Still Riding

I am not much for riding in bad weather anymore.  I have gotten wimpy.  But we did have a couple of nice-ish days recently.  

Saturday I caught Hugo.  Surprisingly, he wasn't too difficult to catch this time.  I spent about half an hour combing his rats nest of a tail.  

Once he was all cleaned up I went ahead and saddled him up.  I lunged him for 5 minutes, he was acting fine so I got on.  There were no issues until I went to get off.  He acted like my right leg coming up was the spookiest thing ever.  It took quite a bit of desensitizing  for me to be able to get back off without him scooting sideways.  Not really sure what that was all about.  
 

Then the farrier came Monday to reset Otoelene's shoes.  So while I had her up I went ahead and rode her around.  I want to keep her tuned up in case Sadie or Allie want to ride.  She did perfect.  I could just jog around on her all day.  

Cattle Obstacle Course

Earlier this week we moved the cows off the rented land across the road and took half to the house and the other half a mile down the gravel road to our other farm.   We ran into a bit of an obstacle that the cows really didn't want to go past.  

 With some whistling, yelling and stick waving I finally got them to go past the barking pack of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. 

From there it was easy sailing.  And we didn't even met a car. 

Afternoon Pinterest Project

Sadie loves to play dress up.  I have a bunch of costumes that I had saved from when Virginia and Emily where little.  They are all stored in a box that Sadie digs through to find what she wants.  Recently, I put the dresses on hangers and hung them off the ironing board.  Sadie could see them better and seemed to like the new arrangement.  But I didn’t think the ironing board should be their permanent home.  So I googled DIY clothes rack. 

This was the one I picked out as my inspiration.  It looked pretty simple and doable.

 And this is what I ended up doing with some stuff I already had on hand.  I haven’t decided yet whether or not to cut off the overhanging shelf.  And when the weather is better I plan to paint it white.

But I think it worked out well.  The box with the accessories fits under the shelf, there is plenty of room for outfits, and the shelf can hold the shoes.  I might add pegs on the ends for scarves and purses.  I am calling this a Pinterest success.

At The Feeder

The other day Emily said she had seen a fox sparrow at the feeder.  Fox sparrow is not on my eBird list yet so I asked Emily to show it to me the next time she saw it.  

So the next day she showed it to me along with a song sparrow for comparison.

This is the fox sparrow that I saw today.  With the temperature in the low teens, the feeders were very popular today.

I spent about 15 minutes checking out the feeders this afternoon to see if I could identify the birds on my own. 

There was a red bellied woodpecker enjoying the suet feeder.

A dark eyed junco.

Lots of house finches,

A pair of Downey woodpeckers,

And a white crowned sparrow.  I didn’t take pictures but I also saw a chipping sparrow, nut hatch, cardinal, blue jay, tufted titmouse, and a chickadee.  I am sure there were more but that was all I could manage without Emily.  

 

Wanting To Learn

We are wanting to go ahead and sell our billy goats soon.  This is the second year we have used them.  They were easier to keep over the summer than some have been in the past.  But since they have been busy breeding 70 nannies, they have lost some condition.

I thought I would check their eyelid color (for anemia) and deworm them if needed.  They actually both looked pretty good.  

Keiran said he wanted to go with me to help and learn.  He and Emily have talked about homesteading when they get settled with new jobs.  The billy goats were good to learn from because they are pretty tame, wild enough to no run over you but tame enough to catch out in the open with a little grain.   I ended up deworming one and giving copper boluses to both.  Keiran was good help and a good student.
 

Snow Day

Daycare closed yesterday due to it might snow some.  It did snow some but not enough to warrant daycare closing.  Virginia's theory was they just wanted MLK day off.  But whatever the case, I got to play with Sadia and Allie in the snow yesterday afternoon.   

They both had beautiful pink snow suits.  

And were both very excited to run around and play in the snow.

We did discover that Sadie's mittens were like sponges.  I don't know how she lasted so long wearing wet sponges on her hands. 

There was just enough snow to sled in the front yard.  I went several times then Mike gave it a try, not as successful.  Then I tied a rope to the sled and just ran down the hill with them, much easier than getting up and down off the sled.  

Allie's mitten came off and I thought she was saying, 'broken."  But she was saying, "back on."  She wanted it back on so she could keep playing.  They eventually succumbed to the cold and we dried off and continued playing inside.  
 

A Barn Emergency

The day started out pretty. 

But Joe’s comment was, red sky in morning sailor take warning.  And it wasn’t long before he came back to the house and said there was a problem with the barn. 

As he was walking past the barn to get to the tractor he saw that the far door had come off the track.  I went to look and immediately called the barn builder and said we had a barn emergency.  The door was hanging by one roller and the wind was starting to get fierce.

I checked again after I had talked to the builder and things had gotten worse.  

The door had blown out further and there was no way to secure it better against the wind.  Normally, the wind comes from the west and blows against this door from the outside.  But this morning it was coming from the East much harder than usual.

And then it was down.

I called back and said it wasn’t so much of an emergency anymore.  But he said he was coming this way anyway to see about another job and would stop to see what we needed.

I was very surprised that with the wind they decided to work on the door anyway.

And after some repairs and with Joe’s help, they were able to get the door back up.  The builder said he had his doubts too, but it worked.

Then after a few more adjustments, the door was up and working.  Bet you don’t hear about a barn emergency too often.

Rain, Snow and Sleet

The weather has taken a turn for the worse.  That means Joe's attitude has too. 

But who can blame him.  The rain, snow and sleet has turned our previously nice dry ground into mud.  

He has two groups of weaned calves that have turned the area around the feed troughs into mud lakes.  And this time of year, when it gets wet, it stays wet. 

It is a depressing sight to see. 

And Joe has to trapes through it carrying 50 pound sacks of feed.  

At least it is not muddy everywhere, and goats were pretty excited to see the tractor heading toward the bale lot.  

Bringing Home

Today we brought home some bred heifers that were out on pasture at Joe s dad’s house.

Joe wanted to get an early start so we could get in and out while the ground was still frozen.
 

I don’t think we had to hurry.  It was pretty cold.  But the frost was beautiful.

And the heifers behaved magnificently.

They loaded the best I have ever seen, like they were trained for it.

When we got the the house with them, Joe just pulled into the field to turn them out.

It was a very easy transfer.

And I had a good time taking pictures of the frost.

Couponing #85

I haven’t shared a couponing deal in awhile.  This one was too good to pass up and since it was a glitch I did not want to wait until Saturday for fear of it being fixed. 

The General Mills cereal was on sale, $6 for three boxes, but it was supposed to be the small boxes.  The glitch was that the deal was working on the family size boxes too. Plus, there was a digital $1 off when you by 2 and I found a peelie for $1 off one and the tooth brush was giving $1 in overage.  That meant $3 for 3 large boxes that are normally $5.25 each.  I did the deal twice Tuesday with just Honey Nut Cheerios, then I did this deal for Virginia yesterday.  And it was a good thing.  Because today the glitch has been fixed. 
 

Another Unusual Nativity

As I was putting up all of the Christmas stuff, I thought I might share one more unusual nativity.

Emily brought this one  back for me from Panama. 

It is very cute and tiny.  She thought it would be easy to travel with for 8 months.

There is a cow and sheep.

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.  I don’t think I  have seen a nativity with Jesus in this position.

 But my favorite is the little donkey.

My finial ornament count on the tree was 977 more or less.  

Happy 2024, New Year, Same Work

Joe and I celebrated the New Year by getting the cattle up and weaning the calves. 

 The, getting the cattle up, was the hard part.  They were very uncooperative.  They started out following the tractor, but turned and went back into the bottom where Joe had fed them for the last few days.

Joe’s face says it all.  We started over again but it still involved a lot of running around to get them out of the bottom and headed to the next field.  

And the next field wasn’t any better.  Joe had been saving some grass there for the calves after weaning and the cows didn’t want to leave it.  It took us about 45 minutes to finally get them all out and into the barn lot.  

We sorted out the cow and dewormed them, 

And then the calves.

The calves went back out the the field with the grass.

And the cows headed out to an adjoining field for fence line weaning. 

A small problem was that the horses were in the way of the open gate and they took the opportunity to run through it.  I had Hugo shut in the barn lot so they just ran down to see him which was pretty much out of the way.

The cows behaved from here and we got them where we were wanting.

The goats have been split up for a few days and the ones that were in the horse field also got out.  So I had to get the horses back where they belonged and the goats on over to where the other ones were.  My phone says I walked/ran 4.2 miles and did 34 flights of stairs.   I think I got all my steps in today.