Beautiful day!

 Since my photos from yesterday were rather poor, I brought out the real camera (Nikon ) and took advantage of a day that actually feels like spring. Most of the snow is gone, except for shaded areas and places that snowdrifts built up. I tried river shots of the Common Goldeneye duck but my focus was off. I did, however manage to capture the mating pair of geese as they flew overhead. 

Love that blue sky and the snow eating south wind we have today. I inspected my flower gardens, and the shoots in my previous post are tulips that my niece gave me last year, and I planted the bulbs last summer after the flowers died. Also surviving the long cold winter are dianthus and at least 1 of my 2 irises. Still waiting to see if the butterfly flower, roses, and clematis made it. 

Happy is doing great- baby has stopped bouncing around, so has probably grown enough to take up most of the room. Her udder isn't quite full but it is getting there!

If you look behind the curve of her jaw, that is the melanoma. It doesn't seem to be bothering her at all; not sensitive to touch and she doesn't react at all when I touch it. So hopefully it will just lie dormant for a long time. 

Cell phone photo

Happy is 21 this year and she looks great. As far as I can find out, this is her 13th foal. Previous owners say she has no trouble foaling, so hopefully that will be true for this one too. 

If you are wondering about that funny looking mark on her side....

it is a patch of hair  in her original color, bay. I think it looks like a cross or an arrow. Or both! 

Stay tuned, I will do the foaling contest post in a day or 2. 

Enough already

 April came in white. Started snowing/raining last night, and this system is supposed to last all day. Enough above freezing to make it snow but warm enough that it's melting on the vehicles but not on the frozen ground.

My footsteps on the walk way this morning, to and from the barn. It was bare yesterday.

My garden containers, a long way from being able to plant. 

The mares have settled into their new routine. Their hay bale is on the other side of that shelter; they only go in there to eat but don't hang out in there. They are currently standing out in the weather in their favourite spot in the winter pasture. 

Happy also has free roaming in and out of the barn, I put most of her hay in there and one flake on the lee side of the barn- and that is where she prefers to be, probably because she can see the other horses from there. 

She too is currently hanging out in the weather, unconcerned with getting wet. All the mares are still sporting their winter coats, guess they knew something we didn't. 

I found this beauty in Walmart and couldn't resist adding a splash of color to this greyness that is hanging in there.

A non equine catch up post

 There is always something going on around here. Fun stuff like a new batch of kittens to try to socialize; Misty had another 3 kitten batch, same as the last- 2  females and 1 male. My neice decided to take all 3 which is nice; they will be all together and be endlessly entertaining! 

Simon

Sassy

Shumai

They will leave on July 6. I almost kept Sassy....

Ted built me an enclosed garden for my perennials. 

The start of the project

It isn't really big, but it is plenty big enough for my 2  roses, and several other perennials, like the 2  scabiosa ( pincushion flower) that I decided to buy after seeing them on the 4R ranch blog. 

   

A work in progress- we dug out the sod with the tractor and brought up a big bucket of composted horse manure, perfectly composted into topsoil. He built me a gate on that right side.

Time to add the wire mesh...

And done! I planted 2  Jackmani clematis to grow up the old garden gate that I found lying around and attached to the wall. 

Done just in time, as we had a half dozen muley bucks stroll through the yard. 

Hope that last one is still here in hunting season!

Last Friday I had cataract surgery on my right eye, what a difference! Who knew colors are so vibrant! Looking through my other eye now is like looking through a dirty window, so I am looking forward to getting it done soon too. Meanwhile I am not supposed to do much bending, lifting or working in a dusty environment so doing horse feet will have to wait another week. Rally and Patsy were really coming along well with trimming so I need to get back to that asap. 

A couple of whatsits

 Hey all you birders, can you identify this bird for me? I have looked through my books and I think it's some kind of juvenile warbler but no idea which one. 

It was perched on the bird house and watching for bugs on the lawn, then flying down to grab a bug and return to its perch. 

My garden is nearly done, no frost yet but we have been close. The gladiolus are blooming finally though!

Gussie finally came in heat and Beamer covered her, it will be a mid August foal next year. Gussie and Pie head home on the weekend. 

I have really enjoyed having them here! 

We fenced off a major portion of the rest of the farm that is part of our rental. It was already fenced on the north and east with barb wire which has a strand of electrified wire , so I am not concerned about them leaning on it, and the west side is bordered by the new hot wire pen that we built last month. So it was just posts and 2 strands of white electric tape to cross fence- made for a fairly easy job. I figured the measurements out at 15 acres.

There are 2 drawbacks to offset the benefit of having all that pasture- no access to the automatic waterer, so it's tubs and hoses to water them, and their only shelter is trees at the far end. At some point we will figure out a track system to get them into the shelter pen which has the waterer. Before winter!

 Ideally, this will be a winter grazing pen once we get the track system built. 

Here's another "identify this" I need help with. We have all these mushrooms popping up, and I want to know if they are edible. 

The stem

Where did that week go?

 It has been a week of family stuff, not much going on with the horses. They are all on pasture, and about all I have had time for is teasing Ruby. 

Not ready

I did manage to finish setting up my garden and even got pole beans and wax beans transplanted. 

 

I have some cantaloupe and broccoli sprouted but not ready for transplanting, and will be putting lettuce seeds in later today. A trip to the greenhouse on Thursday for tomato plants and maybe even a rose (you know I gotta have at least one rose!) and then dig a spot for a few carrots and it will be done. 

We finally got a great soaking rain last evening, complete with some thunder that had Beamer heading full tilt for his barn. It was amazing to see how fast he can go with those stiff front legs. I really think that having him on straight grazing has helped him to move around and limber up those knees. 

Thankfully the smoke cleared with the rain. Ted's family have come back to their evacuated homes- and I was sad to hear that some of the businesses in that town were looted. What a bunch of greedy jerks. Probably druggies. 

On our way home from the family gathering we went through an area where there are wild horses. These two stallions were grazing together beside the road. 

A couple of very impressive dudes!

They wintered well

I will do my next post on Ruby and the new saddle. 

Eeeeh what's up doc?

 That was my question as I headed out to my gardens to see what indeed is coming up, since today is the spring equinox. Turns out the answer is lots! 

Aurora- that is my Heleborus which apparently is quite happy! 

Purple Emperor Sedum

One of several irises, all of them with new growth

All my daylilies are sending up new leaves

Lilies! this is my earliest one, it's a deep red.

Red bee balm, one of my favourites. I harvest leaves and flowers for tea and an oxymel.

Spinach that overwintered! It should have new growth coming along, I'm sure these leaves will be bitter. I also left beets and carrots in the ground but alas, the cold got to them. 

What's up in your garden? I know you southerners have flowers already, hope you post them! 

Sunday Stills

Sunday stills this week is all about summer- and these are the things of summer for me. There is always gardening, both flowers.....

and my jungle of a vegetable garden:

Summer harvest... berries:

and hay:

Because, really, summer is all about preparing for winter, don't you know.

But my main delight in summer is riding my horses.

Especially when I get to go with friends.

This 'n' that

It's supposed to get down to only a couple of degrees above freezing tonight, so I pulled my tomatoes. From 6 plants I got two full boxes of tomatoes- a lot more than I expected. A friend gave me a recipe of her great grandma's for green tomato mincemeat, so I'm going to try that. Anyone have a favourite green tomato recipe they want to share? I'll let the bigger ones ripen, and maybe can some of them and make salsa.

We are hosting a consignment auction here on the 23rd. We are getting some really nice stuff- antiques, furniture, boats, a pump organ, a piano, - oodles of stuff! should be a really good auction.

It doesn't look like I'm going to get to go hunting this year, elk season ends on the 20th and I just don't have time with helping out with the auction and trying to find time to work Chickory. I hope to haul her to the arena tomorrow.

I'm really enjoying my job, the hours are perfect, and the job is just challenging enough to keep me hopping. I was asked if I would help out again at the Therapeutic Riding center, so I'll probably drop down there in the next day or so to help out.

Beamer and Url are getting along just fine, Url now likes to have his head scratched, and moos at me as soon as I come out of the house in the morning- he knows who brings the wheelbarrow full of hay! Beamer bosses him around a little, but I've seen them sharing the shelter and eating out of the same hay pile.

Well, g'night all busy day tomorrow!

Sunday Stills

Red and green in the same photo, and no archives- that is the challenge for today. Turned out to be easier than I thought it would, and I didn't have to go too far. The lovely colors of fall helped me out.

Our national emblem is the red maple leaf, and there are a few of them around here!

A little blue sky sets off the red and green quite nicely.

My garden still has a little red among the green.

Red and green are two of my favourite colours to wear, so I have these earrings in my collection.

I have some brilliant red begonias still going strong.

And I always think that black and white goes with everything, even red and green!