Dancing on the Ceiling

It must have been a tough trip. The swallows have been dribbling in a pair or two at a time all week long. Saturday the barn was just swarming with them.

Saturday 10 May. A full house!
The swallows are a huge "rhythm of life" thing around the barn. Of course they're courting and setting up house now. The males put on their best show and the females pick out the one they like the best. They have an awful lot to say while all this is going on.

This looks like tons of fun
Sometimes they build new nests but they'll use last year's if they're still up. They tidy them up and maybe give them a personal touch.

See the horse hair woven into the nest? Their nests are made of mud.
Oh, and another huge thing about having the swallows around the barn? Each one on a typical day will eat between 800 and 900 bugs. And when they're feeding babies? Forget it! It's like rush hour from dawn to dusk. So...do the math. Twenty breeding pairs of swallows will eat maybe 34k bugs *every* day!

April Highlights

Around here we thought spring would *never* get here! Mud season persisted. And you know about mud season and horses!

What?
That *really* is a white horse! Of course, they all look like that. You just notice it a whole lot more on him!

But spring did finally get here. Officially! You see, L is very funny. Most horses start to shed their winter coats by the end of February and lose their hair by the handful until it's gone sometime in April. Not L. She hardly loses a hair until...one day...in April...she decides she doesn't need her coat anymore and I swear...

19 April
In 2 days...it's gone. She sheds her entire coat in a single day with a little touch up the next day. I must take 30 lbs of hair off of her! Around the barn we think of that as the real first day of spring.

Listening to the radio the other day on my way to work one of the radio personalities commented on how, in the whole month of April, we had one day we didn't need jackets. Actually, I think we had two.

Saturday 12 April. It was a nice day!
But, you see, the trouble with this time of year is that means we've probably only had two nice days this year. And probably two nice days in almost 6 months! We did have a nice day in January. So we've had 3 nice days this year.

April is also most notable for the return of the barn swallows. The barn swallows came back this year on Thursday 24 April. Just a little late this year! I don't keep a thorough diary but usually they're back between the 15th and 20th. This year there are only 4 of them. I don't know what to think of that!..while we usually have a barn just teaming with swallows this year we have only 4. I don't know what to make of it. Usually the barn swarms with swallows and one year I think I lost count at somewhere near 30 nests! Maybe it was a tough winter for swallows?

Finally...I knew I'd like this.

I try to keep from having preconceptions when I try new beers. That's why I *never* read reviews before I have a new beer. I read the reviews after. As often as not what I think is the best beer ever a lot of people think is crap. I'm not out to educate my palate or become more refined. I just want to make up my own mind. But here we have a Trappist beer and I like the Trappist beers. But this one is special. The only recognized Trappist brewery in the United States is 46 miles away. They're the same bunch that makes the Trappist preserves. We're practically neighbors!

I got out a couple of weekends and cleared some brush to access new trails I'm eager to bring L on. These aren't really challenging trails but they'll be different enough to be interesting. This month has been so wet I'm beginning to think the puddles are vernal pools! We'll get our butts out there as soon as things dry a little bit.

Oh! The last big sighting for April? Wednesday. 30 April. I saw the first ferns coming up!

Edit to add:
I heard a White-throated Sparrow last Saturday 26 April. While everything else has been late this spring I think that's about the earliest I've ever heard a White-throated Sparrow. They're just passing through. They spend the summer in Maine. The Maine woods are full of them and they always remind me of Maine.

The names we earn

We have the names we give. L, for example. And my paint mare G. And..Oliver. He's been here 6 months now and the name he's earned? TLB. The Little Bastard. I *know* why he got dropped off in the driveway! He's broken almost everything in the house that's breakable. I've come home to find pictures taken down off the walls. I've had to fashion catproof latches from coat hangers for closet doors. After coming home one day and finding an entire closet emptied with its contents scattered all over the house. And then there's the afternoon I found my Rolex in the toilet! I feel I'm being watched. Then I hear a tiny little tinkle sound. He's on top of the kitchen cabinet behind the stem glass rack waiting to pounce. What ever possessed me to bring home a kitten?!

The Little Bastard
He's a pretty cat. And he was two things going for him. I'm tolerant. And he's funny. Funny counts for a lot.

For a few weeks he'd pop out from behind things, stand on his hind legs and wave his paws in the air with a ferocious look on his face. And often times he'll walk by, stop, come back, slap the back your leg and pound off like he's satisfied he just made some kind point.

I read that using empty cans is a good way to discourage your cat from going where he's not supposed to go. You put some empty cans on a table top. Cat jumps up, knocks over cans, gets scared and runs away. Doesn't go back. Well that's how it's supposed to work. Here in my house I just have a cat chasing cans around the house in the middle of the night.

I really think he's going to be a great fat old lazy cat. If he survives kittenhood...

Edited to add:

For a long time L's name around the barn was "Cuckoo Brain". She earned that. I remember warming L up on the ground at a show some years ago and someone watching said to me "so...do you...ride that horse?". Very funny. Although it really is fair to say she was quite the handful for a while there.

L outgrew that. Thankfully. Well. Mostly. She'll still break a cross tie now and then if you let her. We still call her Cuckoo Brain sometimes. Affectionately.

And G? We still call her "Psycho G". She won't outgrow that. She would have by now if she was going to!

Dismal?

No, not really. Not as dismal as it looks anyway.

Saturday 29 March. Yahoo!
You see, it was a little sloppy in spots. It was cloudy overcast most of the day. It was breezy. Even starting to rain. But...for most of the day...it was near 60°F! I felt like we haven't been out riding in *ages*. That's probably because..oh, it's been weeks at least. It's been bitter cold, windy, snowy, icy, then when we did have a couple of seasonal days the mud was like soup everywhere.

Yesterday was as nice a day as we've had in a very long time. And L was, of course, a rock star. We didn't do anything hard. A little flexing and bending. Some transitions. She had the nicest slow jog going for a couple hundred yards. We both need to get ready to work in the weeks ahead. There are still some snow piles in the shady spots and the woods are downright swampy, but we found enough firm footing to have a good time.

We were out for about an hour so when the wind and the rain picked up and I think the temperature dropped almost 20° in just a few minutes. I felt really good with L between me and the ground even if for just a short while.

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And look! Halibut season!

Pan seared oven roasted halibut steak
With steamed leeks. Halibut is my most favorite fish. Halibut steak, seasoned and seared in a scary hot cast iron griddle and finished in a 425° oven for a few minutes is sensational. Pinot Grigio went very well with it. And would you believe I've never had leeks before?! Loved them. I made a lighter vinaigrette than the recipe. I thought the red wine vinegar might clash with my wine and the fish might be overpowered by the balsamic vinegar. So I used white wine vinegar with a little rice wine vinegar. With a little spot of maple syrup. I should have thought to use a little squeeze of lemon.

That's the very first halibut of the season!

Looking for spring

in all the wrong places? Not much spring around here yet!

It's been very cold and unpleasant for some time now. But there is some hope! I think the ice is gone for this season

21 March 2014, first full day of spring
At least it sounds like spring. The Red Winged Blackbirds came back last weekend and they're making quite the racket. And I saw geese back here for the first time this season just yesterday. But a really sure sign is...the daffodils! I saw the first daffodils on the first day of spring late Thursday afternoon.

See? Daffodils! 20 March 2014
But *every* horse person knows the *real* frist sign of spring is...

Mud.

Mud is of course...everywhere

Tractor tracks
lot and lots of deep soupy mud. You can easily sink into this stuff to the middle of your shins and have it suck the shoes right off your feet.

But the worst part of all?

There's nothing to eat out here. Bring me in now.

Dashing through the snow?

It snowed like crazy Saturday. Heavy wet slushy slippery snow. All things considered it was pretty miserable. I decided however it would be a good time to take L out and see if I could get a nice picture for next year's Christmas card.

Nope. This isn't it.
Hahahaha. She was having none of it. Here I'd groomed her and brushed out her mane and she made straight for the run in shed. Where she rolled in the dirt. Twice.

I chased her out in the snow and maybe, of a couple dozen pictures, I might have one or two pretty good ones. The rest look like that one there.

Nice day for hot chocolate!

A wintry ride

I know people that love February. Oh, I know the days are getting longer. Statistically February isn't cold as January. And it's a short month. And every day is another day closer to spring.

I hate February. Everything is hard in the wintertime and I think February is the "dark before the dawn". By the time February gets here I'm really sick and tired of the cold. So I just moped around most of the day Saturday.

Sunday I was desperate for a ride and L was happy to oblige.

The most recent snow was relatively undisturbed and there were tracks everywhere! I enjoy following the tracks. It's fun to see who's been around and where they go.

Saturday 9 February. Deer tracks.
There were some one way bunny tracks. They kind of came out from under some brush and went off into a trail and just....stopped. I was wondering how on earth did he do that?! Blood stained snow under a tree some yards away of course meant poor bunny got snatched up by an owl. Hawks leave wing tip marks in the snow.

It wasn't a particularly pretty day.

Tundra? Windy out here!
But L was very willing to go through this stuff and treated me with a perfectly delightful ride. She knows "careful". I tell her "careful" and she drops her head and she inspects the ground and tests the footing and proceeds very carefully. It's the sweetest thing.

I swear sometimes she almost just puts me to sleep. It was a lot of work getting here and worth every minute of it. Although I wondered about it at the time!

Back to the barn!

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I'll be darned!

I'm rather partial to Bass even though it's not what it used to be. It was an imported Bass pale ale first put me on to ales. The domestic brew isn't anywhere near good as its overseas counterpart but I'm sentimental about it.

I thought this IPA was very good and I enjoyed it. I had no idea Bass had an IPA.