An Afternoon Trailride

As we come out of the woods into the neighbors hay field we make a right turn and walk a hundred yards or so and make another right turn and climb up this winding trail in the photo above.

We come to a Y in the trail and which way will we go today? Hmmm, OK, lets turn to the right, and see what little surprises we discover today.

Just a little way along this trail, if we look to our left, we see a green scummy pond. In the summer there are turtles sunning themselves on the fallen logs that are in it. There is almost always a few frogs that jump in and startle the horse! This pond always has water in it.

As we continue on our way, we walk under this scraggly looking, small tree, and hanging in its branches are lots and lots of wild grapes!! I think I am seeing some grape jelly here!! Hmmmm! Gotta tell Ed about this!

We pass under the 'grape' tree and follow the trail that a neighbor bushogged for another neighbor, so she could ride her horses. (She has 3 horses but never rides them). When we get to the far end of this little meadow, we will turn left again, and

turn into the deep forest. This is a Nature Conservancy of about 200 acres. We can walk in the woods, but that is all. There is no hunting allowed, or anything else. It is just for enjoying nature.The trail meanders along twisting and turning and following gentle grades up and down the ravines. As you go along, look to your left,

and you will see some long deep ravines that seem to have no bottom. They are full of mature trees and fallen trees that have rotted over the years. Here and there is a trickle of water going toward the bottoms. It eventually ends in the river.

Here is another trail that goes off to the right. We will explore that one another time.

As we near the Y in the trail, near the beginning of our ride, we can turn left at the Y and come out on top of the hill under the Power Lines. The Power Company that owns the lines keeps this part cleared.

As we stand under the lines, we have to decide, do we want to go down that steep hill today? I don't think so, Katie and I have had enough exercise today. We will do that hill another day. I hope you have enjoyed our ride. I enjoyed having the company and sharing the sights with you.

And a good time was had by all!

Yesterday, E and I went to the Paragon (little town) Homecoming. It is mostly just a town wide yard sale. The streets were blocked off and there were yard sales all over the place. They had food venders and bands, etc. It was nice, and the weather was good, 70 degrees and partly cloudy. I enjoyed spending time with E, just walking about and talking.

We went to a large flea market near Columbus today. I found a nice big wooden birdfeeder for 2.00. The birds will eat well this winter. It was a fun day. Now it is back to work. We are trying to make a 'sawdust stall' in the barn. We have an area that we put sawdust in, in one of the stalls. But it needs fixed so we can fill it up and not have to go and shovel a pickup load of sawdust every two weeks. When we get this done, it will hold a lot of sawdust. Tomorrow we are going to Lebanon, E's dad has an elevator that E wants to use so we don't have to shovel the stall full. The elevator should unload the sawdust into the stall and we can get a lot more in it. Lets hope it works!

We have had some very nice cool, cloudy weather, thanks to Ernesto. I am enjoying every minute of it! After all the heat and humidity of the summer,IT IS WONDERFUL!!!!
Here is a scene I saw today when I looked out the window, while feeding the boys their lunch. Isn't she a beautiful doe? This photo was taken through a window with a screen on it, which gives it the out of focus look. This doe has a fawn that was still in the woods, out of sight.

My boys' mother has returned to Germany, so we are on our own again, and they are happy and doing wonderful. They are beginning to walk all over the house. Last week they started taking a tentative step or two, but now there is now stopping them!

Here is the website that I tried to send in a previous post:
www.heritagestonework.com . It was up and working today, so try it again.

Ok, don't know what happened, but here are the pictures, hopefully.

The boys were eating a cookie!

Here is one of our triplet fawns. I finally got a photo of them even tho it was a long wasy away. Here, it is cropped and enlarged quite a lot.

Hmmmm, I can't get the link to work today either. But I will keep trying and post it when I can.

Tomatoes, tomatoes!

I picked all the ripe tomatoes I could on Saturday morning and spent most of the day Saturday and all of Sunday making Spaghetti Sauce.
I planted the Paste tomatoes in my garden just to make into sauce. We do love spaghetti and toasted garlic bread.!

On Thursday the man we buy our hay from called and wanted us to come and get a load (one hundred bales) on Friday evening after work. We told him we would be there around 6:15. Our next door neighbor had asked to borrow the horse trailer so she could go and pick up a new horse she had just bought. She was to pick it up around 1:00 or so on Friday. When I got home at 4:00 and the trailer wasn't in her drive way I thought, Uh Oh, something 'aint' right here!(We needed the hitch that was on the horse trailer to haul our hay trailer)!!! About a half hour later she called me and asked if I could come and help them catch and load their horse!
I called Ed and told him what was going on and left with her and a couple of other people she had to help. On the way there she told us what happed the when they tried to load her the first time. It seems that she decided she wasn't going to get on that trailer no matter what. The woman that bought her ended up being dragged for 5o yards down a gravel road because she wouldn't let go of the horses' rope! The horse finally got loose anyway, and ran into another neighbors barn lot, so they closed the gate and left her there and came to get reinforcements. But it didn't help any, because no one could get close enough to her to get a halter on her, to then try to load her on the trailer. Finally after trying to catch her for an hour, she called it quits and said she would get her money back. GOOD PLAN!! That horse had an ugly attitude. I got home about 7:30 and we hurried over and got our load of hay. But it was 9:30 by the time we had it unloaded and put in the barn. And I got two blisters on my fingers to boot!!

Here is a photo of a surprise that Jake made for us. If you want to see what they do, the people that I work for here is a link to their company website. Check it out, they do some pretty pieces: www.heritagestonework.com. I am going to plant some flowers around it.

Here is a photo of my boys. They turned 1 year old this month.

My Weekend

Today I canned 10 pints of Chili Seasoning using our tomatoes. In cold weather we eat Chili at least once a week. To make Chili using this, you brown a 1/2 to 1 pound of ground beef, (we use venison) and add a can of pinto or kidney beans. I hope to make a few more pints. I also want to make several pints of spaghetti sauce while the tomatoes are producing.

L, to answer your question, I blanch the whole ears for 6 or 7 minutes, cool in a clean sink of ice water, cut the corn off with a corn cutter like Mom has. Then I put 2 cups in a freezer bag and freeze. (there are only the two of us to eat it here). It doesn't have time to get any freezer burn. I sometimes add 1/4 cup of water to it to reheat it. It tastes like it just came from the garden.

The treehouse is built into a huge oak tree. If you can come up here and bring him with you, we will go to the tree house for him to explore to his hearts content. We will make it a picnic or something. It could be a 'field trip' for him.

E. has been using the bush hog to mow the pastures and twice now he has run over a yellow jackets nest and gotten stung. The first time he got 9 stings and the second nest he ran over he only got one, but it was on his ear, and the itching is driving him buggy. Oh well, one of the hazards of summer mowing I guess.

Nuttin New Here

What to write about? Things have been on a pretty even keel lately.
Here is a recent photo of my little boys.They had their first birthday this week.

I froze 14 pints of our sweet corn, and we ate lots too. It was so good.

Here is a photo of the treehouse at JW Jones Horse trails. It is something to see. I climbed up and looked out the windows. It is several stories tall. There is a room that is about 10 x10 at the top of the stairs. It is really neat. There are tie rails for the horses and a couple of picnic tables at the parking area at the bottom of the tree.

I made a loaf of Zucchini Herb Bread in the bread machine last evening. It has Italian seasoning in it and shredded zucchini. A tomato sandwich made with it is super good! Come and share it with me!

We had a nice weekend. It was hot and soooo humid outside but it was a slow lazy weekend. On Saturday I got up at 4:00 to go and meet some of the Photo Club members on the east side of Bloomington. We drove to Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, near Seymour Indiana. We spent a good part of the day photographing anything that moved! When it got so unbearably hot, all the wildlife hunted for cover and so did we.

When I arrived back home, E told me that the grandkids and their parents were on the way to spend the weekend!!! Yikes! I didn't know they were coming, so wasn't prepared! E and I did some quick picking up and had everything presentable when they got here.

The boys are going to be 3 and 6 years old in October. They had a ball, hot and sweaty but well, it IS summer, and boys don't seem to notice! Dad brought the 4 wheelers and they went way back in the woods. The six year old was just thrilled to have so much space to ride his. His daddy drove the big one and Eli had one his size. He looked cute in his helmut. We grilled burgers and hot dogs for lunch just before they left to go back home, which is an hour and a half north. It was real nice to see them here. Eli love to come visit Papaw Wolfe and collect the eggs in the chickens nests.

These are the latest visitors to our birdfeeder! Do you see the fuzzy thing in the leaves? They have chewed holes in the feeder!

Was it worth it?

Chiggers! or Redbugs, or jiggers, or whatever you want to call them! They can sure make your life miserable! I have been going to JW Jones place, (where I trailride my horse) to pick wild blackberries, a couple of days a week. They are abundant there and so were the 'itchies' that I brought back with me. Were the cobblers worth all the chigger bites and itching? You betcha!!!

I picked black raspberries a few weeks ago and made a cobbler with them. I tried a new recipe and it was so good. I was surprised, it couldn't have been more perfect, and now that the blackberries are ripe I have been picking those too, and turning them into a yummy cobbler and putting the extras in the freezer.

Have been picking and canning green beans also. We have managed to can 43 quarts so far. I spent two Saturdays 'doing beans', when I wanted to be out riding my mare. E set up the little gas stove that I cook maple syrup on. We did all the preparation in the kitchen, then E carried the canner out to the garage so we didn't have to heat up the kitchen with all that steam. This is usually enough for the two of us for the year. Ed loves them. I can take them or leave them. I like broccoli better, it has a lot more flavor.

We have seen a Whitetail doe with triplets in our front pasture. The fawns run and chase and jump, then run some more. It is fun to watch them play with each other. How common are triplets? Don't know, but usually a doe will have twins in the years after her first fawn. Haven't had the chance to get a photo yet.

I could not get these to post with my blog so here they are.

An Iffy Day!

Saturday was a busy day. While we waited for the dew to dry off of the hay, we ran a couple of old bales of hay through the baler to make sure it was working right. Adjusted the bale size and the string, and it was ready to go.
E raked the hay again as there were a few wet spots underneath. He baled about 2/3 of the small field by the road, then the baler broke down. It had been jamming some too. This was a major breakdown! The previous owner had jerry rigged one of the chains and when it broke it messed up the timing, which broke a couple of other parts.
E was not a happy man! The hay in our own fields was raked and ready to bale, but now what do we do????? We went ahead and loaded those bales on the wagon and took them up to the house.

E went to a neighbor to try to find someone that could round bale our hay for us. But he told us he had a square baler that we could use. Ed brought it home and we hooked it up and finished baling up by the road. Then he baled a few rounds of our back pasture just before dark. There was no time to get them up to the barn before dark. Hopefully, they wouldn't absorb too much moisture from the ground.

BUT......when we got up on Sunday morning, it was cloudy and humid. (The weather forecast said no rain on Sunday, but would rain on Monday). Well, it started to rain! And it rained gently for 30 minutes. I have never seen E so unhappy and depressed. In a while it stopped raining, and later the sun came out and it got HOT, and E raked it again, them a little later he started baling. It was dry and fluffy.
I drove the tractor, while E loaded and stacked the hay on the wagon. It was too much work for just us two. E was so tired he could hardly walk. We finally just quit, as we ran out of steam. We put nearly 200 bales in the shed and barn. Then we took the baler back to the neighbor. There were still hay windrows in the fields. Would have made about 70 more bales, but we were just too pooped! We would like to get a second cutting later this summer, but he said we will only do one field! Here are a couple of pictures. Too bad you can't see all the worry and sweat going on.

Making Hay While The Sun Shines!

Today after work, E went out and raked the front and back hayfields, and a smaller one up by the highway. This hay was cut Wednesday evening. Tomorrow we bale hay. Anyone want to come and help???
I have been watching these beautiful birds. They are Goldfinches. This feeder is designed just for them, as they can feed upside down. There were a pair of House Finches sitting on top of it, trying to figure out how to get to the seed, but they gave up after while and left.

 

An Early Morning

It looks like we will be baling hay on Saturday or Sunday. It was cut on Wednesday afternoon. It was supposed to be cut nearly 4 weeks ago, so it will not be very good hay. But as E. says, the horses can pick through it and eat what is edible. At least it is free hay, except for the labor involved. Ours, no less!

I went to JW Jones yesterday and picked black raspberries again. They aren't as plentiful as the blackberries. Can't wait until the blackberries are ripe, there are millions of them over there! They need at least another week before they are ready.

Cucumbers anyone? I have already picked 5 or 6 and there are many more. They are just now starting to really produce and are seeming to be ready all at once. I planted Bush Cucumbers, and they are sooooo prolific! What I like about them is the plants are a managable size. They don't overun my very small garden. But there are more than I can eat! Help!! 

Cruel People!

Friday on my way home from work, I thought I would try driving down a different road or two, looking for black raspberries. I felt an urging to 'turn here'. So I did!
I didn't find any raspberries, but I did find a little black puppy standing on the edge of the blacktop, when I topped a hill. I had to go and turn around and come back, and when I did, and got out of my truck, what did I see but six MORE puppies! OH NO, what do I do now? I CAN'T leave them here to be squashed, or to starve!! So I piled them into my truck and drove them home with me. I put them into one of the chicken yards, (after shooing the lone chicken outside to eat grass). They were only about 5 or 6 weeks old. Just starting to eat solid food.
I called the local Humane Society and they said that I could bring them in On Saturday morning. She said they have no trouble placing puppies.

Saturday morning early, I went to JW Jones (where I take my horse to go trail riding) and picked black raspberries for a couple of hours. Then, after I got back, E and I gave Penny (our chow,) a bath. She hates to be bathed so we drive two metal fence posts about 3 feet apart and then tie her to each one. She is forced to stand between them. She can't escape us or her bath that way. When she knows she is REALLY tied, she just takes it. Later in the afternoon after she was dry, we brushed and combed and picked her coat. It looks a lot better, but still not good. It is dull and dry looking. She is itchy and her hair is thin. We didn't see any fleas either. We use Frontline Plus on them. E is going to change dog foods when our current bag runs out.

When the evening feeding was done, we drove into town to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. Yum!

Today, after work, I went back to JW Jones and picked more raspberries. It was 93 degrees so I didn't stay but an hour. I spotted a Whitetail Doe in the underbrush, waiting for evening when she will come out to feed. I backed away quietly, and she didn't get up and run.

I made a Raspberry Cobbler for supper tonight. It was a new recipe, and I thought it was superb! The topping was light and the berries were delicious! I am going to make that one again real soon.

I want my camera!!!! So there! I never knew how much I used it, until I didn't have it handy.

Good news! E. got hired at the business in Bloomington, a couple of weeks ago! He is having to learn a new computer system, and to learn about new merchandise. It is still the same type of work that he did before, just a different company, with different brands of the same products. He is doing inside sales, (customers coming into the store), a few job quotes, and pulling orders for contractors, etc. Now he drives 14 miles to work, instead of 61 miles. He was putting 30 dollars in his gas tank every 3 days, and now only once a week or less. He works 8:00 to 5:00 and is home by 5:25, and before when he drove to his previous job, he left at 6:00 and got home about 6:40. He is a happy man!!!

We have been trying to get our hay cut and baled, but depending on others to do it just doesn't work. We don't have a mower, so have contracted out to get that done, then we planned to rake and bale it ourselves. But...this person...has not even cut it yet! It was ready several weeks ago. It is yellow and wayyyyy overripe now. Ed has threatened to just mow it off with the bush hog. Everyone around us has had their hay in the barn already. Says he had an equipment breakdown, then the weather didn't co operate. Well, maybe, where is he right now? We have several days of nice weather starting today! Hmphhhh!!! We do know he did a field of hay for a neighbor, since he said he would do ours. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, huh??

The flowers that I planted in the porch boxes are beautiful! Sorry, can't take a photo of them for you!! (I want my camera!!!!!) can you tell I miss my camera??? My garden is growing, there are 2 inch long cucumbers on the vines already. Have a couple of tennis ball sized tomatoes. These are volunteer tomato plants that came up uninvited, from last years garden. So we don't know what they will be like. The ones I bought and planted are just starting to bloom.

E. has gone to his sister and BIL's home to get a load of fire wood. A storm blew down a large tree in their yard and they said he could have it if he wanted to come and get it. It is a two hour drive, pulling the trailerup there. They live just west of Indianapolis.

Nothing much going on around here. Gotta go and mow the grass today. It is neary long enough to make hay out of it too!! Going to go and make myself a cup of hot tea first, 'talk at ya later'.

Oh how I miss my camera! I accidently left it at M's and D's last weekend! and I need it. Now that it isn't here, I see all kinds of things I want to photograph! I would have taken it with me and took some pictures of our trail ride this morning. A friend had planned to go to JW Jones and ride this morning, and I was going to meet them there with Katie and ride also. But...it was supposed to rain this morning. I didn't want to haul my horse over there and get soaked and cold. (A good excuse not to have to haul her?) She called and said they were going to go anyway as it wasn't raining, and would throw a horse in the trailer for me if I wanted to ride. So that is what we did. I drove over and took my saddle and rode Belle, a TW/Quarter horse cross. She was a good horse.
We rode for 3 hours! Oh my tender anatomy!! It isn't used to this kind of muscle work!
It rained last night, with thunder and lightening. The trails were very muddy, and in the lowest places it was deep and sticky. It didn't rain on us, (there were three of us) and it was a lot of fun. Maybe next time I will take Katie and ride my own horse. She has every other weekend off and wants to ride often.
Today it was 57 degrees and very overcast. A bit chilly for me, but good for the horses.

What an absolutely glorious weekend! The weather couldn't have been more perfect!

On Saturday, Ed lifted the tarp on the hay baler to replace a couple of small parts, and what did he see?? A SNAKE! It was just laying there, not moving. Ed poked at it, but it didn't move. I picked up a 2 foot long stick and was going to lift it off the hay, but it MOVED!!! It was alive! Turned out to be a 4 foot long black snake. (not poisonous). But...it was a snake and I dislike any snake. Well, it slithered into the baler, and he went ahead and replaced his parts. Said it wasn't bothering him, so he didn't see any problem with it being in there! Yikes!!

As he called me to come see the snake, I walked past a post that we have a bluebird house attached to. There was a lot of fluttering and banging coming from it, so I lifted the front (it opens to clean it out between nesting seasons) and there was a fledgling bluebird inside, trying to get out. When I opened the box, he sort of just dropped like a rock onto the ground. Then I could see why he couldn't get out himself. His feet were so caked with dried bird droppings that they looked like he had boxing gloves on his feet! I picked him up and it was as dry and as hard as concrete. The weight of it had kept him from getting out on his own. The parent birds were still feeding him, and were dive bombing my head as I held him. The week before, Ed had mentioned that there were babies fluttering in that box, but I didn't look into it then. Just figured they were ready to leave the nest and were moving around. But now I think it was this same one, just couldn't get out on his own.
I took him to the hydrant and tried to wash it off of his feet, but it was just too hard. So I donned some rubber gloves, and took him into the house where I could use some warm water from the fawcet and went to work. It took me 15 minutes to work all that stuff off of his feet. Then I took him back out to the box area and set him on a fence post to dry. But he just fluttered into the tall grass at the bottom of the post. About an hour later, I went to check on him and found him in the same place but he was dry. I caught him and held him in my hand a minute, and when I opened my hand he flew toward a maple tree, and both parent birds were about 10 feet above him, calling and squawking. So he was being looked after. I was glad I could help, I hope he made it on his own out in the big world.

I rode Katie back on the Conservancy property later in the afternoon. She has not been riden back there for over a year, and other than being in a hurry, (to come back to the other horses) she was a good girl.

Today, Sunday, E and I went down to English and picked up a load of hay from the barn on my parents farm. While we were doing that, I thought I heard a bleat, from a deer? But...then...a goat popped its head around the workshop door! A goat? Mom and Dad don't have a goat!! They don't have any animals at all!! Well, it turns out it has been there for several days and no one knows where it came from. The neighbors haven't lost any goats, didn't have any to start with. So it is just there. Running loose. Some one needs to put a 'found goat' ad in the local paper. Since it was wearing a new red collar, it surely belongs to someone!! I hope the rightful owner turns up.

I rode Katie again today, and I think I love her more every time I ride her. She is an absolute love! She is willing to try anything and is so trusting, and I just love riding her. Am supposed to go riding with friends at J W Jones this Saturday. After finally hauling her myself a couple of weeks ago, maybe it will be easier this weekend. We will see.

I did it!!! I took Katie and we went to JW Jones to ride! I wanted to so badly, for a long time, but hauling has been so nerve wracking for me that I have chicken out up to now. But...last night Ed hitched the truck up and he kept saying " you can do it"! Well, I used to 'do it', but that was 9 years ago! Anyway, this morning I was on the road by 7:20 and even with the white knuckles and the holding my breath and not driving over 35 mph, it was an uneventful trip. Woo-eee!!!

Katie was a good girl and after she settled down a bit, we had a nice ride. I rode an hour, and we were both hot and sweaty. It was soooo humid. I took her to the wash area and bathed her before we loaded up and headed home. This place is 18 miles, round trip, from our house. It has miles of trails, an indoor arena, camp sites, water and pit toilets. What more could you want? It is open to anyone to enjoy, just sign a waiver so they aren't responsible in case of an accident.
I just might go again soon and try different trails!

Not much of any signifigance to blog about. It seems that everything is pretty ordinary for the moment. So here is an 'ordinary' update:

KJ, our farrier, was here on Saturday. She came at 10:00 and trimmed all three horses. I love the way their feet are shaping up. It has been years since we could find anyone that really knew how to trim a barefoot horse. And their feet are looking good now.
We gave her a couple of dozen eggs. She is raising a 3 year old daughter, by herself. It must be hard, I know it is hard on the children to do that.

E went very early on Saturday morning to pick up a used hay rake that he had bought the week before. He bought a used hay baler about 3 weeks ago. We are going to try to make hay out of the front and back pastures this year, to help out with the hay bill. ( We have had to buy up to 600 bales for the winter). The horses have been on a dry lot for couple of years and we usually just bush hog it off, but will try to bale it this year.
We will have to find someone to cut it for us, then the rest is up to us. I don't relish the idea of hauling 100 bales of hay up that back pasture hill! EEEEK!!

I finally got a couple of plants planted in my garden today. Last fall I put about 18 inches of leaves on it that I had run through the leaf shredder attachement for the riding lawn mower. Well, don't ever do that!! It was waaaaaay too many and didn't have time to rot over the winter. So...my garden has been tooooooo wet to do anything with. I tried to use the roto tiller on it, but it just stirred up the top few inches! Guess I'll have to dig a hole in the leaves and plant in the holes. But the leaves are still about 6 inches deep in places. And it didn't make a whit of a difference in trying to kill the grass out either. The grass just come up through all those leaves! So I do a lot of hand digging. But it doesn't seem to help much.

I'm about to try a new recipe for supper. It is called Vidalia Casserole. Here it is if you want to try it:
2 vidalia onions, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
5 butter flavored crackers, crushed

Saute onions in butter until tender. Remove from heat and stir
in sour cream. Put in greased casserole, sprinkle with cheese
and then crushed crackers.

Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.

I'll let you know if we like it. I'm going to make Roasted Potatoes to go with it, and yesterdays grilled chicken.