Happy Horse

This buckskin mare is in the next pasture by my mares. She is getting a lot of attention from a visiting friend's son.

Day two of New Horses

This morning I got up at 5am to feed my new horses. I also tackled the job of untangling a matted horse mane. I am using Cowboy Magic and it is working. It takes a long time to unbraid and unknot a year of burs from these mares. But I got three knots out. The tail will take time and trust. I think she has a family of rats living in her tail. Both mares enjoyed a full brushing and fly spray and grain.

My First Horses

I have always wanted a horse. We have been going all over to breeders and auctions looking for older horses that were good to ride. Gaited horses were a plus. On Friday I was dropping off sign letters for our Mill and was killing time at the horse auction. And I saw a big dapple gray mare. She looked good. So I went home to my husband and he said take an expert with you to make sure she is a good one. My horseman neighbor said both mares looked good, but were very pregnant, and that was a bonus. We saw the stud both were Fox Trotters. So the foals should be a gaited too.

The auction lasted until 1am in the morning and we won both mares. And we had no horse trailer. But a kind father and his daughter had a four horse trailer and were willing to bring our mares home for us. So our two mares got to spend the night in our goat pen. And this morning I awoke to see my horses in my yard, what a neat thing. Now the work begins, vets, farrier, hay, fence and grain. Going to be a very busy horse owner from now on. If anyone has any name ideas, please post them. We need two names for these 10 year old mares and soon their foals. One is a gray and the other a dark chestnut.

To Stain Away

Our contractors spent the entire day staining our log house in between the raindrops. It will cure on the house in 36 hours. In this heat it is absorbed very quickly into the logs and the deck. We are very pleased with the results. It was so worth it to do this to our house. It looks good with all the nature around us.

Blueberry Snake

Today, I was picking blueberries with my neighbor Nancy. We spotted a black snake caught in the bird proof netting. It was the 2nd snake caught this week in the netting. The last snake brought vultures to feast on it. Not wanting vultures tearing up my netting I chose to remove this dead snake from the netting. As I was doing that the snake moved! It was still alive. It was a long black rat snake with the round pupils. It was very caught in the netting. I took a stick to hold its head while I carefully cut all the netting off his body. He knew he was free the second I clipped the last string. He looked at me, flicked his tongue and took off into the woods. I hope he learns to stay away from nets.

Fish Quilt Lesson

Here is 1 block of many for a summer fish quilt for my quilt class. My students are learning how to strip sew and cut fabrics to make a simple block in the shape of a fish.

Chicks First Day Out

We finally opened the coop door for our baby chicks to run outside. Half ran to the adult coop and the rest hung out at their coop doorway. They will have to wait until August before they can play with the adult chickens.

House Staining Day

Today is Wednesday and our house is drenched in oil based Pecan colored Wood Guard stain. It is a messy task to do on a good day. Today at noon it rained! But the stain was absorbed and locked in. Now our contractors are staining our deck. I am so glad they know how to deal with this stuff. It is a LOT of WORK to get this done right. But the results speak for themselves.

House wrapping

Before stain can be put on our log house, the windows and doors need to be protected. It took a whole day and 3 men to wrap put house. They did a great job.