The Grass/Land - A Cool and Frosty Drink This Weekend

A Cool and Frosty Drink This Weekend

I was going to go out and do a sort of  photo essay of the storm this afternoon, but the wind is roiling around the buildings making eddies that spin the snow up like giant dust devils and I didn't dare  step off the back porch.  So the above photo is all you get today of the storm.  As you can see, the world drops away just past the lawn chairs by the fire pit and garden fence.   It is a little hard to tell how much moisture we have gotten, but it is more than we had, so it is welcome.  It is not enough.  Not yet.  But it is a start towards summer grass and hay.

I did steel myself to make the trudge down to the barn to brush the horses while my husband picked stalls.  They are in good spirits and doing well.  No one is stocked up and while they enjoyed being brushed vigorously in "quarters", to get their circulation up, no one seemed to need it desperately. 

Below is the scene we woke to on Monday morning.  It looks like we got a pretty good snow!  I will have to check the media to see what the official amount is.  Our road is plowed already, so now only the drift in the driveway is keeping us in.



The Buildings - The Sauna Gets a Deck

The Sauna Gets a Deck

Last weekend, while Elvis was busy throwing a shoe, my husband was busy building the deck on the outside of the sauna. This deck will eventually be a porch with a roof and a privacy screen and a shower.  But for now, it is a level place to cut the wood to make the benches.

Getting closer ...

The Riding/Training - Elvis Throws a Shoe and Gets a Lesson

Elvis Throws a Shoe and Gets a Lesson

Before I get into the story about Elvis, I just want to say what a JOY a good warm pair of socks is this time of year!  My daughter-in-law knitted these for me a couple of years ago and they changed my life.  Literally.  Along with a good pair of "Ice Riders".  They are made of some ridiculously expensive yarn that has silk and angora and I don't know what else in it.  They are dreamily soft and extremely warm.  Over a thin pair of socks and inside my Ice Riders - I become oblivious to the kind of cold that I used to dread and which drove me inside between chores.  I simply had to sing their praises before moving on.

Elvis threw a shoe sometime last weekend, and I agreed to meet the farrier at a friend's barn in Evergreen so he didn't have to come all the way out here for just one shoe.  My back has been pretty bad and I was not planning to ride until after I had some acupuncture done on Tuesday.  But with the opportunity to ride and have  lesson in an indoor arena, I decided to throw caution to the wind and try riding on Monday.  Elvis was pretty wound up about being in an indoor, and about snow falling off the roof, and about the P.A. system, and about the trailer ride, and my back was still pretty bad, so we had a walking lesson.  And it turned out really well.

As I said, Elvis had a lot on his mind and a lot of new things to think about, so I expected him to be pretty distracted and the lesson to be sort of a throw-away. But it wasn't.  For the first time ever, he actually started to accept some steady contact.  And for the first time ever, he seemed to begin to understand about how a frame is supposed to work.  It was wonderful and so unexpected.   It seemed like a little light bulb went on in his brain.  I hope we can turn it on again the next time we school.  We worked on being straight and some leg yields and haunches in.  He was super!

I am going to try him in Flicka's eggbutt snaffle next time.

The Animals - Bachelors Will Be Missed

The Bachelors Will Be Missed - Until They Turn Up for Dinner Again!

Winken and Joker did not show up for breakfast.  They did not come in for supper last night. So I am pretty sure they got snatched yesterday.  And I am a little afraid that I inadvertently caused their demise.  Although I will never know for sure. 

I went to Elizabeth yesterday for butter to make cookies for my grandchildren for Valentine's Day.  I was gone about an hour.  I was lazy and did not close the machine shed door when I left.  There was snow forecast for the evening and was going to put the car back in  there.  The machine shed is one of the shelters that the cats run for when there is danger.  They can squeeze under the walls in several places and most other animals cannot.  With the door open, that refuge could have turned into a trap. 

Yesterday morning, I smiled as I listened to the four of them jumping around and playing above me in the hay loft.  They often did this in the mornings in the winter.  It is a sunny, sheltered place to play after being cooped up all night in the tack room.   It was quiet up there this morning.  Both Sox and Nodkin wanted to be handled this morning.  Then Sox went off somewhere alone and Noddie sat and watched me muck stalls from an alcove in the barn wall.  He was very sober indeed.  I wish they could tell me what happened: what they saw. 

But they DID show up for dinner tonight!  'Nuff said!

The Grass/Land - Aerial Photograph of the Farm

Aerial Photograph of the Farm

Last fall, in October, a plane went over when we were not paying attention and took a photograph of the farm.  We had the opportunity to buy a print and a CD version of this photo and I am sharing it here.

I want to share it because it is telling in many ways, both predictable and unsuspected.  The work we have done on this land has been physically hard and demanding.  It has often seemed chaotic: one step forward two steps backward.  It has not seemed orderly or productive much of the time. We have had setbacks, and disappointments, and sometimes it is easier to remember those than it is to see how far we have come.  This photo shows what we have accomplished as well as points the way to what we still have to do. 

The photo was taken about three weeks before we closed the pastures for the winter and it had been so dry, the place looks perilously over-grazed.  I hope it is not.  And I hope we will still get the moisture we will need to bring the grasses back to life.  Time will tell. 

The Buildings - Sauna Photos After the First Firing

 Sauna Photos After the First Firing

Before the shots of the sauna, here is the stash of stuff that arrived from the sauna store.  It makes it seem like we are really getting closer!

Below are interior shots.



 Pretty walls and ceiling.

Cute wood stove.

Pretty door.

Cracked glass.

And Exterior shots.





The Horse Breeding - Flicka is Looking and Feeling Great at Seven Months

Flicka is Looking and Feeling Great at Seven Months

Flicka is carrying her foal easily and seems to enjoy being pregnant.  She is a little aloof from the herd these days, protecting herself and  the baby from kicks.  She is going to be a terrific mom!

The Bees - Hive Collapse

Hive Collapse

I went out to check the hive yesterday before the storm.   My husband had said that there wasn't any activity that he could see from the outside on a warm day last week.  I opened the viewing window and used a flashlight.  We have lost all our bees.  There don't seem to be any dead bees: just an empty hive.  It is spotlessly tidy and there is still honey.  We are very sad.  It's hard to explain an emotional tie to insects, if you have never kept bees.  But they are like part of the family, in a strange way. 

We will have to figure out what happened before we get new bees.  I'm afraid that the swarm we brought in from Eldorado Canyon last summer brought some kind of contagion.  Our neighbors sprayed for weeds, but not for insects, as far as I know.  If there is a contagion, we will have to burn the hives and start over.  I'm not exactly sure what the next step is.  We have wheat fields all around us and I suppose those fields probably use one of those Monsanto products that kills everything.  And GMO seed.  If anyone out there has a suggestion, I'm open.

The front door to the hive was all properly winterized by the bees as usual.  It is a puzzle.

The Buildings - The Sauna's First Firing

The Sauna's First Firing

My husband fired up the sauna this past weekend for the first time.  The benches are not in yet, so we didn't actually try to use it.  It got very hot indeed.  So hot that the first pane of glass in the window cracked.  There are three.  He went online and ordered a thermometer, a hydrometer, a pan and ladle for water, and some eucalyptus oil.  We have a cast iron dutch oven that we will use to hold the rocks on top of the wood stove.

And we need to get tempered glass for the inside layer of window glass, I guess.

Not long now ...

The Food - Easy Pasta and Shellfish

Easy Pasta and Shellfish

Here's another really easy recipe for those times when you don't have time or energy for somethiing more complicated - but you do need comforting, healing food.

Ingredients:
shellfish - shrimp, mussels, scallops, whatever you love
olive oil
onion, scallions, leeks and/or garlic
mushrooms (optional)
fennel, spinach, chard or mustard greens

spagetti

Last night we made this with shrimp, leeks, and fennel.   It was light, simpole and delicious.

Here's how you do it.

Have the pasta ready.

Put about a 1/2 ich of oil in a  large skillet and turn on medium heat.  Add one leek, sliced thin and as it starts to wilt, add the fennel, also sliced thin.  Just as they begin to carmelize, add the shelled, veined shrimp and toss.  Let cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the shrimp are pink and opaque.  Salt to taste. We had it on whole wheat spagetti and it was delicious.

This is also great with onions and mushrooms instead of leeks and fennel and any old shellfish thrown in at the end and sometimes we have it with rather a lot of garlic added at the end as well.  If you are doing greens that only need to wilt, they go in after the shellfish at the very end as well.  And some people like to put grated cheese on it.  But the leeks and fennel were so delicate, we didn't add any garlic or cheese to it this time. 

The food - Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

Easy Slow cooker Chicken Cacciatore

So ... we have been a little under-the-weather and low on energy at our house.  Hense the dirth of blog posts. But I did feel like it was worth passing on this recipe because it is so easy and it is delicious and fillng and real comfort food when you aren't feeling well.  I made it  last Thursday when I was at work all day and it was ready when we got home and had filled th house with deicious smells. 

Ingredients:
1 stewing chicken (it can still be frozen)
1 jar of prepared spagetti sauce (I have used many different kinds.  They all work.)
1 jar of pitted black olives

Polenta

Vegetable

Place the frozen (or thawed) chicken in the slow cooker and pour over the spagetti sauce.  Drain the liquid from the olives into the spagetti sauce jar, swish it around, and pour around the chicken.  Sprinkle the olives over and around the chicken. Turn on the slow cooker for the amount of time you need.  It will cook on high in 4 hours or on low in 10, or anything in between and be delicious.  Before serving prepare the polena and a vegetable of your chouce. 
After the first meal, if there are leftovers, bone the chicken and return the meat to the sauce and store in the refrigerator or freezer until you want to reheat. 

Part of the beauty of this is the leftovers.  The polenta and chicken-plus-sauce can be heated by the plate in the microwave and the polenta makes the most beautiful fried grits for breakfast with butter and maple syrup. 

The Riding/Training - Elvis, Gus and Prima Worked

Elvis, Gus, and Prima Worked

The backache was gone, so I decided to try working horses today.  I lunged them all instead of riding though, giving my back one more day. 

Elvis was first.  He was totally sound going to the right and only a little off going to the left.  So he is improving.  He was a little naughty because I didn't corral the other horses and when they ran around and acted silly, he tried to, too.  It was a teaching moment.  He got very sweaty, but much of it was emotional.   See below.

Gus was next.  He is so fit!  He barely turned a hair.  He was good and got lots of cookies.  I don't know... I have 3 horses that are being ridden.  They are on roughly the same regimen.  One is fit and the other two are .. well ... not fit.  I guess one is green and the other is fat ... but still.  There is a pretty dramatic difference!  (He's standing on a slope, by the way.)

 

 

And Prima was last.  She has really lost weight.  The circingle fit her without a girth extender.  And she didn't sweat so much or get so winded.  She is on the right path... and she is totally sound.

 



Fun day all around.  Hopeful to ride them all tomorrow.