The Riding/Training - Prima

Prima is not Pregnant

But she is Clinically Obese

The Diet Starts NOW!

Prima was examined and found not to be pregnant.  She is severely overweight, however, and it is effecting everything else: hocks, front feet, energy levels, etc. I have borrowed a grazing muzzle and she is wearing it now for the first time. The prescription for her is at least an hour of hill walking every day.  Wear the muzzle for 12 hours a day.  No other changes for now until her blood work comes back. 

We are thinking that perhps she can never go out on the hay pasture again without a muzzle.  As the vet said, "It's like sending a drug addict to Amsterdam." 

I had been afraid to restrict her diet in case she was pregnant and had stopped riding her because she was lame.  At least now I  have a plan of action. 

That muzzle is going to make her so cranky!

The Food - New Recipe for Fall Root Vegetables

New (for me) Recipe for Fall Root Vegetables

I found this recipe in a magazine, or rather the idea for it in a magazine. I always have to tweak recipes because I often don't have exactly what the recipe calls for.   Last night we had  onions, carrots, potatoes and parsnips from the garden as well as lots of fresh sage.

1 cup sliced onion
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup sliced potatoes
1 cup sliced parsnips
olive oil
water
salt and pepper
1/2 cup fresh sage, chopped

In a large frying pan, saute the vegetables and sage in about 1/4 inch of oil for about 10 minutes.  Then add about a cup of water, cover and steam the vegetables for another 20 minutes, ot until tender.  Then take a pastry knife and sort of crunch up (rather than mash) the vegetables in the pan juices.  Salt and pepper to taste.  You end up with something that has different colors and different textures, rather than the usual mashed puree. 

I think you could do this with any number of winter roots and squashes and a variety of herbs.  I also had red beets but chose not to include them because I thought they would have perhaps created a muddy color in the dish. 

I used some of the leftovers in my 3-egg omlette this morning.  Delicious!

The Food - Baked eggs with Ham and Leeks

Baked Eggs with Ham and Leeks

Homestyle Applesauce

We had leftover ham to get rid of, so I decided to put chunks of it in the bottom of our baked eggs this morning.

1/2 cup chunked, fully-cooked ham
5 turket pullet eggs (or large chicken eggs)
1/4 cup top milk (or half and half)

Rub a baking dish with a little butter.  Put the ham in the bottom, Crack the eggs over the ham.  Drizzle the top milk on top.

This is what it looks like before it is baked.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven until the eggs are the desired doneness and it begins to brown on top.  We like the whites firm and the yolks runny which took about 20 minutes.

This is what they looked like when done.

Easy Homestyle Applesauce 

It annoys me that I can't get chunky applesauce that has no sweatener added.  The only brand I can find with no sweetener added is Kroger "sugar free" applesauce and it has no chunks.  It's ingredients are "Apples, water, vitamin C", though, which is perfect.  Here is my solution.  I take raw apples and cut them up in a microwave safe bowl, sometimes even leaving the skins on for extra taste.  I add the Kroger applesauce and stir the chunks in.  I cover with a glass plate and microwave until the chunks of apple are soft but not mushy.  The result is a chunky, flavorful, hot applesauce that has no sugar and only takes about 5 minutes to achieve.  I sometimes add raw honey and cinnamon at the table: it's my anti-inflammatory potion for the day. 

 

 

 

The Poultry - Pullet Eggs

Pullet Eggs

We are finally getting a regular flow of eggs and most of them are pullet eggs.  A few of the old hens are laying, but not too many and not too often.  The pullets are laying up a storm, however.  Their eggs are smaller this year than I ever remember.  They are Barred Rocks, which we have had before, but these eggs are really tiny. 

We are also getting turkey pullet eggs.  They are about the size of regular chicken eggs now, but they are pale and speckled.  I like turkey eggs rhe best.  I like the flavor and consistency.  They will get substantially larger before spring.

Every once in a while there is a duck egg,  but I think it is from one of the older duck hens.  We have ten duck hens that we are over-wintering, so when they get going there should be a lot of eggs.  I am not sure how many are older and how  many are first year layers.  I think we had six last year, so maybe only four of them are youngsters.  They lay white or blue eggs.

The geese are not laying yet.  We only kept one hen over (We are hoping she is a hen).  We won't know for sure until we see that first egg in the spring.  Above are duck eggs with one pullet egg.  Below are several pullet eggs at the other end of the egg box.  You can see how little they are this year.  If anyone knows why this might be, please let me know. 

The Riding/Training - PJ is Lame

PJ Is Lame

Tonight, PJ came in very lame on her right front.  We checked her carefully and could find nothing.  So we put her in for the night with her mom across the aisle to keep her calm and relaxed.  The horses came in at a gallop; bucking and rearing, so we think she may have been kicked just before we brought her in and it had not had a chance to swell.  The morning should give us a better sense of what is going on.  I did not give her bute, or do anything, because I did not want to mask symptoms before we  know what's going on.

I will update this post when we know more. 

PJ Update Sunday Morning:  PJ is better this morning, but still lame.  So we are keeping her in for another twelve hours.  Gus is in with her today.  We still can't find anything specific to treat on the leg, and she is playing with her Jolly Ball, so she isn't in too much pain. We didn't give her bute either. 

PJ Photo Update: Sunday noon

When I got down to the barn, Gus was obviously taking his baby sitting duties very seriously!

And PJ had clearly been napping as well.  Good for her!

She is getting pretty big, so it's a good thing she stands nicely in the cross ties. 

Below are photos of her leg.  I know it looks a bit lumpy in places, but her other leg is exactly the same and there are no hot or sensitive places. 

 

When I walked her out she is definitely still lame and she really seemed to be the most uncomfortable when I turned her in the direction of this leg and she had to pivot on it.  So I am thinking she got kicked in  the shoulder...  But I'm open to other interpretations.

PJ Update, Monday morning:   We kept her in last night and she is still lame this morning, although slightly less lame.  So it is going in the right direction.  The vet is coming today to do worming and shots, so he can look at her then .  We can also get a once and for all on what's going on with Prima, hopefully. 

PJ Update Monday afternoon.  The vet checked PJ and says it is nothing serious.  She probably twisted  her shoulder playing.  A few more days of limited activity (she can be in our little corral) and then she can go back  out with the others.  No other treatment neccessary.

The Garden - Digging Parsnips

Digging Parsnips

Trimming, Cleaning and Freezing

We had a nice hard frost, so it is time to dig the parsnips.  The ground had thawed this afternoon, so it was not hard to dig.   We have the best yield of parsnips ever from our Elbert County garden. 

After the tops were trimmed off, we had ten pounds of parsnips! 

The next step is to wash them and break off the little root hairs that hold the dirt and bag them in approximate one pound bags (for our family of two).

Then they go straight into the freezer.  Unlike most other vegetables, that have to be blanched before freezing, parsnips will keep for up to a year in the freezer without blanching.  They may lose a little crispness, but they do not lose flavor; and since you almost always cook them to eat them, the loss of crispness is not missed in the final product.

Meanwhile, out in the garden, the empty bed is raked level and mulched with straw fort the winter.  We got twenty pounds of carrots and ten pounds of parsnips from this bed this year!

The Riding/Training - Schooling Show in Castle Rock

Schooling Show in Castle Rock

I stopped by a schooling show outside of Castle Rock this morning to see what it was like.  I think, when they resume them monthly in January, I will try to bring horses over and ride.  You have to keep your horses tied to your trailer between rides, so I would have to have help if I were to bring more than one horse.  The footing was very nice in the indoor, where the show took place, but the warm up area was tiny.  It would be a challenge for a young horse or one of any age who wasn't secure or relaxed about having other horses it didn't know in close proximity.  I think it might afford a good opportunity to take horses away from home and ride indoors in the winter.  Not to mention the benefit of being scored on a test without the pressure of a big show, fancy clothes and a full bore turn-out.

It was a Halloween show this time, so there were lots of adorable children and ponies in costumes.  But when their events were over, there were a number of adult amateurs turned out more or less in clinic attire, without braiding, and with horses in boots of various sorts.  This looked like something I could manage in the winter, without an indoor or heated barn and in weather too cold for bathing and braiding horses.  Prima and Gus should be fine with it and it would be good to take Elvis and see how he does. 

Elvis had not slept in a barn before I got him and he I don't think he had never been ridden in an indoor.  He made those adjustments pretty easily, so perhaps this will be easy for him too.  It will give me a goal to shoot for.  To be ready to ride those tests by January!

The Garden - The Veggies Survive the First Hard Frost

The Veggies Survive Our First Hard Frost

We have covers and incandescent light bulbs over 4 of the garden boxes this winter.  I am about to go out and pick some greens for dinner and there was a wind chill in the teens last night.  This is so exciting!  I can't even decide what to have.  But I am leaning towards the spinach because it is the most fragile and the most likely to succome if the temperatures get too extreme.  The wind chill is supposed to be in the single digits tonight.   The photo above is of the chard and spinach.  The spinach is in the background.  You can see the snow on the ground outside the box. 

This is a tighter shot.  It all looks pretty healthy, considering.

The photo above shows the kale and leeks.  They seem to have made it through the night pretty well too.  I had leeks in my omlette this morning!

 

 

This is the mustard greens.  They look a little wilted.  I am not sure if they got too cold in the night or too hot in the sun or too dry because of the cover.  I will have to investigate further tomorrow when it is warmer outside.  I didn't want to have the boxes open too long today.   Just long enough to snap these photographs. 

The Riding/Training - Prima, Gus and PJ

Prima, Gus and PJ

High Winds in the Morning

I had the horses in and was planning to start riding at 9:30.  At about 9:10 the wind came up and there was dust everywhere and I could hardly stand up outside.  So I checked my hourly forcast online where it said the winds would subside by 2:00 in the afternoon.  This gave me four hours of daylight and the last very narrow window of opportunity for the next several days to get some riding in. 

At 2:00 the wind was still howling and shaking the house.  So I kept on doing laundry and cleaning vegetables.  At 3:00 it started to subside and by 3:30 it was gorgeous out.  So off I went to the barn.

Prima was first.  I decided to lunge her first and see how she was, and it was a good thing because she was not sound.  So I lunged her for 20 minutes and called it a day.  If she is not pregnant, and we will know for sure in a few days, I think I need to put her on a pretty restricted diet and have her hocks done.  On the lunge line she looks all on the forehand, but she is lame in front, so it doesn't make sense unless her hocks are sore as well and that's why she is going so much on the forehand.  And that could be aggravating the front foot situation.  When she was sound in the spring she was much more foreward and  through.  She just isn't moving like she does when she feels good. 

Gus was second.  I rode him without lunging.  He was great!  He was a bit high headed at first, so we warmed up, up there and he really went straight to work. (Very uncharacteristic!)   We worked on turns on the haunches and turns on the forhand at the walk, leg yields, shoulder in and renvers at the trot, walk/canter transitions and 10 meter canter circles.  He was pretty terrific.  No fussiness: all business.   He did pick up the wrong lead a couple of times, trying to change the subject, but only a couple of times.  We also worked on three loop serpentines at the canter with no change of lead and canter across the short diagonal with a change of lead at the rail through the walk.  Good boy, all around, and my core was sore at the end so I must have been doing something right as well.

I had planned to  work Elvis third, but PJ was so jealous and into everything when I was getting Gus ready that I really had to get after her.  She was chewing his reins, grabbing his flash and stealing brushes; anything she could think of to get attention.  And when I brought him back she was sulking off in the far corner by herself.  So I went and got her.  I tied her and brushed her and picked up all four of her feet.  I put hoof dressing on her feet and then we went for a long walk around the middle pasture, closing gates for  the night.  I think this was the first time I had asked her to walk away from the others and still be within earshot.  Usually we have gotten in the trailer and gone off the property to a show.  Her mother, of course, tried to cause a scene and screamed for her.  She only answered once and stopped and thought about trying to go back.  But I talked her out of it and we had a nice walk.  I probably should do this more.  When we got back I left her tied while I cleaned everything up and then turned them all out together.  She was a good and patient girl!

The Food - Apple Cider Boiled Ham

Apple Cider Boiled Ham with Apricot Glaze

Baked Buttercup Squash and Apples

With Sauteed Mustard Greens and onions

We get a side of pork every year from the farm where we get our cow's milk share.  The pigs are milk fed on the same wonderful raw, organic milk we drink. They also get pasture forage and some organic supplemental feed.  The meat is fantastic.  We always get a bit of the pork cured into hams and bacon.  The processor uses nitrites, so we are stepping outside of what is optimal, in terms of avoiding unnessessary chemicals, but a little tast of ham and bacon each year is really a nice thing. 

This was a half ham; the last of last year's.  This year's piggie will be ready for us to pick up any time now, so I needed room in the freezer.  And I was in a hurry as yesterday was a busy day collecting the birds from the processor and trying to  get laundry, riding and gardening in ahead of my work days and the snow coming in.  So I did not measure anything.  I will do my best to estimate amounts.  (It used to  make me so mad when my gramma would do that ... now I understand!)

For Boiling

1/2 cured smoked ham - defrosted
Apple cider
Water

For Glazing

Boiled, smoked ham
1 buttercup squash, cut into 1/8ths
2 apples cut in half through the equator
1 jar of apricot preserves
Honey
Salt
Olive oil
Ground cinnamon
Ground cloves
Ground nutmeg

Mustard Greens

Fresh picked mustard greens (I used combined seed from about 4 years, so we have mixed varieties)
     washed and chopped into @ 2 inch strips
1 onion, chopped
Olive oil
Salt

Place the ham in a pot that is just a bit bigger around than it is, and deep enough to hold the ham with liquid to cover.  Cover with 3/4 apple cider to 1/4 water.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes per pound or until fully cooked.  Scim off any scum that forms in the first few minutes of boiling.

When the ham is cooked, place it skin side up in a large roasting pan.  Place the sections of squash and apples around the ham, skin sides down.  Scoop out the cores of the apples with a melon baller.  Drizzle some olive oil over the squash.  Fill the cavities in the apples with honey.  Warm the apricot preserves until you are able to pour them over the ham and then do so, slowly.  Sprinkle salt on the squash and then sprinkle the other seasonings in more or less equal amounts over the whole contents of the roasting pan.  Cover and roast in a 350 oven for 45 minutes, or until the glaze on the ham as turned a golden brown and the squash and apples are soft to a fork. 

While the ham and squash and apples are in the oven, saute the mustard greens with the onion in about a 1/4 inch of olive oil until wilted and tender.  Salt to taste.

This turned out well enough to make us smile, even though we felt compelled to watch another presidential debate!

 

 

The Garden - Carrots and Beets

Carrots & Beets

We started digging the root vegetables ahead of our forecast snow for Friday.  I had no idea they were getting so big.  Obviously, we should have been eating them starting in about July.  Our soil is indeed getting better and able to support better growth!   I didn't even know I had planted beets.  The seed got mixed up in the chard seed, so the beets just sort of appeared in the rows of chard. 

We put hardware cloth on the bottom of the garden boxes to keep the gofers and ground hogs out.  I think the carrots hit the mesh on the bottom of the garden box and then just got fat instead of long.  I think some of them split under the pressure of no where to go.

After trimming and washing we have 20 lbs of carrots and 12 lbs. of beets.

The Buildings - The Sauna Becoming

The Sauna Becoming

The Before Pictures

This little building is the last old one on the property to get renovated.  We are not sure what it was originally.  I had thought it might have been a summer kitchen, but there was no place for a stove.  It was lined with shelves that had mostly old paint cans stored on them.  I didn't get the before pictures until after the shelves had been torn out.  That happened yesterday.  And as a result the whole building began to lean.  I guess over time the shelving had become structural.  Today it got shored up and leveled again.  It was most probably built in 1906 when the oldest part of the house was built.  It is going to be our sauna!

 

 

Inside, you can see that there is a lot of daylight shining through. 

 

 

 



The Riding/Training - 10/21/12 Elvis

10/21/12 Elvis

Elvis threw a shoe last Sunday, so he didn't get ridden that day.  The farrier came on Tuesday and did all the horses.  It took the best part of the day.  I worked Wednsday and Thursday.  On Thursday and Friday we had a guy come in and dig out our manure pile and haul it away.  He was working with a bobcat and a big truck in the corral where I pen the horses when I ride ... so I couldn't ride until he was done.  And Friday morning I shot a staple gun staple through the tip of my ring finger on my left hand.  So Friday and Saturday I was sort of out of commission.  But today we got a ride in!

I worked him in dressage tack and lunged him first.  He had some trouble holding the canter on the correct lead on the lunge line.  There was a lot of breaking to the trot, cross-firing and counter canter.  When I got on him, we did some bending at the walk and worked on turns on the haunches and turns on the forhand.  At the trot we worked 20 meter circles and three loop serpentines with bending.  At the canter, since he had had so much trouble on the lunge line, I did not do any 20 meter circles.  I had him pick up the canter along the short end of the arena and then canter down the long side and transition to a trot at the other short end.  I rode in a two-point.  He always got the correct lead, and he was able to keep it along the long side.  I was really pleased with him.

After the canter work we did some trotting leg yields along the long diagonal, some hault/rein backs, and a walk down the center line and halt at X.  He was completely crooked down the center line and did not halt square, but he did halt with a normal amount of leg and bit contact... so we are making some progress.  (When I got him, he would not stop unless I sat way back and threw my legs way forward... western style.   I wasn't very good at it, so neither was he.)

A local barn has schooling shows once a month all winter.  They are indoors and I think it might be a good way to get some riding in when the weather is bad,  I think I am going to go and watch this weekend, as I don't know how dressed up, or turned out you have to get.  I gave Elvis a bath and bleached his mane and tail when we were done.  I sprayed winteregreen  rubbing alchohol and water on his back, dressed his hoofs and put bit butter on his lips.   I was trying to decide if I should take him this weekend.  I think he's very cute when he's all cleaned up, but if he can't go straight down the center line, he's probably not ready, even for a Introductory Level test.  He DOES love attention, though.  And PJ was very jealous.  She even broke the fence at one point, trying to get in on his bath.

The Food - Build Your Own Breakfast Burrito

Build Your Own Breakfast Burrito

Except You Could Never Roll These Up

Home-made White Spelt Tortillas
Scrambled eggs
Chorizo
Black Refried Beans
Roasted Winter Squash
Sauteed Kale and Onions
Jack Cheese

Salsa
Yogurt (but you could use sour cream)

Fresh apple juice and coffee

The Poultry - The Last of the Butchering for This Year

The Last of the 2012 Butchering

We took 3 geese, 5 drakes, 5 older hens, 8 turkeys and the old rooster to be butchered in Simla this morning.  We are much better than we were in the beginning at catching them without causing a lot of anxiety and a big kerfuffle in the coop.  Since the turkeys have been living mostly outside the coop and are strong flyers, I was a little worried about this.   But it turned out they are so tame it really wasn't an issue.

It was a beautiful morning out on the Bijou and a spectacular drive out Highway 86.   These birds had a nice life and they will feed a lot of people, one way and another.  We will sell some, give some as gifts and donate whatever we can't eat ourselves in a year to Libby and Brad at S.A.M.E. Cafe.

 

 

I will pick them up all wrapped and frozen on Monday.  When I get them home I will weigh them and wrap them a second time and label them.  We still have a small goose from last year, so I think we will have to have a Michaelmas Goose this fall.  Michaelmas is past, but the recipe is super!

The Garden - More October Vegetables

More October Vegetables

Today I brought in the pumpkins, bcause it is getting too cold at night now and I'm afraid they will freeze.  The vines were all dead and we put their box to bed.  I also picked some freeze-dried oregano and basil.  I'm not sure how it will taste, but it smells pretty good.  I found some new lettuces that looked fine.  I'm sure they will be our last until next year. And I noticed an onion I had missed from a row that we have been eating out of. 

I also found a bunch of little cherry tomatoes, under the vines and lying on the ground, that had not frozen, remarkably, and had managed to ripen... and a couple of green tomatoes that were bigger and also not frozen.  It looks  like we can have one more salad and some fried green tomatoes!

The Garden - Putting Some Boxes to Bed

Putting Some Boxes to Bed, Watering and Winterizing Others

Some of the beds are done for this year so we have pulled up the dead plants, turned the soil lightly and put a layer of straw mulch over the top.  Hopefully, this will keep the weeds down and keep the moisture in for the worms and other organisms that condition the soil. 

Other boxes have vegetables that we will try to over-winter with covers, and for the first time this year, incandescent light bulbs.  The box above contains kale and leeks.

The box above has mustard greens and we transplanted two little rosmary plants into the far end of the box.  They don't show in the photo, but this is the first year I have gotten rosemary to grow in the summertime here  and I am hoping to hold it over through the winter so that it can get big enough to harvest next year. 

The box above contains swiss chard, beets and spinach.  We will harvest the beets and try to over-winter the chard and spinach.

Above are little cabbages that we hope to have through the winter.  Below are onions that we will dig before the next killing frost. 

Below are our carrots and parsnips which will also be dug up before the next killing frost.  I knock the dirt off the parsnips and freeze them in the freezer though, because freezing is said to make them sweeter.  I tried leaving them in the ground to freeze one year, but the problem was we couldn't dig them up when we wanted them because the ground was frozen. 

The Poultry - Just Before the Final Butchering

Just Before Final Butchering

These are our birds.  We have eleven turkeys (Narragansetts, Spanish Blacks, and crosses between the two), 15 ducks (Rouens), 12 laying pullets (Barred Rocks), 6 2-year-old layers (White Wyandots), 11 1-year-old layers (Rhode Island Reds), 1 old red rooster and a new rooster that we hatched, a cross between a White Wyandot and a Rhode Island Red, two Cornish Bantam hens and a white bantam rooster who is so old that I can't remember what breed he is.  We also have 5 Toulouse geese.  We have 45 chickens and game hens in the freezer already, but we will be butchering the old hens, the drakes, 3 geese and most of the turkeys this Saturday.  We will keep a breeding pair of turkeys and geese, a small flock of duck layers and one drake, the two bantam hens and a rooster, and the layer pullets and 1-year-old layers along with the young rooster over the winter.  We hope to hatch all of our own chicks in the spring for next year's layers and meat birds.