Devastation

No power no phone no water no internet since Friday. Over 10 inches of rain, wind gusts of 60 mph. If the flood didn’t get it a tree fell on it.  Scores of trees uprooted, hundreds of feet of fence washed out or flattened. Mike and Virginia have been a great help. And a friend showed up today with a generator. 

It will take days, weeks, months to clean up everything. But it will never look the same.  We are blessed that no one was hurt and there was no damage to and buildings. 

More later when we get power back. 

 

 

Foggy Mornings

We have had several beautiful foggy mornings this month. 

It just doesn’t get prettier than this. 

I never get tired of this view. 

 But there is not time to sit around and enjoy it when there is riding to be done.   Today was trotting back and forth across the long bottom for 3 1/2 miles then some light trotting and walking for another 2 miles back to the house. One month down one more to go. 

Pennies!

I usually don’t penny shop at Dollar General. My store always has all the pennied items pulled or they never carried them in the first place.  But after church yesterday I stopped at a DG that I rarely go to and guess what, I found some pennies! 

This was my crazy cart full. 

 15 to be exact. $111 retail for 15 cents.  The cashews will be a treat. But I have no idea yet what I will be doing with all of the wall art. I’m sure I can come up with some sort of project. 

If for some crazy reason you want to penny shop there are tons of on line resources. Here is one that explains it some https://www.crazyforcouponing.com/copy-of-dollar-general-penny-list

Pinterest “Nailed It”

I had another Pinterest inspiration. 

I needed a fence board, 

A barrel hoop, (had to untangle one from a volunteer tomato vine) 

I did purchase a welcome cutout from Hobby Lobby.

And I got out some bling,

To dress up one of Otoelene’s shoes.  Assembling everything plus some grasses that I picked out of the field and….

A wine barrel hoop welcome sign. 

This was the $85 Etsy inspiration piece.  I am going with, Nailed it!  I ended up gifting it to yesterday’s wedding couple.  I still have 5 more hoops.

 

Allie Saturday

Mike, Virginia and Joe went to a South Poll cattle field day in Appomattox today.  Virginia asked the girls where they wanted to go.  Sadie picked the field day and Allie picked Mimi!  I ended up taking Joe to their house at 5:30.  They all left and  I stayed until Allie woke up at 7:15.  I brought her to the house for breakfast.

Then we went to the barn for morning chores.

She was only willing to hold the bottle as long as there was no possibility of the calf actually touching her.  The funny thing was that she did go into the pen with Lucy but Lucy was terrified of Allie and just started to run around like crazy. Allie noted that Lucy was very small.  

After a trip to Dollar General, we went to Lowe’s for the kids workshop.  My thumb may never be the same after helping Allie hammer those nails.  And she got a pumpkin to bring home and color.  We passed by the Halloween display…

And she sat down like it was going to be a show.

I had to go press the demo buttons on everything for her to watch.  So I guess it was a show after all.

Next, we stopped by Little Caesars and carried our lunch to the park.

Allie had lots of fun on the playground. 

I liked the double swing.  I could swing too and not have to push.  Then it was back home with only a short nap, some playing then evening chores.  Then back in the car for an hour drive to a wedding reception.  Virginia and Mike were going to drop off Joe and pick up Allie.  Allie enjoyed the meal and then wanted to dance.  Then she said she wanted cake so I got two pieces.  But back at the table she only wanted the candy that was on the table so I had to eat both pieces of cake.  Poor me.  When Joe got there we but Allie in the truck and she started crying that she wanted to be in Mimi’s car. Virginia said she screamed all the way home for me.  Looks like I really know how to spoil her.
 

Open Field Tackle

I noticed a wormy goat kid a couple of days ago when we went out to feed the dogs. I came  back to the house to get the dewormer and Joe went with me to catch the goat. 

 Even though it was wormy, it still was pretty quick. But Joe was quicker and made a great open field tackle.  Glad he still has those football reflexes. 

Conditioning Hugo, Horse Heaven Loop

Joe drove me and Hugo up to Horse Heaven so I could do some trail ride conditioning.  The loop is 8 1/2 miles with a 1100 foot elevation change.  

Hugo is still barefoot.  He has never had shoes even before we bought him.  I am finding however, that he prefers to not trot on gravel. He has no problem walking on any surface but when I ask for a trot, he gets over on the edge as far as he can.  The ride that I am aiming for is all sand, no rocks or gravel.  So that’s good. 

I also think he is a bit lazy.  I had to do a lot of encouraging to keep up any kind of pace.

It was a beautiful day, low 70’s, light breeze, and he didn’t even sweat that much.  

 We finished in just under 2 hours.  That pace doesn’t leave much room for error when we only have 6 hours to do 25 miles.  But at least his pulse was within finishing limits as soon as I got him tied up and was able to check it.  

Three Things

1- I finally got the wall pockets from my brother hung yesterday after a Mike marked the studs for me.  

After arranging and rearranging them, I finally decided on this placement.  Right now I just have some succulents in three.  I might change that out eventually.  I was thinking about orchids but succulents are what I currently have.

2- Had a nice just walking ride on Hugo today.

We haven’t had rain in over a month.  Things are really drying up and getting critical. 

But the views were still nice.

 3- While watering some flowers next to the porch, I saw this very long snake skin.  I will have to stay alert when I am working in the yard.   Maybe it can catch a couple of rabbits. 

Calf Update

I know there has been a lot of concern about out little red calf.  

She is still with us and finally eating well.  The bottle goats still outweigh her though.  We have been calling her Red but I am thinking for changing that to Lucy.

She now has a friend.  This one was a twin the cow rejected. 

He has been an aggressive eater from day one.  Maybe he should be named Ricky.