Life on the Farm – Page 14 – The Farmer's Blogger

Parading About

Posted on July 2, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Back in action! Thank you so much for your patience with my break, it was much needed and much appreciated.

The pack is slowly healing and learning the new dynamic. They are obviously still bummed but have started to play and goof again. Watson especially is absolutely in my pocket, I’ve been staying home a lot more because of the severe heat, and he’s almost never not in my lap or under my feet.

And as for the rest? Well, the two-legged family members in this house can now share some happy memories with more abandon, and while we still find new things all the time to miss, we’ve been able to be more grateful for what we had and are healing as well.

But on to happier news: the parade happened! We had so much fun!

We found out we were not going to be able to use a trailer very last minute, so we decked out my uncles’ truck in the most sparkly, patriotic, goofy way possible! Our theme was “Together Again Under the Flag” and I think we nailed it. I will say, I know I said we have a rivalry with the local dept store, and that is true, but the head of their float team had been sick for the two weeks leading up to the parade so out of respect we didn’t really engage in shenanigans this year. It’s no fun if it’s not in good humor, ya know?

The truck just before we left! The red shirts were our uniforms, as some of my cousins are sporting here

Also, to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t judge the floats this year, which seemed odd. Although to be fair, everyone had a similar idea, we were all pretty red, white, and blue from parade start to end, so maybe they just couldn’t pick a winner. It was super fun in any case, and we are already planning to go big for Christmas. Fingers crossed we come up with something cool.

We were planning to build the float in total the night before, because they moved the parade an hour earlier this year to avoid the baking noontime sun. This was a great idea in theory because it would mean we didn’t need to hurry, but the heat proved to be a problem anyway. We couldn’t work the night before because it was triple digits, and we were terrified of accidentally melting the décor to the truck. A grey Ford pickup with red, white, and blue sparkles is a statement for sure, but not for an everyday look maybe.

Thanks Dad for capturing this one! My cousin and I had just passed by with the banner in front, and the truck was getting lots of attention! (Blurred for privacy and because I don’t have explicit permission from those businesses)

The heat has been absolutely brutal! We have been hitting triple digits really frequently and are regularly seeing above 110 on the forecast, which is absolutely terrifying. It was super hard to walk the 2.5-mile parade route, but we made it. I carried one side of the banner in front of the truck, and let me tell you, it’s not hyperbole to say I’ve been waddling since. Seriously sore calves. I always think I’m so in shape until parade day. Every year I end up super sore. On the bright side, I straight up wrote that down as my cardio for the day. It counts, I swear. It was also around 100 degrees on the street itself, which absolutely didn’t help. But we were having so much fun it didn’t really matter.

The last few feet my cousin’s little ones wanted to walk the banner! Thank you Uncle Steve for capturing this from the truck!

We threw 102 pounds of saltwater taffy out to the parade watchers. I heard so many variations of “oh they have the good stuff!”. It’s funny, even though it gets ridiculously soft, taffy holds up to the heat pretty well, that is, if you stick it in a cold place for a few minutes, it’s totally fine. Turns out you aren’t so lucky with chocolates and lollipops. Also, the dentist throws toothbrushes every year, and while that’s noble… really?

(Also, wouldn’t throwing candy be something like job security?)

Otherwise though, honestly, I’ve been kinda hiding out a little. It’s just been too hot to get too much done. I need to get some new pictures of the garden to show you guys, because it’s grown so much! We have pumpkins! But I haven’t taken the time to snap some aesthetic photos. Next time, promise!

Speaking of pumpkins, I’ve been trying to learn to crochet little stuffed pumpkins, so stay tuned for some unseasonably fall content as soon as I learn how to make little i-cord stems. I’m super excited!

Until we chat again, my friends!

A Week of Prep Work

Posted on June 11, 2021June 10, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

HI friends! This week has been busy busy busy. We had lots of shopping to do, so we spent a lot of time in town, and I had a super fun event to prep for!
My little cousin is going to come out and try her hand out horseback riding! She’s been asking for a while, and I kept saying that she had to wait until she was five years old. I wanted to wait because at five years old, children are usually old enough to be able to articulate when they are excited or scared, what’s concerning them, they understand that they need to be kind to others, and very importantly, they are becoming much more coordinated and balanced.
As soon as she turned five she let me know she was old enough to try lessons. To be honest, I think I’m just as excited as she is. I used to help with lessons as a high schooler, and a little in college, and I have been hoping to have an opportunity to share my love of horses with my extended family more. I would never force it, if she ends up not liking it, that’s totally fine. But, I have a unique opportunity to share something, and if I have little ones around who like it, I can help make cowgirl dreams a reality.

My beautiful girls (and yours truly)! I have sweaty gross hair here, because I am hugely pro-helmet, and I practice what I preach, however when my Dad was snapping photos, he let me know you literally could not see my face under the sun shade.

My farm insurance is a little less jazzed about the idea of my putting a small child on a large horse, so I have spent some time this week researching and writing up a waiver and contract for lessons. I think it is good for all parties involved to have the paperwork in front of them.
Since I don’t have pony sized critters, until my little cousin grows slightly longer legs we will be working mostly on balance, confidence, and paying attention. As she gets more comfortable and gets stronger she will also learn the less fun stuff, how to clean a stall, how to keep tack neat and organized, and the nitty gritty stuff, like how a vet call works, and she will meet the farrier. My goal is to raise up a little well rounded horsewoman, it’s her job to decide where she wants to take her horse journey. Although, if she wants to head straight for the Olympics, more power to her, she’s going to need a better trainer. Your girl’s equitation has gotten… a little rough over time.

Another Dad capture! The girls made rounds running through the pasture sprinklers and rolling in the arena dirt…. it took me an hour to get them looking somewhat clean.

We are gearing up for a parade around here. The National Oldtime Fiddler’s Assoc. Festival and Competition is back this year and we are all really, really excited about it. Usually there’s a little float competition since we all build our own floats out of whatever is available in the local shops, and the float I work on, for our local Love INC, has won it’s share of awards. We are going a little lower key this year, since we didn’t know the state of the parade until about a month ago, and didn’t know the theme until about a week ago. This year our goal is just to beat the local department store. We have an unofficial rivalry with their float team because my uncle works there, but builds on our float. It’s all in good fun, they send spies, we send spies, all in the name of playful banter and getting the town all amped up for the festival.
We were honestly really concerned that we were going to lose the festival last year. It’s been harder and harder for the aging town to keep it going, but the old guard won’t pass on the reins just yet. This is understandable, it’s a town steeped in tradition, but a lot of us younger folk would love to carry on those traditions while still growing our events and the town in general. The pandemic really proved to push the situation, as not only could we simply not have the festival, we couldn’t have any of our usual tourist-y things. This is why this year’s is so so so important. It is partially online, or at least that’s the plan, I’m not entirely sure how that will work, BUT if they end up streaming or posting anything I’ll let you all know so you can be involved as well.

Parade Float Bin, everything I’ve been accumulating decorations wise has ended up here. There’s some bigger items we use every year, like the giant fiddles, that I need to pick up still from the Love INC storage space.

In terms of parade float prep, we are going with a Flag based theme, so I raided some of the Memorial Day clearance racks and have been hunting for Fourth of July based items as well. I have added a laundry basket to my trunk specifically for float finds. (Pro-tip, those Amazon boxes you don’t know what to do with? Trunk organizers… pop the flaps inside the box and they are super handy modular storage that can also still be closed. Second Pro Tip? When you have lots of loose things to carry to or from your car (like, say, float décor) grab a laundry basket. They have handles and are literally made for carrying lots of loose items. Things you learn when you park a decent walk from your front door).

We are looking down the barrel of some storms, so I’m going to sign off here and go park the tractor under shelter and batten down the hatches. It’s a shorter update this time, but I doubt you want the nitty gritty of my shopping trip (I had to go to Walmart, love their prices, generally despise actually going to the store). I’d imagine next week you’ll get pages and pages of my gushing about my little cousin’s first lesson, maybe a parade DIY or two, since we gotta make whatever we can’t find, and possibly a storm video if the gopro cooperates.
Until we chat again, my friends!

It’s Too Warm!

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hi friends!
It’s hot today! It’s actually one of the cooler days this week though. It’s unseasonably warm, today is 98 degrees, usually we are happily sitting mid eighties around late may early June, but this week we hit 106. I wish I was joking.
I’ve had to modify a lot about my schedule this week, which I am super aware that I am lucky enough to work in a job and in an industry that allows for flexible work schedules. It makes farm life much easier when I don’t have to stress as much about scheduling vet visits or farm chores (or repairmen, or more vet visits).
Usually I start work between 5:30 and 6 am in the morning, I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out, I am usually feeling like I put in a good days work around 2:30 or 3 pm in the afternoon and I still have so much day left! This is especially nice when the days are super short in the winter time and the sunlight leaves us at 4 pm. I get just a little more cranky than usual when I don’t get to see the sun. It’s a little easier to get up in the dark when you get a reward.

Dad and his little flock of weed eaters. They take their job very seriously, but are scared of the camera, so I have to sneak pictures.

With it being absolutely melty outside by 2 pm now, I have opted this week to exercise the horses and work on chores before work, which is also pleasant, because I feel super accomplished before even signing in. The downside is, I’m all gross and tired by 7 am. A fair trade off I think.
Ro feels fundamentally very differently than I do. She is not a fan of mornings, and has been pretty vocal about not enjoying 6 am rides. She’s a good sport, she’s been hanging in there and getting our exercise in, but we’ve thrown a few more bucks and kicks, less willing to lead out on rides, and she’s not as easily swayed by cookies. It’s totally fair, we all are a little cranky in the mornings.
I’m not naturally a morning person, so I feel her pain, but I am definitely a “get everything done early so I don’t have to worry about it” kinda person. I love crossing things off that to-do list.
I also can totally see why some people really gravitate toward morning rides, it’s a very fun way to start a morning. I could see it being very peaceful, if your mare isn’t angrily pointing out the sun hasn’t crested the hill yet (it’s light out, I just live next to a large hill, I’m not completely heartless).

Look at how pink and pretty it is in the morning! The sky gets super pink and orange and my phone’s auto setting just didn’t know how to handle it (Also, for some reason wordpress is mangling the quality on upload, not a clue as to why)

Sherlock has recently found out that if he squeezes through the porch rail slats and reaches around, he can sneakily get off the porch and go exploring. This is a big old worry for many reasons. One, Sherlock has literally no equipment or animal smarts, his go-to when frightened is to shrink and hide, especially bad because Ro is not super dog-friendly, she had a bad experience. Two, he’s so tiny that he’s perfect hawk food, which is less than ideal. Finally, I spent a lot of time and research finding a gate solution for that porch to keep him (and his brothers) safe, and I am miffed he’s found a workaround. So, now I am going to weave in some bailing twine to create a soft wall that hopefully he can get around. I’ll run the twine through the gate slats and the offending porch slats just in case.
Speaking of sneaky animals, Nellie has worked out that if she messes at it long enough, she can usually get the arena/corral gate open and closed at her will. Luckily she doesn’t seem interested in playing with exterior gates, but she’s definitely busted the arena/corral gate. I need to figure out how there’s now an inch gap between the gate part and fence part of the latch.
I can’t blame her, Ro and I have been working on opening gates from horseback so we can let Nellie in the arena while cooling out and so we can handle gates on trail rides. I think Nellie just wanted to show off that she’s been paying attention too. It is honestly mind-blowing how smart this horse is when she’s not losing her mind over something spooky.
The beans have started to come up in the garden! They are growing like gangbusters! Well, I think, I don’t really know for certain what that means.

go gangbusters
If something is going gangbusters, it is going strongly and doing very well. If someone comes on like gangbusters, they behave very energetically and sometimes aggressively. [Collins Dictionary]

Peas and okra are maybe starting to come up slowly, and the pumpkins, watermelon, and carrots are now in the ground! Lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers are being started in pots on the porch. All that’s left is the eggplant I think… although I feel like I’m forgetting something. I’ll have to ask Dad. He’s made a bunch of little signs out of the packages, but they aren’t quite ready to go up yet, when they do that will help a lot with identifying veggies.

We’ve been seeing our hummingbirds lately which is such fun each year. When we don’t have their sugar water up, they come fly between windows until they see a human, and then they tap on the window until you pay them attention.
Public Service Announcement! Red Dye isn’t super great for hummingbirds, so make sure if you are buying hummingbird liquid that you check with your local vet that it is actually hummingbird safe. Boiling certain veggies in your water first will naturally dye it red, I’ve had luck with beets, but I’ve heard cabbage might work too. Bright side is that you also have cooked veggies now, although beets are absolutely the worst so you’ll have to find someone who likes them.
I made homemade spatzle this week! That is the stickiest batter I have ever made, and it turns out that spatzle makers are absolutely not a silly kitchen gadget. I made my spatzle by pressing the better through a colander, and that was a mistake. The spatzle was delicious, I ended up sautéing it in butter, garlic, and rosemary, but I also destroyed every dish in my kitchen. It was super tasty though, so maybe worth it. To be determined.
Homemade gnocchi was a lot easier and cleaner, despite the fact that potato starch gets into everything. It also seems more shelf stable, although I’ve never really had to store any for long. I might make up a batch this weekend, I want to try a new recipe.
Anyways, I’m going to go find the big box fan so I can use my porch again, and I am hoping for cooler weathers moving forward. That pretty much sums up my weekend plans. Hope you had a great week and are looking towards a fun and relaxing weekend.
Until we chat again, my friends!

Can You Get Frequent Flyer Miles At The Vet?

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Alternatively titled: Why is 2021 the year of vet visits?!

Alternatively alternatively titled: This post is just a collection of blurry phone photos

Hi Friends!

Oh my goodness, we survived it. A crazy weekend that involved a wedding, a funeral, and a graduation ceremony and parade and party. Of course, it picked this weekend to be 91 degrees too! But we survived it, and short of the funeral, everyone had a good time at their events. I don’t know if you can have a “good” time at a funeral, but you can laugh and celebrate your loved one’s life, which we did. The wedding was outdoors, but none of the bridal party melted away so that was a success. The graduation was great! They had the AC on full blast, something like 80% of the graduating class earned some form of academic honors, the parade had a live band on the finale float, and the whole town turned out to celebrate in some way or another.

Nothing quite like packing a year’s worth of events into 48 hours. But when you have 20 first cousins and about 35 family members within the county, events start stacking up like jenga blocks. When you plan your weekends down to “and I’ll have five minutes to eat here” it quickly becomes a science. I literally have so many half done tasks that got left behind, and I keep finding more! We won’t talk about the small pull cart in my formal dining space… that’s basically become furniture at this point. I’ll pack it up and get it back into my trunk eventually, it’s fine.

And, of course, a weekend like this also means a lot of things on the farm got a little behind. Dad has spent this week putting the garden in (pictures coming soon, when it stops storming), and I spent the week supporting Watson, who’s run of the mill dental cleaning turned into an 18 teeth extraction extravaganza. Little guy is feeling rough. He’s definitely a little miffed about the situation.

Poor little guy has the curse of poodle teeth, but hes taking it like a champ. Got some tasty soft food, hes basically been toted around everywhere I go, and I worked from home all this week so I could properly manage his meds. Hes definitely milked it a little, but he also had a very sore mouth so I can’t be mad. He is totally okay as long as I stay in his line of sight, if I try to disappear I have to grab someone to babysit because he has a small panic. He is also really frustrated that he can’t eat the same food as his brothers, even though he’s been loving the super soft food. He’s always been a little bit of a food hoarder, so it goes against his life principles to not constantly be eating and guarding the food bowl.

Watson pre-teeth extraction, being a ham

Watson, joining a Zoom meeting, telling me it was time for his antibiotics

Sherlock also visited the bet this week because we noticed a cataract forming on his eye. It didn’t seem to be bugging him at all, but I am a worrier to the maximum and didn’t want something preventable to turn into an issue down the line. Sherlock is such a champ as well and handled all parts of the appointment perfectly, from the dye to the flashlights, to the ear check (we had a lovely vet student hang out with us, who was in awe of how tiny Sherlock is, fun fact, he weighed in at 3.4 pounds this time). The good news is, while our vet has some reservations, she’s pretty sure the cataract is hereditary or at the very lease, an intrinsic part of him, and, while it will most likely annoy him some as it progresses, he seems totally fine with it for now, and there’s no sign of infection or pain. She asked if I had seen any changes in vision but to be honest, he’s always acted as though he didn’t have great eyesight, so I don’t think I would notice the difference.

This is Sherlock’s good eye, also isn’t he cute?!

Sherlock never stops bouncing, so most of my photos of him are blurry, but here you can kinda see to the left of the image his grey eye. Also, peep my amazing, definitely not seriously dated 70s linoleum… yep, it’s several shades of gold…jealous?

Nellie and Ro have had quite a few days off due to the craziness of the weekend and the following vet post care filled week. I did find some time to give the girls a really good brushing out so we have (well, had, for about two minutes, hence why I didn’t get pictures in time) shiny clean coats. Ro usually hates being brushed out, no patience for standing around, but I think she had enough of her knotted sprinkler hair. Admittedly, the mane and tail situation on this farm still needs work.

The latter half of this week has been kinda stormy in that irritating “Technically I can still get chores done but it’s all going to be way harder” kinda way. I am excited for it in some regards though, as my uncle’s water pump went out this week and he’s at serious risk of losing about 200 acres of crop. My aunt has been trying to track down a replacement, or even a temporary solution, but with all the craziness with shipping and import/export lately, it’s hard to get ahold of anything anywhere, let alone machinery parts in a rural setting. Just an icky situation all around. Hopefully the rain is enough to help a little, it’s splattering against my window as I write, so I hope it’s hitting up there as well.

As it all stands, I’m looking forward to a super relaxing calm weekend. Going to catch up on some riding, some cleaning, and most importantly, some resting. Maybe even get some ideas for blog stuff actualized…. Maybe. Overall, a much needed break. Hopefully we will get back to our regular farm shenanigans next week, can’t wait to show you the garden, I wanna try to get some fun horse related footage, and I’ve got lots of summer projects I want to take you along on.
Until we chat again, my friends!

Scooby was trying so hard to be brave, he hates the flooring in my room. Also, new riding boots! It’s only been a decade, about time for a replacement (Especially since you can see my socks through my current boots)

Green Acres or Greener Pastures?

Posted on May 14, 2021May 13, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

TW: Talking about losing a family member, and mostly just musing aloud about life. No stress if you skip this one, it got a little heavy, sorry guys.

Hi all,

Anyone here ever watch Green Acres? For the uninitiated, Lisa and Oliver Douglas (Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert) move from a New York penthouse to a rundown farm in the middle of very rural Hooterville in order to fulfill Oliver’s dream of being a farmer. Lisa is against leaving Park Avenue, but willingly adapts to farm life, and the silly shenanigans intrinsic of a late 60’s early 70’s sitcom ensues. Oliver is never quite able to overcome all the wacky work that the farm needs, and the host of characters is just nutty enough to wreak good-natured havoc for the half hour time slot.

I’m convinced I accidentally moved to Hooterville… trust me, the cast fits.

But, honestly, that’s not why I brought the show up. I was thinking about the words to the theme song, which is a duet where Oliver and Lisa sing about their conflicting views on moving to a farm. It’s a definite earworm, take that into account before you look it up. She sings “New York is where I’d rather stay…” and he sings “farm living is the life for me”. That hit a particular cord this week, as I have been reflecting a lot on how lucky I am to live on a farm, but only because I see it that way.

We lost a family member a little earlier this month, he was an interesting fellow. I bring him up because he grew up on a farm, was a quintessential farm kid, doing everything from planting and irrigating to animal husbandry tasks and cleaning out manure piles. He also left the farm as soon as he could and swore, he was never coming back.

Other than some visits, he never did come back to the farm lifestyle. He was so much happier living in a city environment, closer to friends, less dirt, and more people with his interests. I’m not judging him in any way, everyone’s different, but I never got it. How could you not love waking up and taking care of the animals, going out to see your seeds grow, and ending the day tired and covered head to toe in mud? He’s like Eva Gabor’s character, he didn’t really enjoy the rural lifestyle, but he put up with it for his family, because they did.

I didn’t know this family member incredibly well, as he had left before I was old enough to understand, but I remember once, when I was most likely going on and on (and on and on, as I tend to do) about how much fun I was having visiting his parents farm, he just looked tired and said something along the lines of “One day the magic will wear off, kiddo”.

This isn’t uncommon right? Heck, we have a whole template for romance flicks that revolve around the main character leaving the farm, and their soul mate behind for a time (I’m looking at you, Hallmark). In the movies they always come back, and fall back in love with (and sometimes, magically save) the family farm. I wonder how true that is to life, do citified farm kids always come back? Would my family member have eventually returned? Or can you truly, and honestly, burn out on the farm life?

I worry about this sometimes, what if I get bored of the farm? What if one day I don’t wake up excited to get my day started? I honestly don’t see that happening, at least not soon. I currently wake up each morning just as excited about the farm as I did day one, possibly even more so now as the critter count has grown. I dream of raising kids, and spoiling grandkids, here. I love this place, I love the sunrises, the sunsets, the smell of fresh cut alfalfa and wet horse (don’t judge me). I love coming home to critter kisses and farm fresh eggs, and the list of outdoor chores that only ever gets longer. I even love those days when I come home to broken irrigation, water geysers in my pasture, and knocked over fencing. I know I live on a hobby farm, I know I don’t see the pressures of a truck farm, so it’s different, but I still love the rural lifestyle. Honestly, I really like who I am when I’m on the farm too, level-headed, capable, and happy. It’s a gift to feel that way in this day and age.

I truly don’t think my family member loved those days or felt that way. I don’t think he ever stood by a corral fence watching the sunset just to prolong being outside a little longer. I doubt highly he packed up after a long day at work dreaming of an evening ride or curling up on the back porch for a quiet night. And that’s totally fine, some people love the bright lights, the hustle and bustle, the barely controlled chaos and constant buzz of city living, and I’m so happy he got to experience that. There’s absolute magic in those moments.

I couldn’t see that magic when I lived on the coast. I couldn’t see the magic in stoplights reflecting on wet pavement, seeing and connecting with a hundred different faces you never knew, or the moments of peace watching the world go by from an apartment window. He could. I see the magic in tiny plant starts, wet hoof prints, bailing twine fixes, and sweet tea on the back porch. There’s lots of different magic in the world, you just have to find yours. I hope you have that opportunity, and I hope the magic this little plot of land holds for me never grows dim.

Farm living is definitely not for everyone, that’s for sure, but it’s definitely for me.

There’s Always Something To Do On A Farm

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Happy Friday, you beautiful souls!
My aunt and uncle are visiting me, and I am so excited! Don’t worry, we are being covid safe. I love having them here, prior to covid they would come a few times a summer and stay for a couple weeks at a time, this time they are staying for only a couple days but might be able to come again soon!
We got lots accomplished this week. I’m pretty happy.
First of all, my lovely mom went treasure hunting in our storage space and found something very special to me. For a little context, my parents moved in and my mom almost immediately had her health deteriorate, my brother and I moved back and almost immediately took over a lot of the day to day, so it took over a year to actually unpack and settle, and there’s a storage shed space on the farm that is basically “everything we didn’t have time to unpack at the time”. Which is why I’m still missing items almost three years on. It’s a little daunting to go in there, there’s a lot of Christmas décor, baby clothes, and just random weird nostalgia everywhere. Anyways, my mom has taken to going in there every couple of weeks and sorting a little here and there, she seems to like having it as an independent project, and she found my show bridle!

Some of the details on my beautiful show bridle

I was gifted this beautiful, hand-made bridle by my parents when I was 16. I was showing my trainer’s crazy pink paint horse (he was absolutely pink in the sunshine, and the most opinionated giant puppy dog of a gelding) and I had none of my own tack and equipment. I saw the bridle at a swap meet where I was volunteering, my trainer noticed and sneakily told my parents, and they pulled a sneaky purchase without my knowledge. Funnily enough, it never fit Wilson well, so it never got used, but I loved that thing, and it hung in my closet forever in high school and most of university. When I moved, it never made it to my senior year housing, and when I moved home it wasn’t with the stuff at my parents’ house either. I had a feeling it was gone forever. BUT! Somewhere, and I have no idea where because I hunted for it forever, Mom found it, and it fits Ro! So, my gorgeous show bridle is back in my life!
Also, I got an honest to goodness gate latch on my arena gate! I no longer need to walk around or struggle to unchain the gate, and life just got so much easier. I can’t wait to slowly replace every chain latch with an actual one hand latch. So much easier and safer. I leave the chains on, so that I can secure never opened gates, and so I have a backup should a latch break, but I hate using chain latches for day to day and am always excited to upgrade.
I cleaned up and shocked the water trough, and added a new self-cleaning bag of barley, finally folded up the giant tarp that has been taking over my tack space, and finally got the farrier out to see the girls and trim up hooves! All in between some crazy looking clouds that threatened to turn ugly. It was a crazy busy week.

New Gate Latch (I definitely have found new reasons to go in and out of the arena just to use the gate)

While I’ve been at work (the new job is going amazingly by the way, maybe one day I’ll share a little more about what I do when I’m off being a fancy Software Dev) Mom and Dad have been cleaning out and mulching the gardens around the house. It looks so amazing! I must say, I was a little skeptical about the mulch, I thought it would be too dark and stuffy, but it really is making the beds look clean and fresh. I need to do some work in those gardens, we lost a lot of our perennials this year because of the late cold snaps and inconsistent weather… the winds haven’t helped much either. I have heard, however, that a family member is putting in a new deck and removing some of their beds, so I might see if I can re-home their bulbs. Our tulips have done well, so hopefully more of those will continue to erupt.
In other news, there’s a horse down the way from us that looks so similar to Ro, and I’ve been curious about him for a while, so you can imagine my surprise when I came home this week and said horse, with rider, were wandering along the canal road, just the other side of the canal from my corral. It honestly scared me at first because it kind of looked like Ro had, somehow, gotten out and over to the road. I think I also scared the rider because I went absolutely flying down to the corral to see what on earth was going on. But the horses name is Jack and the rider’s name is Jaime, and I think we might be good neighbors, if all he said about Jack being his best companion was true.

Well that’s all for us around here, the weather is getting warm throughout the day, so soon I’ll need to move my schedule around to be able to work in the cool of the morning outside. Summer is my absolute favorite, and I am so happy it’s starting to show.
Until we chat again, my friends!

The ‘Q’ word

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello!

It’s been a sleepy, rainy kind of week on the farm, not a whole lot got accomplished. We had a vet scare on Friday and it definitely set the tone for the week. By the way, what is up with vet scares on Fridays? I swear we’ve gone years without a medical emergency from the critters and now two? Geez.
Watson had a Parvo scare; I got a call at work that he had thrown up and was generally acting like he had a tummy ache. The vet’s office was “pretty sure” it was not Parvo but wanted to be safe over sorry, so we treated it as though it was the case. Thank goodness it turned out to be just a tummy bug. Watson was on a little run of antibiotics for a few days just in case since we couldn’t pinpoint an exact cause. He has some food sensitivities so it also could possibly be something the sneaky pupper got into, despite my best efforts.

Ro and Nellie have been pretty keen to work lately, and they’ve been loving having the sprinklers on when they are out in the pastures. Ro especially been such a good girl, we’ve really had some great work. I think we had a little bit of a breakthrough in one of our trouble spots. I messaged my dear friend and partner in equine related crime (so to speak), and she was able to give us some solid advice. It felt really good to conquer some of our issues. Ro is such a good girl, the issues are minimal, but that just makes me all the more excited to learn how to fix the little things and become a better rider for her. Nellie has gotten really adept at stealing tack off the fence, running away with equipment, and yelling at anyone not actively paying her attention. She has been absolutely cracking me up with her antics. My brother has a habit of shouting “Nellie Belle!” from the porch at her when she’s being cute, and she has started responding in kind. The neighbors probably think we are nuts. They wouldn’t be wrong.
Much of the irrigation still needs work, and my lovely mares have done their part to break as many sprinklers as we’ve been able to fix, but I am hoping to have the pasture lines all fixed soon. That’s this coming week’s goal anyway. But realistically, irrigation is an ongoing battle, we almost never have everything in working order all at once. It does look like maybe the yard sprinklers are back together enough that I can use the scheduling bit again. The brains of that operation, the little computer in an electrical box on my porch, randomly decides game over, and I usually have to call someone. We also found out the opossum that has been wreaking havoc lives in my little cubby for the valves. So, that was a fun surprise for my sprinkler guy. I’m, uh, not sure what the plan will be to ultimately solve that… opossums are kind of scary.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday had some fun storms. I had tried to capture some of it, but that was just not meant to be. We had a little thunder, a lot of rain, even some hail. The nice thing was the pasture and gardens got watered without much work on our part. The rough part was those storms were spaced just such that we were basically stuck inside for about three days. You really don’t want to be working on irrigation in a lightning storm or trying to clean up sagebrush in the wind. Not super ideal. Made for some beautiful cloud formations and forced me to get some indoor work done. Admittedly, when it’s pretty I have a hard time wanting to clean and keep the house running. My family concurs.
I think we finally got all our seeds in the mail, which is super exciting. We ordered straight from a seed curator this year since last year was such a bust. I bought most of my seeds from a local store, where I had had some luck before, but they hadn’t stored the seeds correctly and most of the seeds were no longer viable. Of course, we didn’t find this out until much later in the growing season, too late to replant things, and we didn’t have much of a yield last year. Hopefully this year, since we are getting them straight from the source, we will have better results.
We ordered some new plant types too, which I am excited to try. We got some peppers, watermelon, and lavender seeds among others. My brother is particularly excited about the peppers, I’m most excited about peas. Peas rarely make it out of the garden, they tend to become a gardening snack. Hopefully some make it in this year so I can cook with them. I love peas in a bunch of dishes.

This is also a tulip… I know, I was shocked too

We should be able to plant soon, we are waiting for the telltale mountain peak to lose its snow, generally, when that particular peak is bare, we won’t have any hard freezes or frosts anymore and it’s safe to plant. I’ve heard some talk that a few people jumped the gun in the valley and planted early and lost some seeds. I hope that’s idle gossip, and no one really lost an entire garden already. That would be pretty heartbreaking.
Overall, pretty quiet week, although I probably shouldn’t use that word and jinx us. We have some plans for the coming weeks, that I’ll keep mum about for now, but hopefully will make for some fun posts. I’m excited for the garden posts, and upcoming projects, and if I can ever get this file to behave, the blog should switch to spring colors soon. Fingers crossed on that one.
Until we chat again my friends!

Cats, Cameras, and Canals (oh, my)

Posted on April 23, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello there!
It’s getting warm out! Oh my goodness, the flowers are starting to bloom, the animals are shedding winter coats, and it’s been a lot of fun to work on the porch when we can. It has been windy though, we lost a flag this last storm, tattered itself to pieces before we could wrestle the pole down. A telescoping pole, when under tension from the wind, is no longer a telescoping pole.

Joey got his summer haircut, and while he doesn’t look like a poodle anymore, more like a lab, he is a much happier dog, and has been wreaking Joe-sized havoc on the farm. He’s a little miffed, because I had to replace one of his tennis balls (I buy them in bulk now, not even exaggerating). Why did I have to replace it? He had literally torn all the fuzz off of it, and it had developed it’s own level of sentience, it was so gross… Joe is rough on tennis balls.
The girls have had an easier couple of days because I cracked a couple ribs and haven’t been big on the whole twisting and bending thing. The doctor said “No driving and stay out of the saddle”, among other things, but what I heard was “you don’t have to go grocery shopping and no lifting the saddle, bareback rides only”… I think that’s a fair interpretation. Although to be entirely honest, I have been avoiding riding for a couple days, because my real life, adult job requires sitting at a desk for a long time each day and I’m pretty sore by the time I get home.
Since I’ve been taking it easier on chores, I’ve had a little extra time to enjoy the outdoors this week, and I got to take my camera out on a (low key) adventure for the first time in a while. I forget how good nature walks are for the soul. The photos are middling, but the attitude has greatly improved. Funny how that works. I’m always happy when I have camera in hand.

The cats, whom you haven’t yet met, are in some level of trouble this week. Juliet and Cordelia have a tendency to get into places they aren’t welcome, mostly because it’s unsafe for them, and Monday morning I found them in my car. They had found one of my windows about a half-inch rolled down, and decided the best option was to force the window lower and spend the weekend partying in my backseat. They re-organized my tailgate storage (I drive an SUV), knocked several knobs off my dashboard controls, and unfortunately used my car as a litter box. The also stripped out the gearing in that window… so it no longer rolls up. Don’t worry, I have it secured closed until I can get it fixed up.
Luckily, my lovely family helped me scrub the new-found gross out of my car, and I spent too much money on air fresheners to help mitigate the smell. This little old lady heard me telling the sales associate what I was looking for and why, and she handed me a little off-brand air freshener, assuring me it would cover the cat smell. Boy, was she right! My car now smells like pina colada… from about 5 feet away with the windows rolled up. Honestly, still prefer it to the litter box smell so I am a happy camper.
Juliet and Cordelia are an interesting duo. Juliet is a social butterfly, more dog that cat in terms of happily following you around doing chores, drinking from the hose, trying to round up horses. Cordelia pretty much hates everyone unless she’s hungry or bored. Hence why it’s hard to get a decent image of Cordelia. Although it’s just as hard to capture Juliet on film because she wants to hug the camera. They are a comedy duo, and they’ve lived on the farm longer than any of us. We joke that we bought two cats and the farm came with them. Juliet has a brother, who we believe we might have seen, but since we cannot confirm it’s Romeo, we call that cat Black Cat (how original). We joke that Black Cat and the other strays that hang around are Juliet’s friends who stayed too late to drive home. I’d like to say they keep the mice at bay, but since my dad is a massive pushover, it mostly just means I buy cat food for a whole herd of cats. They are fun to watch though, so it’s a fair trade-off.

The canal filled up this week, which was super fun. I happened to come home from work just about 5 minutes before it started to fill. While all the animals and the house are obviously on the well, we use our shares of canal water to water the garden and pastures. The pasture really needs some water, but the irrigation has been an endless source of trouble this year. We will get it worked out soon, but springtime is when you find all the winter worn pieces that needed replacing. It will be really nice to have the irrigation working though, as the grasses need it, the horses love to cool off in it, and I like the added security during fire season of knowing my watering system is up and running.
They drain the canal usually just before the first predicted frosts, unless someone needs to keep it running longer, and they refill the canal with flowing water in April after most of the frost risk is gone. This year we had a couple late frosts, and some farmers who were watering already had some icy mornings chipping away at their frozen systems. It’s definitely a calculated risk to start watering earlier.
Well, that’s mostly it for us on the farm. Been a little slower this week. The plan for next week is to get some real riding done, get the irrigation up and running, burn some of our foliage pile (we lost a lot of limbs in the winds this year), and hopefully install a new gate latch on my arena gate, which I am ecstatic about. It’s been a hard gate to find a latch for, because it’s pretty janky, so fingers crossed that works and I can show you in upcoming posts.
Until we chat again, my friends!

The Anatomy of a Farm Call

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello!
This week we had our standard, yearly vaccination and checkup farm call. What is a farm call, you ask? A farm call is when the vet comes out to your farm, so that you don’t have to haul all your animals into the clinic. On our farm, those animals getting vaccinated are the two horses and four dogs.
Farm calls kind of stress me out. They shouldn’t, my animals are either trained to stand nicely for the vet, or are actively learning to do that, so realistically it’s not a huge deal anymore. But past experience means I worry. Let’s step through how I prep, get through, and de-compress from a farm call, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll help you with your vet visits too! Or you will laugh at my obsessive over-planning… both are totally fine!

So, like anything in life, prep is key. I always, always try to make sure I am on the farm, and off work about an hour before the vet is scheduled to arrive. It sounds silly, but you are providing the location for your vet visit, you want to give yourself enough time to make sure it’s set up the best for your pets. For the horses, I pull out their favorite gear, like Nellie’s worn out, slightly too tight halter that she loves so much, and I make sure to have some major happy rewards standing by. My girls both love sweet oats, peppermint cookies, and Nellie loves her blue brush, so those are always set within reach. I’m sure you already know, but it’s always good to make sure fences, equipment, etc., is all safe and functioning before the vet arrives, too. While we hope for the best, prepping for a bad day is better so you aren’t caught off-guard.

When prepping with the dogs, I make sure they’ve had time to go outside and work out the crazies, go potty, get some water, and relax. My pooches are all kennel trained, and if they get nervous seeing the white truck, they have been trained that they can go chill in their space until they are needed. Since I have both small and large dogs, I make sure to have a clean table for the vet to use, and a clean floor space as well. Our back porch and picnic table work for this, but anything that is safe and easy to setup will work.

I know you lovely folks are all smart enough to know this, however I would be remiss if I didn’t say: DON’T LEAVE YOUR SMALL DOG ON THE TABLE WITHOUT BEING RIGHT THERE. Small dogs strongly believe they can fly, but have not developed the necessary wings during their more recent evolutionary adaptations. And a final preparatory note, it’s always helpful to have another person or two, depending how many animals you have. Especially with large animals, it’s immensely helpful to have all hands on deck. I am very lucky in that I had three extra sets of hands for this visit, so things went super quickly. I was able to have someone always getting a handle on the next critter in line, someone monitoring or spoiling the animals who are already finished up, and I could just interface with the vet and current animal in question.

So, how did the day actually go? It went great! Best farm call yet. Realistically, this shouldn’t surprise me as I have wonderful critters and an unusually amazing set of vets. This particular call saw our Dr. Kurt come out, he’s newer to our farm but has proven to be a hoot to work with and very patient. I am forever impressed with how much Nellie grows in between each vet visit, each time she calms herself down much quicker, and the danger level decreases.

Nellie is really our wild card right now. She is the only one who is absolutely, wholly, vehemently against farm calls. She does not like new people, she really doesn’t like vaccines (which fair, no one likes shots), and she finds the whole standing still thing absolutely obnoxious. The first vet visit after she came home, I genuinely thought one of us was going to end up in the emergency room, and I cried most of the night after because “what if I can’t help her?!”. But we’ve been working really, really hard, and Miss Nellie only minorly freaked out this time. She did spin, and threw her head and tried to get away, but she calmed herself down and, for the most part it, was a successful experience. She is highly food motivated so we are trying to associate her favorite snacks with the vet, and we are hoping the excitement of yummy snacks will eventually outweigh the scariness of a stranger with a needle (not to say I blame her, I would also panic a little).

I usually try to do Nellie first, simply because I know from experience that if she sees what’s happening ahead of time, she will build it up in her head and cause a much bigger deal, and I also know the rest of my critters are farm call veterans and seeing Nellie upset won’t bug them. If she set off the other animals, I would probably swap orders, so I can’t tell you for sure “do your craziest animals first”, that’s got to be a judgement call.

I also focus on one area of the farm than the other, so horses first in the corral, then dogs on the porch, that way the process goes much quicker and when that subsection is finished, they can go back to normal, which makes post-vet cleanup easier. Your vet will also tell you if they need specific changes, like a shadier spot to prevent sunburn, or someplace where the truck will fit easier so they can set up. This will also dictate what order and how quickly you can get things done.

After the vet is finished up with an animal, I try to get them back to their normal as quickly as possible. The horses are immediately fed cookies and let back out in the pasture, and the dogs are allowed to roam the house again, whether they want to go hide in their dens or munch on some food or lay in the sunny window. The biggest rule is that the animals get the day off on farm call days, so no riding, no training, lots of cuddles and relaxation.

It’s also worth noting that with some vaccines come side-effects, so it’s good to ask ahead and be ready for that if you can, but definitely at least asking the vet at the time of injection what to expect is a good idea, because, for example, my pack was all a little sore and grumpy after their suite of shots, and I was warned there might be minor cold-like symptoms, which kept me from freaking out when Scooby was not feeling well.

Another note, your equipment, leashes, halters, treat bins, all of that is going to end up everywhere, so plan a few minutes post visit, when all your lovely critters are settled in, to walk around and put everything back in its home, file your paperwork, and take a quick inventory. It’s also worth noting that this is a perfect time to quietly celebrate to yourself, and take note of things that could be improved on from this visit.

Phew, we did it! That’s the basic run-down of a farm call on my little place. I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about, planning for, and admittedly stressing about vet visits, and I’m always pleasantly surprised by the results. Luckily, they aren’t super frequent.

The final tips? Make sure you like your vet(s), make sure you have a plan, even if it goes sideways, a plan facilitates preparation, and overall, make sure you give credit to the critters who are about to have a stranger poke and prod them, get all personal, and them leave. They deserve all the patience and understanding.

Until we chat again, my friends!

A very rare, very blurry picture of a sleeping Joe

Meet the Pack!

Posted on April 9, 2021April 8, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

(or alternatively titled: Why My Windows Are Always Dirty)

Happy Friday, Friends!
We had a veterinary emergency this week, which overshadowed everything about the farm. Don’t worry, it turned out fine, but in order to not go on and on and dwell about the scary situation, I have promised to spend no more than one paragraph explaining it and then on to happy things! We will be back to the farm fun next time.
So, Miss Nellie Belle colicked Easter Weekend. For my non-horsey friends, colic basically just encompasses any serious gastrointestinal distress. That kind of thing is incredibly dangerous in horses because they usually cannot deal with blockages, twists, or even simply an over-abundance of gas on their own, and it can be fatal in about 50% of cases in a matter of hours. Of course she colicked after hours, so I couldn’t get a hold of any vet in the valley, but my dear friend and farrier Jimmie came to the rescue. It pays to have angels as friends, I swear. But, after a very scary night, and a sleepless 24 hours, by Monday morning she was starting to feel completely normal again. I, on the other hand, have several new grey hairs, and lost a number of years off my life, and now spend a large part of my time finding excuses to walk out to the barn at all hours of the day and night. This has also taught me that I need to really beef up my emergency kit, so expect a post coming soon about that.

Don’t like the weather? Give it 5 minutes

Okay, now onto the regularly scheduled programming. I’ve been thinking about this post for a bit, and I think it may be time to introduce you to the pack, since they take up about 70% of my time and 98% of my camera roll. There’s four dogs in total in my pack currently, ranging from 4.5 years old to my “April baby” almost 14 year old. Let’s get started.
So, oldest in our pack, is my very special boy Scooby-Doo. Scooby is technically my brother’s dog, but to be honest, they’re all mine when the rubber hits the road because I’m the “fur mama” with the toughest stomach and softest voice. That’s not to say my brother isn’t incredibly involved and engaged with the critters, I’m just usually the final word. Scooby is almost fourteen, he has a birthday this coming week! He is missing all but one tooth, unfortunately he misjudged a step and knocked most of them out, and when we went to get those fixed, we found out the Bishon Frise curse had struck and many of his teeth needed to be pulled anyway. Despite this he is a big eater, and has slowed down as a senior citizen but still enjoys a good case of zoomies. He has middling patience with his younger brothers, but to his credit, they are about a decade younger. Scooby’s best friend in the world was my childhood pupper Winchester, who we lost in 2015, and Scooby and I mourned together for about a year before we decided to adopt a puppy. Well, I decided… Scooby was not totally game. In Winchester’s senior years he had started to become hard of hearing and blind, and while he was a very happy dog, that was in part because Scooby was his persistent buddy. I thought a puppy might give Scooby his sense of purpose back, and help me move forward.

Scooby isn’t one for his adoring public, he hides his face in most pictures

But then, in the course of a week, I goofed. I came home with three (3) puppies… no, I’m not joking. I had promised to take in Joe when he was old enough, and the week he came up due, I also ended up pulling my two little guys, Sherlock and Watson, out of a puppy mill situation… and suddenly I was a dog-mom of four.
Joe Friday, more commonly known as Joe-Joe around here, is a 90lb, almost 4 foot tall poodle. He made my aunt’s great dane look normal. His head rests on my kitchen counters. Poodles don’t generally get that big, and he’s actually purebred and papered so I know he’s a poodle (it was a friend of a friend situation, how Joey came into our lives), but we forgot to tell him to stop growing. When he was a pup, he ate a large river stone, and on top of a pretty intense surgery, spend some of his formative months wearing a muzzle… because I continued to have to pull rocks out of his mouth all of the time! It took forever for him to grow out of that and I spent so much on tests and treats to make sure he wasn’t looking for nutrients or something… nope, just liked eating rocks.
Joey loves his toys, and we have to buy the tough chewer toys so they last a while because he is an enthusiastic player. He’s got the sweetest eyes, is unbelievably gentle with his brothers, and no one has the heart to tell him he’s big, so he’s also a very accomplished lapdog. He’s been formally diagnosed with ADHD by two different vets, and is the spoiled baby of the pack as the youngest. I get lots of weird looks when I say his “big brothers” occasionally bully him, because they are 2 and 4 pound poodles.

Joe, on the other hand, is a massive camera hog

Sherlock and Watson were the two little teacup poodles that came out of that mill. They are half brothers, so different and yet very similar. They are absolutely certain the world revolves around them, and that’s entirely my fault. Sherlock is about 2 pounds and stands about 8 inches tall, he is mostly a quiet little bean who likes to sleep in sweatshirt pockets and eats like Joe. He is a blanket thief and he really doesn’t bark, he more just yells at a pitch that could break glass when he gets excited. He swings wildly between “I’m so little, please rescue me from everything” to “I’m big and scary and you should fear me”, there is no telling what Sherlock you’re going to get. He was born with two full sets of teeth, which was a fun conversation with the vet, and more recently spent some time in emergency because he blew up an adrenal gland, I have no idea how. The vet wrote a scientific journal post about Sherlock because he was the smallest critter to have that delicate a surgery in that clinic.
He also just walked in and demanded to be a part of this writing session, so now I have a bean curled up in my lap. He says hi!

Watson (or Watty, or Wats) is in some ways a direct opposite of his brother. He was a little runt, terrified of everything when he first came home, and out first interaction was him puking on me. About a week later I was rushing to grab him off the back of the couch mid jump, he’s pushing around all his brothers, and he has this odd little grunt he does to get attention. Oh boy, does this dog need attention! He has made himself known in several zoom meetings, serious phone calls, and a couple DnD sessions. Watty is a big fan of cuddles, to the point where if he can’t be sitting on my lap he will go have a yell about it. He’s a little chunk of a dude, shorter than his brother but densely packed.
He also just came blowing into the room, but now he’s chasing the little typing pointer, so I think I’ll need to end this here.

In summation, Nellie is okay, very loved. I am going to have a head full of grey hairs by thirty, and my pack says hi!
Until we chat again, my friends!

(More random dog photos below)