Just another Day on the Farm

Wishing you all a wonderful Easter, may it be filled with love, laughs, family and friends!

This morning in the bird pen, o the delights that awaited me.. Lots of Brown eggs, pretty green egg, lovely big speckled turkey egg and my first big goose egg!

This is Mel, he is a blue Spash Jersey Giant Rooster, he is eight months old at this time, and I think he will add lots of meat to my next generation for the table, as well as carrying the genes for extra large brown eggs.

Pretty Girl..

Do you run a mixed flock or do you keep all your birds apart based on breeds, by this I mean do you allow your geese to mix with your chickens etc.. I have to admit that I don’t allow mixing of babies, they are always raised on their own, and my grow out spring/summer/fall pens are ducks, chickens, turkey’s etc but after the big fall butcher out, in winter, the keepers, the lucky overwinter birds all become one big flock in the big pen and the big indoor winter pen..

We are soon getting to the time of year where the grow out summer pens will melt out and birds in breeding sets will be moved into their own area’s and allowed to start that wonderful spring dance of mating and then laying/setting and ideally hatching out some lovely babies for me!

or I fell down.. hmmm, that sounds more like it..  Well after a great morning of puttering, crossbow target practice, I decided I wanted to go riding, Bit work was fab, tacking awesome..  even lining her up on the mounting block good, she was focused and seemed to be looking forward to going out as much as me..

And there was the issue, I mounted up and she walked out on me.. now I have read about this issue, I even remember it to point with other horses and I have seen it enough times to know what it, but Brandy never does it.. she is rock solid normally at the mount up..

But not today, today as soon as the weight went in and I had a leg over, she was walking out under me.. now if I had better balance, better upper body strength to my overall body mass, I would have been able to finish that pull across and things would have been fine..

But it was not meant to be, I pulled on the horn and gravity folks did the rest, but instict also kicked in, and I was able to come off and over the saddle, and (THANK YOU DAD!!!! for those wonderful new crooked stirrups!!!!) and once I was coming back down, take my foot out of my stirrup and at that point I let go, and landed full body contact in about 8inchs to a foot of mud… Splat!

At which point, Brandy stops moving and goes, you ok? overall, I am ok, a bit sore but no where near what it could be, and while DH had the camera so that he could get a nice photo of me riding for you.. instead, he got the one above..

In a way, as strange as this might seem, it was a good thing, I knew that at some point I would take a fall when working with the horse and I am been very worried about what would happen in a fall at my weight.. the answer kinda surprises me, at least this time.. not much different then if I was less in weight, my old training and instinct kicked in.

On the other hand, it just drives home the fact that I really need to keep going down on that scale and I need to increase my strength and overall flexablity..  As DH said.. If this happened on the trail while camping, you have! to get back on and finish the ride..

Lots of work to be done!

Its spring, and I will just go ahead and admit it, the blog is going to be filled with seeds, plants, gardens, greenhoues, chicks, new buns and lots of Brandy.. I  promise to throw in a fair number of new recipes, as well as keeping up on my challanges..

I have rocked it in the family weight loss challange, having dropped over 30 pds in three months and I am on the roll and just want to keep it going in that direction, I can’t say that I feel great and full of energy, that would be a false, I have great days and good days and days where I am so wore that I am in bed after supper.. yet one day, I went to be before supper and just missed it..

Each day I am spending more time outside and its awesome.. this morning was one of those, yes I popped in and out of the house, and I popped on and off the computer but most of the morning was spent outside.. I hauled water to big barn, milked and feed Kermit, what a sweet pig, I will have to remind myself that he is going to the freezer but for now, I am just going to enjoy his friendly sweet temperment, its a joy to watch a piglet do a full body wiggle of joy when drinking his fresh warm milk..

I hauled hay and raked up extra’s, I dumped water tubs and filled them again, let birds out, bred the rabbit, tidied up hutches and figure out what needs a repair from winter, groomed the cow, groomed and did the horses’s feet, worked on leaving her out in cross ties in a new place today, she was tied out in my mini-woods, (so far this week, she has been tied in the barn, at the hay feeder, to a tree in the small pasture and today in the mini-forest) she was tacked up and worked, and then as a nice cool down, we took a nice long road walk together, watered and moved all the seedling trays, planted more seeds, hauled out glass frames to cover raised beds, helped drain out a bed that is holding water, and figured out what would need to be done to allow better drainage.

Turned a small compost pile, and took the shovel and cleaned off the cement front walkway, and shoveled a bit more in the one area of the bird pens, as soon as possable, I want at least one or two of those pens ready..

I did a number of stretched today while working with Brandy and its interesting to me to see her reactions to me doing stretches and relaxing body parts, she follows suit.. its was kinda like doing a horse yoga.. I even got her to sigh and do a full body shake out with me..

Lots and lots of things left to do, spring has hit and its mud, poo and sunshine with lots of snow to melt out, but its coming up on a four day weekend and while I know that we will not be hitting the gym in any sense of what that means, i assure you the farm workouts will be regular and steady..

Got plans to make a lovely rolled stuffed steak for supper tonight, thinking sheep cream cheese, greens with apricot jam in a beef steak roll served with a side of homefries..