new horse

I am a horse owner again. I went out and bought a mini-horse mare and her two month old colt. Lily is a nice little six year old sorrel mare and Charlie is her bouncing sorrel baby. At least I think he will be sorrel. I have all this pasture full of knee high grass and I can’t put her out in it and leave her because she was being kept in a paddock without any grass since the foal was born. It would make her founder. So Steve and I made a small pen just outside the stall in the back of the barn and pulled all the grass out of it. It was last weekend, when we had 5 inches of rain – we worked on and off in the rain.

Lily and son have a nice 10 by 12 box stall that opens to a roughly 12 x 20 pen outside.[ The picture is of Lily in her previous home.] I have been putting her out in the pasture for a short period at a time, which they both love. Twice Lily has managed to get out of the pen into the pasture, the lure of green grass is so strong. Once was in the afternoon and I know she wasn’t out more than 2 hours. The second time was at night and I have no idea how long she was out but she is fine.

She eats like a horse- she went through a bale of hay in about 5 days- with very little waste. She isn’t thin- even nursing she is well padded. I don’t want her to get too fat, mini horses look awful with big pot bellies and then they founder easily. I would like to get her out on the pasture more though, Charlie loves racing around and rolling in the grass. And hay is so expensive, we bought it at the feed store and it cost $7.00 for the bale. I have to check with the neighbors to see who has hay for sale. At least she will be easy on the grain – 2 cups twice a day- the bag should last for a while.

I am going to have to mail order a halter for Charlie. You can’t find a mini-foal halter very easily in stores. He is quite friendly and loves to be scratched but is already giving me a bit of a hassle when I try to bring them back into the barn. He follows Lily to the gate then runs off. It takes a lot of coaxing to get him inside.

When I let them out in the morning I have been letting the hens out in the pasture too. The horses don’t seem to mind them, although Lily chases cats. The turkeys look so funny out in the grass. They have been flying out of the pen for some time but they like to go where the hens are going. They roost outside every night on the top rail of the pen. Steve tried to put some chicken wire there yesterday because we are afraid they will get hurt out in the yard but they got out anyway- one was on the barn roof calling its head off this morning.

Tomatoes are about gone but pears and apples are getting ripe. We have some runty grapes too. I need to dig up the potatoes to see what’s there. Cucumbers succumbed to downy mildew. No pickles there. I did make a few pints of tomato sauce but the tomatoes really struggled with the fungal diseases this year. Our pumpkins are small and green. I doubt they will mature. I need to harvest some sage. My moon flower is finally blooming- we haven’t had frost yet although it has come close a few times. Got to get the porch ready to bring in my plants. The zinnias and morning glories are looking good. The ornamental kale is coloring up but I doubt we get to see much of it as the turkeys have found it. They seem to like big leaved plants. They eat a lot of comfrey and that’s fine by me.

We have had a very green summer. This last 5 inches of rain will make the plants and soil moist going into dormancy. Since the ground was pretty dry before it started the flooding around here was minimal. I am just glad the rain wasn’t snow we would have been buried. Summer has been fairly mild too, the way I like it. I hope fall is long and mild.

Early September

The sun is shining at least for a while today. We had the remnants of hurricane Gustav yesterday and the remnants of hurricane Hannah are supposed to be here tonight. The almanac has some interesting things to say about heating and cooling cycles as they relate to sunspot activity and they seem to think we are heading into another cooler period and winter will be cooler than normal.

We are having water problems. When you live in the country that’s one of the things you deal with – your water supply. We had a new pressure tank put on last fall but they didn’t change the pump- now it seems some little box thing on the pump is going- the pump stops working when it sits overnight and Steve has to go down there and give it a thump- then it turns on. I guess that means a repair bill soon. You never realize how important water is until you don’t have free use of it.

And I spent about two hours this morning trying to repair the kitchen floor after one of our lovely dogs tore a piece of the vinyl up right in the middle of the room. There had been a small tear there that had been repaired and glued down, some dog found that to be interesting and enlarged the tear and removed a small piece. You never know what dog you want to get rid of until you catch them eating your floor.

I was grumping about how awful and boring the presidential race was until the new GOP vice presidential candidate was announced. I really like Sarah Palin, 100 times better than O”Bama. Now those who are just enamored of making history can vote for her instead of a conceited, power hungry, half black guy. I too wonder how she is going to manage all the family things with the high powered job, but if she thinks she can do it, I say go for it. We would never ask a man the questions we ask her about family.

Some women can and do manage beautifully. She knows better than anyone else what she is capable of doing and it’s a once in a life time chance a woman would be a fool not to take. She is smart, feisty, conservative and experienced. I hope the two of them, McCain and Palin win. McCain has devoted his life to serving this country and this is probably the last chance he has to become president. He will run it at least as well as O’Bama, probably better.

O’Bama needs to go back to work and actually get some experience and decide what side he is on, take some stands even if they aren’t popular, show he knows how to lead etc. Maybe he can try later although personally I think a man who has written two memoirs at this stage of his life when he really hasn’t accomplished much is a bit too set on himself. I think he feels superior to most of us, a cut better than the average person and he wants to be president just to add to his memoirs. The presidency of the Untied States isn’t just another game to be won so you can boast about it.

Let’s move on- hey, these are my memoirs here. The hens are laying well now. So well I am giving away eggs. Eggs and tomatoes. My vines may look awful now but they are still ripening fruit and the tomatoes taste great. I don’t really have enough to can but I make a little sauce. I will really miss fresh tomatoes when I can no longer have them, store tomatoes taste totally different. Our corn is done but we are enjoying corn from other local growers. I just bought some Michigan apples and a watermelon too.

Gardening Granny’s advice here is not about politics. It’s to get out to your local farmers market if you don’t have a garden and see what real food tastes like. And take the time to make something from scratch just once anyway, whether it’s a pie, salsa or bread. Eat like you were dying!