Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:52 am Post subject: Hello, I'm Mary, Book 2
This is a continuation of Book 1, which was getting too long for those of us with dial up service. The first entry with some new happenings will come in a few days.
My observation about fall weather last week was misguided, or at least premature. It was just a brief cold front going through and now we are back to normal weather. We have had three 90 degree days since then. Hubby was watering the garden for me while I was gone this weekend and was just amazed at how fast the cucumbers and summer squash are growing.
Today is a beautiful day, sunny, not too hot, with a gentle breeze, just about perfect I think, and we can see all the mountains clearly, something that wasn't possible yesterday because of forest fire smoke that had blown in from somewhere. On clear days we can see 2 mountain ridges from our house, the Elkhorn ridge to the west and the Wallowas to the north and east. They are all part of the Blue Mountains which was one of the big obstacles near the end of the journey the pioneers took with their covered wagons. We cross the Oregon Trail when we drive to town.
Hubby and I went out to breakfast this morning since he has the day off. I thought I was going to be traveling home from my rides today, but came home yesterday instead because Patch has a sore tendon and I chose not to ride the 2nd day and make it worse. I'll write more about that soon in the 2007 Journal which is all about the rides and the challenges they present.
Patch was turned out into a nice grassy pasture while we went to have our breakfast. When we got home I cleaned the living quarters in the horse trailer and then iced Patch's sore leg. I use ice boots that have frozen inserts in them. The frozen things look almost like ice cubes in plastic sheets, those fit into pockets in a rectangular pad and the whole thing is wrapped around the leg and fastened with velcro type strips.
While Patch stood tied to the trailer getting his ice treatment, I moved sprinklers and pulled weeds. My oh my, I have some impressive weeds! that's what happened when I ignored them and hoped they would go away. Instead they grew and multiplied like weeds always do. There is another wheelbarrow load waiting to be dumped on the burn pile, I don't want to spread the seeds by composting them.
Three hummingbirds are still with us. This morning I watched one take a shower in the sprinkler, then sit on a sunflower sunning himself dry and preening his feathers. What contortions he went through trying to get the end of his beek under his wings! I'm so glad God made hummingbirds! I'm sure He made a lot of the creatures and plants just for enjoyment, His and ours. Some of them show quite clearly that God has a sense of humor.
The flower beds are getting cleaner but it is going slowly, probably because I manage to find a lot of side trips to take. I go to empty the wheelbarrow and find something else that needs attention, and it might be an hour before I get back to the flower bed.
Patch's leg does not seem to be sore anymore, so today I will put him on a lunge line and make him trot in a few circles in each direction to see if I can see any difference in his gait from one side to the other. If he shows any tendancy to limp it will be when the sore leg is to the inside of the circle. Going in the other direction will give me a comparison. If he shows no soreness I will switch from cold therapy to using linament to create heat and promote circulation.
Yesterday I saw a fawn that seemed to be alone. It went over a fence and disappeared into some tall dry grass. I might have just looked out the window too late to see other deer it may have been following. This morning a doe was in some trees near my garden, and later I saw a group of at least 9 in my neighbor's field.
When I was coming home from town a couple of evenings ago just before dark, I saw a fox run across the road. A few seconds later I saw a second one running along the shoulder of the road, through an open gate and into the neighbor's barn. My neighbor says the foxes have thoroughly explored the barn. There is almost no activity there except at lambing time.
I'm going to attempt to post a picture of one of the half barrels that I planted with red, white and blue (actually purple) petunias.
Wildlife abounds! Today I rode Patch for about an hour and a half. As we went along I noticed a lot of elk tracks and deer tracks. I'm sure the critters that made them saw us but I didn't see them, but I did see one coyote, and also heard and then saw a small rattlesnake. I looked around for a rock to kill it, and found one about 20 ft away, got off the horse, picked up the rock, went to find the snake and heard him rattle a couple more times but he was under a sagebrush and apparently went down a hole. Hunting for a snake is kind of a nervous thing, he might not be alone.
Tonight when I took Patch out of the grassy pasture where he grazes for about 2 hours every day, 11 deer were just about to jump the fence and raid my garden. I ran toward them and clapped my hands and they jumped over the pasture fence and went up a hill and then stopped to watch me. I could see that one of them was a buck with forked horns on both sides. After I moved Patch back to his own pasture I'm sure they came right back.
I took the netting off the grapes a couple of days ago, and by the next morning the deer had eaten what was left of the grapes. We have a major wasp problem down there and they won the battle this year. When I took the netting down I decided that about 2 wasps for every grape was not worth the risk and left them for the deer who probably got stung when they ate the grapes. They also take bites out of my tomatoes and eat the tops off the carrots, and they are fond of squash blossoms. I need a deer fence and then some way to keep the wasps off the grapes.
This morning I did chores for a neighbor which included putting some medicine in a horse's eye and trying to determine why that horse is very lame. I suspect white line disease, basically an infection in a pocket way up inside the hoof wall. It takes a long time to cure it. The infection has to be controlled until the hoof grows out. The owner will probably have me help him soak the horse's foot tomorrow so it will soften up and be clean enough to trim, probe and explore.
I've been hurrying around trying to get everything watered and all kinds of details taken care of in preparation for leaving for a week. No horses are involved in this trip, I am going to visit some friends and we are going camping at a lake where other friends will join us. I love being out on the water in a boat, it is so peaceful if the water is calm and I love to row. I think my friends have a canoe. Now I need to get back to packing and I will tell you all about it when I am home next week.
Last edited by Mary on Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
The friend I went to visit lives in Kentucky, so I flew from Boise, Idaho to Denver, changed planes there and was met in Nashville, TN. After a couple of days at my friend's house we packed up their camp trailer and headed for the lake where other people had gathered for the Kentucky Roundup at Prizer Point on Barkley Lake. Nobody knew I was going to be there and so I got to surprise everyone!
We spent Friday evening, all day Saturday and about half of Sunday with various activities and lots of food and visiting.
Sunday afternoon we were back at my friend's place, but just long enough to unpack the trailer and take quick showers. We then went to the Will Graham crusade in Paducah, Ky where we heard 2 contemporary Christian bands and also were treated to songs by George Beverly Shay, he's more my style for sure. After a good message by Will Graham (grandson of Billy Graham) we went out into the back parking lot and were able to meet one of the other Christian musicians, Steven Curtis Chapman, thanks to a personal friend of his who insisted that we had to go meet him. He signed my program which I will give to my son and daughter in law.
Monday morning my friend and I went to a neighboring town and went through a huge flea market that is held weekly. I bought 3 items, spent a total of $3.25. Yeah, I'm a big spender for sure.
I stayed with my friend a couple more days and then she and her husband took me to the airport in Nashville yesterday afternoon for my trip home. My plane left at 6:50 Pm, I had to change planes again in Denver. My hubby met me at the airport, we stopped on the way home for a midnight breakfast at an all night cafe, and I got home at 1:45am. It was a long day for sure.
My house kitty, AmandaPanda, is sticking to me like glue, she doesn't want me to disappear again. I won't, at least not for about a week.
Today I was back to watering, unpacking, doing the laundry and trying to get myself back into my own time zone.
It's definitely fall, there is a nip in the air, some leaves are already turning gold and a few are falling. Our low temperature has been down to 38, which makes corn, squash and tomatoes shiver. Yesterday's high was 79 but today won't reach 70.
The deer have been munching on my garden! I think they had a banquet, not just samples. The grapes are very well pruned, squash have holes eaten in them, tomatoes have a lot of missing and broken branches, carrots have no tops, kohlrabi are just purple things standing there without leaves. Thus far they have spared the corn, beans and onions. Deer fencing is a very high priority for next year!
Last evening, just at dusk, my hubby came out of the shop which is about 50 ft from the house and found a deer standing in the driveway right next to our back gate looking toward the back door. She might have been seeing her reflection in the window since the light from the sun was behind her. I came out of the house half a minute later but by that time the deer had jumped 2 fences and was out in the pasture looking back toward the house. What nerve!
Yesterday when I went riding I saw several deer that had bedded down under a big juniper tree. They got up and went across a hillside and down farther into a small canyon. Some of the slower ones took time to stretch before they left. I was able to count 7 but I think there were a couple more. They were hard to count because of the tree blocking the view of their exit route. A few minutes before that I saw a coyote just disappearing into the sagebrush near the top of a hill.
My horses are starting to look just a bit fuzzy with new winter coat growth. With shorter days, longer nights and lower nighttime temperatures, they are right on schedule.
The weather forecast says we might get some rain today and tomorrow. If that happens I will get part of the garden rototilled, working around anything that is still alive and producing. Meanwhile, I have potatoes to dig, onions to pull up, garden stakes to remove, hoses to coil and carry up to the shed, and some very obnoxious weeds to pull up and take to the burn pile. Enough to keep me busy even if the rain doesn't soften the ground enough to run the tiller.
We are having low overnight temperatures, this morning the thermometer on the back porch said 30, but apparently it didn't stay cold long enough to cause any major plant damage. I see a few crispy leaves but that is all.
I have picked the last of the green beans, all the corn that is ripe, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and summer squash. The winter squash has been covered with blankets, all the onions are in buckets in the woodshed, potatoes are still in the ground, and that's all I can do until I am home again next week.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, Patch and I will be leaving for more endurance rides. I plan to ride on Thursday and again on Saturday, and will help with taking pulses at the vet check or doing other helpful things on the day in between. Hopefully Patch's tendon problem is history, so I picked the easiest days of the 5 day series. The first ride of that series was today and it did feel funny not to be there for it.
Home again. The weather was pretty good for the rides but I came home sunburned and windburned because I forgot to put on sunscreen, again! My mind was more tuned to staying warm. It's hard to remember everything. I worked on the first day I was there and rode the next two days because the order of the rides had changed. My original plan was to have a rest day between ride days. Yesterday morning I was greeted by thick frost on the truck windshield and ice in Patch's water bucket. Thankfully the mornings of the rides were a bit warmer.
Jack Frost brushed by here one night while I was gone, but it wasn't a serious frost, so the tomato plants and squash that weren't covered with blankets still look pretty much ok. Last night we got some rain, it continues today with showers. The clouds have moved enough for me to see snow on both mountain ridges, that is very good news. I heard the county road grader going up a road near us, so hopefully he will get to our road today or tomorrow. I'm also hoping the rain we got was enough to soften up the garden so I can rototill it after I finish digging the potatoes.
My house kitty was so lonesome while I was gone that she snuggled up and slept next to my hubby one night. Poor baby, she hadn't quite gotten over me being gone for a week when I went to Kentucky, and then I was gone 4 more nights after only being home for a week. Needless to say, she is being my shadow again and is currently helping me type.
Patch's tendon is sore again, so I am back to doctoring it and hoping to do one more ride at the end of the season, 4 weeks from now. By then the weather and road conditions might prevent me from going but I will work towards it in the meantime.
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