SSDreamin Blessings and curses

[SSDreamin]

FEM, I asked my friend about them, since I do see them around here on Amish horses. She said they are mainly to keep a jittery horse focused. They wouldn't help Jim because he can't see things, even in front of him, and that's why he spooks. She did say that, once April is old enough to ride, Jim may trust her enough to 'be his eyes' on trails, so I *may* still get to trail ride with him eventually.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Really hope it works out that way...I have an old blind terrier, and most of the time his daughter is his seeing eye dog. It's so cute!

 

[SSDreamin]

Got 1/3 of the garden planted, finally! I tried again this year to use just the seedlings I started. I ended up buying a few seedlings because mine came up, but didn't flourish, so I got them just as an insurance policy. I also got the onions, shell beans, okra and radishes in. I can't find my carrot seeds, or I'd have put those in too. I already put 1/3 of the potatoes in last month, and they are coming up nicely. The next 1/3 will go in this week, and the last 1/3 will go in at the end of this month. We are huge potato eaters here, so I'm trying to have enough and spread out plantings to allow for winter storage/dehydrating. DH has begun cutting down trees, to clear more pasture space for the cows and horses. Our chipper/shredder is not running right, so the process is going very slow at the moment. Our property had an open area behind our house, then a dense copse of trees, and a large open field beyond those (the back of the property is heavily wooded as well, but we plan to leave it as-is). By cutting down the trees in between areas, it has opened things up dramatically! We are leaving several large oaks and a couple huge pines to provide shade in what will be separate pastures. Unfortunately, we are having trouble establishing quality pasture - two years worth of work in our present cow pasture has provided only 1 week/month of grazing (1 hour/day) for Ice Cream and Flank Through some testing, it seems our soil is all over the place PH wise! It's making it very difficult to get things established everywhere. What works in one small section, fails miserably in the surrounding areas. Since this year is just prep, we are thinking of trying to get rye growing, till it under next Spring, then go from there. IN the house, I've canned more milk, made another wheel of cheese and dehydrated some morel mushrooms (along with a green pepper I was given that wasn't needed immediately). Morels dry quite easily, and now I'll get to enjoy them in the middle of Winter! Ate the last of my asparagus in a yummy farmers omelet yesterday! Best of all, everything in it was ours! Hash browns DS#2 & I dehydrated last fall, onions I dehydrated because they were too small to store well, eggs from our girls, canned ham chunks from the pig girls, farmhouse cheddar cheese from my first wheel, and asparagus. Yay! DH had his with toast - homemade bread (although the yeast, oil and flour were store bought ). It is raining pretty heavy right now, so I'm going to go trim the cheese wheel and get it set out to dry, and put the yogart I made away, after I make a shake! (DS#2 & I love yogart shakes, with strawberry or blueberry freezer jam, ice and yogart - Mmmm!).

 

[Denim Deb]

Sounds like a good meal, and good progress.

 

[hqueen13]

It is so satisfying to have the majority of a meal come from the fruits of your labor! That's amazing! I'm shocked you didn't make the yeast and oil too!
The garden sounds amazing! Good luck getting the land cleared. Some good friends of mine bought a wooded property and then had it cleared for pasture and they jokingly call it the 100, 000.00 pasture because it was so expensive to convert it.
I hope you are able to make some progress! Could you somehow take soil samples from smaller sections to see if you can address the individual areas?

 

[SSDreamin]

Got everything planted in the garden yesterday! This is the latest I've been getting things in, but I'm hoping it'll be OK. I have been preoccupied these past few weeks and haven't devoted the time needed to the garden. A family member has been going through some pretty stressful stuff, and I've been trying to be supportive. It's surprisingly draining for me, so I drag through my chores and do only the minimum I'm not complaining, because this person has been there for me in my life and I'm thankful I can give back - I really just wish I had the answers they're searching for.

This coming Sunday I will be going to a small ceremony at the cemetery as her family places my friend of 40 years ashes. I wish I could collect a bunch of butterfly's to release there - she loved them.

I was bragging on my farrier last week, and jinxed myself He rescheduled due to an emergency, then didn't show up. I hope everything's OK.

I read on FEM's journal that TX is getting hammered by rain. As usual here, as soon as I started planting my garden, the rain stopped! DH came home from work (he's close by right now - only one hour away!) and said the roads were wet or it was actually raining his whole way home - until he turned onto our road. Bone dry! Funny thing is, I drove in the opposite direction that day, and it was the SAME THING! It rained ALL AROUND US, but completely skipped this small immediate area!

Need to get outside and get busy - the horses are upset with me for not doting on them lately, the strawberry patch is LOADED with weeds and, once the gloriously sunny day is over, my house is a disaster area in need of emergency cleaning!

 

[Britesea]

You need to wash your car in the driveway! Or dance naked in garden? I forget which, lol, do both!

 

[hqueen13]

Say a prayer to the butterflies and maybe they will visit during the ceremony. You never know.
Lol on the rain. It did that here the other day. I hooked that it was because I forgot to water the basil in the morning when I planted it. That evening I watered it after I got home and we had a good rain storm. Gotta remember to apply the rain insurance!

 

[SSDreamin]

The most beautiful, cerulean blue butterfly hung out at my house the day before my friends internment. I've never seen one like it here before - or since. It fluttered right in front of my face, then flew off! Wow!

My family member with the problems is FINALLY starting to get better. He had back surgery, the incisions became infected, then became covered in shingles! Three weeks after the surgery, they took some samples from his incision sites and found out he had a pretty bad staph infection! Geesh!! Apparently, the meds they gave him for shingles (which amplified the pain ten fold - a 'possible side effect' ) caused the staph infection to get worse. So glad its been figured out and he's on the mend - he was supposed to be off work 4 days; it's been 4 weeks and counting!

My lettuce, carrots, corn and two varieties of shell bean I planted - never came up. Something is eating my peppers (groundhogs? rabbits? gophers? We don't have any squirrels in this area - not that I'm complaining! - and we have rabbit fence up. No deer tracks either ) and my cukes as soon as they come up. Birds are eating half my strawberries, although I have managed to bring in a couple quarts so far. Made a yummy modified cake and we had strawberries and shortcake for dessert last night. My son, the cake fiend, said the strawberries were the best part!

My saved seed experiments seem to be hit & miss. The corn and one shell bean that didn't come up were saved seed. The sunflowers and a different shell bean that are growing like mad were also saved seed! Several tomato and jalapeno starts were from saved seed and are doing great. The second batch of jalapeno starts (from a different batch of saved seed) and the green peppers would not germinate.

I have been making cheese every three days! I have hit on a nice cheddar that is mild (if eaten quickly) and everybody likes, an american that DS#2 wolfs down and a mozzarella + ricotta that everybody is happy with. The biggest problem lately is time - the cheddar takes 4 1/2 hours, start to finish. Not constant hovering, but have to be in the same room and always checking, which makes multitasking next to impossible. In a week or so we'll be able to try my pepper jack cheese, so we can decide if it's a keeper too. Mmmm, I love pepper jack cheese!

This past weekend, Jim developed impaction colic and we almost lost him. The vet said the weird weather we've been having probably caused it. I.V's, shots - shades of Mikey all over again! I stayed up with him all night. At one point, he went down, rolled, and broke the wooden fence between him and April. I tried to get him up and back to his own pen, but he refused to move. Shortly after I gave up trying, April 'pestered' him and got him on his feet. She led him over to the water, and he drank some! She even nudged him to share her food - and considering she likes to steal everybody elses food and then eat her own - that was a flat out miracle! By the following evening, he was his old self again! Now, they are attached at the hip! I am SO glad we got April!!!

Speaking of the horses, I mentioned before that my farrier rescheduled, then didn't bother to show up? He called later,re-re-rescheduled, rescheduled again due to weather (lightening and no place inside to work - I didn't blame him) for yesterday, then didn't show up for THAT appointment. I called, he said he 'had an emergency and thought he'd called everybody on his list' - and re-re-re-re-rescheduled (is that enough re's?!) for tonight at 6:30pm. By now, my horses haven't had their hooves done in over 12 weeks! So, I agreed to the appointment time, but got on the phone and checked around. There is a new kid, fresh out of farrier school, who would come out at 10am today - so I told him to come on! Jim wasn't too keen on him - but Jim hates new things/people/places, so I wasn't surprised. April was great for him! He was slow, being new, but she was pretty patient. He charged $5 more per horse, but he was coming from an hour away, so I could understand that. After he left, I called my farrier to cancel tonights appointment. Of all the times I've called him, this is just the second time he actually answered the phone, so I couldn't just leave a message cancelling and hang up like I hoped to. I explained that my horses/their care mean more to me than hurt feelings, or friendship. He 'argued' that he had gone above and beyond for me, helping me out with Ferdi and with Ice Cream's due date. He also said that he had planned to be here tonight, no matter what, and that he'd just been having issues that were out of his control these past few weeks (of-course, there's no way to know. would he show up? cancel? no call/no show again?). I *tried* to explain that I'd call at a later date to set up an appointment, but he gave me this 'hope everything works out with the new guy' speech. He also asked what his name was (I didn't tell him - not fair to the guy trying to get started, and really none of his business). Now I feel like total doo-doo. Up until this last little stretch, he was great, and I really feel bad about it. He apologized several times, and kept making excuses (I am NOT a fan of that. Apologize, OK. That's it. I don't want to hear excuses why you failed, I want to hear that you'll do your best to never let it happen again. Something he never said ). Now, if I go with the new guy, and he gets a lot of clients over where he's from, I'll have the same issues with him, and I feel like I may have burned a bridge with this guy - he may set up an appointment, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts he'll be standoffish when he shows up(IF he shows up!). Geesh, all this drama over my horses hooves!!

 

[Denim Deb]

I like pepper jack cheese too.

And I hear ya on the farrier problems. I don't know how many I went thru B4 I found the guy I have now. I had a good one until he got cancer and died. And finding a new one that showed up and did good work was not easy. I'd have one that I liked, then I wouldn't be able to get a hold of them. Or, I'd have an appointment set up and they'd never show, never call, nothing. I'd try to call them and not be able to get them.

Are you feeding hay at this time of year? If you are, you can try soaking it B4 putting it out. It will help Jim get extra water and hopefully keep him from colicking. You can also try giving him electrolytes to make him thirsty.