Well, we did it. We went and picked up Sis. (this was her name, not my choice). She walked onto the trailer like she does it every day! She was fine with it, I was the mess! I hate hauling a horse. It gets me all up tight and on edge. Why? I suppose because Ive heard too many horror stories of trailer accidents. It scares me to put a huge, basicaly skittish animal in such a tiny space and go down the road at 50 miles per hour!! Yikes!

Sis stood there eating her hay all the way home. She occasionlly called, but then we were taking her from the only home she has known for the last 12 or 13 years.

She won't be alone now, we have 3 horses already. She stood in a round pen for the last two years with no shelter from any kind of weather.

She doesn't like her back feet picked up, and kicks sideways. But the farrier is coming this weekend and she needs her feet taken care of badly. I have working on that, but we haven't gotten very far. She should have learned that when she was a foal, not 21 years old!!

Her she is, having just gotten off of the trailer.

More tomatoes!! I guess that means more spaghetti sauce since we don't use plain canned tomatoes very often. The green beans are winding down. The last of them are in the sink...waiting for me.

We drove to Wisconsin to visit Dakota and Karen. We took his extra bags of cubes with us. It was quite different country up there. We (I should say Sarah) took a lot of photos. Beautiful ones, too. Then...on the way home, she accidently erased them all from my digital camera! She was an unhappy puppy for a while! I don't think we will be going back any time soon to take them again as it was a 10 hour drive and long hot trip! It wasn't cheap either with gas prices the way they are!!!

I think Dakota will have a good home. Karen understands his diet limitations and is feeding him accordingly. He has room to move about, and a buddy to play with. He seemed somewhat subdued, but then he hadn't been there a week yet. She emailed me yesterday that he was perkier. Maybe he had trailer-lag? you know, like jet-lag?

We visited a very large Mennonite store while there, and they sure do have a lot of items that you can't find in any local grocery store. Wish I could visit a store like that periodically. That was neat.

I spent yesterday canning tomato salsa. It is medium hot, and has a little bite to it. Not too much, but you know it is there. It is so good with tortilla chips.

I still have 4 gallons of mulberries in the freezer, waiting to be made into jelly, so maybe I will tackle that soon. I want to finish canning the green beans tomorrow, and then they will DONE!!

It looks like we might be getting a new horse. A friend of Ed's wants to give us their registered Quarter horse mare. She is 21 years old, skinny and poor. They don't take care of her very well, and she has no shelter in her round pen, where she has been for the last couple of years. We would like to make her happy in her last years. At least give her good food and shelter. We might bring her home this weekend. I mentioned to Ed that she might develope Cushings or something like that and it is expensive to treat. Most older horses do get it eventually. But he wants to bring her home anyway. I wanted a younger horse for trail riding.

Well, it is another day! I don't want another one like yesterday any time soon! My horse Dakota was going to a new home, and neither myself or the new owner could get in touch with the driver and he was waaaaay over the time of delivery!

So to help pass the time (gotta keep my hands busy or my head will go nuts, waiting) , I made a batch of Rosy Peach Banana Jam. I am not a fan of bananas, especially ripe ones, so I didn't think I would like this, but I was surprised at how good it tasted. And it is pretty too!


When we did finally hear from him, he said he sat in traffic for a long time because of an accident and his cell phone wouldn't receive or send, from where he was.

Anyhow, Dakota finally made it about 4:45 and seems to be right at home. I will sure miss him, he was a 'fixture' around here. I had him for 11 years. I think the other horses miss him too, they were awfully subdued on Monday when he left, and yesterday also.

Now, since I don't have him to take care of and all the time he took to mix his feed, and clean his stall, fix his lunch feed, an his turnouts, I don't know what to do with myself at chore time. It feels real strange to go in the barn and his stall to be empty.

I totally hate lightening storms! Right now we are having some thunder and lightening so I better get off of here.
I bought some tomatoes from a neighbor today. Her dad raised them, and plants 300 to 400 hundred tomato plants!! Wow, what a lot of work!

Anyway I cooked mine up into spaghetti sauce since we eat a lot of it. I loved doing it, but my feet sure are tired. I made 4 pints of Sweet Pickle Relish yesterday. It was a good way to use up some not so perfect cucumbers. The food processor made short work of all the chopping that is necessary so it didn't take nearly as long as usual. It even tasted good!

I did it! I went to an auction today and spent about 4 or 5 hours! I spent the princely sum of 3.18! I purchased two box lots just so I could get a couple of antique kitchen gadgets. Lots of dishes and household stuff.

On Tuesday I made some Peach Plum Jam. I didn't think it would 'set up' but it had by this morning and I tried some on a toasted English muffin. It was wonderfully fruity, and has a very nice flavor. Loved it, and hope to make some more of it. This was my first attempt and it made 4 pints.

Now to get out of the kitchen and get the grass mowed and the weeds in the garden. There has been so many things I wanted to do this summer! Having surgery on my foot, in April just messed everything up. Oh, my foot is back to normal, but the 'stuff' I wanted to do, has gotten away from me.

Yesterday I stood in the middle of the living room, glued to the TV, watching the reentry of the Space Shuttle. I am so glad they got home safely! They are brave people. I just could not do anything that had that kind of risk with it. I'm a chicken, a homebody to the core.

Finally got the Sugar Pickles canned. They sat in a big pot, in a corner of the kitchen for 14 days, fermenting. So now they are done. In a couple of weeks we will try a jar to see if they are as tasty as WH remembers them to be. Made 4 pints of spaghetti sauce too, and it is cooking right now. Now I am going to tackle some Peach Plum Jam. Sounds yummy to me!!

Woo Hoo, I canned 21 quarts of green beans yesterday! WH said why don't we use the stove that you cooked maple syrup on, and keep all that steam outside?? I thought that was a great idea, until I tried to carry the full canner out to the garage!! That was a ordeal! On the next trip out there, I put the filled and hot jars on a try and took them out to the canner.
It really worked wonderfully. Wish we had thought of that before!

I got a burr under the saddle this morning and took the hoe and hoed in the big garden for about and hour. That was one hot job! Especially since the weeds were about 3 feet tall. But I got most of the nasty buggers!! It sure looks good now!

Gotta go and work on my spaghetti sauce and my pickles now. Times a wastin'!

I saw in the newspaper that men in the Russian submarine had been rescued. That makes me feel better.I think that would be an awful way to go. Just sitting there...waiting, and nothing whatever that you could do about it.

We picked green beans last evening, two grocery bags full. Also several tomatoes, so this morning, I am canning the beans and making spaghetti sauce. Do we need the food? No, but I can't let it go to waste. Just can't let it sit out there and rot! Have given away quite a bit already.

Do I have to go back to work? Do I need to? I do need some cash, if just to purchase some simple birthday presents for each other and family. I love staying home and taking care of things here. There are so many things to do, that never got finished when I was working for 10 hours a day. Getting the grass mowed, the laundry done, the weeds in the garden, the green beans picked on time, and etc. and etc.

By the way, what happened to my photo from my last post? Maybe I will try it again.

We had the farrier out today and everyone got a trim. Dakotas was just a minimal one, because we don't want to make him sore for his trailer ride. It was so muggy in the barn, sweat dripping from that poor girl rasping on the horses' feet!

I worry about Dakota. Last night I slept badly, was awake a lot rolling all this around in my head. Am I doing the right thing?? He has been getting better in my care. What will his life be like now?

It was so hot and muggy that after the evening feeding was done we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Yummy! After we got back, I took this photo when I got out of the car.

I enjoyed my day today since it was Saturday and we were both home. We went to town, stopping at a couple of yard sales on the way home. I look for books, especially westerns, but anything that looks interesting. Saw a lot of junk.
I checked out my messages and found one from the lady that is adopting my horse. It looks like he might be leaving next week. EEEEKK! It is so close and I think it might really happen! It just seemed like a dream or a far away thought, but now it is reality! I talked with the truck driver for quite a while, trying to get a feel for his experience or philosophy of horses and hauling. Not having met him, this is scary, putting my horse in someone else's care.

We went out for ice cream after all the feeding and chores were done.