This and That, because clever post titles are hard to come by

    For those who left comments on the Dear 2020 post, thank you for joining the conversation on a difficult topic. For me it's therapeutic to talk it out amongst like minded people, and even to hear a different view when it's not laced with hate.  I'm not religious, but I'm praying for the mental health and humanity of our society as a whole as history unfolds.     What a world it could be if  not for our own vices, greed and destruction. If only we could just respect each other's differences and work together for the common good of all.  So simple,  so attainable, and yet so far from our reality. 

    Onward!  The frigid conditions here on the farm have lifted - in the  upper 20's as I type, and it feels downright balmy.   I tried something that worked during our deep freeze - If you water critters outside during winter months - keeping that hydrant from freezing is sticky business.  Stuffing a water bucket with hay, and then flipping that over the hydrant when not in use.. works!

    The paddocks where a skating rink after the deep freeze.  Thankful my husband owns a sanding truck (for work purposes) and I was able to let the horses out into the paddocks after they made a sweep through with the sand/salt.    After losing my beloved Opie, I don't need another equine loss due to a broken leg. Speaking of which - the mini's and our boarder's horse, the very old (32 years!) Max are getting along really well - right now I've brought them up to the big barn from their smaller shed.  Their paddock is still a skating rink, so they're sharing Max's for the moment and with Opie's passing we have a vacant stall. They really like the new arrangement -  it's like they've moved up to the big boys dorm.

    In my never ending quest to lose this miserable menopausal weight and make healthier eating choices, I came across this chickpea salad recipe - so easy to throw together, very refreshing, too.   Recipe and this photo credit to the Striped Spatula... link below photo. 

 Recipe HERE

    Along with this dieting gig which I have yet to really really stick with for the long haul, I do keep up with at least a minimal exercise routine.  Daily I tend to the horse and chicken chores, which is usually about an hour of work, but I also get in some aerobic exercise with the dogs - we walk at least four days a week, most often on the farm, where there are fields, hills and woods and long dirt roadways that make it easy, and hard to find excuses since it's right outside the door.  Occasionally I get on the treadmill, but it bores the hell out of me.  Being outside and moving along is more motivation for a person like me, anyway. 

    Bailey, Frasier and Sally love these walks - I leave our cardiac patient, my Dane, Ben - inside on these cold days.   There's another shot of the big window from afar.

     Sometimes we get in the car and visit the cottage  (Stella) - where I walk the island - also a two miler IF I use all the roadways there.  There is also a state park just five minutes from here with a beautiful roadway that circles a pond and stream and even a waterwheel and covered bridge.   It's so beautiful, I scold myself for not using it more often - free if you walk in! 

     I throw light weight training in for good measure,  just three sets of twelve reps, four different muscle groups, doesn't take long but reaps benefits of keeping me feeling strong, even when I hurt.  I'm no expert, but one of my friends who is an expert agrees -   I highly recommend a combo of  simple stretching, walking and light weight training for anyone, and especially  those who are middle to older aged.  You don't need to beat yourself into the ground or use a fancy gym - just a few light handweights you can buy at your local Target or Walmart and a good pair of walking sneakers, etc. will do the trick. Get bored easily like me? Switch it up now and then with   a bike ride or kayak or yoga. 

     Sometimes the very simplest advice turns out to be the best, right?   

                                        Use it or lose it... 

       Arriving home from the woods walk yesterday, I surveyed the current garden plot situation... 

   What a difference six months makes, huh?  Some shots from last summer below...  (My weeding skills could be honed some, tis true.) 

Tonight I'll pull out the seed catalogs and 

place an online order.

I'm not paid to say anything on this blog...
If I endorse it, I've had success with it. 

My favorite seed source is Baker Creek Heirloom seeds..

Link HERE.  

I find their seeds to be healthy, meaning they actually perform

if you follow the directions properly, and the plants hearty.

That gorgeous zinnia row to the left is courtesy dear friend Hilary
of Crazy As a Loom.  She sent seeds from her garden
last year and they flourished.  

     I have placed the reply option with comments again -  last time I did that, many reeaders had trouble leaving a comment at all.  So often I want to thank you or answer questions to comments left,  remaining silent seems rude, but had no option when I removed that feature.  My comments no longer are delivered to my e-mail, where I used to be able to answer.  If you visit frequently, leave a comment to let me know you were able to.  Let's see if I got it right this time.

    As always - thank you for stopping by. 

Fall Classic

  That was the name of the horse show this past weekend...The Fall Classic.  

   Well.. on Thursday?  It felt like anything but Fall.  We were sweating like menopausal women in a steam room, all day,  I kid you not.  Of course, some of us WERE menopausal women, but even the kids were dripping.  It was YUCK.  BUT... my girl pulled up her big girl boots and chaps and hat and jacket and went out there and wowed us - even got a third place in several of  her classes.   Leah was a trooper, too - such a kind and good minded mare.  Amen. 

 By Saturday, when the husband had to fill in for me because I was running an artisan market here in town with a fantastic co-manager, the temps had dropped enough that people were wearing light jackets...  

    We're home for a week to catch up on work and house cleaning and laundry and bill paying and then we're off to another show in Syracuse for five days.  After that we'll take a break and practice at home until next April.   Amen again. 

   Meanwhile.. I've been harvesting the last of my little garden plots - the Zinnia seeds I was gifted by Hilary of Crazy as a Loom produced a stunning array of color, still going strong.  The artichokes that we left on the vine have blossomed - have you ever seen artichokes bloom?  WOW!  They'd be a great accent in borders!  My purple pepper experiment was a good one - the sweet  peppers are gentle on the digestive tract and so pretty - ending up in a variety of colors.  I'll grow them again next year, I loved adding them to the fry pan, sauteeing with onions, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet italian sausage.  Alittle S & P, oregano, butter in the bottom of the pan - delish! 

 
     After a few fall-like days, the humidity has returned, most likely due to the storms out in the Atlantic.  Wishing all in the storm's path safety and no damage to properties, hoping it is not as bad as they have predicted.  Our storm surges down at the cottage have been big already, and it's not even hitting us directly. We've pulled in the kayaks and seat cushions and umbrellas and closed all windows.   This picture was taken yesterday after a rain shower - Stella (our cottage) is just under the rainbow's end on the left, tucked in the trees.  Notice Filbert the flamingo, now a little droopy -  still out there to weather the .. weather.

  I'm admiring the tenacity of this lone sunflower too.  The pot sits beside the gate to the horse barn, and this one flower decided to stretch for the sun as tall as it could muster, as the pot is mostly in the shade. 

 As I published this, the skies opened up and it's pouring,

with lightening and thunder added for excitement.  

 Sometimes I love a rainy day...

sometimes, like when I left the horses out in the fields, 

not so much.  

Out I go...

Till soon, friends - 

Thank you for stopping by.... 

Smiles, everyone... Smiles!

   Miss Leah and K are getting to know each other, and it's looking like a beautiful relationship is taking place... 

   Meanwhile.. down at the cottage... remember that float we just had to have?  And then we popped before it even hit the water, but we patched it?  Well it's been sitting out in the cove for a good part of the summer - and just the other day I decided to take a peek underneath because someone happened to mention you oughta flip that thing over every ten days or you'll get barnacles and those suckers can be sharp.  

  Well I heard what he said, but it kinda went in one ear and out the other because... LIFE... and all that.  So the other day, I went out there, hauled it to the dock and flipped it, just to see what maintenance might need doing (scraping).  To say that half the sea life that lives in the Atlantic was living under that raft, attached to it even!... is just slightly an exaggeration.   It was SO FAR GONE, I kid you not, there was no scraping of those 2,000 barnacles gonna happen in this life time, so.. I slashed the thing, let the air out, and allowed the crab hanger-on-ers to scurry back into the water.  Crabs!  We had been sitting on CRABS!   There had to be 2,000 of those too.  I did not take a picture, but I shoulda.  

    So.. the slashed raft remnants are real heavy and sat there for a day or two while we went on to other stuff... and yesterday the Mr. and I decided to go sit down at the cottage for a few hours in the shade and enjoy the water view and breeze.   Well, hell.. that breeze smelled like a dead whale carcas surely washed ashore just upwind of us.  Only it wasn't a dead whale.. it was the dead raft and all those barnacles that had now baked in the sun.   Our poor neighbors! Who live there during summer and were very gracious... Smell?  We didn't smell anything.... (lie! but a kind one).

   Back here on the farm, after a torrential rainstorm and returning humidity - I'm cleaning house, restocked the fridge and  am now procrastinating with the catching up on editing for next month's edition of our local publication (my day job) .  I'm trying not to pay too much attention to the news, because holy wow, what a clusterf*ck no matter what you're general opinion is on absolutely anything.  

  The Mr. and I are coming up on our 30 year anniversary in September.  No one was ever kidding when they've said  *How Time Flies*.   For whatever the reason, mostly work related... my guy is always concerned with the weather, and in particular, rain fall.  Every time it rains, he runs out to that cheap plastic rain gauge and comes back in excitedly announcing the inches fallen.  "Two inches in the past two hours!"....  "just 1/2 inch today".   Or if I'm closer to the reading of the gauge... "What's the rain gauge say??"....  

   Recently I was at a friend's home and saw the most beautiful rain gauge in her garden.  The perfect gift, I thought.. for the guy who has everything except a nice rain gauge, which he practically worships in all it's cheap plastic expression.  This.. is on the way...  more fitting of the beloved position it holds in our garden, wouldn't ya say?  I'm not being paid to say it, but if you'd like the same one, it can be found in the Wind & Weather catalog. 

Till soon, friends... 

    

Soggy

     Holy humidity, Batman!  We've had a long stretch of rainy humid days but thankfully the sun will return shortly -  The ground is soggy, the air feels like - well a friend described it best - a wet dirty sponge.  I've got the fans on in the horse barn and the A/C on in the house.  It's too wet to trust the fan outside the chicken coop so they'll have to make do with the puddles that have formed in their coop yard.  We haven't been down to the cottage because the weather is just too yucky.  On occasion the sun peeps out and I take the dogs for a quick walk, only to witness the clouds fold right back in and another shower appears. 

   Our lone bunny, Cloud, she's not the friendliest - her brother Harley liked people better, but he passed on last year.  She lives next to the chickens  and has her own yard to run around in, when it's not storming out.  I've explained to her multiple times that her life quality would improve if she would only learn to trust us, but she'll have none of it. So, her hutch and yard are a no cuddle zone. 

      Some of the girls are molting and look like hell right now.  I also discovered mites in their coop and had to treat the whole thing, and them, with diatomaceous earth and I bleached the coop throughly as well.    DE is an all natural way to rid them of the mites that sometimes infest a coop, some people even eat it for digestive health.  It appears to have worked on the mites, two weeks later we are mite free.  I hope. 

 My giving tree - the ancient pear that stands in the mini's paddock, has more fruit than ever this year.   Considering the tree is half hollow and has lost major limbs in recent storms, that she still bears fruit is simply amazing.   The mini's love the fruit as it drops, some of which I have to scoop out each morning lest they get sugar overload from eating them all.

1,000's, I'm telling ya.  

     On days like today, when the weather may call for thunder and lightning,  I leave the horses in their paddocks where they have easy access to their stalls (and fans), shelter from any severe weather.  They prefer to be out on pasture, but I don't like to leave them out in the fields with potential lightning.  So they are bored as they wander around the smaller paddocks and their stalls, picking at their hay, while the much greener grass is on the other side of the fence.

    Opie peeking in the feed room, asking for a treat, please.

 

   My daughter's retired show horse, Max, likes his creature comforts.  If the going gets too buggy or hot or soggy  out in the fields, he much prefers the fans and soft shavings and hay offerings in his stall.

     The dogs nap as the rain falls, asking to go out occasionally, and only when it's not raining.

  Dear old Ben isn't fond of the rain or humidity either -  He's now on five heart pills -  living  on borrowed time, but he's comfortable and with these pills he's leading a decent life.  So we'll spoil him until his final day.

  One  good thing about all this rain is the lush gardens outside my doors... 

  I've made several batches of pesto from all the happy basil plants, my freezer is now stocked well into fall.    (This picture taken a day before the rains came - what a difference)

  The recipe and card I use was given to me at my wedding shower 30 years ago.   I love that idea.  Each guest to the shower brought a favorite recipe.  I still have most of them! 

 There are several variations of pesto out there, but this one is my favorite.  What's missing on the card is 2 teaspoons of pine nuts, and 2 cloves of garlic.  I make big batches and use lots of garlic. 

Delish! Fresh from the garden -   If you like pesto,  give it a try -