Garden, over and out.

I have sweet potato slips in my window sill. It never got warm enough, long enough for them to grow this summer. So I am keeping them indoors, as ornamental plants until next year. Hopefully we don't have another summer like this one. Too much water and too cool.

I only have around 350 lbs of food so far this year. Kind of sad. I should have more, but the sun just wasn't on my side. But something happens, and you just have to deal and get super creative with what you do have.

My hens have stopped laying, that or they are hiding them somewhere. My young ones have yet to begin laying. ugh! Seems like when things go wrong they go very wrong.

So how did your garden grow?

Pick a topic, any topic.

Swing season has once again arrived in Kansas. Today it is sleeting, and flippin' cold! Tomorrow warm and sunny. This weather seems to make one sick. Today I will have indoor chores, like rearranging the furniture for winter comfy, and processing more foods into butter and jams. The oven comes on and specialty breads shall be baked. oh, and that whole dishes and laundry thing as well. But let's not talk about that, let's pretend it is a good day.

The good neighbor broke his Bronco. I think he said it was the drive shaft, a bolt broke, it came down and severed his gas lines. My car was being taken apart when he showed up, my truck is without an engine, and my husband's truck is out of gas. So we towed him with our motorcycle. Talk about a super impressed good neighbor.

Lott has yet to touch Mama. He mounted Edie, the one I didn't care one way if she got knocked up. Mama however, I would like for her to be bred. I am assuming that my record keeping is faulting, she should have gone into heat twice this month. And I haven't seen it once. We have only one more week of October. Let's see what happens. Oh, and Jannelle, Lott likes Pears, a lot. He stole quite a bit of mine.

I neglected to tell you about the puppy. We have had her for about 2 months. I take her everywhere she is allowed to be, this is the first step in training her to be a cattle dog, bonding. She already responds to my hand signals, and lays down to bark. Good Girl. Her name is Sprocket and she is Blue Tick and German Shepard. She is a ghetto dog. A friend of ours that lives in the city brought her to us. She was sickly, too skinny and very lethargic. We gave her a 7 in 1 (shots), worked on her worm and flea issues, and now she has shot up in weight, bounds about all the time. Takes on Buckets the short looking mastiff, not caring that her head could fit into Buckets mouth. She is a spitfire, but pretty well obedient. We have an issue with her listening in the company of other small children. She wants to play with them so badly.

Well I have an article stuck in my head that I need to get down on paper, apologize to my editor, and submit. Meadowlark, you mentioned something on one of my pear posts, so this article should help you out a bit.

TAG!!! Apple Sauce!

I was patching up one of the fences Sunday, we share a fence line with several horses, and they like to bend the fences over because the grass is greener on this side (I guess). When I heard hooves beating the ground. I looked back and sunny was running toward me. I stood up, and he stopped, so I went back to work, keeping my ear out for him. He walked up, and nudged my hair. I turned, not wanting him to grab a mouth full of it. I have had the goats do that before, not fun. Sunny pushed against my shoulder, made a high pitch horse noise and ran off. I shrugged and went back to work. Sunny came back, and repeated the nudge. I reached up to scratch him, and he took off. The third time he did it, I stood up and followed. He stopped a little ways from me and waited. But as soon as I got into a n arms length of him, he booked. I turned around to go back to my fence, when he ran back around. Once again waiting until I was an arm length away, before running off again. We did this several times, before he stopped running and allowed me to scratch him. He pushed his forehead into my chest. I am still trying to get over the fear of horse bites. I have heard horror stories to that effect. (Like a kid who got an ear bitten off, and that woman on AFV that got her chest bit, still don't see how half those videos were ever funny).

I told my husband about Sunny's behavior, and he said that Sunny has done that to him before, he seems to like to play tag.

In canning news,

I worked on a bit more of my apples. Somehow a bad one got into my cellar stored ones, so process we must, before the whole bunch is spoiled. I made Spiced apple butter. Same as apple butter (plain) except replace the water you soak them in with spiced rum.

Also made Apple Pie Apple sauce. Taste like Christmas.

Apples soaked until tender in water, and but through a food mill into a crock pot. 2 tablespoons of vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, cloves and ginger to taste. Cook on low until the preferred thickness of applesauce.

Sometimes reading an entire post is important

I was going to write about Sunday's ride today. The fact that Sunny and I did wonderfully together. How he loves to prance, that he is responding to me better, and I have learned a few more of his already trained commands. But it looks like I won't because I have to spend this time explaining something that people chose not to read, or maybe I didn't make myself very clear.

Let's start with the paint, Tacoda. Tacoda was 4 years old when my neighbor bought him. He was abused and ignored. My neighbor was the first one to ever treat him well, or to break him. He got in the trailer the first time, for food. But he has learned that trick and will not fall for it again. So they are attempting other things, and in no way harming him.

Sunny, my horse is somewhere between 18-21 years old. There is a disagreement between paperwork and vets. He is a retired barrel racer, and has been properly trained. I apologize that I haven't said daily that part of my every day with him, is ground work. He has not been worked in a least 2 years, that we know of. If I didn't work him because he doesn't want to be worked, than he would never be worked. I know horses have feelings. I am not an idiot. I can just allow him to rot in the pasture I guess. But once he gets out and we go on our ride, he actually seems to enjoy himself. He loves showing up the paint. And according to all the horse owners around me, not just the neighbor I have been riding with, but the cattlemen down the way, the hobby riders and the race horse trainer, I am doing everything right, as best to my own abilities. I have not harmed him in any way, maybe his pride a bit when I don't allow him to do what ever he wants, but I don't allow my children to do whatever they want either.

I am doing what is right and what is best for both of us. Sunny has years of running in his background and some of his old commands are still ingrained in him, sometimes the slightest shift in weight is a command, so I am at fault, and have attempt to be more careful. As I said in the beginning of this post, We had a very good ride on Sunday.

How to Ride a Horse

I can hear my regular readers snickering as soon as they read the subject title, they know what's coming.

Saturday, I had set a date with my horse neighbor to go riding. We had planned on going Wednesday, however it was flooding here, and we didn't go. Saturday was gorgeous weather. All my children ran off to there respective neighborhood friends homes and I was left alone. Good good. I walked out and went to find my horse neighbor. She was working with her paint, Tacoda. He doesn't want to go into a trailer, and they have been working on it for weeks. He was 4 years old when she bought him, no one had ever been on his back. His original owner had him locked up in a small area behind a garage. She has had him two years, and he has come along way. I digress, I found my horse neighbor and we chatted a bit. I went back home to see if I could lure Sunny out of the back field.

He is a whore for food. A handful of grain tempted him up. I got his lead on, and he came quietly up front. I tied his lead up, and began to brush him out. He was feeling a little ornery, and wouldn't stand still. I managed to get him brushed out, and placed the blanket on his back. Next the saddle. Ummm. . . not going to happen. He skipped around, wiggling out from underneath the saddle. Then my horse neighbor called out, asking if I needed help. of course I do!

I lead Sunny to the fence, where my horse neighbor held his halter while I replaced the blanket, and grabbed the saddle. Her holding him didn't work. I got the saddle up, but when it came to actually fitting it, I was pushed up against the fence more times than would be comfortable. Wrap, bump, fence, wrap, bump fence. Eventually I got the clover hitch accomplished, no bloody fence like marks on my back, and was able to get the bit in. I lead him over to the truck, because mounting a horse requires muscles I haven't used in a while, and started to mount. My left foot was in the stirrup and my right leg was just crossing over his back when he decided to leave. I was holding on for dear life, my horse neighbor yelling, stop him! HOW!?! I quickly , grunted, and managed to pull myself up onto the saddle, grab his reigns and got Sunny to stop.

Then proceeded to walk about the yard. Get him comfortable with my lead. Out the gate we went, and into the horse neighbors yard as she saddled up her perfectly obedient paint. Sunny paced a bit under me, not wanting to hold still, determined to go for a run. The horse neighbor tried to give Sunny a carrot as we waited for her horse to stop holding his gut in. Sunny wanted nothing to do with it. The horse neighbor had to get Tacoda to do some lunges, forcing him to let his gut down. Then she cinched him up and we were off.

We walked down her drive way, and Sunny tried to turn left, to go back to our home, it was a struggle to get him to go right. As we walked down the road, he kept fighting with me to go into others fields to greet various horses. We got to the end of our road, and he willing turned the direction I wanted to go. But there is something about this new road that Sunny couldn't help himself from acting out. walk, walk, walk, trot, whoa, stop GO, walk, walk, trot, whoa, stop, GO, walk walk trot, RUN!!! WHOA SUNNY! STOP SUNNY! I'M GOING TO FALL SUNNY! He ran, right up a ditch and stumbled. My life flashed before my eyes, before I got him to stop. I had to continuously hold his reigns, because as soon as I let off he was going for a run, again. I waited for the horse neighbor that had no idea that I hadn't done that on purpose. Once we got around the corner, Sunny was fine, and I only had to slow him down a couple of time.

My horse neighbor and I have opposite problems. Her paint doesn't want to go, and my Quarter horse doesn't want to stop! Sunny likes to lead, Tacoda likes to follow. However Sunny will not allow Tacoda to walk to close to the lead, even when we are side by side. He has to be in front, even gives Tacoda the evil eye and he walks or trots faster to get ahead of him. Then there came the dogs. They were biting at our horses, the owner was standing outside, and I yelled at him to get his dogs. Now I get that the guy doesn't speak English, but come on! If someone is looking right out you screaming and pointing at your dogs, I think you could catch a hint. But no. We got past the house and dogs, and continued on our way. We once again had reached my home. Sunny took off and stopped at the gate. I had to fight with him to get him back out onto the road. We were going to walk about once again.

Out into the road, my non English speaking neighbor was behind us on his horse. Tacoda had an issue with this, and froze. He wouldn't move until the other horse had gone by. The NES (non-English Speaking) Neighbor walked his horse by. Smiling and saying "Hello, how are you?" Then ignoring or not understanding when he was told fine and asked, how are you?

The horse neighbors paint, is a little spooky, so if a car is coming, we stop. Two minivans were coming from either direction, I called them out for my horse neighbor who was a little ways behind me, turned Sunny about, and made my way back to her. The NES was thrown as one of the minivans went past. He stood back up and we watched to make sure he was OK. His horse was spooked and he didn't spend any time calming her, instead he fought with her to get back up. Once he was up, he kicked her hard, she ran, and he yanked back on her reigns. That is not how you treat a horse. No wonder he didn't care if his dogs were biting our horses.

Around the block again. Same things happened on that one street, Sunny wanted to run it. Eventually we made it back home, my left shoulder aching from Sunny and I's argument. He stood still to allow me to dismount. I removed the tack, and got him some grain. He stood there while I brushed him out again.

Oh, did I tell you we went riding on Sunday as well? I'll tell you about that adventure tomorrow.