Just another Day on the Farm

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..

Looks like my Girls two day ride/camp out will be taking place towards the end of mayish.. this gives me seven weeks, seven weeks to lose some more weight, seven weeks to condition Brandy, seven weeks to get both of us ready for a good hard days trail ride, seven weeks to do some workouts to increase my own core strength, seven weeks to increase my own flexablity..

Sometimes having a hardcore short term goal can be just the ticket to awesome results, so we will see how it all goes.. There will be so many firsts coming between brandy and myself, I never got to trail ride with her last year, we have done pasture riding, road riding and edge of the field riding but not bush riding yet, so that is a big new one, and we need to get a number of smaller rides done before the big one..

The gear has not be tested for anything this long, I have never used my tack for more then an hour at most and need to make sure that everything is ship/shape and will not cause issues with Brandy in terms of wear, I might do some heavy duty thinking about getting a better quality saddle blanket.

I have not done any wet work with Brandy yet, the only time she was asked to cross a wet ditch late last winter, she jumped it, and so while I have been asking and getting water/puddle/mud crossing this spring with my ground work, she has not been ridden in and around wet area’s, this is clearly a huge! weakness in our training in regards to the planned coming ride, she has to learn how to ride in and though wet or mucky conditions and be willing to cross small streams..

Packing gear, this one I believe should be one of the easiest to do, I have put a number of things on her before and had no issues but saddlebags are still a “new” thing per say and I want her to get used to the idea of bedroll, and gear..

Last but not least is tie out, she needs to learn to do a tie out for the trail, and while I imagine that by the end of the ride she will be tuckered out and more then ready for a rest, I still need to work on this training/skill level with her, she needs to learn to be tied out and left, she is good with a tie out to graze, she is good with a tie out if you are working with her but tie out and left.. that is a different matter..

Its going to be a bit of a challange for both of us and I have to admit that i think with work it can be done and done well.. we will see if I am right or not…

Rest up big girl cuz your momma got plans for you!

Ok, I had to laugh a little this morning, I was doing my Brandy workout, half was done in the small pasture as I could work her up and down a side of a incline, and we were doing other fun things, then I moved her over to the road for road work with a hoola hoop, and While I was working her,  a lady pulled up, now she is the farmer down the way, I don’t know land owner number nine in that direction..

She pulled the car to a stop an says in a worried voice, did he break out (now I am standing there with her in brindle, groomed with a halter on and a hoola hoop in my hand)

Me, no, i am just doing road work with her..

Her: I have seen her by the fence and I am sure she could get out

Me: yes, I agree, she could but she never has, I am planning on putting in electic fence this spring just to be on the extra safe side

Her: I have seen her get out, she was loose in the yard

Me: only time she is loose in yard is if I have put her there.

Her: Why are you on the road?

Me: I am just doing road work training, gearing up for when we head out in the wagon?

Her: you have a wagon, can she be driven?

Me: yes, broke to ride and drive..

Her: how old is he?

Me: She is eight..

Her: does not look very big to me, think she is younger..

Me: She is only half clyde, most likely TB for the other half, can’t call her a warmblood as she is clearly a first gen cross.

Her: Where did you get her?

Me: Local area, sold her because they didn’t have pasture last year….

She: waits for more info, and waits

Me: smile and nod.. and she moves on..

I  have lived in this area, and I don’t talk to many, but this lady thought she knew things about me and my world.. she had bits but none of them were quite right..  funny how folks take a bit of what they see and fill in the blanks..

So here is my funny of the day.. Fill in the blank for her..  and fill up my comment area with some humor.. cute, smart mouth or playing it straight are all welcome…

One of the best things about working with your horse (who started off a hot “its Spring” teenager of a boss herd mare) is that you have to let everything else go, there is no room in your mind, or your body or your emotions for anything but this moment, this horse, this very second in time..

Its a dance of the very best kind, the one where you can not just see but you can feel the step that is coming. Brandy has been a blessing in so many ways, being able to step out of my life and just be, is just one of them.

On sunday, we had a tie out session while the cow got locked up and we worked in the barn, it was a good lession in and of itself, but Brandy has been bored, its spring, its starting to warm and she is full of P&V, and I am finding myself needing to book time in for her daily, as with spring on the way, I am in spring mode..

She herded the piglet herd yesterday, which is just funny really, but none the less other then Dh and I, every other critter on the pasture/big barns take their lead from her and she has been letting it go to her head 🙂

I think the thing I find the most amazing, is that after she get out of reactive, pushy girl mode and settles into working girl mode, she will flip a switch and in a way, its like I have a different horse, its amazing for me to watch, I can see it in parts of her body, just like I can see when she is gearing up the other way..

Time to get back into the habit of doing a morning working and a later afternoon working, you see, not only is riding season breathing down our necks but I have something I am aiming towards, I don’t know if I will be taking Brandy on this event or not, but I would like to see if its possable to maybe make that happen.

I am planning on going to a girls only weekend ride/camp out, and I am so excited about it, I am working hard to lose a bit more weight, getting both myself and Brandy into gear, gotta get the gear so that Dh can milk the cow willl I am gone overnight..

Its local, so it will be a tack up and head out for a couple hours ride in private land and then set up camp and overnight and then repeat on the way back the next day.. I will admit that I am so thrilled at the idea of getting to do this..

Its my planned stay-cation  or is that horse-cation!

Lots and lots of thinning and transplanting to be done in the future but right now, I am just happy to see all those little bits of green coming!

coming soon, lots of tomato’s, peppers and ground cherries! and maybe some leeks and lots and lots of strawberries!

Ok I hate when I lose photos on posts, but to lose the whole post, photos and write up, and just to come up blank.. very odd, it didn’t even save a draft for me.. Very very odd.

On Sunday we took off the half bale on top of the pile and peeled off the outer spoiled area and we had a really good core of clean bedding quality bale, which was awesome, and the pigs loved it..

Which raised my hopes for the other bales, they are in fact bigger and so I though, great, might have to take off more outer layers but should have a bigger safe core.. so we flipped over the end two bales and lets just say, you should not be handling these kind of bales without masks and gloves etc..

I was sad to see that despite taking off several hundred pds worth of outer layers (which were hauled over and added to the top of the closest hugelbed, that there was nothing that could be used other then for compost/garden use in that bale at least..

Ok, I know that I can be different, I really do.. I live a life that most folks either think is odd or quaint or just plain strange at time but I have to admit that because I keep mainly to myself with just a few older friends/family and just a few local close friends that I forget just how ” odd person out” I really can be..

Well, I got reminded of it loud and clear yesterday, you see I headed off to the big city for a amazing day of permaculture, so let me say right up front that ottawa permacultures 3rd event was awesome! I would love to say that I am heading back in for sunday but I’m not, I am staying home and getting some needed things done on the farm itself

I will go into more detail on a number of things about the event itself, but the basic overviews would run along the lines of this.. openning circle, compost tea, animal tracking, lunch, hugelculture, and a does native culture and permiculture work together, or are they in fact a blend of the same.

The compost tea seminar was the one that I got the most working knowledge out of, the tracking was overviews of things i knew but it was done with skill and knowledge, lunch was eye opening in a number of ways, and the hugelculture was a combo of, great, good and very bad, and the last one was a mix of the same..

Now I can put that out there without a bit more info, the couple that did the hugelculture presentation are lovely folks, I mean such wonderful heartfelt, truly caring filled with life force type peaple.. loved them, and thought it was a great overview, but the fact that they could not answer simple questions about the safety of the grade of a beam, was a Huge RED FLAG that made me feel very uncomfortable that they were the ones giving advice on how to do things, when they were as they freely admitted “winging” it..

There was a even bigger issue and I am only going to lightly touch on it, because I liked them enough to not want to write it out, so let me put it this way.. they foolishly feel that its better to ask for forgiveness then to get the proper permits in place..

I will say this as clearly as I possably can, CANADA is not Europe, we have more rules in place in regards to land, water and farmers rights, Just because you can read in a book that says, Go ahead and make your own waterway or pond, does not mean that in canada you can expect to change water patterns on a peice of land, you will have issues! on this in the future.. and again I was very, very!! uncomfortable that this was being presented as a way that it could be done, what bothered me even more on this was the I appeared to be one of the only folks in the room that this was a issue for, the rest around me where nodding in agreement.

So getting back to the topic of this post, I was once again made to grasp that I am the odd duck out.. even at a gathering of “like minded folks” I am still the odd one out, its not that others around me didn’t have land, in fact I would say that I was thrilled to see that at least 50 percent of the folks there did in fact have land, and in many cases more then I do, (that’s not to hard, after all, we have a small farm) but what did surprise me was the amount of folks that have land but are waiting and learning, instead of doing..

I see the irony of that statement, i just spent time saying do it right in a way and now I am saying for heaven sakes, stop talking or reading or thinking about these idea’s and get up and getter done..

Really of course I believe in both of those statement, I think knowledge is POWER and I actively seek it out myself, however I think its in the very doing of things that you find a different kind of power, a source of power that will see you though in times of true hardship.

Book knowledge vs hands on knowledge, vs muscle memory knowledge.. these are skills that take a lifetime to excell at, and yet I saw so many folks that appeared to be there to gather knowledge, that when asked, didn’t seem to have “at least yet” had the follow though..

While i know that everyone will walk their own path but……..