Red Pony Ranch

A bit of fall around the farm

2010-11-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

We had a stunningly lovely early November day here, with temperatures nearing 70 degrees! The chickens were enjoying their time in the sun and the horses, who look more like buffaloes with their shaggy winter coats, were sweating but enjoying their sunny naps as well. I was able to pick up some fall plants on sale at Lowe's and some gourds, so at least I have the table on the porch with a bit of fall decorations. Of course the hens have to check everything out, so here are a couple of my barred rocks trying to get in the picture. I just love these girls.

I noticed that I had not put up a picture of the horses for a long time! Well, everyone is doing very well. The donkeys and the pony were standing around the corner of the barn and didn't make it into the picture, but here is Bailey (standing kind of goofy) and the three minis, from left Yakki, new Shadow and Maddie. It was getting to be dinner time, so they were more focused on me more than usual while the other three were standing at the magical barn door that opens and food comes out of!

Shadow has turned out to be a great addition to our little herd. We got him to keep Yakki company because Maddie wasn't doing to well in the spring and, frankly, I didn't think she'd make it to winter. Well, she is surprising us all by doing VERY well, so now we're a bit over-horsed! Shadow is a joy, however, and he seems to get along well with everyone. He's 6 years old and a very deep chocolate color with no white except for a few stray hairs on his face that you can see below. He was quite an expensive little show pony at one point in his life, and I might actually entertain trying to show him again some day. He sure has a big personality in that little body!

The last thing I want to show you is our new 'fireplace'. I know it's cheezy and fake, but we really like it! Too bad the 'flames' and 'red embers' don't show up with the flash, because they are a pretty good imitation. It also has a heater and fan on a thermostat, but we haven't needed to use it yet. The only thing missing is the crackle, and I found a fireplace sound loop on line that I put on one night and we were laughing about that. It's amazing what technology can do for us. :)

Just a bit of a foot update: The second surgery went well and everything looks fine. I'm only 4.5 weeks since that last one so I'm still in the boot and will be until November 18th. I have been in this thing since August 11th and am ready for a break from 'clompy'!! The good/bad news is that I'm going to have the other foot done on December 15th (to take advantage of insurance benefits) so it starts all over again...just hopefully not doing it twice! Thanks for all your good wishes. Hopefully, I'll be walking on two perfect feet by early spring!

The greenhouse is open for business!

2010-09-29T18:25:00.001-07:00

Well, today was the day to get this finished! I still needed to stain about 100 short boards that make up the shelves on these benches, but every time I went out to work on it, it was HOT in there! Who woulda thunk it?! Hahaha! So this morning's weather report called for a lot of fog this morning, so I got out there and finished the job. I wanted to get it done now as I'm going back under the knife on Friday and didn't want that hanging over my head.

One thing that is really neat is this 'sink' they sent that is used to hold soil. I have about 1 and 1/2 bags of that nice nursery mix in there. I put the rest in the area below the single bench that you can see in the following pictures. My first planting project is to take all the runners off the strawberry plants and put them into pots to sell or give away. There are probably 30 or 40 of them and there is no place for them to plant themselves by the strawberry planter they're reaching out from. I'll take a picture of that once I get it set up nice.

So when you go into the greenhouse, on the right is the single bench with the soil below it. You can see the six swiss chard plants that I have planted here. They are doing so well already. It will be neat to see if they really do grow all winter. I'm not sure what I'm going to put in the back half...maybe spinach? We don't eat much lettuce in the winter, so I'm trying to come up with other ideas.

I guess I just wanted to show a picture with everything so nice and clean and tidy, because I'm sure it will never look like this again. I have barn pictures like that as well. Now it looks...hmm....lived in, for sure! No use having these great things like a barn and a greenhouse and not use them! Thanks for looking!

A lovely early Fall day!

2010-09-25T11:33:00.001-07:00

We've had kind of a wet and chilly September, but today is making up for it. Highs in the 70's and a nice breeze. A great day for harvesting the potatoes!

Frank was out in the garden bright and early to go on our annual potato treasure hunt. We planted four varieties this year and we were happy with the quality and quantity of each one. Here is Frank digging up some of the reds that we have planted from our own seed potatoes year after year. This is such a great tasting, long storing variety. Sure wish I could remember the name of it!

The basket above is holding one of our experimental varieties this year. It is a dark purple potato with purple flesh! I guess the big test will be to see if we can stomach eating purple potatoes. I sure hope so, because this basket full was the product of ONE purple seed potato I bought on a whim in the produce department at the food co-op in Mount Vernon. This is just an amazing rate of production!

OK, here is everything that came out of the ground today, from upper left going clockwise: the purple fleshed potatoes, red with regular flesh, red with red flesh (another experiment), another red, and the last two are Yukon Golds. While I think the reds outproduced the yukons, the yukons grew a much more uniform size and shape. I think the flavor is a bit more 'potato-y' too. This is our first year with yukons, so it'll be interesting to see how they store and if we can use some for seed next spring.

Everything seems to be ripening on its own schedule. I am finally starting to get some cherry tomatoes, and the grapes (table grape, variety Red Sussex) sure look like they have a long way to go. Hope they can ripen in these shorter and cooler days!

On to progress with my lovely new greenhouse. After the two-man crew set the greenhouse, the rest of it was all up to us. I leveled the dirt the best I could, then we covered it with landscape fabric and a few inches of gravel. The area to the right (you will see this later) is going to remain dirt so I can plant some things right in the soil (like chard, spinach, lettuces) and hopefully have some kind of harvest year 'round. Just as a side note, I am also going to try to sprout some grains for the chickens to eat during the winter.

Frank also dug out the 'patio' area in front of the greenhouse door and lined it with more landscape fabric. I didn't think the grass there was too bad, but Frank was right in pointing out that it would be a muddy mess in the rainy season. This will be so nice once the gravel and pavers are there.

Here you can see the gravel in the area in front of the door as well as all around the greenhouse. The installers recommended we back-fill gravel all around the exterior of the greenhouse and, besides the issue of helping secure it, it sure does look nice...at least until the grass grows up through it!

Here are my favorite pictures so far because they show how it's all coming together. The stained benches are in. You can see the slats that make up the benches still have to be stained and put into place. I was going to work on it today, but it's HOT in there! Hahaha! I still need to do a bit of leveling of the benches, too, but that will just take a few minutes hopefully tomorrow when it's supposed to be rainy again. It is such a wonderful feeling to be out there when the rain is tapping on the roof, yet it's warm and dry inside!

In this picture you can see the board we put into the ground to separate the gravel area from the soil area under the single bench (the benches on the other side have two levels). I found some nursery soil at a bargain-basement price (fall is a great time to buy garden stuff) so most of those bags will be emptied under there. I'll save one or two for planting stuff in pots. Or maybe I'll just go buy some more!

One veggie that I have really fallen in love with and can hardly live without is swiss chard. I've been growing it for two years now, and can hardly make a soup without it now. We also love it sauteed with garlic in olive oil, in quiches/frittatas and casseroles and just about any other thing I can think of. I made a chard tart the other day in a buttery pastry with jack cheese and it was wonderful and we ate the whole thing in one day. So anyway, the first resident in the soil below the single benches will be these great chard starts I found at Lowe's for 1/2 off the lowest priced ticket, so something like .48 cents each. I was going to plant them from seed, so these were a great find! We'll be able to start taking leaves off of these in a couple of months, which is about the time the chard in the garden will finally succumb to a hard freeze.

I just want to take a moment to publicly thank Frank for all his hard work on our little farm-ette. I'm not sure he knew what he signed on for when he married me, but he never complains and is always supportive of my vision for this wonderful place. Thanks, honey, I love and appreciate you very much! Smooch!

We got a greenhouse!

2010-09-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted a greenhouse, and a couple of years ago we saw one of these displayed at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe and almost bought it. But time went on, and I actually started collecting old sliding glass doors to cobble together one of my own. But when we went to the fair again this year, we saw it again and decided to take the plunge! The first thing to do, once we new it was coming, was to prepare the area:

Now I don't know if it was good timing or not, but since my foot surgery is only a month old, I was not able to help poor Frank with this task. Luckily, he said it wasn't too hard of a project. The dimensions of the spot are 8'6" by 12'3". The two installation guys, when they got here, leveled it quickly.

Since I wanted the greenhouse behind our garden shed and next to the garden, they were able to drive their truck right across the lawn and nearly up to the site. You can see that our greenhouse came with two double benches and two single benches that are open below so you can plant directly in the soil of the greenhouse under them. I plan to put swiss chard in SOON so we can hopefully have it all winter.

The two intstaller guys were able to manage this big bulky thing amazingly well and got it into place quite quickly. The only thing left for them to do was to drive six stakes through the about 6"-8" inside lip of the greenhouse into the ground to help with wind resistance. The main thing you're supposed to do is put down landscape fabric and then a layer of rock right up to the wall, as that weight is important to settling it in and holding it down in high winds. I did put the small end toward the prevailing winds, so it shouldn't have any trouble even in the highest winds that we can get here.

I didn't take any pictures of the inside yet because there is nothing to see. You can see from these pictures that we are having quite a gloomy day here in the northwest, but truly, it is quite bright inside the greenhouse. Nice! I left the benches out so I could stain/protect them so they would last longer with damp things setting on them and in that more humid environment.

I just looked back at these pictures and chuckled at all the 'supervision' we had. Sandy's head is in the bottom of one, Katie the kitty is heading for the door and of course the donkey are always in charge of everything that happens around here. The only ones missing are the chickens, but I hadn't let them out yet. I'm sure they'll be checking it out soon enough! More later once we get the inside set up!

Mid-Summer Update

2010-08-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

It's good to be back, sharing a bit of our lives with you through this blog. We've been traveling some this summer, but it is ill-advised to mention that on-line, so I didn't want to post anything until we were home for good, lest I should let something slip. Needless to say, we had a good time vacationing in California and also spent 9 days in Wisconsin with Frank's mom, taking daily drives and making sure to find ice cream each time we ventured out!

This has been a really weird year for our garden. Some things are doing well and some things, that did really well last year, are a total bust this year. Of course we can always grow weeds, so Frank has been diligent keeping them manageable. Good thing we don't rely on our garden to get us through the winter or it would be slim pickin's!

As usual, we seem to be able to grow potatoes well. Ordinarily we wouldn't harvest any right now, but those dumb chickens got in there and dug up a few for us so we had to get them out of the sun. Boy are they good! We planted four kinds this year...reds and yukon golds for our main eating, and some purple and red-fleshed ones for fun. Now that we've got those purple and red ones, what in the world am I going to be able to make with them that will look reasonably appetizing? You got me!

These are my new wheels! Cool color, huh? This will be my buddy for the next 8 weeks or so starting Wednesday when I have big foot surgery. It's called a knee scooter, and I will rest my knee on it and push with my good foot. I've played with it quite a bit already and it seems fairly easy to manage. Inside I'll have to use a walker at first, then crutches. My surgeon said earlier in the year that I would have to be non-weight bearing for 4-6 weeks, but he has a new procedure now that will let me bear weight from the beginning as I can stand it. I will have two bones severed then screwed into correct position, so there will be lots of bone healing, so I'm sure I'll get to enjoy some of the fun drugs he prescribed for me!

In anticipation of not being able to stand much, I decided to chop off all my hair since I couldn't stand and blow dry it every day. I'm actually really liking this cut and am thinking about keeping it like this. I need a head shot for my class home-page and this is the best I can come up with so far. I think I look slightly maniacal. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing for that purpose! Hahaha.

Lastly, we have added a new little addition to Red Pony Ranch. Meet Shadow, who is standing here to the left of Maddie. He's a sweet little boy who is fitting in just fine. With Maddie getting old, I wanted to have another gelding for Yakki to become friends with and after a few minor squabbles over who loves Maddie more, the boys are enjoying each other's company. Technically, I don't own him, but he can stay here indefinitely, which is just fine with us!

One nice thing about summer is that our little lovebird Pete can be outside on the porch most of the day and evening. This porch is on the east side of our house, so we don't put him out until there is shade, but when he does go out, he spends his day either screeching at every bird in the neighborhood or taking power naps. It's nice to be able to roll him in and out to get some fresh air. In the winter he has a spot on the west side of our house right by a window so he can look outside and get what limited sun we have.

Well, Frank just informed me that he's taking the camera to the hospital on Wednesday, so I'm expecting that there will be another blog update next week. We'll see!

Out with the old, in with the new...

2010-07-05T16:21:00.001-07:00

This is the time of year to ready our barn to receive the hay and pelleted bedding that will get us through the winter. This is the area in our barn that holds all our hay...last year it was 300 small bales of local hay and 44 bales of teff for our sweet old Maddie. Well, our winter turned out to be quite mild compared to the previous winter, so we have quite a bit of hay left. I'm not complaining, but poor Frank had to move the old stuff out of here. Nothing worse than moving stuff twice. So now we have to pick up all those pallets, clean out the old, spidery hay that's trapped underneath and get the cobwebs out so we can stack all the new hay in here when it comes.

So this is the last 9 bales of teff as well as my first ton of pelleted bedding. I have 1.5 more tons of bedding coming yet. I am going to buy more teff this year, so I can give it to everybody, not just Maddie. My farrier and I are going to go together and bring in a truck load. I think I'll need about 8 tons.

These are the 30 or so bales of local hay that are left. We put up a temporary gate at the end of the barn, so of course Daisy has to check everything out and nibble on the bales she can reach. She'll be 4 on this Thursday. I can't believe how quickly time flies.

Frank has been working over the whole barn, sucking up cobwebs, with our trusty new shop vac. Ever since we heard that cobwebs are flammable, we made it a goal to get this done. This little vacuum from Sears is great...lightweight and great suction. I don't even want to think about how many spiders are in there!

Anyone who has donkeys will tell you that they are much more interested in what people are doing than horses are, and I find that to be very true. The horses will check in then move on to other things, while the donkeys will hang around and supervise during the whole project. I just love these sweet sweet girls. That's Daisy (the daughter) on the left and Lily on the right. Daisy ended up being a couple of inches taller than her mom, and Lily is a bit more spotted, but for most people they are difficult to tell apart at first glance. They're in the diet field right now as Lily got a little bit sore feet this spring, so we're waiting for the grass to get less sweet and our lower pasture mowed before they can have full run of the property again.

I keep taking pictures of dear Sandy as we will never be sure when it's going to be the last one. She is 14 years 7 months old, and still doing quite well. No health issues other than a bit of deafness and some old-age creakiness that we treat with some Rimadyl. She does have big trouble with fireworks (and thunder and guns) so we got smart and gave her a bit of Ace (tranquilizer) this weekend and she slept through all of it. Whew!

Well, the garden update is that it's been really hit or miss. Swiss chard and lettuce are doing great, as are the peas. I have tried green beans for three years now and still am not successful with them for one reason or another. Potatoes and onions seem to be coming along fine. Corn had to be replanted and is still pretty small, so it'll be interesting to see if we get any by late summer. The few tomato plants I'm trying this year (determinate instead of indeterminate) seem to be healthy and strong, but I'm not seeing any tomatoes yet as it's just been too cold. Hopefully that will change soon! Talk to you again soon!

Taming the Raspberry Bed

2010-06-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

Two years ago we (Frank!) dug out about a 20 foot long strip, removing the sod, to make a bed for some raspberry canes I wanted to plant. It looked lovely and the raspberries grew nicely. Well, fast-forward to now and you can barely even see them in the picture above as they are being overwhelmed by the grass that is now growing and trying to choke them out!

We cut into the sod and put some heavy black edging around the whole area. We couldn't dig out the sod without hurting the plants, so my friend Ange suggested putting down a heavy layer of newspaper before mulching to try to kill the grass. It sounded like a good idea to us, so that's what we did. We also put two 4x4's at each end so we can string some wire and give them the support they need as they get taller. Don't miss sweet Frank in this picture who is always so willing to provide the muscle and labor needed to work on all the projects I come up with!

After we put the paper down around all those raspberry stems, we covered it with a thick layer of pine mulch. I know it looks just like dirt here, but it was pouring rain during this whole project and we also wet it down to make it as heavy as possible on that newspaper, so it looks more like mud than the dark red pine shreds that it really is. So not only did we hopefully deal with the problem of the grass, but hopefully the raspberries are happier and the solution looks nice too!

Totally unrelated to this topic: I caught this picture of my four barred rock hens hanging out on our porch the other day (you can also see Sophie on the railing above) and thought they looked way too comfortable. They have the whole farm to explore, yet this is where they want to hang out! Frankly, though, these are such nice hens...much friendlier than my other chickens (other than Sophie and Sylvia) and just a pleasure to have around. In the beginning I got a couple of quite a few different breeds, and I always keep coming back to the barred rocks as being my favorites.

Well, I'm off to Oregon for a week, so the soonest I'll have another post is next weekend. I hope you are enjoying your spring and getting at least some sunshine. It's been way too rainy here and we're ready for it!

Memorial Day Update

2010-05-31T20:49:00.000-07:00

We have had the 6th rainiest May on record, and most of that came in the last two weeks! So needless to say we haven't been able to spend any time out on our beautiful new porch. I did, however, find some flower baskets that I have been wanting to hang on this porch since before it was even built. I also found a couple of planters in the 'damaged' rack at Lowes, but I thought they still looked pretty good and snatched them up for 1/2 price. We have also been seeing a lot of hummingbirds, so I hung a couple of hummingbird feeders and we instantly started seeing them lapping up the nectar. I am still shopping for just the right glider and also some nice cushions and our lovely new living space will be complete!

Our garden is coming along fine, with some some successes and failures to report. The plants that like cool weather are doing fine...like the peas, potatoes, onions, swiss chard and bok choy. In fact, we will need to eat the last of the bok choy this week as it is beginning to bolt already. The warm weather loving crops are not faring well, especially the ones that needed warm soil to germinate. I need to replant some carrots, corn, beets and basil, plus think of what I want to plant in place of the bok choy. Frank spent several hours out there today in the rain doing some much needed weeding, and since it looked so nice I had to take a picture. The still-weedy patch on the left is where the corn is, and the ones that came up are too fragile to tolerate much weeding nearby until they grow a bit more. I'm hoping for a non-rainy day soon so I can get out there and get my hands dirty again!

We bought our blueberry plants in the spring of 2008. Last year we were happy that they just took the transplanting and winter well, and they produced enough blueberries for about three batches of pancakes. This year I am amazed and so thankful that each of the four plants is just loaded with berries. I picked each plant specifically so that its berries would ripen at different times so hopefully we'll have fresh berries all summer and maybe even some to put in the freezer as well.

School is winding down and I'm heading to my Mom's next week to be with her after a bit of surgery. We've got trips planned in June and July to California and Wisconsin, respectively. Then, in early August I am having foot surgery that will necessitate me being totally off that foot for 4 weeks, so this should be an interesting summer! I'll do my best to keep the blog updated so that my faithful readers can follow our adventures!

First Harvest!

2010-05-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

It's not even June yet and there are things to be harvested in our garden! Yeah! You can see in the picture above our bok choy getting ready to bolt already! So two of these plants ended up in a stir-fry tonight with beef, celery, onions, carrots and mushrooms. There is just something so rewarding about eating things you have grown yourself! We might actually have to eat all this bok choy in the next couple of weeks and plant another crop. I do notice that they bolt really quickly, so it kind of forces you to eat them while young. I also notice that this part of the garden still needs to be weeded. Oh well, it's a never ending job!

There are also radishes to be eating now too, as you can see in this picture. I decided to try growing a variety of radishes called 'icicle' that is shaped more like a carrot than the round, red kind. They taste the same though! Frank was kind of bewildered when he found these radishes drying in the dish rack after I washed them. OH well!

Thanks for reading this first of many more reports of things we've harvested and eaten from the garden! It's amazing I still have faithful readers after all these mundane and boring posts. I'm glad you're hanging in there. :)

Finally Done!

2010-05-23T18:28:00.001-07:00

Well, a normal spring in the northwest has conspired against us in our efforts to finish painting the deck. We prevailed, however, and the last coat of stain was completed just in time to dry enough that another spring rain didn't do any damage. Here is Frank doing the last steps. Notice the little white fence at the foot of the stairs. Now this certainly couldn't and wouldn't stop any chicken, but it was enough to stop people (namely US) from forgetting that we couldn't step on the deck for a couple of days.

I took these pictures at 6:30 pm, so the light isn't that great, but you get the idea. I'm sure there will be many more pictures to come of us enjoying this lovely addition to our home. We have yet to add a couple of nice hanging flower baskets, as well as cushions for the bench and a glider. Also, we'd like to hang a hummingbird feeder, as they seem to be all around this spring.

We're off tonight to watch the finale of LOST at a friend's house. I made fresh strawberry crepes to bring. YUM. I can hardly wait for the good company and the good food! See you later!

No Chickens in the House!!

2010-05-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

A little background information first: We have a sliding glass door/screen that we leave open on nice days so that the cats and dog can go in and out on their own, instead of making us be their personal doormen every 5 minutes. Generally, this works out well. See the elusive Jake above, hunkering on the corner of the little porch out there, surveying his land and ever alert for something he can kill. (Luckily, chickens, even little ones, are not on his menu.)

So last night Frank and I are enjoying our new porch for the first time by sitting at our new table and playing a game of Settlers of Catan. Then came some tapping from inside the house. First tenative, then more insistent. What the heck? Well, we look toward the tapping and see something so incongruous that it took a while for it to even register...it was Sylvia!! She was in our living room, walking back and forth on the sills of the windows to our new porch!

So, with my faithful blog readers ever in mind, I ran in and was able to snap off this one picture before territorial Katie the yellow kitty decided that she didn't think a chicken should be in the house either and thus commenced the cat/chicken rodeo. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of that but I was more concerned about keeping them apart than capturing the moment! Needless to say, Sylvia was happy to go out the front door that Frank so graciously held open for her. And to answer the question that I know all of you are thinking: No, she didn't poop in the house. Whew!

Painting the New Porch - Day 2

2010-05-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

Well, today was LONG with painting but the rewards were great. Frank finished the tedious job of painting the inside of the roof while I did the white posts. Once Frank was done with the roof, he moved on to doing all the white on the higher horizontal wood that I couldn't reach. It's 6:10pm now, and he says he's got a half-hour more to go tonight. We started at 8:30 this morning, so that's a full day of painting...WHEW!

We are done with painting for this weekend. We need to put another coat of white stain on the wood that Frank painted today, and we also need to wash all the horizontal surfaces (benches, railing, deck floor and stairs) prior to staining them. We don't have time to wash it tonight, and since it needs at least overnight to dry, it'll just have to be done next weekend (hopefully!). That's OK, we have neglected the lawn so there is mowing to be done! There's always something!

Painting the New Porch - Day 1

2010-05-07T18:31:00.001-07:00

Well, we finally got a stretch of weather promising to be nice enough for us to be able to start our porch-painting project! Poor Frank got the hard job of all the high work, which meant standing on the ladder (or the railing) and doing all the brush work above his head! I didn't think to get out the camera until he was hanging like a monkey painting the outside of the rafters, but you surely get the idea. Poor Frank!

After analyzing the things we did right and the things we could do differently from here on, we agreed to try to find a ladder for the outside stuff. Burke, the man who built the porch, lives just three doors down, and when he came by to inspect our work, he offered one of his many ladders and we're surely going to take him up on his offer. We actually made really good progress today. Frank did half of the inside roof, and I did all of the back sides of the benches and railings.

I also did the ballisters and rail on the steps. I included this picture so you could see the stain we're using and how it looks compared to the unstained wood. The unstained part in this picture will be an opaque white stain, which will match our house. Tomorrow, while Frank finishes the inside roof, I'll be doing all the posts in that white. On Sunday we plan to do the inside benches and railings. The floor of the deck and the outside lower trim will have to be the next nice weekend. Whew!

We asked our builder to make a table for us that would match the style of the porch. We had been looking around and couldn't find anything that we thought would work for us, and he agreed. This is the stunningly beautiful pedestal table he built for us. I stained it today too, and it was still fairly wet on top in this picture. Sorry about the drop cloth being all around the foot...I'll take a better picture of it once the deck is done and it's in its rightful place.

Burke's wife knew I wanted to plant hydrangeas (among other things) around the deck, and she had some to spare, so she dug these up for me. They are patiently waiting to get back into the ground, which will be as soon as we're done with the porch, hopefully next weekend. I also want some peonies, but I'm not sure how well they grow here.

Once the deck is done, then I get to decorate it! I'm thinking about some colorful cushions (red and white stripes?), a glider and a small table, and of course a couple of hanging flower baskets. We've also had some hummingbirds flit through the porch, so I think we'll hang a hummingbird feeder as well. Thanks for looking and I hope to have another installment of this saga soon!

The garden's hardest workers

2010-04-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

I know I talked about this last year, but I LOVE bees and what they do for us. Because they are so busy, they are very hard to get a picture of. I stood out by this apple tree for probably 10 minutes and got maybe one bee in every 10 shots. These guys move around quickly! Not easy to catch with a digital camera, but this one will do:

These little guys have had a tough few days with fairly chilly temperatures and a stiff wind, but they persisted and were diligently working to make little baby apples for us to enjoy in the fall. They were also working over the blueberry bushes quite well, too, but pictures of that were impossible to catch. Thank you bees!

As you can see, the peas have sprouted in the garden. Also up are the red potatoes (the yukon golds are still sleeping, apparently), radishes, lettuce and the green beans are just poking their little round heads to see if they want to come up yet. I am having trouble with something eating my tender green transplants of bok choy, basil and cilantro, but don't see any footprints of our resident deer in the garden (plus it's netted) so I'm thinking it's slugs, so I put out some pet-safe Sluggo to see if that would help. The good news is that I planted so early, that I still have plenty of time to replant things that don't make it. The herb garden up next to the house is complete now with a couple kinds of thyme, rosemary, oregano, catnip, and peppermint. I also had enough room to plant two small tomato plants up against the warmth of the house and a couple of artichoke plants just to see if they'd work here. I'll get a picture of that for next time.

A Gardener's Dilemma

2010-04-22T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well, everything I had here that needed to be planted, either starts or seeds, is now in the ground. Here's the dilemma: I still have space!! What to do? What to do? I'm actually having quite a bit of fun thinking of what I've not grown before that might be fun to try. The space in the veggie garden is about 6' x 8' (the rectangle on the right in the picture above), so plenty of room to try a few things. There is even some room in the side flower garden and the herb garden as well.

I mostly took and included this picture so I would have a 'before' picture to refer to when things got to looking nice. It looks pretty bleak here now, frankly! The little white fence is one we got to keep the chickens out of the side flower garden, but, needless to say, it didn't work, so now it's the trellis for my peas, which actually I can see poking up above the ground today. Nice.

Here's the side garden with my new little annuals planted. You can see there is room for more. As I was planting, I noticed that, except for 6 little alyssum, there is not enough white. It is mostly pinks and purples, so I think I'll have to get some more white and probably something yellow as well. Oh darn, more things to get for the garden!

Here is the first of what I am sure will be many chicken pictures this year. I just love these dumb peckers, and they've been quite productive lately as well, with 8 or 9 eggs a day. I want to point out the little hen on the left. That's Sylvia, the one we adopted last year from the Braly's. In case they check this blog once in a while, I wanted them to know that their sweet girl is doing fine, doesn't crow or be mean to anyone else (why she needed a new home) and lays a little egg every other day or so. She has been a fun addition to our goofy, mixed flock.

This is Vasco. That is short for Vasco De Gama. She has that name because she is always curious and exploring. I'll go out to the barn and find her WAY up in the rafters just checking out every nook and cranny. Just the other day she got into our shop somehow and I found her on top of our upright freezer. She gets along well with the other chickens, but she is just as happy on her own. Today, I was sitting on the bench on our new porch, sorting through my seed packets, and she had to make sure I was doing it right. I know it sounds dorky, but I think chickens make pretty entertaining pets.

Lastly, it's embarrassing to have THIS out in our pasture, but everyone who drives by gets to see her, so I thought you should enjoy the sight as well. Daisy will be four this July (where does time go) and she is still just as sweet and willing as she's ever been. I had a harness on her several times last fall, and hope to continue with her training and maybe have her in the cart this summer some time. Of course I'll get pictures of that too!

Thanks for sticking with me during the break I took from writing this blog over the winter. I'll do my best to keep it as interesting as possible, but sometimes that's hard because, frankly, we're not that interesting! I am always open to requests as well, so feel free to write if you want to see anything. :)

Just a couple of things...

2010-04-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to try and catch a picture of all the blooms on one of our apple trees. It's the same tree I have a close-up picture of above. It is so pretty and luckily the bees have been visiting, so hopefully we'll get a good crop. You can see I gave the minis a few minutes of grass. Yakki, of course, doesn't need it, but Maddie is doing really well after a hard winter and was able to enjoy some grass as well. We actually have Maddie on some human diabetes medicine (Metformin...and it's $4 a month!) and that seems to have leveled out her blood sugar enough so her feet aren't sore. Yeah!

I still have about 1/2 of the vegetable garden to plant (probably today) but I don't want to neglect the flower gardens either. Our neighbor has a big compost pile and he shares the dirt freely, so here's our side garden after putting in about two yards more dirt. I have no idea where all the old dirt went, as it was full last year, too! I'm going to stick some annuals in there today. I have to do it before I let the dumb peckers out, or I will have all kinds of 'help' before I can get the little protective fence back up.

I wanted to show you the amazing green color of this spirea in the side garden. It's too bad that the camera can never capture anything the same as your eye sees it, but I think you can get the idea here. This is one of those plants that you have just for it's color and not necessarily the blooms, although this one will have some clusters of small pink flowers later in the season.

So I'm off to the feed store later today to get some chicken scratch, oyster shell and see what else they have in the garden department that I can get in trouble with. Good thing I'm not going to the Stanwood feed store, because they have baby chicks there!!

I'm Ba-ack!

2010-04-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

Well, after a long break, I'm back to torturing you with the mundane goings-on at our little farm here in Washington. Spring stirs great feelings of productivity in me, and not much inspires a gardener like me more than the following picture:

I am just itching to get my hands in there and tomorrow will be the day! One thing we can grow for sure is potatoes, so I've got reds that we wintered over from last year, and I was able to find some yukon gold starts that were so ellusive last year. We also had good success with bulb onions and I bought two kinds of starts of those today at the feed store, plus some new rosemary and oregano to replace those herbs that didn't winter over. I also bought two artichoke starts. What the heck, why not? In the house, more than a month ago, I started swiss chard, broccoli, bok choi and parsley. Directly into the garden I'll sow peas, lettuce, corn, beans, beets, carrots and anything else interesting I find in my seed collection left over from last year. Whoo hoo!

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you might remember me talking about how I was having trouble getting our rhubarb to thrive, mostly because the first year Frank kept mowing it, and the second year the chickens were merciless. But I think I finally outsmarted them all. It's not pretty, but it works, and a side benefit is that I'm getting nice long stems on these leaves, which is the part you use. I don't think, however, I'm going to harvest any this year, as I want it to finally be healthy and really get strong.

Last year a student of Frank's gave him a bunch of strawberry plants that they thinned out of their garden. I got them late and didn't have a place to put them, so I just put them in a bunch of planters and wasn't really able to deal with them until this spring, when I made this bed. I had previously taken a blue, food-grade barrel and cut it in half, drilling some drain holes in the now bottom, putting a 2x12 on each open end and used them as hay feeders in my winter pasture. Frankly, they didn't work really well for that, so I ended up buying a free-standing hay rack and now had these things laying around. You can see that I got a couple of more boards and now they're my strawberry bed! The plants are just coming up now, so they're hard to see, but I think this will work well. I placed it on the south-facing wall of my barn where it's nice and warm. You'll also see that I had to put up some netting to protect it from the usual suspects of pillaging and destruction here on the farm (the peckers!!).

Our blueberry bushes are a few years old now and they seem to be taking off pretty well this year. I was concerned about them, as we had a very hot and dry summer last year and they suffered, as they need our more typical cool and showery weather. Maybe this year we'll even get enough to put some in the freezer for pancakes over the winter!

This is not a very complimentary picture of Sandy, but she is still going strong at the age of 14 1/2. She still needs her morning walks and then she sleeps most of the day, either on our bed or outside on the porch or in the grass. It's a good life for this old farm dog. I mainly was taking a picture of another one of my favorite things here on the farm: our apple trees. The blooms are so lovely and impossible to capture the totality of them on the tree. While I was standing in the middle of the tree trying to get some pictures, I could here the comforting buzz of the bees doing their job so that we will have lots of lovely apples in the late summer for us to share with the horses and the chickens. I made and canned applesauce for the first time ever last year and am embarrassed to admit that it took me all these years to do that. It is so much better than anything you can buy in the store and practically free when you have so many of your own apples. I only made 8 or 10 pints last year...this year it'll be quarts, and hopefully 20 of them.

Well, I'm glad to be back. I hope I don't bore you, but I guess this is our life and I'm glad to share it, as simple as it may be. Happy Spring!!

The Porch is DONE!! Whoo hooo!

2009-12-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

It is truly a joy to say that our new front porch is done and share these pictures with you. We absolutely love this porch, and marvel at its artistry and fine workmanship. Burke and Ray did a wonderful job and were a pleasure to have around for a couple of weeks as well! One thing you can't see on this picture (but can on the maker's mark picture) is that EVERY edge of EVERY board was routered to give it a smooth, finished look with no sharp edges. I hope you can come sit on this lovely porch some day and see it for yourself!

The only thing left to do, and it's a fairly big thing, is to decide how to paint and stain this beauty so that it looks like it blends with our house, yet shows as much of this beautiful cedar as possible. We have a LOT of white trim on our house, and our pergola that is about 20 feet away is white as well, so we're thinking that the bigger beams on the top and all the big posts will be white, and we'll stain the rest something fairly pale, just to protect the wood and keep it from graying as cedar does if left untreated. Burke assures us we have until spring to decide.

This is what the benches look like. I can't wait to find/make some nice cushions (with barn-red being the main color) and hang some colorful flower baskets. We will also be looking for a nice table as well as a glider as the main furnishings for this outdoor room we have added. I can see spending many lovely days out here!

Full-size, this picture is legible, but I'm not sure it is here. We asked Burke to put some kind of maker's mark on the porch and he brought the brand he uses when he builds furniture or cabinets and we found a good place for it here. We have also asked him to make us a new screen door that will match the style of the porch and that will fit and look better than the $5 plastic yard sale special that is on there now!

We knew it wouldn't take long, but unfortunately the chickens are enjoying the new porch as well. I try to shoo them off as soon as I see them, but alas they have left their calling cards a few times already. Good thing they started laying eggs again so at least they have one redeeming quality. Actually, these two girls are my new ones from this summer and are the last two that have yet to start laying. We are up to getting 3 or 4 eggs a day now, which is plenty for our needs. Hopefully we'll be able to start giving them away again after the holidays.

Believe it or not, even on December 5th there are still things to be harvested here on Red Pony Ranch. This picture shows everything I got out of the garden today, except for the day's eggs which, of course, I got out of the hen house. Still in the garden are beets, carrots, leeks, parsley and more swiss chard. This is my first year growing chard and I have to say I love that stuff. It's wonderful in soups and egg dishes and also makes a lovely fresh side dish when sauteed in a bit of garlic and olive oil. This time I made a cheese/broccoli/chard soup. Here's the picture below. This is before I added more milk and the cheese. I just wanted to capture those lovely colors. We love soup all winter and especially like it when it's mostly from our own garden.

Well, we sure hope you are having a wonderful beginning to your holiday season. As of today we are totally done putting up all the outdoor lights and decorations, and the tree is up inside and lighted but not yet decorated. I'll tackle that tomorrow. I did get my nice nativity set up and now baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the wise men, the shepherds and the stable animals are nestled sweetly in the boughs cut off the bottom of the Christmas tree. We had a wonderful sermon at church today about believing in the unbelievable. I hope you believe in the real Christmas!

The Day After Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

This exact same day last year was documented in this blog, and I went back to refresh my memory. I saw pictures of us putting up our Christmas lights and decorations in shirtsleeves! The good news is that today we are rain-free and in the high 40's...perfect for some chores around the farm and continuing work on the deck!

Frank actually ran the mower a bit, chopping down the longer grass that I didn't get with the riding mower when I did the last mowing of the season on November 3rd. Our cool season grasses really perked up after a long, warm summer (by our standards). We also cleaned out our flower and herb beds, cleaned the chicken coop and Frank knocked down some scotch broom (a local pain-in-the-butt weed) in our lower pasture and picked out a new spot for this winter's barn-cleanings. We have been using the compost from the barn, about a wheelbarrow-full a day, to add organic material to the sandy soil in our lower pasture. The areas that we did the previous years grow such nice lush grass now.

Work is continuing on our lovely porch. Frank says the porch is way better quality than the house it's attached to and I don't disagree. These guys are such artists. I am sure we will be spending many hours enjoying this porch with a good book or friends.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors and friends, but we miss the leftovers, so today I am making a few of our favorite parts that we want to have around a pick on for the rest of the weekend! I hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends, and ate lots of good things! I know we sure did!

Porch Progress

2009-11-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

In spite of a week of mostly sideways rain, our intrepid builders have managed to build what we can tell is going to be a beautiful front porch. These guys truly are artists and have incredible attention to detail. There is a lot more coming, like the decking, rails and benches, but seeing it thus far is very exciting.

Since the main windows for our living room are within this porch, we went with a polycarbonate/lexan roof material that lets in the maximum amount of light. The stuff we bought is used in greenhouses and does not yellow. The biggest selling point for me was that our builder (Burke) used it on a project at his house and still recommends it! It will be lovely sitting out there even when it might be raining or drizzly.

Just take a look at the details here. (Those small boards spanning each corner are not permanent.) This porch is truly a work of art. I am so thankful we found Burke and his assistant Ray. Speaking of them, here they are in a candid moment, with Burke on the left and Ray sitting on the deck:

I took this shot not only to capture the progress on the porch, but to tease them later about all the ladders they were using. At one point they had SIX ladders of various sizes and they were running up and down them like monkeys. These guys really know what they're doing...in more ways than one!

I look forward to continuing to chronicle the building of this lovely porch. Now that the roof is on, hopefully the guys will be able to not get as wet in our blustery and rainy fall weather.

November Randomness

2009-11-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

Well, it took me long enough! Sorry about that, but the wind kind of went out of my sails during 'the great chicken sickness'. Luckily, and with a lot of hard work and skulking around a dark coop at night mugging chickens to squirt antibiotics down their gullets, we managed to save most of them. We lost four total, and came darn close on a few others. We got down to 10 of our original chickens, 3 of which are banties, so our laying capacity was sorely diminished, and they're still not laying. They need to gain more weight and finish moulting; the new girls are not old enough to be of any help in the laying department yet. One of the new barred rocks turned out to be a rooster (now named Roopert) and if he continues to be nice to the hens, he can stay and sire next year's new chicks. So 'the great chicken sickness' is over and we are on to enjoying my favorite season: FALL.

One of the best things to do in fall is bake and start making big pots of soup again. One recipe I don't make often, but that we love, is Runzas. First, you make a recipe of home made white bread and let it rise. Then you divide it into balls bigger than golf balls but smaller than tennis balls. You can see them below:

The filling is very simple. Browned hamburger and onions, then add a whole head of chopped cabbage, and some salt and pepper. I also added some beef base (like bullion) to give it a little more beefy flavor as well. Get this all cooked down, and if it's watery, strain it. Then you put a scoop of this filling in a rolled out little ball, and fold it over to make a half-circle pocket.

I bake them at 350 degrees until they look done..maybe 20-25 minutes. YUM! I actually got more than 20 of these things, this was just the first batch that came out of the oven. My brother's family takes these out hunting, as they're good pocket food.

I would say that our garden was successful overall this year. Our big harvests were potatoes, onions, carrots, some corn (18 bags in the freezer plus what we ate fresh), basil, beets and crops that turned out to be a pleasant addition this year: broccoli and swiss chard. They are STILL producing even now in mid-November. Here is a picture of the broccoli still coming on from just a couple of days ago. I should have gotten one of the chard too, because the bright colors are just stunning. There are a few leaves in the next picture getting ready to go into the soup!

It is such a pleasure to be able to pull together a big pot of soup almost entirely from our garden. Here you can see carrots, onions, potatoes, swiss chard and the bag of corn I got out of the freezer. The meat was some back strap venison from our good neighbor, Larry. The only store bought ingredients were celery and barley, and salt and pepper, too. I made a couple of loaves of home made multi-grain bread and we had lovely warm soup and bread to our heart's content on these rainy and chilly fall days.

I decided to buy a big dutch oven this year and I am really enjoying it. Previously, I just had an aluminum stock pot that was too thin on the bottom and it burned easily and didn't hold the heat like this enameled cast iron one does. I can't believe it took me so long to get one! The only problem is finding a place for it when I'm not using it. It's pretty big, but it's also a very pretty red, so I'd like to leave it out, but it still hasn't found a home yet. Hopefully I'll keep it busy this fall, so it won't be unused often!

Frank and I are loving our on-line teaching jobs, as well as the bit of extra income it is bringing in. We are paying down our bills, but we have also started tackling a list of three big projects we wish to accomplish. On the list is: a new front porch, a wooden fence around our upper pasture, and new cabinets in the kitchen. We finally have enough for the porch, and another good neighbor is a wonderful builder, and he was willing to take on this project!! Yeah! Here is Sandy, the faithful farm dog, watching over the lumber that was delivered.

We have been in this house four years this past August. It's hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly. One thing that always bothered me was the 'temporary' front porch we had all that time, so I was not unhappy to see it finally GONE! I put the porch on Freecycle (an email group of people in a geographical region whose sole purpose is to give stuff away) and a nice young couple from a nearby town came to get it with plans to turn the deck of it into a floor for a new shed. It's wonderful to see things recycled rather than put into the landfill or burned when someone might have a good use for it.

So far, the progress of the porch has been mostly in the planning and the purchasing of materials, but just a day or so ago the footings were poured. This is the first time we can really visualize its size and how it is going to change the look of our house for the better. It is roughly 15 wide and sticks out 12 feet; enough room for a small table and chairs and a glider. I will make sure to take pictures and update on the progress. Our builder got the swine flu right after he started, so we've got a little down time before they start back up again on Monday. I saw him today and he's feeling better, and that's the most important thing. We have two other entrances to our house, so there is no hurry to finish this one, although I am really looking forward to putting up Christmas lights on it this year!

So that's a quick update of the things that are going on around here. All the horses and donkeys are fuzzy and happy in the chilly fall weather. They are coming into the barn every night now and are enjoying their cozy stalls and lots of local grass hay. We're noticing that Bailey is a little creakier this winter as he gets close to 20 years old, and we're supplementing him for that, but time does march on for all of us, doesn't it?

I hope to write again before Thanksgiving, but if I don't, we want to wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving time with friends and family, reflecting on the rich blessings we all have and enjoy. God bless!

Grass Valley Draft Horse Classic

2009-10-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my annual trip to Grass Valley, California and caught up on my schoolwork, so I figured I better update this blog. I had a great time with good friends and even survived the 'rental RV from hell'! Adrienne and Ciera had a great show and brought home many ribbons...I'm so proud of them. Above is where their horse, Sweetie Pie, stays during the show, along with lots of other long-term friends (both horsey and human).

There is just something about these fairgrounds. The tall trees and scattered buildings are so lovely and peaceful, especially in the early morning.

Here are a few of the Wareing Shires geldings just hanging out between shows.

Arlin Wareing is up on the horse braiding with the help of one of their many grandchildren who were there to help as well. It was wonderful thing to see four generations of this great family there. Wayne is wielding the curry to make sure nothing is marring the beautiful shine these boys have.

The wash rack is a good place to hang out if you want to see pretty much every horse on the place at one time or another.

These are some of The Simpson's percherons. The red on the black horses is so distinctive.

Frank did such a great time holding down the fort here at the farm while I was gone in spite of the illness that is still lingering in our little flock. He had to bury two of our old hens while I was gone, and we hope that's going to be the end of it. I am so thankful that he was willing to do all the farm chores as well as his demanding TWO jobs so I could escape on my little (BIG) horse get away. Hopefully in a few years he'll be able to go with me to this wonderful place in the Sierra Nevadas.

A busy fall

2009-09-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

Once again I find myself apologizing for the long time between postings. I guess the main thing that I can blame for my tardiness is that since late August I have been scrambling to learn a new job (which is really fun, by the way) and it is taking up quite a bit of what used to be extra time. I'm feeling fairly confident now and can focus on silly stuff like this blog!

Frank was out early one morning feeding apples to the horses and donkeys and saw this beautiful spider web covered with dew. I'm particularly curious about this one, as 1/2 of it is attached to the electic fence which is quite hot. Are spider webs not conductive? Or maybe they are and the spider is employing a little extra help? And what about that spider? Can't he feel the surge every second or so?

Then I saw this picture and the way Frank took it and thought of that spider thinking..."hmmmm, maybe I'll catch the BIG one!"

It is starting to feel a little bit like fall, especially with the chilly mornings. You can see here our inside pets doing what they do best on mornings like this. I swear they wait until Frank and I get up and they take over. With Sandy getting so old now, this is usually where she can be found most of the day after her walk with Frank in the morning.

How many new baby chickens can you fit in a nest box? Apparently only 4 with one cranky one stuck outside! It is hard to talk about, but we have had an illness going through our flock that is still really bringing some hens down, but we haven't lost anyone (yet). They are on some antibiotics in their water and hopefully we've turned the corner. The good news is that none of these new babies have been seriously affected. We're not getting any eggs now, and with the days getting shorter, we don't have much hope for eggs this winter until these new girls start laying in the spring. Good thing we have a new neighbor with 50 hens who is selling eggs. I just don't think I could ever buy store eggs again.

Well, I'm off for my annual trip to Grass Valley, California for a draft horse show. I have rented an RV so I can stay on the grounds and I am taking my new truck on its first road trip to Sacramento with all the stuff I need to have camping for almost a week. The forecast is for HOT, so I'm packing for that! I'm also taking my camera, so I should have lots of fodder for new blogs when I get home!

Five new girls!

2009-09-07T13:58:00.001-07:00

Well, Frank and I had a little adventure today to go pick up a few new pullets (young female chickens that haven't laid eggs yet) to add to our aging flock. I found a lady on Craig's List who had some Barred Rocks, the same breed as the hens I lost this summer and wanted to replace, so we agreed to meet in the Seattle area for the hand-off. Of course, since we were down there anyway, we had to get some Dim Sum at our favorite place in the International District, but by 10:30 am we were at the designated spot to meet our new girls.

Well, we didn't actually get to see our new girls until we got home as they were in a cardboard box! So when we got home, we let all our existing chickens out to free-range, and we locked them out of their coop/run so we could let the new young girls out. They were happy to get out and eat some scratch and peck at the corn and cucumbers I put out for them. Shown below is one of the beautiful new girls! I really missed having barred rocks on the farm.

Lovely Laurel the chicken lady gave me an extra pullet!! The paler colored one is called a Cuckoo Maran and they lay chocolate colored eggs! I have always wanted one so this is a wonderful treat! In this picture you can see all five of the new girls (one is hidden behind the maran). They are already having a good time running around and pecking at stuff. It'll be interesting to see how the first time free-ranging goes! Hopefully they'll stay in the security of the coop and run for a few days when the others go out.

I just wanted to provide a little update on how much the baby chicks are growing! They are only 9 weeks old today and they look and act so mature already! Here is what I think is the only pullet on the left and a little rooster on the right. The little rooster pictured at the top of this post by my truck is a cocky little guy that we call "Neck Stretcher" because of how he challenges all the other chickens. We also refer to him as "Stew Pot" as that's where he's probably going to end up if he keeps up with his bullying behavior.

Luckily, there is another little rooster we call "The Peacemaker" who is so kind and intervenes any time he sees any of his hatch-mates acting agressively. I told him he can stay if he keeps up that nice behavior. He's the one at the top of the picture below. The chicken in front of him 'might' be a pullet because of some characteristics I'm NOT seeing on her. Keep your fingers crossed.

All in all it was a great day to get new chickens. We also brought up 10 pullets from this same farmer for another person in the Arlington area to save them a trip down. He got some buff orpingtons and some Rhode Island reds; both great layers of big brown eggs. So between us we increased the chicken population of Snohomish County by 15 new hens. May they all live long and produce many eggs!

Bad Jayne

2009-09-06T15:55:00.001-07:00

I am so sorry that I have not posted to our blog lately! Things have been a little crazy, with going on vacation in San Diego, then coming home and having my mom visit for a week and then getting ready for school to start. Please be assured that everyone here on the farm is good and we are enjoying the end of our summer weather. Katie, below, is especially enjoying lounging around outside in spite of getting pecked once in a while by a baby chicken who doesn't know better!

The main thing that is taking up our time is the beginning of school for our online teaching jobs. I was hired by the same company (Insight Schools) that Frank worked for last year, to teach English. I was assigned to teach American Literature to Juniors, which is great, but I haven't taught literature for a while, so I am studying and preparing for the course as fast as I can so to stay ahead of them! On top of that is all the record keeping and student contact that needs to happen at the beginning of the school year. I have met so many really neat students so far; it's been wonderful! I think I'm really going to like this new way of teaching.

Blogs coming soon will feature our new chickens (that we are running down to Seattle tomorrow to get) that we need to replace the ones that died this summer; harvesting and putting up some of the bounty from our garden; and we will also be talking about our new bikes (that we bought after renting the same kind on vacation, twice!). So stay tuned for updates about the happenings at Red Pony Ranch, hopefully coming soon!

See Jayne Go

2009-08-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

See Jayne. See Jayne and Frank. Jayne and Frank have had a crazy summer. Jayne and Frank need a vacation. See Jayne and Frank get on an airplane and go to San Diego. Jayne and Frank will be eating lots of real mexican food and seeing animals at the zoo. Jayne and Frank will have five lovely days together in the southern California sun! Bye!

All that silliness aside, I just wanted to do a quick update to the blog because I won't be posting now for at least a week. Everything is fine here. The little chicks have integrated well into the big girl's coop and one is even trying to crow already. I got the running boards installed on my truck, but while they were doing it they dented the door a little. Of course they'll fix it, but not until I get back and get an appointment with the body shop. Frank and I are BOTH busy gearing up for our on-line teaching jobs; Frank with math and I in English (American Literature).

While we are gone a good friend is staying in the house and taking good care of everybody, and our regular animal sitter will be helping out as well, so people will be in and out here more than when it's only us here at home. It is very comforting to know we've got such good help taking care of all our precious animals here at home. See you in a week or so!

Truck's First Bath by Guest Blogger Frank

2009-08-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

For years Jayne has wanted a new truck, and last month, she found the PERFECT truck, a 2009 GMC Sierra that had EVERY option that she was looking for, including being a two wheel drive, which is important because with me at 51, and Jayne at well, I really shouldn't share her age - suffice it to say that right now I am four years older than her and on November 7th I will be three - are a tad bit long in the tooth to go mudding, so a two wheel drive is perfect for us. "Why don't we buy it," I queried. And Jayne, having found the truck of her dreams gave me a totally logical answer as to why we shouldn't buy it: because it's white. Of course. Pass on the truck of your dreams because it's white. That, of course, made little sense to me, and so we purchased Truck and he is indeed a most excellent addition to our family.

So, we actually used Truck as a working truck yesterday and hauled some hay. Jayne, having fallen deeply in love with Truck suggested that I bathe him. And look how dirty he is! I can tell you with absolute certainty that everything I own, including my own body, has been 10 times dirtier than Truck is in this picture and I still didn't wash it. Oh, well, if Jayne wants me to wash Truck, wash Truck I will do.

Actually, here is a close up of the HUGE mess that Truck got into. Bad, bad Truck; no wonder you need a complete and total detail job both inside and out!

So, of course, we can't just wash Truck with any old swill that is out there, so we laid out for some fancy materials to make sure that the old boy was completely comfortable while being bathed. I especially like the micro fiber mitt that is so soft it could be used to pat your baby's bottom.

This is the old swill that we have used on every vehicle we have ever owned. And as for the Dawn, biologists used it to get the oil off of birds that have stumbled into a spill. It's obviously very good stuff, but not good enough for Truck!

So, we're driving home yesterday and Jayne noticed three specks of dust on the dashboard. "When you clean Truck tomorrow, will you please wipe down the dashboard with something besides water?" "Like Armor All?" I ask helpfully. "Absolutely not! That stuff destroys the vinyl, eventually. We'll never use that stuff on Truck!" And so imagine my surprise when Jayne shows up with Armor All. "Hey, Jayne, didn't you say..." "I was talking about the spray, not the wipes. The wipes will be fine." Now, I'm not a chemist, but I kinda think that the liquid on the wipes is the same as the liquid that you spray on, so if one will destroy your dash, then there is a real good possibility that other will too. Oh, well, I'll see my friend Deanna Vaughan - who IS a chemist - in about three weeks and ask her all about this.

And here is Truck, all nice and clean! Please compare this to the second picture in this blog to see what a difference a nice bath makes.

More evidence that Truck did indeed get a bath.

So, here's the deal with Truck and the lessons he can teach us. Jayne, who really is the love of my life and completes me in all ways despite the fact that I have had a whole lot of fun teasing her in this blog, has always wanted a truck; she's also always wanted horses. She's waited, well 51 minus 4 years for this to happen, but it finally did happen. Moral of the story? Don't give up on your dreams. Ever. I love Truck because my wife loves Truck, but also love him because he will remind me for a good long time that I should never give up on a dream, no matter how out of reach it seems. You shouldn't either.

Fun on the farm!

2009-08-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

Boy, has it been a whirl-wind summer! Seems like Frank and I are always coming or going! We just ended a lovely visit with Frank's brother Jim and his bride Mary. We got to spend some quality time with them (I had never met Mary before), part of which was during a short trip to Victoria, which was beautiful and enchanting as always. Back here on the farm, we introduced those city folks to the joys of rural living. This included giving the watermelon rinds to the horses and donkeys. They love to see us coming with that green plate full of sweet treats for them!

A big milestone on the farm today was that the little white chicks ventured outside for the first time at the ripe age of 5 weeks old. I had been letting them out to roam the barn the last few days, but frankly, I was getting tired of them leaving little chick poopies all over the place, so I'm ready for them to move out of the barn. Here they are being fascinated by food that actually moves (a bug!). They figured out quite quickly that moving food is tasty!

I could not have asked for a better momma hen. She has been so good at teaching them all they need to know and they are surprisingly obedient when she calls or warns them. Here she became alert to something in the yard and one of the chicks made sure to look too.

The chicks kind of crept out of the barn in little groups today, so I wanted to show you that there are indeed still 5 chicks. I THINK there are two roosters and three pullets, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that outcome. One of the little roosters sounded like he was choking this morning so I looked at him to see if he was OK, and he was actually trying to crow! What a funny little guy! So far our resident rooster, Colonel Sanders, has made contact with the chicks and he has not shown any signs of aggression at all. Let's hope it stays that way for a while and until I decide what to do with these two unnecessary boys.

Two of my neighbor kids came over today (the girl is also my excellent farm sitter) to just hang out, so we got to work shredding some of the excess zucchini from my garden. My friend Ange told me that if I froze them in three cup bags, that once they thawed and the water is poured out, that would leave me with the two cups of shredded zucchini that most recipes call for. So that's what we did. We got 6 packages to freeze and with the two cups left over we quick whipped up a chocolate zucchini cake that we took to a cookout at their house the same evening. They had fun getting their friends and neighbors to try the chocolate cake they made but didn't tell them it had zucchini in it. It's a good cake and I managed to save one piece for Frank when he gets home from Boise this evening.

I'm having so much fun with my new truck! It actually sent me an email the other day telling me I had only 32 pounds of pressure in one tire when it should be 35. Too funny! It also has a voice activated phone in there: I just say DIAL and then the number and it takes care of it! Talk about hand's free. So now I can still say I don't have a cell phone, but I do have a cell truck!

We have one more get-away (to San Diego) this summer before we hunker down and get to work at our respective jobs. The same on-line high school that Frank works for hired me to teach two classes of English. (This should eliminate the need for me to substitute teach for anyone except my favorites.) Gotta love a job you can do in your jammies! Needless to say, there won't be any pictures of that!

Visitors and Anniversary!!

2009-08-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

We are having a wonderful time with our visitors from Illinios...Frank's brother and sister in law, Jim and Mary. One of the things our guests wanted to see was some mountains up close, and since Frank and I hadn't yet been up to Mount Baker, we drove up there yesterday. Wow, was that a beautiful drive and the scenery was breathtaking!! The Mount Baker Highway actually takes you around to the east side of Mount Baker, which is an approach we had not ever seen as our views of the mountain had always been from the south or west.

There were other snowy peaks around this area, as well as many green meadows and majestic pines below the tree line. We think we even spotted a small herd of mountain goats in the distance. It was a beautiful day and it was even a little warm after doing some hiking around Artists Point.

On a side note, this coming Saturday is our 17th Anniversary and Frank bought me a really big present. We drove it up to Mount Baker as we weren't sure our old van would be up to the task. It performed great and we enjoyed playing with all the toys in there. Thanks, Honey, for 17 wonderful years and for my new truck!

Today we're sticking fairly close to home with a tour through Frank's school and a drive to a cute nearby town followed by lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Tomorrow is a Seattle day, and then we're off to Victoria for a few days. We're having a great time but it seems like time is going by way too fast. I'll update again this weekend.

Lovely Iowa

2009-07-30T08:42:00.003-07:00

I returned late Tuesday night from a wonderful trip to Iowa and found the temperature to be 93 degrees at 9pm!! Who ever heard of that here?! So while I'm glad to be home, it certainly would have been far more comfortable to stay in Iowa!

One of the first things my kind hosts took me to see was a produce auction. Produce grown by the Amish was brought to the facility by horse and buggy or wagon. Sometimes it was just a mom and kids, like shown here, but there were also a few bigger rigs pulled by draft horses. It was so hard to decide which pictures to show!

There was a nice loading dock under cover where the horses/buggies could stop to unload. The produce was put on rolling carts and lined up for the auction. We saw a lot of green beans, onions, tomatoes, summer squash and a little bit of several other items. When I went back the following Monday, there was far more tomatoes that just 3 days before. I don't know if you can see the corn on the back of the buggy shown above, but we bought 10 dozen of those ears and after giving a bunch away to friends and family, we had a feast of fresh sweet corn. YUM.

The auctioneer would stand by each cart and people would gather around and bid. They did usually make the bidders buy the whole cart full of stuff, but if you didn't want the whole amount, you could turn around and sell what you didn't need/want to others. For example, Ange wanted a few hardy hibiscus plants but the lot was for 6 of them. The bidding went higher than she wanted to pay, especially for six of them, but the winning bidder turned around and sold three of them to Ange. I saw that happening a lot.

There were a few baskets for sale that had been put together in such a beautiful way that I had to take a picture. If I had been home, certainly I would have bid on this lovely collection of lots of good things to eat: potatoes, onions, peppers, beans, tomatoes and an eggplant.

My hosts, Ange and Jerry, have friends with a wonderful, well-broke team and they were willing to let us come over and maybe even let me hold the lines for a little while. These mares were being driven nearly every day in anticipation of the up-coming Iowa State Fair, so we took them out and I DID get to drive them. That was a wonderful experience! I really thank Ange and Jerry and new friends Randy and Peggy for giving me this opportunity. It was a blast.

Back at the home of Cottonwood Percherons there was plenty of good times and relaxation. I had such a good time playing with the barn kittens. I really would have brought my favorite little gray boy with the white mittens back with me if I didn't have such a cranky old mouser at home. I must have 30 pictures of these guys playing all around Ange's lovely garden. She also had a wonderful swing in which I spent much time reading and watching thunderstorms roll by and lightening bugs come out at dusk. It was truly enchanting.

Here is Jerry with his two blue roan percheron mares. These are such wonderful horses. Anyone would be proud to look out and see them in their field, that's for sure. This was taken in the morning after they came in for their grain and fly spray before heading back to pasture.

The days I was in Iowa were not too hot (maybe the highest was mid-80's) so the girls enjoyed standing up by the fence and watching the world go by. I like how they've set themselves up here, with the gray in the middle and arranged in a line like that. The clover must have been coming on good as each time I went out to say HI I got a shirt full of slobber. They are sweet, friendly girls and I enjoyed getting to know them.

On the last day we had to take the pony to the farrier for a trim, and this Amish family also kept goats for milking....160 of them!! We spent quite a bit of time in the milking parlor with their two older teenage children who were in charge of the goats and the milking. They use a machine for milking, but they did let me try to milk one by hand, which needless to say didn't go too well! But we had a great time. I love the look on the face of the white goat in the middle of this picture. Too funny!

Back home again, I spent plenty of time with my new buddy Kona, their mastiff. He was so well behaved and sweet, anyone would be proud to have a dog like him. Whenever I went in and out he was on my heels, so I felt I needed to have a picture taken with him to capture our time together. What a sweetheart!

One thing I haven't talked about and didn't get any pictures of was all the good food that they made sure I had. I tried catfish for the first time, had some authentic mexican food, and Ange made a roast and veggies in the crock pot one night and Iowa pork chops the following night. Those home meals were accompanied by lots of fresh summer veggies and iced tea. It just doesn't get any better than that.

So huge thanks to my hosts for letting me come and experience what it's like to live in Iowa. I had an amazing time and look forward to going back again. Maybe they'll come visit our fine state of Washington some time soon. I sure hope so.

Frank had taken wonderful care of everyone on our little farm in spite of the terrible heat and humidity which is so rare for this area. The little chicks are over three weeks old now and growing like weeds! This heat has claimed the life of one of our old hens and we hope that's the last of that. I had my stall bedding and beetpulp delivered just today, so I am prepared for whatever the winter might throw at us. I'll update with farm pictures again soon!

Off to Iowa!

2009-07-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to put up a quick note to let you know I'll be gone for a week to visit my dear friend Ange and family in Iowa. Frank is dropping me off at the airport at 5am, so we'll be up and out quite early!

Frank will be holding down the fort here while I am gone. I am thankful that he is so good with all the animals. He'll have an even harder time of it as the forecast is for record heat so he'll have to be watching to make sure everyone is doing OK. I'll have it cooler and rainier in Iowa!

I hope to have some neat pictures when I get back. In the meantime, I sure hope I don't take a wrong turn down this road:

Oh, just a couple of little chicken updates: the baby chicks are just over two weeks old and growing like weeds. They are a little crazy too and cover every inch of that 12x12 stall, driving their momma hen nuts. Also, our new little hen Sylvia is doing well trying to integrate into her new flock here. She still hasn't figured out quite where to roost at night, but she is good about coming back to the coop after free-ranging every day. Good girl!

A little chicken story...

2009-07-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was looking through the Farm and Garden section on Craig's List and saw an ad for a Silver Sebright hen for sale. So I clicked on it, and what I saw was quite sad: A beloved little pet hen had begun to crow and while they loved her, they lived in the city and her noisiness would not make her a good neighbor any longer. Well, I wrote to these nice people, only to commiserate, in that my own little Sebright hen crowed as well. I gave them a link to this blog so they could see our Sophie and the rest of our little farm.

I got an email back from the mom and her 7 year old daughter saying that they needed to find a home for their beloved Sylvia and that if they could not find a good situation for her, could she come live here at Red Pony Ranch? I replied that they were welcome to come visit and if they felt this was a good place for her then she was welcome to stay.

Well, these pictures are testimony that Sylvia did, in fact, come to live at Red Pony Ranch and she is getting along quite well! No one appears to even notice she's here (maybe they can't count and think she's Sophie?) and, in spite of the mom's worries, dominant little Sylvia doesn't appear to be trying to assert herself with the big hens, at least not yet!

I was a little nervous of letting Sylvia out of the run on her first day here (that's her to the left of center in the picture), but I felt that she would stick around her own kind and so far that seems to be the case. She is happily rooting around for bugs and tender shoots, and already has learned that when I call "chick, chick, chick" that means that a treat of scratch is coming if they come running! So welcome Syliva to our little flock!

Of course I had to take them around to visit everyone else on the farm and of course Daisy was a big hit as usual. Here is the daughter and Daisy mugging for the camera. I had such a good time with our visitors and I think they had a good time too. I know Daisy was sad to see them go!

I just wanted to put one last picture of what's been happening in the nursery...these little chicks get more precocious every day and their latest antic is to play "King of the Mom!" Seems that there are always one or two chicks vying for space on top of mom. The winner gets to nap up there. Too funny!

A few random things

2009-07-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

Some of my faithful blog viewers have might already figured out that I am using the blog to keep Frank connected to the things (albeit mundane) happening here on Red Pony Ranch while he is in Wisconsin. Hard to imagine that there is still another week yet to go, darn it!

I ran through Safeway yesterday looking for a couple of cucumbers, and as usual, I toured through the meat department looking for bargains. Boy did I find one! Here is a whole, bone-in, pork loin that runs over 10 pounds. I put the jelly jar there so you could better judge the size of this thing. It's BIG!

I might be one of the only bloggers ever to take and post a picture of a price tag on a side of pork, but here it is! You can see that, regardless of the probably inflated original price, I got an amazingly good deal. So good, in fact, that I bought two of these. Once I got it repackaged in the size for two person meals, I put 16 packages in the freezer and even left out two pieces for me to put on the grill! Nice to find a bargain like this!

Tomorrow is the little peeper's one week birthday (or would that be hatchday?) and I wanted to show how they're already growing in wing and tail feathers! These guys are growing so fast and are more bold every day in venturing further from momma.

Now they might THINK they are bold, it doesn't take much to send them scurrying back to momma and burrowing into the safety of the feathers of her soft underbelly. She is such a good momma and actually shows them what to eat, even breaking up pieces she thinks are too big for them. A favorite treat is when I take in some bread which she'll take bites of right out of my hand, then put it on the ground and tear it up for her babies. It is so sweet to watch them! I wish everyone could see it.

Every year we get a few hanging baskets for our carport. This is the nicest one so far. We've had hot (for here) weather and I think they've been a little stressed, but we've been feeding them and keeping them watered so hopefully they'll stay nice for another 6 weeks or so.

We finally got a bit of rain today and I am very thankful as we really needed it. Maybe the lawn and pastures can perk up a little bit now. I did buy extra hay just in case we have a particularly dry summer and the pastures don't keep everyone fed as long as we like. Living on a farm has taught us that it's good to think ahead and have a Plan B. I guess that's a good lesson for just about everything!

An evening walk around the farm - for Frank

2009-07-09T19:58:00.000-07:00

Hi Sweetheart! I took the camera around on my evening tour of our little farm tonight. The sun was at a low angle, so they're not the best, but you get the idea!

I got most of the garden weeded today (didn't get IN the corn or potatoes). Everything is coming along great except the beets that I planted a little late in the season. No worries though, because they can grow well into fall, unlike some of the other veggies.

Walking and watering behind the house, I got a picture of those bad donkeys in the back field. Look how deep it is!! They're going to be disappointed when it's mowed tomorrow.

I can't believe those baby swallows are out of the nest already! I caught two of them taking a little break on the grape arbor. They still have some of their baby fuzz and white beak edges. What brave little babies!

The flowers are growing fairly well in the side garden. The Miracle Grow you put in the waterer seems to be helping. Plants such as these that like shade don't seem to grow as fast as those in full sun. The grape vine is growing like crazy though!

Katie was sitting out on the driveway so I snapped a quick picture of her. She really had a good time helping me weed the garden this morning. She's a good shadow just about every where I go (except she's not allowed with me in by the baby chicks!). Jake was being cagey and wouldn't let me take a picture of him. No surprise there, but he is still alive, I promise!

Sandy was laying out under the plum tree and right when I went to take this picture the chickens had to come see what was going on. Needless to say, this is sure documentation that Sandy is a chicken safe dog. She misses you and your long walks together.

The branch holding all those heavy plums hits me fairly low on my chest now. It's going to be a while until they ripen, though, as they're still as hard and green as can be. I've already alerted the neighbors to prepare for this record crop!

Maddie and Yakki were giving me the cold shoulder because I wasn't quite ready to bring them in for the night. I'll go get them in a minute, the spoiled babies!

The last stop on my tour was to take a picture of the boys. I went down and scrubbed their trough today. I had good pony help, of course. This picture also shows the reason that people with black show horses don't leave them out in the sun of the day. This is the worst sun fading I have ever seen on him. It's been a bright summer I guess!

So that's it for tonight. I'm heading out to feed them their vitamins in a little bit of beet pulp, put the chickens away and turn off the water on the garden. Thanks for all you do around here. It's especially obvious when you're not here doing it! We miss you!

These guys are adorable!

2009-07-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you...watching these guys is 10 times better than any show on TV! Momma already has her hands full trying to keep all five of these precocious little fluff balls within a comfortable zone around her. It is so adorable when momma wants them to eat...she lowers her head to the food and makes this specific clucking sound and they all crowd around her beak and look at what she's pointing at. I had the food in a nice little pan, but momma got in and scratched it all out. The babies must have been watching, because later I saw these two day old little peepers scratching the food like the big chickens do! Sooo cute!

I was a little concerned because I had seen them eating but had not caught them drinking, but early in the day I was watching them and momma had them close to the water and told them all about it. Look at this little cutie on the left learning to drink! I swear I change that water like 5 times a day, but with them scratching and throwing stuff all over the place, they are making the water dirty as quickly as I can change it. Darn little peepers!

Yesterday, the first day after everybody had hatched, momma already had them out of the dog crate and exploring a small part of the stall and finding the food and water. I was kind of concerned what they would do at night, but when I did the last check on them, she had them all back in the dog crate so I locked them in for the night. I like that as they are doubly safe. I was hoping she'd do the same tonight and, sure enough, she did. So it seems like we have a routine already. I tell you, this is addictive. If I had room for more chickens, I'd do this more often! Frank is now breathing a sigh of relief that I will control myself!

Counting to FIVE or First Day Out!

2009-07-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

New baby chicks!

2009-07-06T17:31:00.001-07:00

I was hoping this day was coming, but wasn't sure until I saw evidence that the eggs under my broody hen were going to hatch. Yesterday afternoon the eight eggs under black momma chicken started to peep and show signs of the little ones inside trying to make their way outside! Luckily, momma hen is letting me check and now I can tell you there are five fluffy white chicks hatched, two chicks (one black and one white) that went to chick heaven, and one egg yet with no signs of hatching so it might be a dud. The 5 little fluff balls are warm under momma, but I caught this little face peeking out:

The eggs were from another farm where they have a rooster who actually can fertilize the hens (unlike tiny little Colonel Sanders here!). On that farm they have white, red and black hens. They also have two white and one barred rock rooster, so any combination of parents is possible. It's funny that all the chicks are white, especially since all the other hens on our farm are colored. We'll always be able to tell which ones were new in 2009!

Keep your fingers crossed that we get at least two or three hens from this hatch, and that any roosters we get will be sweet enough to keep around, at least for a while. Of course I will post many more pictures as soon as momma gets them out and about, but I think that will still be a day or two as they are so tiny and there is that one egg left she's trying to hatch.

It's not always fun on the farm...

2009-07-03T14:38:00.001-07:00

When you have as many lives here on the farm, inevitably there is going to be some loss. When we got back from Oregon, we found that one of my favorite hens was dead in the coop. I picked her up and she was nice and heavy, not dehydrated, her comb was still bright red and she was not egg bound or had any evidence of parasites. In fact, other than the fact that she was dead, I couldn't find anything wrong with her. She looked like she was sitting down peacefully and had not been gone for long at all. Poor sweet girl. You would think with a dozen chickens, that losing one would hardly be noticed, but this hen was quiet and calm and a wonderful layer. I am definitely missing her.

She was always interested in what was going on around the farm, including what might be going on in the house as well! The australorp hens (and Sophie) are more assertive, but you would always find this one just behind them, waiting to see if anything good was coming.

Any time the minis were staked in the yard, this chicken was almost always by Yakki. Maybe she was waiting for him to scare up some bugs or worms. This hen was only a little over three years old, and while reaching the end of her steady egg production, she could still have given us a few eggs a week for a while yet.

I hope to have an announcement of some new additions on Monday or Tuesday, but I'm only about 50% confident of the outcome, so I'll keep it to myself for now. This picture above (off the internet) might give you an idea what we're watching and waiting for...oh, and it's not the puppy, although that would be fun too! So stay tuned!

A trip to the beach

2009-07-02T06:19:00.001-07:00

Most of you know, but in case you don't...Frank and I spent 12 years living at the Oregon coast prior to living in Arlington these past four years. There was a lot to love about living there and even a few things that were not that great (Oregon politics, the remoteness). My mom still lives there so we took a long weekend after school got out to go visit her and enjoy some time on the beach we so loved.

This is the approach to our favorite stretch of beach in Seal Rock, Oregon. We have spent many hours here gathering mussels, razor clamming and just plain soaking up the wonders of the ocean on long walks. There is also a good agate bed about 1/2 a mile down that I spent many hours looking for little treasures.

While these beaches have plenty of sand, there are also big rock formations just off shore. These rocks are so beautiful, especially when the big waves crash over them. Unfortunately, that is hard to catch with a digital camera, but even with this little bit of water flowing over, you can get an idea of how beautiful that is.

Vacationing children (young and old alike!) at the beach often build forts and other kinds of structures out of the log debris that has washed up past the high tide line. I thought this shelter was particularly well thought out with its thatched roof. Bon fires can also be seen in the evening scattered along the beach. What a good memory to have...sitting around the fire, listening to the crashing waves, the clear, starry sky, and good times with friends and family.

Here is another picture of the rocks just off shore. Vistas like this can be seen all up and down along the Oregon and northern California coast.

Here Frank and Sandy take one last walk on the beach the very morning we head back home to our little farm. Frank walked the dogs on the beach almost every day we lived here. I am sure that is mostly responsible for Sandy being a very healthy 13 and a half. Carly was not quite as athletic as Sandy, and, knowing where it was the right spot, sometimes she would plunk her chubby butt down and wait for Sandy and Frank to walk ahead for a while then turn back toward her. We're not sure when we're going to be back at the beach again, so we are glad we got this picture to remember all the good times on the beach they had together.

Now that we are back home, there are lots of things going on. Hay is IN for the winter, with 300 bales of good local hay jammed in every space possible. It is so good to have that taken care of and know that I have enough hay to keep them happy all winter regardless of how rough (and last winter was ROUGH) it is. I still need two tons of Teff hay for Maddie, as well as two tons of pelleted bedding. I'll have that delivered in late July, although I have no idea where I'm going to put it!

Frank and I went to a U-pick strawberry place yesterday and had a lot of fun, but of course forgot to bring the camera! We had such a good time finding those little red jewels hidden in the greenery. We kind of went nuts and picked more than we needed for fresh eating, so we've already given some away and will freeze what's not eaten in the next day or so.

We're off today to Vancouver, Brittish Columbia for a bike ride around Stanley Park, and to eat some sushi at a new place we discovered. We love being so close to this cosmopolitan city and visit it quite often. The camera is kind of big to bring on the ride, so no pictures today. Talk to you again soon!

Just random stuff...

2009-06-24T16:31:00.001-07:00

Frank and I are getting ready to head out for a long weekend at the coast, so we had a little list of things we wanted to accomplish before we left. One of those things was to weed the garden, as we didn't want it to get away from us while we were gone. Well, there are a number of volunteer potato plants around the edge of the garden that we have left alone, but we needed to weed around them, and that's when we dislodged the first potato of year. Cute huh? So Frank mounded up a bunch of new dirt around these plants and maybe when we get home we can have a meal of new potatoes and peas. Yum.

Seems like we put up a lot of pictures of everyone else on the farm, but poor Jake the hunter kitty gets left out. I spotted him out in the field that we are resting behind our house, so I snapped a picture of him. I called him to see if he would look at me for the picture, but he was focused on planning his assassinations for the day and ignored me.

I have mentioned a few times that I use the neighbor's pasture for the boys in the summer. One nice thing about this pasture is that he has a pasture shelter built on the side of his shop that they boys really like on sunny days. On overcast days, like today, they can be found napping just outside the shelter, always with one standing and the other laying, taking turns. These boys are best friends and are happy to be together and stand guard while the other naps more soundly.

The donkeys are currently in our upper pasture by the barn while the lower one rests. In this pasture is a huge cedar tree that is just perfect for napping under. Here is Daisy showing how it's done.

We are taking the camera to Oregon with us to capture some of the fun we'll be having there. Of course Frank and Sandy will be spending some serious time on the beach, and Mom and I will be visiting a friend's goat dairy to play with the baby goats and I wanted to get some clamming in at low tide. Who knows what other kinds of trouble we'll be getting into!? We wouldn't be able to do this without such a good housesitter taking care of things here at home. Thanks Leah!! Catch you guys later!

One year ago today...

2009-06-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

It was one year ago today that the sweetest dog ever left this earth but not our hearts. Carly was truly a special dog that I still think of every day, and probably will the rest of my life. I wanted a way to memorialize her and after much though and running it by Frank, on this one year anniversary I had this done:

I got a little paw print on my foot because we always called her a "foot dog" as she was always either laying on our feet, or right by them with one of her front paws resting on one of our feet. So now her foot is on me forever.

Here is a close up. It's hard to tell scale, but it would totally be obscured if you put a dime over it, so it's tiny. I wanted you to be able to see the little heart, too. The tattooist did a very good job and had his own memorial tattoo of his dog, so he understood why I wanted to do this. The actually tattooing I wouldn't call painful, just irritating. It's so small it went quite quickly too. So that's my memorial to the best Wiggly Girl that there ever was...and now she'll be with me until I leave this earth too.

A lettuce bouquet!

2009-06-07T09:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah! I finally have a picture to show you of the first harvest out of our garden this year...LETTUCE! Actually, we've been eating it for over a week now, but I was reflecting on the beauty of all the different varieties and thought it would make a beautiful bouquet to show you! And this bouquet tastes even better than it looks! I asked Frank to take a picture of me in there too, just for posterity's sake, and to keep the mommas happy. So here you go!

You might look back just one blog and see the little potato plants just starting to greet the world after their long winter sleep. Well, I wanted to show you how much they've grown in just a couple of weeks. We planted another row a week later after not being able to find the Yukon Golds we wanted to try, so we went with the last of the seed potatoes of the proven winner from last year. This is double what we planted last year, so we will feel comfortable taking out some new potatoes without cutting into what we will keep for use throughout the year. Oh yeah, of course the boys had to get their mugs in the picture too.

I totally forgot to mention in any of my blogs that last year we planted a table grape plant last spring. It did OK last year, but this spring it is just going nuts! Frank built this lovely arbor/pergola for them to climb on and they'll be up there in no time. Our neighbor grows wine grapes and he's been a big help will all things grape. This variety is one that is a blush red, and is grown for just eating, so it should be nice and sweet. (I forgot the Christmas lights were still up there until I saw this picture! OOPS! Better get those off before the plant reaches that far and they're stuck there forever!)

Here is a bunch of little tiny baby grapes! They are so cute!! I would say I can find about 15 bunches of these on the vine so far. What a nice treat should they make it all the way to eating. At least the hens can't reach them!

I am a little late planting the annuals in the side garden (this is also where the grape plant is based) but at least I bought the flowers the other day and am ready to put them in. Really hot weather (for us at least) prevented me from putting them in the last few days, but it's cooled down nicely now and it will be a lovely thing to do this afternoon. The only bad part is that I have to put up some kind of barrier to keep the hens out, at least until the plants are well established. The little white fence we bought to try did NOT do the trick, so I might be back to dumb chicken wire and stakes for a while. Oh well, the chickens think everything is theirs unless I discourage them. Good thing they're so entertaining and lay us eggs all the time!

Lily and Daisy have been moved to the upper pasture that had been rested for about 6 weeks. They are happy to have access to their favorite cedar tree and be by the road so they can watch all the neighborhood happenings. The lower field is resting now and probably won't be used now until some time in July. It is nice to be able to let pastures rest, especially on such a small property. Having the neighbor's field and now another little pasture for the boys is allowing me to rotate everybody to some degree. I am very thankful.

Maddie was so peacefully eating some grass in the front yard in front of the blooming rhododendron bush that I got the camera and took a few pictures. She has been through a lot and it's nice to see her healthy and if anything, a little beefy for once. She is such a sweet little mare. I have told Frank that if I ever had an extended illness and was in the hospital, I expected him to sneak her in to see me!

So today is a lovely Sunday. Nice and cool again, like it should be!! We went to church last night, so today we're headed out for a bike ride and to visit the farmer's market in Everett, about 20 miles away. Most of today's chores are done, so all that's left is fun! Hope you have a wonderful week! Last full week of school for us...WHOOO HOO!

A Farm Girl's Best Friend

2009-05-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

This blog is in honor of the hardest working people on our little farm, and one of my favorite things in the world...BEES! I value these industrious little workers so greatly; they make all the fruit we have growing here possible!

So today I was out weeding our 'salad garden' that has our early crops of lettuce and peas, as well as our perennial herbs. In the corner is a chive plant that is in full bloom now and the bees absolutely love it. So I got inspired to honor these little aerodynamic wonders and ran to get the camera.

These bees were so intent on their task today that they paid no mind to me. I weeded my bed all around this plant and even leaned into and across the chives a few times and when I got close they just flitted to another flower. I couldn't get a good picture of all of them at once, but I counted at least 20 bees working this plant over.

I wanted to show a few pictures of the fruit that they are responsible for pollinating. Here is a picture of little baby blueberries. This is the 2nd year for these plants and they are doing well after kind of being in shock from their transplanting last year. We'll have to be netting them fairly soon so the chickens don't get them before we do! Darn chickens again!

We have two types of plum trees here on our property. I can't even tell you which is my favorite! This is a picture of the baby prune plums. They are the little dusty purple egg-shaped ones that are sooo sweet. This is the kind that prunes are made from. I tried it one year, but my dryer didn't dehydrate them fast enough and they molded. I'll have to come up with Plan B this year.

I don't know the name of the other type of plum that we have, but this one is red, round and baseball sized. When it's really ripe the flesh turns from yellow to a deep ruby red. These are the kind that when you take a bite out of them, there is no way to avoid the juice that runs down your face. I have to give a lot of these away as there is no way to use them all when they're ripe. I also have a wonderful recipe for a plum tart that I will make several times before the season is over! Of course I'll take pictures of that too!!

We also have two mature apple trees that we were blessed with when we bought this property. Here is an example of the apples that are setting now. I was concerned that the bees might not be able to pollinate the apples as the weather was so bad (rainy and cold) when the apple trees were blooming, but apparently they got the job done. The horses will be especially happy for this!

Even thought I don't even have everything even planted in the garden yet, everything I have planted so far is coming up. Here is radishes on the right and bok choy on the left. They are both cold season crops so I was able to get them in earlier. I was also tickled to see that the corn is up. I hope to get a lot more things in tomorrow including beets, broccoli, cucumbers, leeks, basil, parsley...and maybe some bought tomato plants. Sounds like fun!

Frank and I always chuckle about the things we're really lame at. One thing that we can't seem to do wrong, no matter what dumb thing we do to them, is grow potatoes. Like our friend Don Duty said to us once, "They WANT to grow" and we have discovered that this is true. We saved potatoes from last year's crop to use as seed potatoes this year (the first time we have ever done that) and so far they are growing well. We like this variety especially for its good shelf life; we're eating the last of them tonight with dinner, NINE months after they were harvested. WOW.

Of course I can't have a blog without a picture or two of my good horses. The neighbor has a strip of land along his driveway that borders our pasture and he came by and said to fence it off and put the horses on it, which we jumped right on. Here is Bailey enjoying the riches of this new grass. In the thick of it, the grass is up well past his belly, and LB can't even be seen unless he raises his head! They were overgrazing the short grasses in their regular pasture and ignoring the long stuff, so this forces them to eat the more mature stuff and gives their pasture a rest.

There is nothing better than having a big friend who will provide shade for you when you need to take a nap. I actually see this happening just about every day and I love it. These guys are such good friends; they pretty much do everything together. I often have to walk them down about 100 yards of road from their pasture to the barn (when the farrier is coming, etc) and I lead them together, Bailey on the right and Little Bit on the left. Occasionally, a car will come by and talk to us, exclaiming how difficult it must be to lead two horses, especially that BIG one! I just chuckle and tell them first, that they know they better behave or they'd be in BIG trouble. And if one of them actually was to give me any grief, it surely wouldn't be the big one!!

Well, I hoped you liked hearing about what's going on here at Red Pony Ranch. It feels good that school is winding down for the year and we're looking forward to our first summer up here in Washington that we're not teaching summer school. That means we'll have lots of time to take a few trips including one to the beach (my Mom's) right after school gets out, then driving to Wisconsin after the 4th of July and then off to San Diego in mid-August. We're also looking forward to a visit from Frank's brother and his lovely wife. Our doors are always open and we love to feed people, so feel free to give us a call and come on by!

Garden time!

2009-05-18T20:52:00.001-07:00

The time has finally come to get to working in the garden!! We are so excited about the all the possibilities of good things to grow and eat! So far we have planted red potatoes (we want some Yukon Golds still), corn, zucchni, patty pan squash, carrots, bok choy and radishes. There is a lot of space left for more things like beets, broccoli, cukes and other things I can't think of right now. You might notice that I didn't say anything about tomatoes or peppers. Well, our climate is a bit cool for those crops, but I still might try a couple of plants of each yet again and hope for a warmer than normal summer!

Our garden shed/pumphouse has a lovely southwest facing side that is nice and warm. I've always wanted to plant something up against it and this turned out to be the year to do it. I found a type of bean that is called Yard Long Bean, which is a Chinese variety and it sounded like a lot of fun to try, but it's a big climber. So Frank so nicely dug up about 5 feet of sod up against the shed to make a little bed for these beans.

Here is the finished bed. I had some concrete edging that I found in the dirt under the cedar and had it in the pile to go to the dump, but it turned out to be exactly enough to edge this bed so it will be easier to weed and Frank can weed-whack up against it nicely. I've got the beans planted in there already although I had to lay some tomato cages on it until they come up well so those darn chickens don't go digging in there. They do love a good patch of dirt to look for worms and bugs in, but not my garden!!

I like this shot because it shows a little bit of everything. The camera is facing northwest, looking past the corner of the garden and at the shed with the new little bean bed. To the right of the shed and before the house you can see one of our nice blueberry plants. There are 4 of these in a row between the two buildings, as well as another row of young raspberry plants. To the left of the shed and further back you can see some red boards with a little white fence (to keep the darn peckers out!) that is what we call our salad/herb garden. It's only 8x8, but it's one we can work earlier than the big garden, so we can put in lettuce and peas nice and early. We also have our herbs in there up against the house: thyme, oregano, rosemary (my favorite) and I'll put the basil out in there once the tender starts are big enough.

Here is Frank filling his bird feeder. This picture was taken facing west-southwest and you can see the previous picture from another angle. He fills that bird feeder every day, and the little birds eat quite a bit of it, but also spill quite a bit of seed, too. Hmmm, guess who runs like maniacs when they're let out of the coop to see if there are any good treats under there? Boy are those hens entertaining!!

This property came with a number of wonderful rhododendron plants that are just now beginning to bloom. They are so beautiful and really are the signal of spring here in the western parts of Washington and Oregon. I need to cut some and bring them into the house.

So there's what we've been up to lately. We're having a lovely spring rain tonight that is watering all those new seeds into the garden. We're supposed to have at least a five day sunny streak when this is over, so things should be popping up all over the garden soon! Of course I'll blog about that, too! Hope you can stand the anticipation!!

A Dentist who makes house calls?

2009-05-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

It's the HORSE dentist! I was very lucky that I could get Dr. Julie Eihl to come to our farm and take care of our horse's dental needs. Some are getting older and some just need to be checked to make sure there are no sharp points digging into their cheeks. I became convinced of the necessity of good equine dental care many years ago when I saw a wonderful equine dentist literally save the lives of several older horses at the barn where I boarded. Since then, I make sure that they get seen on a regular (every one or two year) basis.

First we tackled what we knew was going to be the hardest: Miss Lily. Donkeys are notoriously bad with sedation (you give them a lot and they STILL are not as docile as you want and need!) and Lily was no exception. This picture was taken after the fact, because frankly, it was a donkey rodeo. Even under as much sedation as we could safely give her, twice she took a head-full of equipment with her out of the stall and down the aisle. We were smart enough to have closed the barn doors or she would have been GONE. Dr. Eihl was a trooper though, and hung in there to help poor Lily, who really did have some problems that needed addressing. She was getting a 'smile' where her front teeth didn't meet straight across, so that caused her sideways grinding motion to be messed up and thus messing up all her back teeth as well. She got as much of that fixed as possible, and we should be almost back to what should be normal next time in about a year. This picture is Daisy getting a tying lesson while poor Lily sleeps off her sedation.

OK, on to the easy guys. Maddie is always so sweet and this time was no exception. She had lost a tooth last time so this time was important to make sure the opposing tooth wasn't growing too long. The good news was that it wasn't, but that means that because of her age (19), her teeth aren't growing any more. I'll have to watch and make sure that she is able to deal with her hay, and if not, begin supplementing with equine senior and more beet pulp.

Yakki was next and he didn't need much other than just removing the sharp points all horses inevitably get because of the way they chew. These points gouge into their cheeks and make eating painful. Dr. Eihl said that her work on Yak would make his utilization of food more efficient as well. Great...just what we need on Mr. Tubby!!

Little Bit lived up to his 'easy keeper' status by not needing any dental attention at all. Luckily, he doesn't have a problem with people putting their hands way in his mouth even when not sedated, so she was able to reach in and feel everything and was surprised to recommend that he be skipped this year. She said that sure doesn't happen very often!

We saved the biggest, and easiest mouth for last. Dr. Eihl was happy to have so much room to move around in finally! Bailey had the usual sharp points, as well as two big cavities in the same upper 'molar' on each side (sorry, I don't know what they're called in horses). We had an interesting discussion about this, with Dr. Julie pointing out that these almost always are a result of a defect in the tooth (hence it in the PAIR of teeth) and can be filled, but it's not always successful and not necessary unless the tooth looks to be heading toward an abcess. Not treating will eventually result in the loss of the tooth. She felt that at his age (17), by the time he would lose the tooth, he probably would be pretty worn down in all the other teeth and on senior food anyway. Luckily, their cavities are not like our and don't hurt. And I would know, because Bailey is a big WIMP and tells me whenever there is something that hurts on him.

So all in all it was a good visit. Dr. Eihl consented to coming back again, even after experiencing the donkey rodeo. Our checkbook is considerably lighter, but it is a good feeling to know that no one has sharp teeth jabbing them in the cheeks and they are aging as well as can be expected as far as their teeth go. Have you had YOUR teeth checked lately!!??

Lovely Spring

2009-05-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

The grass is growing like crazy and we have had to be mowing about every 5 days to keep up with it. In between times we stake out our fat little lawn mowers for a couple of hours a day. Closest to the camera is sweet Maddie, then the chickens closer to the barn, and if you look in the upper left you'll see Yakki's rear end. I love seeing all those blooms on the apple trees! I'm a little nervous, however, as a pretty windy storm is poised to come in tonight. I sure hope it doesn't blow all those blossoms off before they have a chance to be pollinated and make little baby apples. The other apple tree is a later variety and isn't blooming yet, so all is not lost should the worst happen tonight.

Of course in this early spring there is not much to harvest. The hens, however, continue to be quite prolific and I had to take the last of last year's leeks out of the garden prior to it being tilled, so I contemplated what to do with these wonderful ingredients...hmm....sounds like time for a frittata! A frittata is like a quiche but does not have the crust. We like them a lot and you can basically put anything in them you like.

Here I am sauteeing the leeks and some red pepper in a little bacon fat that was left when I crisped up some bacon to put in there as well. Once these veggies cooked down a little, I added a few sliced mushrooms as well and let them cook a while. Once all this cooled down, I added it to a dozen eggs, the bacon bits, a bunch of chopped raw broccoli and some milk. I usually would have put some cubed cheese in there, but I wanted to keep the calories down for now.

This is the finished frittata. It sure turned out very well and it didn't take long for us to polish it off! I think we had it for breakfast AND dinner for a couple of days! It is so fun to make things out of ingredients that we mostly didn't have to buy at the store.

Well, my favorite wheelbarrow, the big metal one the barn construction guys left behind, finally gave up the ghost by totally rusting out around all the bolts that held the bucket to the frame. So when I was at Costco they had one there for $50 so I picked up all the pieces and brought it home. I opened up the back of my van, moved a folding table out and set up shop putting this darn thing together. I wish I would have gotten a picture of all the assorted parts laying in the van and on the table, but take my word for it that eventually it all came together well with nary an extra piece left over to ponder where it should have gone.

This is the finished product. It took me about 45 minutes to put it together, but it was a lovely day and I enjoyed working outside. I am very happy with the quality of this wheelbarrow, especially since I didn't expect much for $50. The only thing that is taking some getting used to is that it's about 2.5 inches taller than my other wheelbarrows, so occassionally I'm bouncing a forkful of pony poop off the side of it rather than going in! Nothing worse than having to pick up poop TWICE! Hahaha. My next big wheelbarrow project is to marry the good frame from the old metal wheelbarrow with the plastic bucket off another old wheelbarrow with a rickety frame and bad wheel!

Another project that we forgot to get pictures of when it was happening was the cleaning and fertilizing of what we call the upper pasture; the one that immediately surrounds the barn. With the boys in the neighbor's pasture, and the donkeys locked in the lower pasture on our property, it allowed us to work on this field by picking up poopie piles and then putting down a good fertilizer. We'll let it rest for at least a month, then put the donkeys up there and lock them off the lower pasture which will get a similar treatment and allowed to rest.

It's hard to believe that 'baby' Daisy will be 3 in July. She is such a sweet donkey without a mean bone in her body and so willing to please. Here is a picture that Frank took of her resting in the sun up by the barn. Even sleeping she's got such a sweet look on her face. We can't even imagine what this place would be like without this precious girl.

Well, as usual, I am apologizing for the significant interval between blogs. There is always something going on, but it's usually quite mundane and I think it would make for boring reading!! Regardless, my readers tell me they just like to know what's happening here, mundane and boring or not, so I will keep on as long as people want to read it. This Friday a veterinarian who specializes in equine dental work will be here to see everyone, so I will be sure to get some pictures of that. Frank and I have also gotten a Wii and have become quite competitive, so I'll try to figure out how to get a picture of us being goofy with that as well. So until next time....have a wonderful time enjoying spring and God bless!

Spring things...

2009-04-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

We are having an absolutely lovely spring weekend here! The temps are supposed to reach nearly 70 each of the next three days and we are thrilled! We have a lot of spring things that need doing around our little farm and the pleasant weather makes us much more motivated! Here are a few pictures I just took today of some things that are happening here on Red Pony Ranch.

You might remember from two blogs ago (on March 17th) I posted a picture of our rhubarb just peeking out of the ground. Well, here it is today! I am so happy that it's doing so well, as you might remember me talking about its rough life the past two seasons. One thing we did to protect it is to use a plastic barrel sawed in half to keep the chickens out and us from mowing it. I do realize that this is not the most attractive landscaping feature, but it is functional for now. Frank says I should pull it off and just put it back on when the chickens are out, but I bet those leaves will spread out and I won't be able to get it back over the plant. I guess I need to graduate to Plan B. I would like to pick a couple of stems, but I also think I should let this plant get strong. Decisions, decisions.

We are very blessed to have a number of fruit trees. This is a picture of one of our plum trees blooms. I love this tree as it produces those really big, round, red-skinned freestone plums that are soo sweet and juicy. We also have an italian prune plum that makes wonderful fruit too! We also have two apple trees that were thoughtfully planned by some previous owner so that one bears early and the other bears when the first one is done. This keeps us in fresh apples for about three months, and up until Christmas with the ones we put in our unheated shop or barn. New last year to our farm were two hazelnut trees and a peach tree. They seem to be doing fine so far.

Every year we dump a bunch of manure on the garden. Here it is in the ugly stage before our neighbor with the tractor and really big tiller comes and makes it a thing of beauty. If you look on the right you can see what's left of our leeks from last season. It was fun to have them there all winter and go get one when I needed one. Leeks seem to do better here than onions as they have a better tolerance for the moist soil. Eric will probably come to till the week before Mother's Day, as that is when we traditionally start planting. He does a number of gardens in our neighborhood on the same day. It is so nice to have a neighbor with a tractor and all the implements! We are happy to pay him to do this and other tractor things around the farm as it keeps us from having to buy one of our own!

You've heard me mention a few times that "The Boys" have a summer pasture that we lease from the neighbors. What I really wanted was a picture of them grazing in this pastoral setting, but what I found when I had the camera was them napping in their shelter. Oh well, you take what you can get! There is a nice shelter that they boys are happy to share, and I am happy that I can see it from my back porch so it's easy to check on them during the day. I can see most of the pasture from up here except when they're grazing on the part that is behind the neighbor's house. They like having the boys around and not having to keep the pasture mowed, although the owner does go out twice a year with his brush hog just to knock the tall stuff down that they're not going to eat anyway. We are very thankful for this pasture and for such good neighbors.

Another sign of spring is when little Sophie the chicken decides to stop thinking she's a rooster (she crows all winter, just like Colonel!) and start laying eggs again. She doesn't seem to like laying in the nest boxes in the coop, and since she can get out of the run (for the life of me I have never caught her) she prefers the barn for her laying. I found these two eggs on the hay stack this morning. She's going to be unhappy when I have to feed that hay!

The big girls, however, have been laying like gang-busters for a couple of months now. We get between 6 and 9 eggs every day. Of course we can't use this many, so enjoy giving them away to people who now realize the huge difference in taste and quality between home raised and store bought eggs. I don't think I could ever go back.

Well, hopefully spring is springing at your place too. The clerk at my local co-op tells me there is a HUGE upswing in the number of people who are planning and planting gardens. I think the economy gets tough and people learn to be a little more self-sufficient. I know I sure think that way, even when things aren't tight. It just makes sense to grow some good stuff of your own. We sure enjoy it, as well as sharing the surplus with others who are not so fortunate to have the space and resources we have. We are truly blessed.

Spring break activities

2009-04-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

Like most Washington and Oregon teachers, spring break means getting out of the rain and the gloom for some sunny and warm destination. This year we made reservations with our time-share in Indio, California, which is in the desert near Palm Springs. The 2 hour flight from Seattle to Los Angles makes the whole west coast seem close for getting away! Ordinarily, we would have flown into Palm Springs, but we got cheap flights into LA and rented a car there and drove the rest of the way.

The 'rest of the way' turned out to be about 2.5 hours, with an In-N-Out stop along the way, of course! We had to use a few highways to get out of the LA area, but eventually settled on to I10 and followed the sign you see above. Since we felt like it had been so wet at home we were growing webs between our toes, some desert sounded like a really good idea! The metro area around LA is HUGE, and we didn't really get to fairly rural landscapes until about 1.5 hours into the drive.

We pulled into our impressive resort about 4:30pm. This picture is of it when it was fairly new; the vegetation is quite lush and well manicured now. (We forgot to bring our camera, so all these pictures are 'borrowed' from internet sources!) Our unit was up to the usual high WorldMark standards and was a wonderful place to relax after hours floating in the lazy river! Boy was that fun!! We found a couple of pool noodles and used them instead of the inner tubes, as they let us float along lower in the water. Our friend Jay joined us there that evening from his home in Phoenix, and we enjoyed a late dinner of steak, caesar salad, garlic bread and mexican beer.

The next day we decided to check out the area. This part of california grows 90% of the country's dates, so we made sure to visit a couple of farms and even got to watch a video that showed the whole production, as well as taste a 'famous' date shake! It was just one of those things you had to try, but probably don't need to have again! Apparently, date trees are either male or female, and don't seem to be able to find a love connection on their own, so someone has to do it for them. I want to see that guy's resume!

Then we ventured on further south to a place we've always wanted to see: The Salton Sea. It was featured in a book we read and our interest was piqued. I know this picture makes it look fairly nice, but truly it is a foul smelling body of water ringed with decaying signs of a life long past. Frank said it was apocalyptic, I thought it reminded me of scenes out of the original planet of the apes. The weirdest thing was a playground's metal slide, only two feet of which was sticking out of the sand; the jungle gym similarly buried. Now, to be sure, we didn't venture much along the rim of the lake, and probably should have, but it was getting to be a very hot afternoon and the pool back at the resort was beckoning.

The next day we ventured out to Palm Springs to take a tram to the top of Mt. San Jacinto (pronounced HaCINtoe). The views from the top (8600 feet) were breathtaking, but the snow significantly restricted our ability to take the trails and see the 360 degree view. I guess in the summer it is significantly cooler at the top, and the locals go up there to escape the desert heat. Good idea!

Now of course I am not mentioning every time we were in the pool, as it was several times a day, starting at 8am with a reverse-lazy-river walk, and followed by dips every few hours until 10pm at night. Of course we had to break for food, and our way of thinking was: When in southern CA, one must eat real mexican food. Frequently. Copiously. We had some of the best, freshest quacamole I have ever had. I could make a meal of just that, but of course there was always something else coming!

We tried to break out of chosing only the 'safe' things like chicken enchiladas and burritos and try some new things and we were mostly successful with that. We tried chili verde made with pork and a tomatillo sauce, and chili colorado with beef and a poblano pepper sauce. Frank also tried tamales and flautas for the first time, and I don't remember all what Jay had, but it was washed down with good mexican beer!

Well, all good vacations come to an end, and there are always chores to be done even on a little farm such as ours. It's time to move the boys to their summer pasture, but not before we fix the minor damage from winter storms and restore the electric fence to it's pony-deterring shock (Bailey wouldn't even think to cross a piece of dead fence laying on the ground!) Here is Frank moving one of the small trees that didn't survive the winter.

There were numerous places where large branches had come down as well and were easy enough to lift off the fence and chuck back into the woods or the gully. We were happy to find that none of the string fence broke...

so all we had to do was tighten the fence, as you see me doing above, and also lower all the insulators about a foot in some places. We discovered that the power company had come and cleaned out a lot of brush under their power lines, but apparently that vegetation created a natural fenceline that the electric fence just reinforced. With the vegetation gone now, the electric fence was much more critical and needed to be lowered to be more pony proof. Of course, as many of my friends who have ponies know, nothing is truly pony-proof so we just do our best. Those darn ponies do keep us on our toes!

One thing we did discover is that with the newly brush-cut easement, the boys have a lovely river view! Some people pay good money for this! We have a similar view from our house about 300 yards to the north from our home toward the Olympic Mountain range. We are so blessed to live in such a wonderful place...but it IS fun to get away once in a while and see something so totally different! It's all beautiful in its own way, but, in my opinion, better to live here and just VISIT the desert when we start feeling like we're getting a little moldy!

Just random things....

2009-03-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful picture of Frank's terrific mom, Dolores or Dee. She was visiting us and her daughter Jean (Frank's sister) took this shot which I just love. She is so happy here!! We'll be driving to Wisconsin this July to go visit her as she isn't doing any big traveling anymore. Who could blame her at 90 years old! I just love my mother-in-law and am so blessed to have her in my life.

We are about a week from putting the boys out on their other pasture. Once that happens, the chores will get much easier around here! No more coming into the barn every night to poop it up!! There is a nice pasture shelter in their field for those rainy days. It also means that they will be totally sustained by this pasture and no longer need hay. I will take them a little grain with their vitamins every evening and check them over, but they will be happy to be out 24/7. The donkeys stay home on our pasture as they would not be able to keep their girlish figures on that kind of grass. The minis, as usual, stay on their dry lot...those poor things!

I always get such a chuckle out of goofy answers kids give on tests, and this one is no exception. However, by this time of the year the jokes start wearing a little thin, so Spring Break hits just at the right time. We got smart and realized that we could use some sunny and hot weather, so we got a condo near Palm Springs for a few days...so we're OFF!! Kacey will be staying here taking care of everybody, and we'll be floating along the lazy river and eating some real mexican food. Can't wait! We're leaving tomorrow, so hasta la vista baby!!

Spring is really here!!

2009-03-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

First, my apologies again to my faithful readers, a few of whom were kindly chiding me to bring the blog up to date. I was complaining that I didn't feel like I had anything new to say, but was reminded that even an update of the simple things is enough. So here are some simple things!

Now I used to think that Fall was always my favorite season, but living on a little farmette is making me appreciate spring very much as well.

We do not have any tulips or daffodils on our property, but we do have one other plant that often is the first to show some life in spring. Here is our rhubarb coming up for the second year now. This poor rhubarb has had a rough life. The first year we planted it, Frank kept running over it with the mower. I finally drove a stake by it so he could see where it was and that solved the problem for that year. The next year I noticed the rhubarb really struggling to get strong and the leaves looked really tattered and I couldn't figure it out. Then one day I noticed that chickens like rhubarb too!! (When the chickens are bad, we refer to them as The Peckers. Bad Peckers!) So this spring I have it protected so hopefully it'll be the near-weed that it's supposed to be!

I know this is not a good picture, but it is showing another sign of spring here at Red Pony Ranch: the blueberry bushes are budding. We planted these lovely bushes just last year, so seeing that they made it through a fairly harsh winter for these parts is a relief. We planted 5 and 6 year old plants, so we should have a decent crop this year. That is if we can keep the peckers out of there! Darn Peckers!

Last year we also planted two hazelnut/filbert trees. These trees need two to polinate each other. These little hangy things are made in late fall and hang on the trees all winter and these are what spread the pollen back and forth. We haven't gone a full season with them, so I am interested in which part actually becomes the nut. Hopefully this crop will be pecker-proof!

One thing I love to see growing and Frank isn't too crazy about is the GRASS!! That means that my leased pasture is getting ready to for the boys to move over for the rest of spring, all of summer and fall until about mid-October. It feeds them completely, except for their vitamins/supplements during that time. That is a relief to the feed bill, let me tell you! The winter pasture here at home will be fertilized then left to rest and will recuperate in a month or so while the donkeys are sequestered up by the barn. We are very blessed to be able to grow good grass here. The downside is that we have to mow our lawns very frequently, but to me it's worth it.

The other day I was cleaning the barn and my hair kept falling in my face, so I did what most farm girls do and reached for the baling twine and tied it back out of my way. Then I forgot about it. When Frank came in he noticed and got a kick out of my ingenuity and resourcefulness, so he snapped a couple of pictures.

There are many things on our farm that are held together with baling twine, and I'm sure if you have some, you're using it in creative and useful ways as well! We use it quite a bit in our garden to string things that climb and to mark rows while we're planting seeds and waiting for them to germinate. I heard you can even jury-rig a fan belt in an emergency! Hopefully I won't have to test that one!

Spring?

2009-03-08T08:40:00.001-07:00

I noticed that there is a theme to these pictures today: I took them all from inside the house! Now I am outside a LOT, obviously, but sometimes it's fun to stay in my jammies and do what I can without having to get dressed to go outside. Well, today would have needed even more dressing as it SNOWED...AGAIN!! It's been in the mid 50's every day, so who expected this!!??

The good news is that this is one of those good snows that looks so pretty, but you are happy because it's barely 32 degrees and you can be sure it will be gone by noon. My kind of snow!! The horses didn't mind, but Daisy the donkey tried to come back in the barn to her stall for her morning hay! Apparently she's had enough. Sandy had fun running through it, although she brought in a lot of snow balls on her legs to melt on our new carpet! Oh well, I have to remind myself...this is a FARM and it can't stay pristine forever!

Now while I stayed inside keeping warm and drinking coffee, Frank was not too thrilled to be shoveling snow once again. Hopefully this will be IT for the year.

I took this picture of our chickens a few days ago when the weather, obviously, was much nicer. I have no idea why they were so intrigued by what was going on inside the house! Like Frank said, "Uh oh! Now they know where we live!" Those darn donkeys do too, and if we're late for feeding they come and yell into the back door. Who is in charge here, anyway?

I realized that there was yet one pet who had not been featured on our blog: Pete the lovebird. Pete's parakeet friend, Niles, went to bird heaven last week after a nice long life, so we brought Pete out to live in our main living area so he wouldn't be lonely. He's a funny little guy who likes it when there is a lot of activity and noise, especially when we play music fairly loudly and he squawks and whistles along. We thought maybe he needed a new friend, but for now he seems perfectly happy with just us. He has no fear of the cats and tries to run up to them and bite them if they are close to his cage. Luckily, they don't seem to be interested in him at all. Pete loves apples and lettuce and spinach leaves in addition to his regular food. He also loves to take baths, flinging water in about a 4 foot radius from his cage. We love Pete and he brings a lot of enjoyment to our family.

Happy Spring! And to think, I was going to plant some lettuce and peas today!

New Carpet: Doing our part to stimulate the economy!

2009-02-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

Just a little over three years ago we moved into this new mobile home. We were thrilled to be able to have such a nice new house, as this property had a really old one on it when we bought it. However, our budget was really tight so we couldn't upgrade a couple of things like we wanted. So after three years, the standard carpet it came with was really falling apart, even in places where there wasn't any traffic! See just one example below:

So we were in Lowe's one day and wandered by the carpet department and decided, what the heck, and picked out something we liked and the rest is history. I do, however, wish they would have told us about the enormity of practically having to MOVE as all the carpeted areas of the house needed to be totally empty. Good thing we have a big shop that Frank was able to move most of the stuff into. The kitchen, as you can see below, got some of the last minute stuff. It was a total disaster area.

Katie said, "Hey, if we're moving...don't forget to take me!" Actually, she and Jake got locked in the shop for the day too. Pete the lovebird got stuck in the mudroom with his little heater, and Frank stayed home from school (I subbed for him...gotta love double dipping!) and helped some and also took Sandy for a long walk.

We were really blessed to have a nice day for this project. There was some stuff that we used until the last minute that, because of the good weather, we were able to just chuck outside. Here the couch is being guarded by Sandy. The back deck was crowded with office furniture, Frank's recliner and our coffee table.

Needless to say, we are thrilled with our new carpet. The quality is amazing, and it feels so nice to walk on...very squishy! Frank rolled up two equal sized remnants and you can really see the difference between the new and the old. That old piece had never been walked on either, he found it in the back of a closet. Yikes, that was some poor quality stuff!

Here they are side by side for comparison. You can see that even the quality of the backing is different. Those are my toes, by the way.

Luckily, moving back in doesn't seem as difficult as moving everything out. We are doing it stages at a time, with the office (can't live without the computers!), living room and bedroom being a priority today. Of course we're seeing how everything is dusty so each piece gets a good going-over as it comes back in. (Gotta love Swiffer Dusters!) Here Frank is putting our bedstead back together. We bought this set with our summer school money from last summer. It's our first and pretty much only really good furniture. Sandy, as you can see, is providing casual supervision.

OK, here is the new stuff, but let me tell you...IT IS NOT PINK!! These two pictures make it look pink or rosy but it is not. In fact, the wall behind our bed is a very true chocolate brown and it looks pinkish too! If anything, the carpet has an olive-y/gold hue to it. The name was Walnut and it is just what we wanted: a nice warm brown. I have to rethink a few things, like my couch cover which is fairly tan and now seems to be a little too much brown in the living room. I need to add more color! Sure wish I had good decorating sense. Guess I need to watch more HGTV and DIY networks!

So suffice it to say that we are really happy with our new carpet. We also got really good service from Lowe's and their contracted installer. I would definitely recommend them. Now you need to come visit and see it for yourself!

Farmer Jayne

2009-02-21T15:15:00.000-08:00

A long stretch of unusually bright and rain-free days is supposedly coming to an end tomorrow, so it was time to tackle fertilizing my leased pasture. Last year Frank, bless his heart, fertlized it by using a walk-behind spreader over all 4 acres! So this year I opened my big mouth and asked if I could borrow the neighbors pull-behind spreader and they graciously consented. Wow, what a blessing that was to be able to just ride along and get the job done in about 2 hours.

This is the field looking to the south. The horses like to rest in the shade of the treeline at the southern edge of the property.

This is from the same spot in about the middle of the long pasture looking north toward our house. There is a driveway between this leased field and our own property that you can't see except for a little on the left. The red shed is our pumphouse and garden shed. The gray thing is our mobile home. To the left just out of the frame is this pasture owner's large shop onto which he had previously built a nice pasture shelter that the boys (Bailey and Little Bit) share nicely. We are very thankful to have found a pasture so close to our house. We will be able to pasture the boys and the donkeys there for a couple of months this spring to let our winter pasture at our place get fertilized and rested. This will happen in early April.

The actual task of fertilizing went fairly well except for one thing pictured above. Molehills!! Molehills from gigantic, mutant moles that push dirt up into big mounds that are tough to drive over, let alone pull the spreader over with its narrow wheel base. I am happy to report that not once did I dump the contents of the spreader, but I came very close. I liked that from the seat of the lawn tractor I could actually reach the spreader bucket and stabilize it if I needed. But the darn mole hills slowed me down and made my spreading uneven, which drives a person like me nuts.

This is a happy picture showing an EMPTY spreader. I can't count how many times I made the long trip back to my van to open another bag and refill it, but my math actually worked out pretty well and I had only about 3 inches left in the bucket when I completed the field. I went back over some of the more grazed down spots to use it all up. I purchased the fertilizer from our local farmer's co-op. They recommended 21-7-14, so that's what I got. It worked well last year so why mess with a proven system!

Here is a close up of the finished job. I sure hope I applied it in the right quantity! This is actually about as thick as the application got; some spots don't have as much. Maybe one of my farmer friends from Draft Horse Village can tell me next time we chat (Hi Ange and Kari especially!), although there is not too much I can do about it now! I am looking forward to seeing the grass get healthy and long and ready to feed my crew until the end of summer. I love being Farmer Jayne once in a while. Maybe someday I'll get to drive a real tractor!

Starting to feel like spring!

2009-02-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday and today were the kind of days that make you start thinking it's getting pretty darn close to spring! The kind of day where you feel like digging in the dirt and cutting back all the ugly dead stuff on your plants from last year. It was sunny and crisp and in the mid 40's. Wonderful!

So Frank and I decided to tackle the two raised beds we have. We filled them with manure (thanks horses!) and it turned into wonderful 'black gold', but it also cooked down to where they are not full enough any more. Here is the herb garden, with supervisor Katie of course, with the herbs removed so that Frank can move more dirt from our vegetable garden.

Of course our veggie garden is still in its winter phase. You can see where we have dumped some manure (and will continue to dump more) to add more organic material to the soil. Right in front of Frank you can also see the few leeks that are left from last year's crop; and they're still good too! I've been using them all along. Anyway, Frank is mining some good soil to move over to the herb garden. Our neighbor and friend, Eric, will come over with his BIG rototiller (works off the PTO on his tractor) and work it over really well for us in early May.

Of course there is no project on this farm that goes unsupervised. We have discovered that the donkeys are much more adventurous eaters than the horses, so when I trimmed the lavender, I threw it out to them and Lily just munched it down, woody stalk and everything. They also have done an amazing job keeping the blackberries down in their fields. Good donkeys!

We also had digging help as you can see by the dirt on Sandy's nose. Actually, she was digging and sticking her nose into the mole hills. It'd be nice if she'd actually catch one or several, as they are really making a mess of our lawn and pasture. Someone said to try dropping cat turds down their holes. Now that doesn't sound like a fun time to me on many levels, but I'm desperate and just about to try it!

So here's the herb garden put back together. Across the back of the bed we have two kinds of rosemary (my favorite) on each end, and then oregano and thyme between them. We use the front of the bed for early crops like lettuce and peas because they can be planted quite early here, and well before the big garden is even tilled for this season.

These last two pictures show another sign of spring: horse feed and supply quantities that have shrunk over the winter! You might remember (or look back) to my blog entry that shows the hay packed to the rafters. There were 264 bales to be exact, but now there are about 60 of the regular horse hay near the back, and the lighter stuff toward the front is Maddie's teff hay. Those bales are 125 pounds a piece, so I'm not that excited about moving them back even though there is room for them now!

The picture below shows the corner of the barn that holds the pelleted bedding and my extra beet pulp. I bought 8 bags of beet pulp and I'm halfway through the 5th one, so I think I might have over bought as it worked out to using just over one bag a month. Better to have too much than too little! I will not need it past about April 1st when the grass is in. As far as the pelleted bedding goes, I am really happy how my supply has lasted. I started with 120 bags and have 41 left, meaning I've used 2/3's of my supply with only about 6 weeks left before the 4 biggies go outside full time. I should have plenty to get me through the summer with only the mini's coming in at night (so they don't get eaten by cougars!).

One thing I wanted to point out was my new leaf blower! Boy am I having fun with that. Beats the heck out of sweeping the barn and does a much better job! I just start at one end and blow down the aisle to the other end in a corner where I can pick it up! I want to tackle the cobwebs soon, but am afraid of sending big honkin' spiders flying around, so maybe I'll use the vacuum feature instead!

I know that many of my blog readers don't live in as temperate a climate as ours and will be waiting for spring for a couple of months yet. You poor things! Maybe you should come visit! Regardless, I hope you are enjoying your pre-spring weather and dreaming of green things to come.

A Weekend Get-Away

2009-02-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

It is amazing to me how quickly time passes, and how soon this blog gets out of date. Again, my apologies. This past week has been consumed with work and the usual chores on the farm. It is lovely to see the days getting longer, finally. Soon the grass will start growing and I can be thinking about starting things for the garden.

We did, however, manage to squeeze a little winter get-away into our busy schedule just last weekend. I was in charge of finding accommodations with the following three criteria: will let us bring our old dog, has a fireplace, and on the beach. We were also focusing on the Long Beach, Washington, area as it was familiar to us and about as short of a drive as we could get to get us to the ocean. It's always a crap-shoot regarding the weather on the coast in the winter, but we totally lucked out and got a beautiful weekend, right up until we had to drive home, which was totally OK.

After much searching on line, I found The Breakers. It is a great place with units that are owned by people who then rent them out when they're not using them. Ours felt homey as soon as we walked in the door! It was a wonderful find. There was also a pool house and a hot tub that I didn't use, but Frank made sure to take a daily soak!

Frank and Sandy also put in lots of beach time. It's the one thing they miss from living in Oregon so they really probably overdid it! Lewis and Clark, while they were wintering in Fort Clatsop, Oregon, made a foray up to this area and there are many historical markers. This is one identifying the location of a giant sturgeon that Clark encountered. Sandy is checking out to see if it's real or not!

On Saturday we ventured up to Oysterville, which used to be the county seat until 'the raiders' from South Bend descended on the town in the dark of night and over the water to steal all the records away. This plaque bears testimony of the bad blood that still exists! Now, Oysterville has about 10 historic homes, a church, and an oyster farmer, who sells to the public as well as restaurants and such.
Going to Oysterville is truly like stepping back in time.

At night Frank would work on some school work and Sandy would do what tired, old dogs do. Mostly she was on her big dog bed that we brought, but occasionally she'd venture up on the couch for a few minutes but it wasn't as good as stretching out on her own bed. We loved having the fireplace (I miss that from our old house) and we ate bad things that tasted really good from the joint across the street. It was then time to go back home and start back up on eating more healthy!

Not much else going on here. We did do our part to stimulate the economy by ordering new carpet for the house. It should be here in the next couple of weeks. We are NOT looking forward to practically emptying the house but it will be so nice to get this crappy old carpet out of here.

I also had a nice surprise when I went out to clean the barn on Thursday and found a large bale of the most beautiful hay just inside the door. Come to find out our neighbor, who works for the state roads department, found it and thought to bring it home for me. What a great guy! Only a horse person could think this was such a wonderful gift! It's too rich to feed to the donkeys or the fat mini, and LB didn't like it (who ever heard of a picky pony?) but Bailey is sure loving this good treat!

Spring sure feels like it's here in the Northwest and I am excited to see how our blueberries and raspberries do this 2nd year after they were transplanted. I am also more than ready to start seedlings for our garden, but it's still way too early. I also need to get Larry's field fertilized soon so I can move the horses and donkeys over there in late March, then fertilize this field and let it rest. There is always something to do on Red Pony Ranch!

The lost art of making bread

2009-01-27T17:52:00.001-08:00

I was surprised at the response I got from my last blog regarding the making of home-made bread. More than a few people wanted the recipe, so I thought I'd go one better and devote today's blog to not only giving the recipe, but showing how it's done!

I have to give credit where credit is due. The inspiration from this recipe comes from the book pictured above by Beth Hensperger. Additionally, I would not attempt this recipe without the muscle that Julia, my KitchenAid mixer, provides.

I wanted to point out here that I buy my yeast in bulk in the baking section of my grocery store. It is very economical this way, and also allows me to measure out exactly what I want rather than be restricted to how much might come in one of those little envelopes in the three-pack. I keep it in this airtight cannister right on my counter and it lasts me at least a year. Whatever you do, don't get any moisture in it, or it'll set it off!

The only thing even slightly tricky about this recipe is that it uses a few different kinds of flours and grains that necessitates some shopping prior to bread-baking day. I keep them all together in one container so I can grab just that when I want to make bread. Here's what you'll need to start the sponge:

1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast
2 cups warm water
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup rye flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Combine those ingredients and mix very well with your paddle in the mixer. We'll be switching to the kneading hook later, but now is the time for good mixing. When well mixed, just leave it alone to proof for about an hour. There's a picture later of what this should look like before you move on.

When you're done starting your sponge, you'll need to put some boiling water on some grains to soften them to add to the sponge later. Here's what you'll need to put together in a bowl:

1/3 cup corn meal
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup mixed grains (I use a 10 grain breakfast cereal)
1/3 cup barley or bran flakes, or wheat germ
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons butter or oil
2 cups boiling water

This is what it looks like once you add the boiling water and stir it all around. Let me stop here and talk about the grains. I have used different grains and in different quantities. I figure as long as I have about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of grains, and not too much of any one kind, I'll be fine. I actually buy all these things at WinCo in their bulk section in just the quantities I need. If you don't have a WinCo, I bet you can find all kinds of good grains at Fred Meyer's health food section or buy Bob's Red Mill grains in the flour section of most regular grocery stores.

OK, back to the sponge. It should be all bubbly and fluffy before you move on. Once it is, add the cooled, soaked grains and mix well. Now add about 2 cups of regular flour and continue to mix well with your paddle attachment.

Once you feel your mixture is getting quite thick, you can switch to the dough hook attachment. Of course, if you don't have a mixer that has a dough hook, you'll have to switch to a stout spoon and eventually do it by hand. You don't want to burn out a lesser mixer with stiff dough.

Add 2 more cups of regular flour (you're up to 4 total) and let your dough hook work it in. This will take quite a while.

Continue to add in flour until the dough is stiff but still fairly sticky. I usually end up adding another cup or cup and a half. I also eventually end up turning it out on my counter and kneading in the last bit of flour. It is much better for the dough to be softer than stiffer. Here is a picture of it ready to go into the bowl for rising. You can see that it stands up on its own fairly well, but frankly, it is stuck to the counter fairly well too. This is the way I like it. Makes for a softer bread.

You can see now that I have it in the bowl and covered with plastic wrap. I do that so the top doesn't dry out and restrict the rising. Let the dough sit until it doubles in size. This takes varying amounts of time depending on how warm it is. Here, at about 68 degrees it takes maybe an hour or hour and a 1/2. Just enough time to clean the barn and do a few other chores!

This is what it should look like when it's met the requirement of 'doubling'. I've let it go too far before as evidenced by huge bubbles and it seemed quite wet, so I just punched it down and let it rise again. That worked totally fine. So when it has risen well, punch it down in the bowl, then turn it out on the floured counter, then knead a few times to work all the bubbles out.

Take a sharp knife and cut the dough in half. Then shape it roughly into a loaf size and put it into a loaf pan that has been greased or sprayed with non-stick cooking spray (my preference).

Let it rise in the loaf pans for about 45 minutes to an hour. In this picture, these loaves are almost too risen as they're looking a little less smooth and like they want to collapse. I knew from experience if I got them in the oven right away that I'd be OK, but if I let them go any longer I would have needed to punch them down, reshape and let them rise again.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. When it's hot, put in the loaves and immediately turn the temperature down to 375 degrees. Cook for about 45 to 50 minutes.

Take them out of the oven and let sit for a few minutes. Fairly quickly, however, remove them from their pans so they can cool and release some of the moisture that might make them soggy if you left them in the pans. Let them cool as long as you can before you can't control yourself (or your spouse or child) any longer and want a slice of this lovely warm bread. We always have real butter on hand, as well as some homemade strawberry or blackberry jam.

I hope to really encourage you to try to make bread for your family. It is so wholesome and has nothing in it that you can't pronounce! Just grains, yeast, salt, a little sugar and a little fat. And truly, it doesn't take all day. It goes in spurts and you can do lots of things while it is rising. After a couple of times working with this recipe, I found that this bread is incredibly flexible and easy. The best of all it is GOOD! Give it a try!

Enjoying the simple life

2009-01-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

We so greatly enjoy our simple life here on our little farm and also get a lot of pleasure from sharing these things with you here on our blog. Today, I had the camera with me all day as we went about our chores.

Here are some of our hens enjoying the soft dirt under our cedar tree. They are loving this sun and reasonably warm temperatures (high 40's) so they can both dust- and sun-bathe. There aren't many bugs for them to chase and eat, but there is still quite a bit of vegetation for them to enjoy.

Here is my favorite hen. Her name is either Bean or Deana. There are actually two of these that I can't tell apart. Whichever one I'm looking at of the two is my favorite! The breed is Barred Rock, or some call it Plymouth Rock. They are big hens, calm, hardy, and reliable layers. They also do not show aggression towards the other chickens like some do. Just very sweet hens.

This is our worthless rooster. I just wanted to show you how pretty he is, because that's all he has going for him! He's too small to make the connection to fertilize any eggs (not that we'd hatch any anyway!) and the hens don't really give him the time of day either. He thinks he's tough though, and quite entertaining, so I guess he's not worthless after all.

The chickens weren't the only ones enjoying the sun today! Here is baby (not a baby any more at 2 1/2 years old!) Daisy and of course her mom Lily is dozing nearby. A couple of years ago we had some sand delivered on that spot where Daisy is laying, and although we moved most of it, I guess it warms up in the sun and makes a nice nap spot. This farm would not be the same without the loving, sweet spirits of these donkeys.

Frank continued pruning all the storm damage off the trees in the mini's paddock. Of course Yak had to be in the middle of things as you can see here. He nibbled on them some, but he was more interested in using them to scratch his nether regions as usually there aren't too many pokey things at just the right height like this!

Of course Frank couldn't resist giving little Yak some love. Yak is a very huggable little horse and is definitely hard to resist. He's a great little nursing-home visitor, too!

Before I went outside to do chores, I started a batch of bread. Maria (our friend and former exchange student from Germany) got me started on this recipe and now I make it fairly often. It's got lots of different whole grains in it, and is not as sweet as most american-style breads. This pile of risen dough is what I found when I got back inside! Better deal with that fast!

It's hard to believe that I punched that dough down and got all that into these two loaf pans. I used to do these loaves free-form (boule's) but it was hard to cut evenly and get into the toaster, so I switched to these pans which make slices that are the right size to fit into our toaster.

YUM!! This is the finished product! I wish you all could smell how good this smells. Nothing makes a house smell like home more than homemade bread (OK, maybe apple pie, but you get the idea).

We truly do lead a very simple life here and wouldn't have it any other way: enjoying each day's gifts that God bestows on us. We love company and sharing all our blessings, so feel free to come visit! Just give us a call!!

Time got away from me!

2009-01-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how much time has passed so quickly since I wrote that last blog. I surely apologize to my regular readers and hope to use this time to bring you all up to date with the happenings here on the ranch.

Truly this has been a winter with weather of biblical proportions. Before you panic...this is not our farm. It is a picture of a farm in our area that got flooded out due to heavy rains that followed the gigantic snowfall that I chronicled earlier. Ordinarily we are well prepared to handle a 'pineapple express' that dumps a couple of inches of warm rain a day upon us, but it came when we still had all that snow and flooding was inevitable. Our farm is high and dry, but many people in western Washington suffered greatly and continue to deal with the aftermath. Everyone was thankful when the rain ended, but the ground and air were so saturated that we then got to experience the next plague of egypt:

It's hard to take a picture that shows how thick the fog actually was. I finally found Bailey in the mist and got this one. This fog hung on for about a week and just cleared today. What a blessing to finally have the sun!

This is a picture of the Olympic Mountains that you can see from our house when the sky is clear. As the crow flies, they are about 50 miles from us. It would take about 4 hours to drive there as they are across Puget Sound from where we live.

So Frank took advantage of the beautiful weather to deal with some more of the things that broke due to the heavy snows. There are some trees in the mini's paddock that broke to pieces, so he was tackling getting all the bad branches out of there. Of course, he had plenty of help, and during one trip through the gate to the burn pile, Little Bit decided he wanted to come into the paddock too. This made Yakki's day as then those two proceeded to wrestle, chase, and rear...and thankfully quit 'helping'. Sweet Maddie stood quietly by and observed all that was going on around her, getting pats from Frank whenever he went by her. Of course he had to stop and pet the bad boys too!

I know that earlier I was complaining that the hens were freeloading and not producing, but I take that back now. They are obviously happy chickens and this is what the 12 hens produced in the last three days. Good girls! We did have one chicken funeral recently when "Alzheimers", who had been acting weird since last summer, lost strength and the will to live and went to chicken heaven. So we're down to 12 hens now, and one bad attitude little rooster. The three new girls were a wonderful addition to our flock and I hope to find something similar next fall to make up for the inevitable reduction in egg production as these older girls enter their 4th year. Wow, it's hard to believe we've enjoyed their company that long!

Frank has been enjoying his on-line teaching job and I am doing my usual subbing. We are looking forward to a couple of get-aways: a weekend trip to Long Beach on the Washington Coast in late January, and especially our spring break trip to Indio (Palm Springs area) to soak up some sun and float endlessly in the lazy river at our resort. It's nice to have found a reliable house/horse sitter in Kacey. We are also looking forward to a cross-country trip back to Wisconsin to see Frank's mom as well as meet a few of Jayne's draft horse friends (Ange, Kari, maybe John?) along the way.

We hope you are all doing well and keeping warm this winter. I can already tell the days are getting longer! Spring is not far behind! I'm already drooling over my seed and root stock catalogs! I'm having fun trying to decide what to add to our little farm this year. Last year it was raspberries, blueberries, table grapes, hazelnut trees and a peach tree. Maybe a pear tree? More grapes? It's so fun just thinking about it! Hope you are having as much fun anticipating spring as I am!

The meltdown is ON!!

2008-12-27T11:54:00.001-08:00

Whooo hooo!! I woke up to 40 degree, rainy weather this morning. Never have I been so happy to hear it raining!! The piles of snow are shrinking nicely, and while there isn't any green grass yet to be seen, it can't be far behind. Above is our oft-pictured deck off the office. You can see my pitiful yardstick listing to the west. It used to measure 21" of snow (see previous blogs) but its job is about over now.

How nice to see wet, non-icy pavement! The chicken coop wall is just on the left and you can see that my worries about flooding are so far unfounded. The water appears to be sinking into the earth rather than flowing over the concrete and into the coop. Yeah!

The "dome o' death" has fallen into the run, making a drift that is higher than the chicken's little door. Luckily, all chickens are accounted for, so there is no worries about there being a flat hen under all that snow. The girls have continue their good laying streak at 5 or more eggs per day, but I'm afraid they might go on strike as I took their heat lamp away from them today. They surely don't need it when it's above freezing. I'm sure I'll get those chicken cranky looks and grumbles about it though!

The big snows and cold weather have caused my hay supply to be seriously depleted. I think I'll be OK, though, maybe only cutting it close in March when the grass starts really growing.

Sandy loves the fact that there is hay missing off the stack, especially since it's pretty much a big stair step to the top of the pile. She was racing up and down to the ceiling, then rolling on the bales and rooting in the cracks, then back to racing up and down again. It's hard to believe that this girl is over 13 years old! She's a happy, active dog.

This is my favorite picture today!! I know most of you won't appreciate it, but with Frank unable to help with the chores this week (thank you so much for all you do, honey!) I am thrilled to get the hose back in action today (Frank was bucketing water to everybody) and the poop-wagon is in place. Frank had been carting the wheelbarrows through thick snow down into our dump spot in the lower pasture, and there is no way I would have been able to do that. So our neighbor kindly is letting us use his utility trailer on which to collect the cleanings and then he'll take it back to enrich his garden. We are blessed with wonderful neighbors. With all of us being pretty much stuck in place, we had some great time carrying by foot our cookie plates to the neighbors. We were invited to one home on Christmas Eve (where we had PRIME RIB!! Sandy is still enjoying the bones!) and another on Christmas day for turkey dinner. We so enjoyed the time spent with these great families. Even though the weather was trying, it brought some wonderful blessings as well.

Wow, no snow in the last 24 hours!!

2008-12-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

My mom was complaining that the blog doesn't have pictures of me, so I had Frank take this picture to make her happy. I am leaning down quite a bit. I didn't want you to think I was barely taller than the bad pony. As usual, someone else was horning in on the picture: notice Bailey's big mug to the right.

We are able to get a little bit of a look at the damage left behind of the storms so far. Here is the gutter on the east side of the barn. You had to pretty much expect this with the amount of snow sliding off the roof. But you can see that at least the Christmas light's held on! My yardstick on the back porch that yesterday measured 21" of snow is now showing 18". I don't know if it's melting a little or compacting. Probably a little of both.

Here's the west side of the barn. All of the snow has slid off this side and luckily didn't take the gutter with it. This pile is 1/2 way up the side of the barn and definitely much taller than the mini's. The weather report is for more snow sporadically for the next three days, but hopefully not the big dumps like the last few storms. Please!!

This is the door to our shop. It used to be a garage that the previous owners enclosed and put two bedrooms on. The front bedroom is now my chicken coop (there is a door on the right you can't see in the foreground) and the other bedroom is at the back of the shop. That one is really nice (carpeted, insulated, finished wallboard, trim, full closet. We store my canned goods and a few other household items in there. Anyway, you can see how deep the snow is that Frank pushed off the roof. I am sure hoping the thaw is slow or that sucker is going to flood my coop and shop. Oh well, not much we can do about it!

Here's another picture to make my mom happy. Hi Mom!

All this inside time has kept me busy making Christmas goodies. I have yet to make the chocolate covered pretzels (white and regular), then I need to find something decent to put them on/in to take to the neighbors. We have not been able to get out to go shopping so I don't have any pretty plates or containers to put them in. Oh well, it's the cookies that count, not the plate!

We hope you and yours are experiencing warmth and peace as you prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ. I was just telling Frank that I was thinking about Mary and Joseph as they were trying to find a place to rest and deliver the Christ-child. They had no home at all and had to bed down in a barn with the animals. A very humble beginning for our savior. I feel quite foolish complaining about being snowbound in my warm home, and thankful that this forced quiet time around the holidays has me contemplating more deeply the reason behind it all, namely the greatest gift ever given: out of God's love for us, he sent his Son to earth to make us right with Him. Merry Christmas.

OK, that's IT!!

2008-12-22T10:29:00.001-08:00

It crossed my mind that maybe the reason it keeps snowing is that I keep blogging about it. Well, my fears were confirmed as we woke up to about 8 MORE inches of snow that fell overnight. We turned the news on this morning and heard about a building collapsing in Marysville (next town over) and we talked about our buildings and decided that our shop probably needed the weight taken off of it. So here's Frank with his HUGE chore today. We probably should have bought a snow shovel. Poor guy.

Last night about 9pm when we went out to the barn to tuck everybody in the for the night, the lights flickered and then were OUT. This is not unexpected but definitely undesirable! So I ran back into the house, got our headlamps (everyone should have these, they're GREAT) and we finished our chores, came in and wrapped up the little parrots with our sub zero sleeping bag, turned down the heat to about 62 and went to bed. Thankfully, at exactly 2:04 am the power came back on. So did the TV, and a couple of lights we forgot to turn out, but the heater did not kick on as I expected. So I went and pushed up the thermostat and it didn't click until about 64. Now that's pretty good to go to bed at about 68 degrees and only lose 4 degrees in 5 hours. It's probably all the snow insulating the place!

This is the back porch by our office from the inside. What you can't tell is that this porch is about 7 inches below the threshold for the door.

If you can't read it, that's the 21 inch marker above the snow. Then I took this long shot so you could see that I took this measurement outside the same office sliding doors.

I didn't get any big horse pictures today, but thought that it was funny to see Yak even deeper in the snow! I always called him a weiner-horse before, but now that he doesn't have any legs it's confirmed!!

The last thing I want to tell you about is our fences. They have taken a huge beating. I keep telling Frank that it's not a matter of IF the horses get out, but when. I am keeping hay in front of them all the time, so that's keeping them fairly close to the barn for now. I did get a little scare this morning when I went out and saw one line totally down, so I grabbed some supplies and walked (with snow up to my thighs!) out there and was shocked and pleased to find a number of fresh horse tracks right up to the breach, but no one went through. Those are some good horses if you ask me! We lost about 10 insulators on the Horse Guard fence system in the back pasture that I'll replace as soon as I can get to them. The side pasture by the barn is just T-posts, insulators and an electrobraid kind of line. That's the one that's not holding up under the weight of the snow. I guess you get what you pay for, because the Horse Guard lines are doing great (except for those insulators that just cracked in the below zero weather) holding up the weight of the snow.

Keep tuned for more episodes of "As the Snow Falls"! Hopefully the forecast is correct in that we'll have some above-freezing temps starting Christmas Day. Until then we've got one more blast of snow coming tomorrow night they say. In the meantime, we're doing everything we can to keep our animals and property safe! God bless!

And the hits just keep on coming....

2008-12-21T11:35:00.001-08:00

Jake, the mighty hunter kitty, and I say ENOUGH ALREADY!! We both want to stick our head under the couch and come out when it's May. This is just nuts! We got 3 or 4 more inches of snow last night, and about as much is forecast throughout today. I've totally lost count of how much snow we've gotten which is good because I would be even more demoralized.

On the other hand, the horses are pretty happy with this stuff. At least the temperatures are up in the 20's now rather than the 4 BELOW (that is NOT a typo) yesterday morning. I was able to catch these pictures of the boys running through their pasture from the warmth of our office. Needless to say, they were having a great time and frequently run by. The donkeys, on the other hand, are cranky like their human mom and either console themselves by eating or standing under the cedar tree sulking.

I have to kind of chuckle at Bailey, in that while he does canter once in a while (usually coming to the barn when I call him to dinner), most of his playing and running around is still at a trot. I guess it's not easy to take the trot out of an old hitch horse.

I know, most of you have seen a snow plow before, but this is a really big one that actually came down our road! I took this this morning from our front room window while I was still in my snowman jammies. I went outside not much later (dressed, of course) and there was still easily 3 inches of compact snow and ice on the road. Yuck.

This is actually the little deck off the office from which I took the above horse pictures. I can't find my yard stick, but I would guess there is 18" of snow on here easily. It's compacted somewhat over the last week (this all started LAST Saturday) so I would bet we've had over 20 inches. I do have to admit it is pretty, but the chores are actually getting to be a chore!! That's not happened before!

We have another "dome o' death" forming on the sides of the barn. The good news is that so far it's coming down a little bit at a time instead of one big WHOOSH! I wouldn't want a horse under that when it came down! Good thing it gives a little warning beforehand.

Today was a special day for the chickens in that they got their outside door opened for the first time in 5 days. This is one of the new australorp hens looking to the right to check things out:

Then she looked to the left:

Then she looked forward and gave a "I am NOT impressed" cluck and went back in. I'm with you good hen, I'm with you.

More Winter Wonderland (enough already!)

2008-12-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

Today dawned bright and crystal clear, but bitterly cold. It is stunningly beautiful. This picture (and the one below as well) was taken from the warmth of our office looking to the west over our lower pasture. I love how the snow is still on the trees. We are expecting high winds tomorrow, so I wanted to capture it before it all blows away.

Of course I didn't have my camera ready when the boys went cantering all over the field, first Bailey chasing LB, then Bailey taking the lead. Here they have found something fascinating in the snow that they worked over for about 1/2 an hour. I didn't want to get all bundled up to go check it out. This picture is a little deceiving in that there is a pretty good bank on the other side of the fence (that's not hot right now!) so they are standing lower than the ground on this side of the fence by quite a bit. But regardless, there is a LOT of snow out there!

Too bad this photo is a little shadow-y, because I love their expressions. Frank was coming back through the mini's pen after breaking ice in the trough in the lower field (there is another trough up by the barn) and he stopped to talk to sweet Maddie. She doesn't seem to mind the snow and cold, but she sure loves her stall. This little mare had a terrible health scare this summer (liver values off the chart, vet said he'd never seen a living horse with numbers that high) but she's doing well now. Don't even ASK what we just spent on a ton of special hay just for her. Good thing it'll take almost a year for her to eat it!

Here is one of the troughs that Frank has been tending. Luckily, after tonight it is supposed to start warming up at least a little above freezing during the day, so maybe our days of taking 6" of ice out of there are almost over. Thanks to Frank for all his hard work during this cold snap. Especially for trucking the full wheelbarrows down to the compost pile. It's HARD to wheel a wheelbarrow through over a foot of crunchy snow!

I just thought this was a pretty face. What you can't see is the mugging I was getting from Daisy the donkey from behind...pulling on my hat and my hoodie, snuffling my ear, pushing on the middle of my back. As usual, she makes every job so much harder, but also so much more entertaining.

I just wanted to say I'm so glad I got a red barn. It makes for lovely contrast in all the winter pictures! When I was sitting down with the builders and we got to the part where they asked what color to make our new barn, I just looked at them and said, "It can't be any other color than RED!" We went with a white roof, and I'm glad for that too.

This picture shows how badly the netting on the top of the chicken run has been trashed. We will be totally replacing it as soon as we can. Also notice the depth of the snow on the header of the old swing set, as well as on the roof of our shop. This is just so incredibly unusual for this area, with our usual marine influence and 40 degree winter days. It's been beautiful, but I'm ready to get back to normal.

I realize that I neglected to say how the chickens were doing in the last winter storm posting. Well, they are a tiny bit cranky because they haven't been let out of their coop for a number of days, but they have the heat lamp on in there and I just happened to stop and pick up a case of lettuce trimmings from the grocery store (they throw them away!) on the way home Tuesday before the storm hit, so they've had fresh greens every day and there is enough for tomorrow yet too. And the funny thing is that the girls are also laying up a storm. Got SEVEN eggs yesterday from 13 hens. Now that's amazing for older hens and in the middle of the winter when the days are so short. Good girls!

Well, that's it for now. We were thinking about trying to venture into town for a few groceries, but changed our mind when we saw the road is still just compact snow on top of ice. Our neighbors are buzzing around on their 4-wheelers and the kids are sledding in the neighbor's pasture, but there aren't any cars leaving the neighborhood, just a couple of big 4x4's. Oh well, it's not like we really NEED anything. My well-stocked pantry will keep us going for a long time. Maybe we'll try to venture out tomorrow. More later!

That wasn't snow, THIS is snow!

2008-12-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

You've got to be kidding me! We left Wisconsin because of this! We are on our 2nd day off of school, with only Friday to go before Christmas Break, and we're betting that we actually started our break last Tuesday after school! The snow plows haven't even been here yet today. I'm measuring 12 inches of snow on a porch that Frank cleared at least 6" off of yesterday! We just got slammed!! It sure is pretty, but it is causing a lot of extra work here on the farm. Here's Frank and his trusty dog Sandy taking a break from shoveling the driveway. He said, "I never thought of this driveway as long before!" Poor Frank!

I took these pictures about 5 days apart. I thought the first one was about as much snow as we would see! Foolish Jayne! You can see that there is at least a foot of snow now on the lawn chair. You might remember from the Nov. 30 blog that it was nice enough for us to be out in T-shirts and enjoy sitting outside in that very same chair. What a difference a couple of weeks makes!

Too bad it's hard to get action shots with a digital camera, because I missed a LOT of good ones. The mini's had been locked in the barn the last two days and when I let them out they went NUTS!! They ran and ran, then rolled, then ran some more, of course with the all-important bucking and farting. The snow is truly up to Yak's belly (well, that's not saying much!) and he just trucked on through so happily.

Here's Maddie pawing in preparation of another rolling session. It's amazing to me that they didn't have snow stuck up their noses the way they just plowed through it. Yak is behind rubbing on the fence. Look carefully and you can see Daisy on the other side of the snowy fence! I didn't even see her there the first time I looked at this picture!

Yak is covered with snow! He's got it just smashed on his head and all over his body. I would say he's having a good day! Luckily it's cold enough that it's not melting and he just shakes it off and starts out again.

I couldn't end this blog without pictures of the rest of the horses! Here is Bailey taking a break from his endless hay buffet to talk to the minis. He and Little Bit like the snow and are happy to stay out. The donkeys not so much!

Snow sure makes things look not so white!! These girls are looking pretty dirty here. They are good natured about being outside for a few hours, then then want to come in and be spoiled. Well, as long as it's not snowing heavily, they're staying out until it's time to come in. I'm sure the neighborhood will reverberate with their cranky hee-haws before too long. Hey, it might shake some of the snow out of the trees for us! (Frank is going around beating the fruit trees to reduce breakage, as well as the trees that are leaning into our electric fence in a few spots.)

Lastly is a picture of the best pony ever. He is a fuzzy buffalo with more hair than two horses and he would never come in if I didn't make him. He's such a likable guy and is loved by every other horse/donkey on the place. He's been picky about his hay and beet pulp, so I've added a scoop of complete feed and he's happy.

I hope you are all enjoying your winter weather and preparations for celebrating the birth of Christ. We're enjoying our snow, but enough of it already!

Winter Wonderland!

2008-12-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

Our friends and relatives in Wisconsin and Illinois will be laughing at this posting! We do realize that this little bit of snow that will be gone in a few days is nothing compared to what happens elsewhere, but it's the most we usually get here and it's fun! Plus, it's awfully nice to have pretty snow that's gone before anyone can get sick of it!

I thought it would be cute to start with another picture of our nativity scene in the yard. This one is in the 3.5 inches of snow we got last night. We actually put a ruler in the snow on the porch and measured it, but the picture didn't turn out.

From our school's band boosters we bought a beautiful wreath and centerpiece. Since we put up a screen door, we had to find a new place for the wreath this year. I think it looks lovely on our little shed/pump house that Frank painted to match our barn.

OK, you have to squint for this one. Over the top of the chicken run we put netting so that the hawks can't swoop in and get a chicken. Normally, you can't even see it, but the wet snow accumulates on it and weighs it down and stretches out the netting. We call it the "Dome 'O Death" for its potential chicken squishing properties!

This is the run after the sun came up. Frank went into the run with a little shovel and beat the "Dome 'O Death" into submission so that it wouldn't hurt his chickens. Here are a couple of the girls showing their appreciation for this as well as the 8 wheelbarrows of gravel he put in their run just yesterday.

When I went out after I made a scrumptious breakfast of biscuits and gravy, I caught this picture of the trees looking nice and fuzzy and the horses enjoying the brisk air. It was so beautiful outside in the bright sun. By now all the snow has dropped off the trees, but there is no melting going on. We're having a little cold snap and it didn't get above about 30 today and isn't expected to get any warmer in the foreseeable future. Good thing the horses like the crisp weather and I have a barn full of hay to keep their engines stoked.

I didn't tell you earlier that the dark photos in this blog were all taken this morning at about 6:00am. I always go out at that time to put the horses out and feed them, but Frank came too and we had fun turning on our Christmas lights and looking at all the pretty snow scenes. It truly didn't seem that cold and we were surprised to discover that we had stayed out about 45 minutes! This is one of the neat pictures that Frank took when we were out before the sun came up:

We sure hope you are enjoying your holiday season! Today we are playing Christmas music while I am starting to make cookies and Frank is working on schoolwork. I also made turkey and homemade noodle soup from Thanksgiving's bird leftovers. All in all, it has been an enchanting, lovely day. Merry Christmas!

More Christmas things around the ranch...

2008-12-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

How do you like our new Nativity Set? We wanted another feature for our yard and thought it should be something other than an snowman or santa, so this is what we got! Like our neighbor, Burke, said, "It's whimsical!" At night it is lighted. I got the chickens in there so you could kind of see the size of it, but they're in front and look giant and make it looks smaller than it is! Actually, if I stand up behind it, it is about 1 1/2 feet taller than my head.

Now we have all our inside decorations up as well, such as they are. Here is our tree. We couldn't find the lights with the green wires so we had to go with the ones with the white wires. Oh well, we just think of it like some garland! You can't really see it well, but we have an angel on the top that we have had since we got married. Her dress is a little faded, but she is still lovely.

Over the entry to our office we have put a saw that Frank's Uncle Ray painted. At Christmastime, we add some garland and a ribbon on which to put our Christmas cards. Frank has to duck once it gets full!

Here is Frank (and the elusive Jake) working on his laptop in his old LazyBoy. I want to get him a new one, but he likes THIS one. Kind of like Marty Crane on Frazier, but not quite that ugly yet!

I know this picture looks all friendly and cozy. Actually, it is neither one of 'the yellows' wanting to give up their part of the pet bed, so they're each holding a base! The minute one gets up the other one hogs the whole thing. I don't know why Sandy puts up with this, actually, because the bed is hers. Now if Carly was here, she would just flop down in the middle of the pillow whether there was a cat there or not. We're missing Carly this first Christmas without her.

I went shopping today to get all the ingredients for the cookie plates we take to friends and neighbors. I'm going to make:

Mexican wedding cakes
fudge
pecan pie bars
rocky road bars
ginger snaps (maybe)
chocolate covered pretzels
peppermint bark

Luckily, some of these have a good shelf life so I can start making them now and save them for when I put the plates together. Only I have to hide them somewhere so Frank doesn't find them and clean me out!

Merry Christmas to you please remember the reason for the season as you make all your holiday preparations! Love, Jayne

Christmas decorations at the ranch!

2008-11-30T19:03:00.000-08:00

Franks says HI on this stunningly beautiful fall day. It was in the upper 50's, sunny with nary a breeze. We were both in shirtsleeves as we cheerfully went about our outside chores. He spent quite a bit of time putting up 14 strings of lights not including inside the barn and our horse/carriage winter scene. We still want to put lights on three smaller trees out in the yard, and maybe get another lighted thing for the yard too!

The day was so lovely the chickens were leisurely sunning themselves, getting up only once in a while to scratch for bugs or eat some vegetation. Egg laying has slowed WAY down as they are mostly in molt. Good thing those new girls are producing or we'd have to go somewhere else to meet our needs. No more store eggs for us!

While the chickens were out, I tackled cleaning their coop. It is actually a room just off our shop/garage that the previous owner had converted to a bedroom with insulation, sheetrock and electrical outlets. It makes an excellent, warm and safe coop for the girls. But it does get stinky! So I took everything out and stripped it and put in new pellets under their roosts (where they poop the most) and shavings over the rest. They'll spread them out for me!

While Frank was still working on lights, I cleaned the barn and then put up a few decorations. I think I might have to rethink the placement of some of the decorations as you can see below. Leave it to Miss Daisy to check everything out!

The donkeys got two stockings on their stall this year. While Daisy was a baby, I let her share with her mom, but she's a big girl at two and a half now so she gets her own! (Side note: you have no idea how many shots it took for me to get a picture with all four ears forward! Sheesh!) Momma Lily is on the left and Daisy is on the right. I know I will always be able to tell them apart, but it's getting harder for everyone else!

Bailey gets a giant stocking, of course. Those are 2x6's on the front of his stall, so you can figure out how big it really is! He was giving me a hint what he wanted me to put in it. MORE HAY MOM!! Bailey eats with his head hanging outside the stall quite a bit of the time, so I'm constantly forking hay back into his stall. He's such a good boy I can't really complain about a little thing like this.

I was at a store the other day and found this stocking that I just couldn't resist for Yak's stall. In case you can't read it in the picture, it says, "Dear Santa, SUPERSIZE me! You'd have to know him to see how well this fits, because in his heart, he IS as big as Bailey! He always charges Bailey at the fence line (which Bailey ignores) and when we take Yak on a walk in the neighborhood, he gets all puffed up and prancy when we walk by actual full-sized horses! He's such an wonderful little guy; maybe in pony heaven he'll be as big as his heart desires!

Well, as much as we didn't want it to, the bright, sunny day came to an end. We came in and ate turkey leftovers and pie. I paid bills and Frank got caught up on some school work. As the sun went down on our wonderful day, we caught this amazing sunset over the Olympic Mountains. We are so blessed to have been given this property and thank God every day for the riches He has given us.

Once it got dark, I went out to see if I could get a picture of Frank's hard work. I tried not to move during the slow shutter speed, but I think you get the idea. On the chicken run you can see where he wrote NOEL. (The neighbors behind us want to know why we put LEON up!) Also note the long grass. It has been a warm fall and our grass is still green and quite long. It probably does need to be mowed, but, come on! Who mows the grass in December? Not us!!

Not much going on....

2008-11-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

I came home from a quick run to the feed store and found the namesakes of Red Pony Ranch and their honorary not-red giant pony all taking a nap together in the weak fall sun. There is a fence separating the two littlest ones from the big ones...not for their protection, but to keep them off of grass that would make them fatter than they already are. You can also see framed in by Bailey's legs and belly that Little Bit has laid down right next to the big guy. I'm sure the others will be laying down soon too as the sun warms their fuzzy bodies. I love how peaceful it is here.

After this picture, I went looking for the donkeys and found them in the lower pasture taking their own naps. You would not believe the bottom lips that hang down on sleeping donkeys. Oh! And those giant ears get lower and lower as they get sleepier and are eventually out sideways like helicopter rotors. I found this picture from two summers ago when Daisy was a baby. It shows the helicopter ear thing going on:

Now some of you know that Frank has taken on a part time job teaching math on-line for an internet-based high school in Idaho. I think he's having a good time and learning lots of new technology. I took this picture the other night while he was doing a classroom session. I call this one "Mission Control"! If you look you can see he has a laptop to his right as well as the one he's using for the session. I won't tell you more because he has promised to guest-blog and tell us all about it, so consider this a preview of coming attractions!

Once again, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update the blog. Not really that much exciting going on around here. We are very thankful for good health and steady jobs and wonderful family and friends. Our pantry, freezer and barn are full. Our lives are simple and peaceful, just the way we like it. Frank has his college football on Saturdays. I have my book club that I think is really a wine club in disguise. We have Thanksgiving coming up with our friends the Dutys in Tacoma. I still think I'll cook a small turkey just to have something to pick on. We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, filled with warmth and family and friends and of course, thankfulness. God Bless.