the fences and throwing it into the dirt is not appreciated”, she’s also back to going from zero to meltdown really quickly, which tells me this is all probably a broken trust thing, she’s still upset I brought the vet out. This girl can hold on to feelings with the best of them .But we will get there, I’m kinda letting her come to me, when she’s ready to work again, she will let me know. She is still entitled to all the love and care in the world, but I do think it’s getting to her that Ro gets the post work cookies and she hasn’t in a while. While the definition of work is different for every horse, the rule on this farm is horses have unlimited amounts of love and care and all the necessities of a comfy life, but the coveted peppermint cookies are for horses that have worked that day. Work might look like letting me use the scary fly wipes on your neck, or it might look like practicing 20m circles at the jog, but cookies are a reward for a good attempt at something.
Honestly, “work” for my girls looks a lot like play anyway, compared to the life some horses live, my girls are basically mares of leisure. The fact that Ro often comes trotting in from the pasture herself because she’s excited to run and ride leads me to believe that the work level is about right for her. And that’s all the really matters to me, that in this team of three, we are all happy and fulfilled.

Until we chat again my friends!

Stormin’

Posted on May 20, 2022May 14, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Goodness, if it hasn’t been stormy lately. And cold! Looks like winter time just won’t quite give up yet. Usually by May we’ve settled into a nice pattern of outdoor time after work and dinner on the porch, short sleeves and sunscreen. But this year it’s really felt lucky if we see more than two days of sunshine at a time, and it’s consistently cold. I’ve been wearing my big winter jacket out with the horses most days, in the middle of the day!

And today it’s been so muddy you can’t hardly do a thing without losing your boots. I’m equally excited and totally over the rain. It’s great because it usually means snow in the mountains, and we’ve been in perpetual drought for as long as I can remember, so a better snowpack is appreciated. But also, this land and the infrastructure we stuck on top of it aren’t built for this much rain. Roads have lots of standing water due to lackluster drainage, the ground is so waterlogged the new rain simply sits on top, and of course there’s the matter of what you are used to, and no one around here is used to driving in the rain. One thing I’m grateful for is that I learned to drive in the pacific northwest, so for better or worse, rain does not stress me out on the roads.

Did I pull off off on the side of the highway to take this photo right after those clouds produced some killer lightning? Yes I did. Did others join me? Yes, they did. Was it a poor safety choice? Yes, it was. Don’t be like me kids, make smart driving choices.

However, I don’t think I know anyone who would be comfortable driving or working in any of the major downpours we’ve had lately. It’s aggressive rain that sometimes turns into graupels. It’s wholly unpleasant to be around.

I’ve been looking into getting my girls rain sheets for that reason. It’s slowly getting warmer, although it really doesn’t feel like it some days, and I don’t want to necessarily put on their heavier duty winter jackets and overheat them (I honestly try to avoid blanketing at all and let them grow big fuzzy coats, because that’s the most breathable option during mild years), but I got to do something to prevent them getting absolutely waterlogged. They have a lovely indoor space and a covered run in space, but it can be a little loud in the rain and they prefer to be outside. Unfortunately a lot of places are perpetually sold out, because I am not the only one with soggy mares.

It’s also prompted me to mostly give up on getting the hay area covered this year. It’s not that I don’t want to, but since I’m not the only one struggling with the weather and such this year labor prices are through the roof, if you can even get someone to respond. Which, I understand, and certainly don’t want to undervalue someone, but I was recently told over the phone the job would be at least 10k, no matter the dimensions, because that’s simply the minimum the contractor would accept to come out and give it a go. To clarify, I’m just looking for a glorified lean to. If I’m dropping over 10k on something right now, I have other priorities.

I also maybe have a cousin who could help, he’s a contractor and a good one, but he’s been so busy he makes the rest of us look like we are standing still.

Anyways, as much as I long to be outside, it’s been okay to have a little more indoor time, if only because I just can’t quite get this head cold beat this year. It comes and goes. It’s gotten very annoying.

This little batch of clouds produced some solid rain. Joe perpetually smells of wet dog.

I think I’m feeling a little worse for wear today because I spent yesterday absolutely soaked to the bone out working with the horses. It snowed briefly even, but we got it all done. Sweet girls both got their hooves trimmed up, it’s been quite the battle keeping their feet in good shape with all the wet and soggy conditions. Then Ro saw the chiropractor while Nellie got firmly acquainted with her first ever heavy winter blanket. Ro had a couple of ribs out of place but nothing major, and was a total rockstar. Nellie absolutely blew my mind with how quickly she realized that the scary straps were worth it because the blanket is nice and warm. I honestly think the bigger struggle will be getting her to take it off. She loves being warm and cozy.

Are you guys having any crazy weather? I mean. I’d imagine so, given so much of the world is having crazy weather. How do you guys cope with excessive rains and winds? Have you had any snow this late in the season? Gotta say may snow is a first for me.

Until we chat again, my friends!

Mail Call

Posted on May 13, 2022April 11, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!
Joe got some fun mail today, and he’s incredibly excited about it. See, ever since he was a puppy Joe has loved toys, especially Kong safestix, but he’s hard on toys because he’s an aggressive chewer. I try really hard to make sure about the time the latest toy needs to be replaced, we have new Stix in the wings.
But I sometimes miss the mark and we have to remove the old toy before the new ones arrive. This exact phenomena is why Joe has gotten really used to the Chewy signature blue box (not sponsored, just the only place I can easily get a hold of his favorite Stix).
This crazy dog recognizes the box from the moment the driver pulls it out and waits not quite so patiently at the counter as I cut all the non-dog friendly packaging away. Then one by one (I usually order three or four, in some combination of medium and large sizes for my giant teddy bear of a dog) I hand them to him, and he goes about showing anyone nearby his new treasures. The only downside to this is, thanks to the size of the Stix, if you are standing nearby, you should wear kneepads because he has no concept that he is suddenly a wide load.

After he’s taken his new Stix, one by one from the box, around the house to show everybody, and finally over to the living room (the most wide open space and thus the best for playing), I get a happy dog tackle hug. Without fail, he hugs and cuddled until I relent, and we are sitting on the floor while he chews, shows off, and inspect the new toys. Sometimes he will hand his Stix off to me or anyone else who’s joined us on the floor so we can play too. But pretty soon he’ll need it back for chewing purposes.
The rest of the work day I get more than my share of the steps in because anytime I sit down to work at my desk for more than 20 minutes, Joe comes in and begs for more play time, and who am I to say no. He loves his toys so much.
Scooby liked toys a little when he was younger, but he has always been more of a zoomies kinda dog, enjoying playing tag with us and other dogs over playing with toys, I think because his big brother, my childhood pupper Winchester, was the king of human vs dog tag matches.
Watson (and Sherlock, sweet little guy) were never as into toys, I think in large part because toys generally aren’t made for their size and if they are we would have to monitor so Joe didn’t eat them. Sherlock did enjoy the occasional rope toy, but his favorite thing was crawling up into the toy box and falling asleep. I have some cute video on my old SD of him quietly puzzling through how to crawl up into the bucket and promptly laying down (before looking up, seeing his mom filming, and diving for my lap). I’ll have to see if I can easily get to that SD.

_{Editing Amanda here: could not get into the box with the SD, it’s in the rafters of the shed and needs more hands than I have)}

Weve had some crazy repairs to make on the flatbed, and we realized that, at some point in the future, were gonna have to tear apart that engine in the name of actual preventative maintenance.
Looks like whoever owned it before us had a penchant for breaking the heads off bolts and then completely ignoring the problem so that weather and leaks and such could get in there and make triply sure those bolts would never move again. It’s an effective technique that means that teardown for cleaning is a pretty lofty goal at the moment.

I really hope this video upload things works….. please, please, please, please, please!

We finally were able to find a small, reasonably priced generator for the farm. It’s not a whole home backup, which is still on my “wants” list for the property eventually, but it’s a lovely little portable generator that will pull double duties on farm chores as well as whenever we do have a power outage and need a little emergency power to run the pump or fridge temporarily.
Dad was quite excited because it means he now how power anywhere on the farm he needs it, which has been an ongoing issue for a while. The way our farm is laid out, all the outbuildings are congregated on one side, which is perfect about 90% of the time, but not great when you realize two thirds of the farm doesn’t have outlets so things like electric chainsaws and weedwhackers and things become a problem. Since we have lots of fence lines that collect scrub trees and tumbleweeds like they are Pokémon, a generator to run those things and keep the fire risk down is a must. Clean fence lines can function as a small-scale fire break.
That’s about it for now, lots of new “toys” on the farm this week.
Until we chat again my friends

The Event of the Season

Posted on May 6, 2022May 3, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Trigger warnings: vet stuff, needles, vaccinations, minor injuries, general farm medical dramas

Hello friends!

It was farm call day last week, where all the critters on the farm that can get vaccinated, do.

This one was definitely a little rougher than the others, not going to lie. But it all worked out in the end. Allow me to explain.

So, Ro, Watson, Joe, and Scoobs are pretty much seasoned pros about the vet. Scooby admittedly gets pretty nervous when we go into the actual vet office, and he does try to hide, but when it’s all said and done he stands quietly for his checkup and shots, he just needs a little more reassurance. Totally understandable. And, since I started scheduling farm calls, it’s been much more pleasant for him, since he has no idea it’s checkup time until it’s already in progress. No time to get worried.

Nellie, on the other hand, has a sixth sense about vet call days. We can do everything like normal, heck, there have been times I’ve forgotten the vet is coming out, but she knows. She knows. She will decide the level of crazy she wants to bring when they arrive, but make no mistake, she’s stewing on it beforehand.

The last few times she’s been fine, this time unfortunately she surprised us with how quickly she hit meltdown mode. She was trying really hard, ate some cookies from the vet’s hand and the lovely vet tech’s as well. But she was getting more and more nervous. After that fact I learned that the stray dog that had caused quite the ruckus earlier in the day had come back and my dad was attempting to prevent him from coming back into the corral, I’m assuming that was a large part of why she melted down so quickly, because while she likes dogs, she doesn’t like scary yappy jumpy dogs. And Ro doesn’t like dogs at all so the vibes were off.

(For what it’s worth, we tried to catch this dog forever, and when I called my neighbor she was pretty sure he lived down the road, so we are fairly certain he made it home and was just out on a walkabout)

Anyways, after she ran me over and kicked the vet, we opted to just let her live her life, which I believe was the right choice safety wise, but then after she calmed down she was so in my pocket, like she knew that wasn’t the best behavior and was trying to be especially cute. So, she definitely did not have a great time. It’s so hard because once Nellie has decided there’s an issue, that’s that, she can and will hold on to being suspicious about it for days. Unfortunately the vet and I will need a little recovery time as she grazed him in the shin and strained my shoulder (we’re fine now though, mostly just bruised egos).

While we vaccinated the dogs, we were discussing what to do with Nellie, as I love her too much to let her go unvaccinated, and we ended up with a two part plan that eventually leads to our happy ending. First, we discussed how to get her comfy with the vet, and we decided it probably made the most sense to either get her more comfortable with the needle or more relaxed around the vet so she isn’t thinking about the needle.

So, we decided that first I would try giving her the shot myself a day or two later, and if that went poorly we could give very light sedation so she was just a little bit safer and we could react just a little faster than she could.

As you can imagine there was one idea I liked significantly more than the other, although neither sounded like the makings of a fun time.

I won’t keep you in suspense, Nellie was such a good girl that two days after the vet call I was able to give her her vaccinations myself. At first the plan was to hide the needle and sneak attack, but she was on to me immediately. Honestly I should know better by now. So, I showed her the needle and spent about an hour holding it up to her neck, pinching, and feeding a cookie as reward. I kept waiting for the meltdown, but she was all here for the game. After she had thoroughly convinced me this wouldn’t be a big deal, I spent an additional 20 minutes psyching myself up because while needles don’t bother me, poking those I love does.

Ro is going through a food stealing phase, please ignore her extra weight, we are working on it

But we did it! She stood so still and nicely that I honestly didn’t know what to do, she was such a good pony. My technique wasn’t great, so unfortunately there was a little swelling and the equivalent to a little equine bruise from a shaky needle, but a couple video calls with the vet and he wasn’t concerned. She was even friends with me after the fact, which was totally new because usually she needs a little alone time to reevaluate what happened.

As of today, now a few days later, both girls had the teeniest of injection reactions in the form of sore muscles and lethargy, combine that with a string of poor weather, and they have had many days off. Nellie was super touchy about her neck (understandable) but she’s coming around now. Like I said, she just needs a little extra time to process things occasionally.

So all in all we came out fine. A little more eventful than last year, but the girls are healthy and vaccinated, the vets brushed shin was remedied with some donuts delivered to the clinic, and I can lift my arm above my shoulder again. Plus Nellie Belly and I have a whole new level of confidence since we handled vaccinations all by ourselves. Nellie requests I work on my shot-giving form though, so suggestions on how to do that are appreciated.

This has been a bit of a longer tale of farm shenanigans, so I better wrap this up here.

Until we chat again, my friends!