Horses are special

Of course horses are special! Everyone knows that! But not everyone thinks of why they're special.

I've had animals of some kind or other my entire life.   Dogs.  Cats.  Birds.  Mice.  Hamsters.  Bunnies.  Fish.  I can't ever recall not having animals around for more than just a few weeks at a time.  We bond with them and they have special places in our lives.  They're family in every sense.

But horses are still special.  They're big.  They're a lot of work.  They require a big commitment to their care and training.  My horses have brought a grace and dignity to my life that I wouldn't have otherwise.  Horseback riding is much like dancing.  It's one of the few athletic activities that requires moving with another living being.  Boxing also comes to mind.  But no, even on the ground, it's more like dancing.

Much of our training is convincing our equine partner that there's nothing for them to be afraid of, nothing is going to hurt them, and you build your relationship on trust.  You can't make a horse do anything.  And whatever they do they have to do under their own power.  So you learn to persuade.  And build a partnership working together.

So.  I lost another friend this past season.  It's very hard to explain my affection for G.  I didn't blog much about G.  Truth is.  G was dangerous.

Seriously. She'd break your arm if you weren't paying attention
There's nothing rational about one's affection so I never thought about it much.  I'd had G since she was born.  She was the cutest baby!  Her sire was a 16+ hand champion Overo Paint.  Her dam was a classic Quarter Horse type Tobiano.  Fifteen hands, very stoutly built.  G was to be my forever horse.

Things don't always work out.  For whatever reason...oh, her delivery was very difficult and she was very sick when she was 4 or 5 months old...G turned very aggressive when she turned 2.  You learned right quick to recognize that hard look in her eye and let her have it.  Less she kick you in to the middle of next week.  Things got very hard when she was 8 or so because she stopped giving that hard eye warning.  You'd just hear her suck in some air when she was gonna let you have it and you had better be fast on you feet.  You learned to pay attention...*always*.

And she never grew in to what we'd thought she'd be.  Barely 13 hands and 800 pounds she was too small for me to put under saddle.  We started training her drive but she persistently came up lame after brief work sessions.  Turns out she had a bone defect in her right foot that caused her to be lame under the slightest amount of stress.

She ended up just being a big expensive pet.  It's sad really.  She was a real cute horse and if she'd had a kind heart and willing temperament she'd have been a great project for a 4H kid.

Very cute horse. 31 July 2004
I don't think one ever gets over this stuff. I've been through it before, I'll go through it again. Very hard decisions are sometimes thrust upon us and we never think of that when you get yourself into it.  Thankfully she never did hurt anyone.  And she left this life as easily as one can.  And with a mouth full of clover.  For that I'm grateful.

RIP little G. 11 March 1996 - 7 October 2016.

Spring milestone

The first of the season's daisies!

27 May
That's my back yard. In another week or so there will be thousands of daisies out there. I'll be sure to update!

My basil!

I *love* basil. I have a window box in my living room window full of basil. Between Margherita pizza and Bruschetta and Caprese salad and pesto not to mention sandwiches...I just *love* basil. I grow basil in pots all year long but it's especially prolific in the summertime. So...I have this window box in my living room window and my basil just isn't doing well. I don't know why. It's all laying down flat, wilted and dying. I mean really, basil is easy...it's like a weed. Grows like crazy.

There's no evidence of the (stupid) cat messing with it and ...well...I got it. I glance over the other day and...

The little bastard
That's why my basil hasn't been doing well! So I booby trapped it! I stuck a bunch of bamboo skewers in the window box and hardly a day later? My basil looks a *lot* better!

---

Basil marinara:

I got this recipe off the web a few years ago.  It's supposedly a genuine Tuscan recipe.

Sauté a yellow onion in olive oil.  Add a 28 oz. can of ground peeled tomatoes.  Simmer that for 15 minutes.  Resist all temptation to add garlic or anchovies.  Take it off the heat and mix in like a cup of whole basil leaves. And a splash of extra virgin olive oil.  Serve that with some pasta.  I like thin spaghetti.  The idea is to have a nice whole wilted basil leaf in every bit of pasta.

*Insanely* good.  Light and bright and refreshing.  Of course Chianti or Toscana is the *perfect* pairing.

Edited to add:  I also include a pinch of red pepper flakes in my marinara.

Edited to add:  Found a picture!  Now how good does this look!

The best of 2016?

Really? No way! This...is tempeh. It's a dried, pressed tofu product from Indonesia.

Here's what it looks like when you open the package:

When finely chopped up it has a texture a lot like ground beef. And like any tofu product it's..almost completely flavorless. You can Google tempeh recipes. There are a lot of them out there. Many are Middle Eastern and of course Indonesian. Think peanut sauce. I often run it over the coarse face of a box grater and make a vegetarian chili with it. Or mix it up with taco seasoning for a taco. Or even use it for American Chop Suey (which I'm told is a uniquely New England dish).

But I think I came up with this one myself. Inspired by a taco one night. I cut the tempeh on its face at an angle to form planks. I mix them with barbecue sauce. I make a really nice barbecue sauce. Basically it's a dry rub with some ketchup, cider vinegar, molasses, some mustard and whatever hot sauce I'm in the mood for. I let that sit in the refrigerator overnight.

Put the barbecue sauce marinated tempeh in a baking dish and heat it for 10 minutes in a 350° (F) oven. Serve it on a whole wheat hamburger bun, on some lettuce with a little more barbecue sauce. And some thinly sliced onions.

And I swear. It was the very *best* thing I ate in 2016. Much to my surprise.

Here. Take a closer look. Try one sometime!

This is a little more like it!

29 April 2017
Finally. Winter really wasn't all that bad. Of course, winter and horses is hard here anyway but March and most of April have been pretty miserable this year. Just when you're looking for relief. It's been cold and it's been wet. But here with the end of April came a few nice days. It still doesn't smell like spring. But it looks more and more like spring. So nice to see the leaves coming out and things starting to turn green.
And it just doesn't get much better than....this:

Just resting in the sun
Ya I know. She's a little...oh, chubby. She's a Canadian! They practically live on air you know.

I saw the very first lilacs of the season yesterday and was so moved by the nice day I started decorating the barn for spring. That's a pinwheel. And some kind of colorful little thing that whirls in the wind I got at the dollar store.

Celebrating spring!

Er.  Not so fast!

 

Friday 24 March

Winter wasn't that bad.  Wasn't that good.  But wasn't bad.  My best indicator of what kind of winter we had is my hat.  I have a sheepskin hat.

It's a very nice warm hat.  And...I only use it when it gets ...and stays...very very cold.  I never even took it out of its bag this season.  When I don't use my hat all season?  It wasn't a bad winter!  We even had a week in February where it was in the 60s.  We had windows open for two or three days straight.  Caught up on a lot of barn work.  It looked very promising!

March came around and relief was in sight.  You see, it almost never gets bitter cold in March and if it does?  It doesn't last long.  Well.  I should know better.  The first weekend in March it was 4 degrees.  It got cold.  And it stayed cold.  This *never* happens in March!  We can have blizzards in April but it never gets cold like this.

We had a full on blizzard 10 days ago and the snow still hasn't melted.  I never minded the snow much.  It's the cold I really hate.  But make no mistake.  Barn work sucks in the cold and it's a long trip to the manure pile and back in the snow!

So.  Where have I been?!  Hiatus?  No.  Just busy.  Crazy busy.  Between employment and barn work and trips to the gym I just haven't had time to blog.  I want to try and get back on board.  I started blogging for me.  Keeping track of things over time and after so many years I enjoy going to back through it all and recalling where I was and the things I was doing.

Finding our way around

There's woods all around the property. Much of the property is wooded and it's adjacent to some conservation land.

First ride! 20 December
But most of the neighborhood is residential. Rural. But still residential.

25 December - Christmas Day ride!
Our second trip out we explored some of the neighborhood. L was a rock star! She had never ever seen anything like this before! Houses. Driveways. Mail boxes. Basketball hoops. Sidewalks. Signs. Fire hydrants. Christmas decorations! She was all kinds of "up" but she was on her most perfect behavior. Bright and attentive. All the training delivers huge dividends. She wasn't all kinds of willing - she had more of a "weellll ok if you say so" kind of attitude.

Turns out barn work takes up a lot of time. After getting acquainted with the neighborhood I don't think rode again until...oh had to be the end of March anyway. I didn't really plan on not having time to ride and I'm a little disappointed with that.