Painted Ponies

All through the summer and fall, Megan and Marcie have been keeping Flash and Flint in shape for us. With Mike's leg keeping him from riding, our horses have been getting a little "robust". The girls like to get off work, grab something to eat and catch the horses for an evening ride. Quite often, after dark, I will hear the "clop, clop" of Flash's shoes on the hard road and the laughter of the girls as they ride home in total darkness.


I can't imagine life any other way, we are so privileged to live in the country and enjoy the perks of being on a farm. I don't miss the cows!! Mike made me sign a piece of paper, stating that he could buy his precious cows back as soon as he was up and walking. That was the morning that the cattle liner was coming down the road to pick up all of the honory old b-------s. I hope that day never comes when we have to go back to using the horses for work and not for pleasure!


I don't really get why Mike is so adamant that he needs to have them back. You like freezing your butt off, carrying a frozen calf to the barn while his retarded mother tries to eat you alive? You love trying to cut the pairs out of the herd and push them into the big field when the frozen air from the Arctic is blowing down your back and chilling you to the bone? Or trying to pull frozen baler twine off big round bales that are solidly frozen to the ground? Or getting pooped on by a scouring calf that stinks to high heaven? Or sitting at a fall calf sale, thinking that you are going to puke and wondering if you are going to have to plead bankruptcy? I like my cattle, triple A, flash frozen, in a neat little package and I don't mind paying some other poor dumb farmer to raise it for me! Cows? I say, bullshit!

Too Concerned About Clean?

My girl friend, Loretta swears that the reason why my children were so sickly as youngsters is that I kept my house too clean and the kids did not have an immunity to germs that were out in the "real" world, just outside the door to the sterile environment that I had created.
I had to chuckle this week when I finally got around to reading some of the magazines that I buy for a "rainy day" but never get around to looking at them. An article caught my eye in Mother Earth News about a renegade farmer, hauled off and procescuted for selling raw milk off of his farm. I had to agree with the writer, today's mentality about dirt, germs and protecting kids from everything will be the cause of extinction of humans at some point.
I don't think that my cleaning fettish has anything to do with being a germaphobe, I just like things neat and orderly and clean. My kids dug their own carrots out of the garden and wolfed them down with grubby little hands, they drank raw milk all of the time, I made angel food cakes with cracked eggs (God forbid!), they played in the milk barn while we were milking and only got kicked a time or two and I know that Andrew used to drink out of the dog dish before he could reach the hydrant and turn it on by himself. They had Beaver Fever from playing in pond water, they got wormed on a regular basis (like any farm kid should, whose favorite place to play with the John Deere tractors is the manure pile!) and I am sure that the boys had a bug eating contest once or twice. It didn't kill them. But I am not so sure that the lethal amounts of hand sanitizer that is flowing around here, would have made them healthier.
This past week, all toys, magazines and newspapers have been removed from all of the offices in Pincher Creek. Hair salons, dentist's offices, coffee shops - no one escaped the purge. Computer keyboards have to be cleaned between users at the library etc. etc.
If Loretta's theory is correct and we have an H1N1 outbreak in town, then we are all going down. We will be so immune suppressed from the cleaning products and removal of all germs in our environment, we won't stand a chance. One thing is for sure, the farm kids will survive - they are virtual pig pens of germs and they are very happy about it! Just ask any kid playing in a shit pile!

A Little Bit of Heaven

This is heaven for me!!! Just look at that color and texture. We were just a little too early for all of the scarecrow and pumpkin displays that the fruit stands put up for Halloween, but they were starting to harvest the pumpkin fields and bins were starting to appear in front of the stands. Piles of hay bales were sitting to the sides and so I am sure that when we go back next week, the displays will be complete.

I had so much fun wandering around with my camera, I think that the fruit stands know me by name by now!
When I retire, I am so moving to Creston !!! Unfortunately, they do not have a scrapbook store or even a scrapbook department within one of their stores, but they do have a few very good restaurants and amazing veggies and fruit. We cook all of our meals out of the produce that we buy at the stands. Only five more sleeps!!!!

Hey, I'm Back!!

It seems like it has been years since I had the time to sit down and blog! As much as I love this time of year, I also get a little stressed by the work load that falls on me when it gets cold and dreary.

Here is my to do list around the farm and yard:

1. Pickled carrots are all in their jars, looking so fresh with the orange carrots, green dill and the garlic...but the beets are still in the garden. Two rows... and it is cold out there now, and I don't want to go out and get them. If it does not warm up, I might just pretend that they do not exist and let them winter in the garden. No one will notice until spring, when it is time to rotortill and then I will just act surprised!
2. All of the flowers have been killed in the last frost, and most of them are of the type that will produce 2 million seedlings in the spring, if I just leave them there. All of the heads must be cut down and disposed of, before the November winds blow the seeds everywhere. Trouble is, I have acres of flower beds!
3. I still have a tree and a couple of perennials that are not in the ground. They must be planted!
4. All of the hoses must be drained and hung on the fences, so that they survive the cold.
5. Our old farm dog must make the last and final trip to the vet. She is not going to make it through the winter, and must be put down before it gets cold. I am not looking forward to that duty. I am the only one that will take her. Rex has been with us for 17 years. She really has been around as all of the kids grew up and has been on some pretty wild adventures with them. We lost Daniel in a grain field when he was two and if it was not for Rex, it might have had a very bad outcome! We owe her...
6. My house needs to be decorated for fall. That should take a couple of days!!
7. The fifth wheel trailer needs to be winterized after our trip to Creston for Thanksgiving. I hate that job! Bringing in everything that will freeze is a pain in the ass. Then you forget to put it back in the spring. There should be people for this.
8. My car has to be cleaned for the last time. I do not clean it in the winter. I don't even drive it much either, as I opt for one of the trucks when the roads are bad.
9. All of the apples have to be picked up off the ground in the yard. It is very bad to leave them there, under the apple trees, to rot - causes all types of mould and blight problems for the trees next season as the spores splash back up onto the tree when it rains in the spring. Millions of apples to pick up!!
10. I need to wash all of the windows after the flies are gone and at least be able to see out of them. I hate flies!!! This has been a very bad fly season down here this fall. Washing windows in the cold is one of my least favorite jobs, so the thought of cold water running down your sleeves to your armpits is just too much and I have procrastinated for weeks. Maybe I should just wait for the snow to scour the windows clean!

Just thinking about this list makes me tired. I am going to tackle it tomorrow, right now I am going to ignore all of the work and go scrapbook!