Just another Day on the Farm

Miss Rooten Tooten- All Settled in now..

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I figured I had better do a Tootie update, as I got asked at least three times on the weekend, how is she doing 🙂 So she has successfully dug up over 60 percent of her pen to the point that I will move her next weekend, she outgrew her first little temp hut and now has her adult size outdoor hut, which is a huge thick blue water barrel on its side filled with lots of straw, this allows lots of fresh air, but stops rain, and wind from three sides, and then its faces a wall, so that there is room for her to get in and out but prevents any direct drafts on her, plus its a nice dark blue, which means it absorbs heat in the sun (can be moved into the shade in the heat of the summer) but for cooler fall mornings, she can sleep in her straw bedding, and have the extra warmth from the sun as well. She tends to sleep outside in the sun anyway.. but its still a good idea.

She is a very clean little piglet and has her bathroom corner she uses only… I normally clean out the bathroom corners in the barn so they stay clean but in her pen, she has lots of room and when we move her to her new space, I will rake out and spread her poo corner into the whole space..

She really likes those extra cracked or going tomato’s or the leftover bits, she likes the rest of the garden’s extra’s but so far, tomato’s are her favorite.. she likes her piggy chow and seems to be growing well, she seems to be getting her winter longer/thicker black hair on her body..

Posted in Critters | Tagged pigs, pot belly pig | 4 Comments

Ah Monday.. Lamb Chili Recipe.. Fall Style..

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Yesterday I was having a bit of a visit and they were making chili.. its smelled so good!

When I got home, I saw that Dh had picked a huge steel bowl full of Roma tomato’s a few large green peppers and so I just had to pull out a pd of ground lamb to thaw last night so that we could have fresh homemade chili made today..

Lamb Fall Garden Chili..

1 pds of ground lamb meat
20 large ripe fresh roma tomato’s -10 diced, and 10 blended
2 large Green peppers -Seeded out and diced
1 cup of fall ready leeks -Well cleaned, and diced
3 large fresh dug potato’s -Scubbed and diced
3 med fresh pulled carrots-Peeled and diced
Small Fresh horseradish root, washed, scubbed and grated in for some nice heat tones.
(Fresh spinach, diced and wilted at the end)

Not from the garden

One large can of Baked Dark Beans
One small can of Kidney Beans
Chili powder

So I have already started making my chili this morning for tonight’s supper. I started my tomato’s and have my basic sauce started simmering and reducing away, once it has reduce by 25% and started to thicken up, I will cook up my lamb in a bit of duck fat (its very lean) once they are cooked, I will add it to the sauce, along with the rest of the list, other then the spinach..

Slow simmer for a couple hours to meld the flavours and thicken it up, at the very end, take some fall grown spinach, dice it up and add at the very end, just to wilt it, serve with a spoon of either greek yogurt or sour cream with a tiny bit of fresh chopped basil.

Normally I would serve this with either Homemade Baking Powder Biscuits or Homemade Corn Bread..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | 1 Comment

The bounty from the main hugelbed..

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Grapes, Tomato’s, peppers, corn, potatos, fall radishes, pea’s and many more, all wonderful and exciting to see them coming into the house but without a doubt the biggest treat at the moment is our amazing hugelbeet grown melons.. Watermelon, Catalope and honeydew are growing along side some of the most amazing tomato plants on the farm at the moment.. The flavour is outstanding!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

A Mane of a Hair Cut!

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Brandy came to me with the last ten to twelve inches of her mane about four inches long, in a straight cut and then the rest of her mane was super thick, she has quite course hair there, and it was long and ragged..

Her tail was no better, it had been straight cut across on the bottom, much shorter then I would have left it if it was me..

So I have been fighting to figure out different combs and brushes to try and work with her mane, and finally I was flipping though my new horse care book and saw that they had a recommendation for super thick manes.. thinning shears..

These need to be double sided thinnning shears and the instructions was very clear on how to do it so that it looks as natural as possable, I will straight up say that I did it first the way recommended to see how it went and was very pleased but I also wanted to even out the mane to a point length wise as well.

So to just thin it out, you take your thinning shears and lift a small portion of the mane up at the roots, doing a total of three cut one at the bottom, one at the middle and one at the endish.. keep the bottom one end to the next cut but play with the spacing on the middle and end each time.. This will allow the mane to be thinned down but keep that natural look that lots of uneven hair ends gives..

Now because I also wanted to try and start getting the mane to be evened out, I want to shorten the long part and take out nothing on the short part, so it required more trimming with the sheers then I would recommend if you were going just for the natural look.

Still I think she looks much better with her new cut personally, I also learned that she does not care at all about having clicking sissors worked on her even up to her ears, nor does she care if you pull her mane by hand, and or pull her tail by hand.

Which is how I plan on retraining her tail into its correct shape an style, allowing it to grow and also hand pulling it, and I might even save some of those great horse hairs and use them to do a tiny bit of edging sewing to send something to my beloved family 🙂

Posted in draft horse | 3 Comments

Horse Riding Insurance

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, throwing it out to my readers, and just cuz its interesting to me..

So for those of you that are riding off your own farm are you

a) Taking out Horse Riding Insurance? On the farm insurance if someone other then the horse’s owners are riding her (aka Farmgal and DH)

b) Are you taking out Horse Riding Off-Farm insurance? and if so, how much are you taking it out for?

It looks like the average horse trial in our area is asking for a min of a two million dollar insurance policy in order to ride on them but the province is recommending a 5 million dollar policy, at a cost of 75 per year

So for any of you who ride, or have family that are riding.. what if anything are they doing in this regards?

Ps, Legally in this province a person riding a horse DOES have the same legal right to be on the road as vehicle, but they also state the most drivers don’t know or follow this rule..

Also that applies only to roads that don’t have a posted low speed, example 401, min 60 km an hour, Max 110 km an hour.

Not that this is a issue on any of the roads I am looking at, its just a interesting bit of info I dug out in my internet search today..

I’m leaning heavily towards getting the full 5 million off-farm riding insurance, having said that Sheez, I don’t even have 5 million on the vehicle!

Posted in draft horse | 2 Comments

My laugh of the week!

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

So I needed order two new big round bales of hay for the barn critters and I stopped in and chatted with Farmer R.. Part of the talk went like this..

R: So have your ridden your new horse yet?

FG: No, had Farmer T on her once, and DH has been up on her bareback but I am waiting till I get my new saddle to start riding her.. Just been ground working her, so that when I do ride her, we will have gotten alot worked out between us.

R: She sure is a BIG! Horse.. had someone say to me.. that is one BIG horse.. and I said.. ya but FG is a BIG girl.. I explained to him, that you don’t want to ride a little horse..

FG.. LOL, yup that’s a good way to look at it, plus I want to use her for draft work as well..

R: yup.. she would be able to do that.. shakes head, and winks.. BIG Horse..

Ok, so clearly she has made the local gossip talk, and I just had to laugh that R was defending by explaining that I needed a big boned gal.. Didn’t point out that I liked big horse even when I was younger and much fitter!

Posted in draft horse | 5 Comments

Thusday Health Update..

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Wow, its a healthy update Thursday and I missed last week, so I need to do a two week update, still doing my best to remove all wheat from the diet but I have slipped a bit in the past two weeks, not within my own cooking or in my house but while I have been out and about..

Having said that, I was a bit leary of getting on that scale to be honest, I mean I knew that my cloths were loose and that I have been able to get into a size smaller then normal but still, I felt a bit bloated from my Opp’s, none the less I was down almost another 6 pds, as I said to hubby, sheez, if we had eaten correctly, I bet I would have been down ten.. O well..

Well, I will tell you this, my horse gym is so giving me a workout, between working with Brandy, Working on the farm and going horseback riding, I have places on my body that hurt that I was not even really aware that it could LOL

Stretching is a very good thing, I have been taking to making sure I stretch a number of times a day, also I find if I sit to long or even lay to long, I get stiff and need to stretch and move, been using ice rub and the massage machine, as well as good feet soaks.

Still its paying off, This spring, I would haul two five gallon buckets, do a different chore, then haul two more, then take a break, do something in the house, and haul the four more thoughtout the day to the barn.. The other day, I was in a good mood, and was morning fresh, and I hauled six five gallon buckets in a row for the barn critters, then hauled two more for the yard critters and then hauled in two for the house use! No breaks, No rests, no splitting it up during the day! I was feeling the burn by the time I got done, but I was so proud of myself.

Got a new summer dress on the 5 buck rack at Walmart this week, and its three sizes small then the ones I was buying two years ago! Its so pretty too!

So have you been eating well? Have you been feeling the burn? and if so, what have you been doing? Have you been thrilled to be able to get a new size in your summer cloths sale shopping!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 9 Comments

Driving Carts.. So fancy..

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Still looking for a nice farm cart.. but this is just “DROOL!”

Posted in draft horse | 4 Comments

Staying Grounded..

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Setting yourself up for success..

I had a mild set back with my Brandy Girl, while she gets to accept her own choices, and I certainly don’t approve of what she choose, when she had a mild meltdown, I will say that I was at fault for not checking that it was a safe time to bring her into the situation..

The good news is that I learned alot more about her, the bad news is that I learned alot more about her LOL. Don’t worry in the end, no human, horse or equipment was hurt or damaged, and while I lost my own “center” and got pissed at the horse, my own limitations etc

At least I can honestly say that I didn’t end up afraid of my horse, now I’m not saying that I was foolish in my actions around her, I am sure I could have! put myself in a spot to have been hurt, but safety first in all things.

I tend to be a bit of a free spirit in a number of ways, with dear hubby being the more grounded person in the marriage, but when working with my animals and life in general, I know that being grounded and centered is a huge plus in handling any and all things in life.

Like most things in my life.. its a work in progress.. 😛

So how grounded are you?

Posted in Life moves on daily | 4 Comments

Happy 60th Birthday to my Beloved Mom!

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

A little Blast from the past! I have always loved this photo of my mom from her younger days.. Wishing you the very best day possable and wonderful! year to come, you have more movement with your new knee and hip then you have in years now, and I hope that you find your days filled with love, happiness and the odd adventure!