Tag: Weather

Things are all weird right now…

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

How are we doing? We are absolutely covered in wildfire smoke here, although I’m grateful, we are not in immediate danger from the current fires, so I can deal with some smoke. The air quality has basically halted all work outside for the foreseeable future. We are also under wildfire warnings for PSPS, that is Public Safety Power Shutoffs, so if you have tips, send them my way. A little nervous to be wfh with the chance of most of the valley losing power randomly. In fact, as I write this, I am waiting to see if they are cutting us off this evening, and if I’ll even be able to get this posted. We have a storm coming in, and everyone is sorta expecting carnage.

It’s very weird to be essentially fogged in, as though it’s winter time, but for it to also be 107 degrees. We’ve had heat and air quality warnings that have been extended long enough I am totally blind to the warnings panel on my weather app. Just trying to keep everything moist and limit activity for all the creatures on the farm, two and four legged. The worst I’ve seen so far on the air quality scale is 237, but I know it’s so much worse closer to the fires.

We had to give up on the garden this year. The potatoes we planted got dug up and eaten by some critters that needed sustenance, and with the rest of it, we just decided it wasn’t quite going to work this year. Gives us time to prepare for a better attempt next year I guess. And with the smoke, probably better to keep outdoor hobbies to a minimum. I’m kinda considering raised beds too, so I can put covers on things, but that might be overkill.

I had a birthday last week. I’m 28 now, which really doesn’t feel any different than 27 or 26, although I’d argue If you compared 25 and this upcoming year, you’d probably notice the differences. Change is gradual and easy to miss, but I’d like to think I’m slowly getting better at this living thing. I had a lovely calm birthday, took a few days of paid leave and finally got a few moments to destress. I’ve basically worked everyday since June 26th, some days less than others, some long enough that they bled together, and it was a welcome change to mute all work based notifications for a bit. But boy, that productivity guilt hit hard the first day or so. I’ve gotten to catch up on some things that had gotten the short end of the stick, and got to take a minute to look at ways I could sorta fix the “hamster on a wheel” feeling that has been a staple for too long.
Speaking of that, and of the crazy work schedule and relative halt of work on the farm, I think I need to chat with you all a minute. I have been really struggling to keep up with this blog, and the stuff I have been creating for you has not been what I would consider my best work. It’s frustrating to want to do better and either not have the time or the brain space to make those things happen. It’s just really hard to want to write or edit videos after long stretches on the computer for work, and to be honest, the farm has always been my escape, and I’ve gotten to where I really don’t want to grab my phone to record things. I’m pretty tied to my phone for work as it is, and most of the time, I just want to go hug horses at the end of the day. So, we are going to make a mid-year change.
I’ve decided, for the latter half of 2024, we are going to cut down to one post a month, an end of the month recap. That feels attainable with my current life situation, and allows me to keep you guys up to date without constantly rushing to grab content, or worry that my entire update is going to be “work happened again”, or be up until 2 am trying to hit that 6 am post time because I miscalculated what week was what. So, instead of every Friday, it’ll just be either the 30th or 31st of the month. Then we will reevaluate in 2025 how we want to tackle things. I am not closing anything down, just going a little quieter for now, for stress reasons. I am hoping as things get more steady state, I can post some in between photos, maybe a shortie video here or there, but I don’t want to promise things until I kinda have a better grasp. I really appreciate the understanding.

I hate to leave things on a sour note, so I will leave you with a happy anecdote! Guess who worked out v2 of the Nellie Fly Mask? Now with snaps! Officially she hasn’t worn it yet, Ro has been stress testing it for me, and now they are maskless due to the smoke, but I am hopeful it is a solid quality of life improvement for her (and me)!
Anyways, friends, until we chat again!

Before the smoke!
The v2 mask, now with snaps!
This is the V1 mask, it’s been well loved
I said “smile for the camera” and she heard “swing your head around violently”…must be my accent
Look at how good that eye is looking! Getting there!

Training and Raining

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello Friends!

Much has happened since we last caught up!

We had the vet out for our yearly checks. Nellie actually did pretty good all things considered. She didn’t let us vaccinate (I did that later) but she also didn’t really kill anyone, so ya know, we count our blessings. The other critters acted like the vet professionals they are and handled it with grace. Ro is on some anti-inflammatories now for some arthritis aches, and so we mitigate any unnecessary damage. Nellie is supposed to be wearing a mask now, as her little pink skin around her eye is just primo skin cancer material and the vet is worried. We are working on it.

Unfortunately, this vet visit caused a bit of a spiral in Nellie’s behavior and I’ve had to employ some tougher love lately. She started getting pretty aggressive about haltering and the barging and kicking officially put us into dangerous territory. So as much as I hate giving the girl any sort of uncomfy consequences, I had to take off the mama hat and put on my trainers cap, remind her and myself that allowing bad behaviors like that is a huge disservice to this horse and her cleverness. I’m happy to report that while it’s still a massive work in progress, she seems to have a lot of pride in the new, tougher consequences style work. Unsurprisingly I don’t have to dole out consequences often when the right answer is easy.

We’ve had some interesting storms rolling through. I’ve been trying to capture what I can, I’m still not great with the GoPro and lately, these storms have come with so much dust I’ve worried about leaving it outside alone anyway. I know they are tough, but I don’t have any sorta tough weather case, just a little tripod and I usually tie it to the porch post.

We’ve had some dry lightning, and lots of rainstorms. Although, we’ve had a lot more drizzly days than usual too, normally it’s a downpour and done, but the gray drizzle has persisted this year. We’ve also had our usual share of windstorms, which always stress me out. At least with the roof replaced I don’t worry so much about another waterfall from my kitchen light. My favorite thing about the storms around here is that often they come in the evenings, after you’ve already put in a good day’s work, almost like a little reward. But they are also usually gone by the time bedtime rolls around, so you aren’t often sitting up late worrying over the weather. 

The rainy day cuddles are adorable

I was out at the ranch the other day when a little cell went through. In theory I was out there to help my aunt with her scanner, it wasn’t scanning again, but it kinda sorted itself out. I’m not exactly sure what changed but it was scanning by the time I left. I’m a little afraid to ask if it’s still scanning to be honest, I don’t think I really want to know the answer. Anyways, while I was there I got to see the latest batch of babies. Love me some little cows. We met Little Boy, Sue, and Esuni. Little Boy got his name exactly how you’d imagine, but Sue and Esuni have cute stories. Sue is named after my great great grandma, because they share a birthday (how my great great grandma would feel about sharing a name and birthday with a cow is a question for another time) and Esuni was supposed to be Sunny, but they realized she was out of Eve’s line, and they try to keep with the same leading letters to make lineage a little easier. Luckily Sue is out of Sissy, who is out of Sadie. Remind me to tell you all about Sadie cow one day. It’s a cute story (have I told it before? Maybe, doesn’t matter, it’s worth a retelling). Little Esuni was born so small, she literally weighed less than one of my grain bags. They were worried about her, but she prevailed. Those little guys can be hardy when they wanna be. I helped my aunt count the herd, and, of course, we did it in a rainstorm, while that random cell went over. Didn’t rain a stitch before or after. But it was fun riding around with my aunt goofing off.

We’ve had lots of fun things happening around here lately. We’ve had a new baby born to the family, my uncle has a new little girl named Sadee (yes, I know, I don’t think anyone else put it together, but Sadie the cow spells hers different, and has since gone on this year after a long and happy life anyway, so I am not saying anything). Another of my cousins is graduating high school this week. We’re prepping for the Fiddle Fest and I’m very excited, because a dear friend of mine is coming down to visit while it’s going on. 

Lots to look forward to, can’t wait to share it all with you soon!

Until we chat again my friends!

Catching Up

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello! Friends!
Well, we had a little thunder, some rain, some higher winds, but luckily it looks like maybe the snow is mostly over for the year. There’s been a lot of sad gray days, but that seems appropriate for the last couple weeks. I won’t dwell long on the sadness, we’ve had some truly heartbreaking moments trying to find a new routine without Scooby and watching my four legged family members work out that Scoobs isn’t going to come tippy-tapping through the door. It was particularly hard watching Joe’s face light up when he saw Scooby’s blanket for the first time again, and then look up at the shelf where I had arranged all of Scooby’s things when I went to tuck them in later that night. I know it’s silly to attach human ideals to critters since they truly think differently, but I swear it seemed like he was saying Good Night to Scooby.

Our raccoon has stuck around, although he’s realized we won’t feed the cats while he’s around so he’s now terrorizing the horses and Dad as well, which is grand. To clarify, we still feed the cats, but differently now, they are not going hungry, in fact, our sweet Honey has gotten quite the filled out figure. She’s not fat, but she could very easily get there. In her defense, it’s hard to exercise in the winter. No one wants to move in the cold.

Sunrise on a stormy morning… it was a lot less purple on my phone

I cut my hair finally a couple weeks ago. It was almost waist length and now it’s just above my shoulders. It’s cute, not terribly what I had hoped for, but I forgot how much my hair will shrink up when cut wet and I didn’t let the new stylist know. It’s cute though, so even though I was looking forward to chest length, I have a sassy little short cut, with lots of bouncy layers, and it’s like a bonus! But please, share with me what to do with short hair stylewise, because the last time I had short hair was middle school and I also had bangs and none of that was a good choice haha. I want to make the most of this bonus hair “phase” and do cute styles with it. I love the new stylist though, she’s amazing, and I am officially a loyal customer. It’s nice, I haven’t really clicked with a stylist since middle school, so haircuts weren’t fun or a priority. It’s kinda a fun, indulgent little treat to do something new with your look in a chill, supportive environment. Low key might be considering a balayage in the summer if I get bold.

I finally got some art hung up in my room again. There’s not much more to say on that but I am pretty excited about it. Good way to spend the stuck-indoors time, since unfortunately it looks like we still have a few weeks of mud and rain to mess up plans.

Someone gets super clingy at bathtime
His curls are so defined after bathtime
Guess who learned their phone has portrait mode?

On one of our rare sunny days, I tried hopping on Ro to see where we need to start training wise and…she needs some medical attention. Her arthritis is a little rough right now and she’s pulled something in her back and I’m not surprised, but I think this year is going to be a rebuilding year. It was a wake up call, her little soreness we’ve been managing isn’t just because of the cold, I reckon.  I want to focus hard on getting her topline stronger, working out the best solution for her arthritis, since she’s clearly not mentally ready to not be working (she instigated the initial session, she just got cranky when she got sore, and if she doesn’t get at least a little work occasionally she goes slightly mental), and I want to work on our teamwork, which can be done in saddle or on the ground. As for Miss Nellie Belle, my goals for her are more mental. I really want to expand her horizons, work through her still explosive fear response, and our teamwork… which is a trend. She’s such a clever girl, she deserves to not be scared of her world.
Joe has been spending more time down around the barn with me. I still try to keep a fence between him and the girls, but he’s been doing exceptional with his heel, sit, and recall, so I am slowly becoming more confident with having him around. I still don’t think he will ever hang out with me while I am working directly with the girls, mostly because Ro has no patience for dogs and Nellie is still a lit firecracker when overstimulated, but less so because my sweet overgrown teddy bear can’t listen. Although, spring fever hit him hard and being still pent up inside means our inside the house listening skills are slacking like crazy. He’s taken me out running around like a banshee a couple times already.

Until we chat again my friends!