Fall colors

Much to my surprise we had some brilliant fall colors this year. Our Norway Maple trees suffered from tar spot fungus during the wet summer and most of them just turned black and all the leaves dropped off before the first of September.

Beyond that there just seemed to be a lot of sad looking brown trees around and more leaves on the ground in September than I can ever remember having. So I just didn't expect much fall color.

But I was mistaken! By third week of October we had plenty of brilliant color to be seen.

City Mills Pond, Franklin Norfolk, MA, 21 October

Tucker St., Norfolk, MA, 21 October

Federated Church, downtown Norfolk, MA, 22 October

Forever gone..

My previous barn. The property was sold a couple of years ago and we had to move on. Of course this was expected. Makes me sad anyway.

Then: Sometime in 2003

And now: 21 October 2017

I boarded there for over 20 years. It was such a thriving, vibrant place at one time. We'd had countless hours of fun. People complained their faces hurt from smiling so hard for so long. Animals everywhere all the time. Horses. Dogs. Cats. Deer. Rats. Mice. Raccoons. Woodchucks.

There was packing for shows at the crack of dawn. Getting back at the end of the day completely exhausted and getting pizzas or KFC.

There was freezing cold and howling wind. And our legendary hot humid summer afternoons. We even had a tornado come across the south side of the property in August 2004. I was out working L and I could see the weather coming from across the field. I didn't see any funnel - it was just all cloud and debris. We ran for the barn and no sooner had I run L into her stall the tornado passed about 125 yards south of the barn. We all stood in the doorway watching with "uh-oh" faces.

All nighters with sick horses. I can still remember waiting on a vet one February morning. 14 below 0 at 4:00 am. Oh how that sucked!

I buried two horses there.

It was a great property. Big barn with a quarter mile training track surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of acres of fields and woods. There were actually two barns there, one of which had been an equine rehab center at one time. It was a well known place. They had trained race horses there 50 years ago.

12 July 2009
It was spacious and comfortable. At least until the roof started to leak. Always full of light.

23 January 2011
I can't even make a guess at the hundreds and hundreds of hours there. Of course I miss it and it's so sad to finally see it's gone.

Edited to add:

I thought about it while doing stalls today. All the training time and riding time and just "horse care". 16 or 18 hours a week at the peek of show season to 6 or 8 hours in the dead of winter. I wouldn't be surprised at all if I had 7 or 8000 hours at that barn!

Corn! 2017

Of course I didn't forget corn this year.  I just *love* fresh corn.  I'll have an ear of corn at least 5 days a week during corn season.

My first ear this season:

16 July
Actually the first local corn this year was 14 July. A few days later than usual. Oh I was paying attention but the farm stand signs were late going up.

And..my last ear this season:

17 October
Last season's corn was a little better. I'd had a few ears last year so fresh and sweet I didn't even bother cooking them.
Jane and Paul's Farm in Norfolk, MA had the first corn of the season. It was reliably good. Tangerini's Farm in Millis was a reliable source of excellent corn. And Wenger's Farm in Bellingham might have had the very best this year.

And the surprise of the season?

Saturn peach
I'd seen Saturn peaches at the supermarket on occasion for some years now but they're always hard as rocks. This year Jane and Paul's Farm had their own Saturn peaches so I tried one. I was instantly hooked! They were actually a little sweet for my liking, sweeter than a peach. But there's some other kind of flavor thing going on there I can't quite pin down. And I like their size. I don't have the appetite I used to!

Picture of summer

Winter wasn't too bad. Bad enough.

Spring was just *awful*.   I don't know that it was the worst ever but I'm sure it was close.  Cold and wet.  I was still wearing mittens driving to work in May!   Everything is late.  The daisies came up a week or two late.  Not at all impressive.  They didn't last long.

The Black Eyed Susans started coming up and I found a new variant I've never seen before.  Apparently these are called "Irish Eyes" and they're very pretty.

There. The solid yellow ones.
I'm sure the corn will be late this year too.

This summer however has been just...stunning.  Dry.  Breezy.  Abundant sunshine.  In the 80s with an occasional thunderstorm.  This is New England at its very best!

Sunday 25 June. First weekend of the summer.
And this just says it all right here.  This is quintessential "summertime horse".

She's *very* good at this!  Sometimes I just want to run over and rub her belly!

Followed by a good shake. Ha now I have to clean that up!

Raised by dogs?

My cat. When he sees me grab my shoes he runs to the door. Trying to block my exit.

But it wasn't until he was playing with his tennis ball I realized he had to have been raised by dogs...

Really. What kind of cat plays with tennis balls?!

Easy keeper?

Um.  Not so much.  "Easy Keeper" is an expression describing horses that don't need a lot of food.  And Canadian Horses are well known for being easy keepers.  Air ferns actually.

This presents some challenges however.

My fat girl
L has become seriously overweight.  I'd say...maybe...2 or 300 pounds overweight.

When we were competing we'd work a couple of hours every single day.  And in peak shape she'll take your breath away.  Sometimes we'd ride 6 or 8 miles just warming up.  L has a very large capacity for work.  She'll just go and go.  And go.  We were going to start endurance riding at one time.  But that's another story.

She barely gets a third of a cup of grain for breakfast and dinner.  We have no pasture so the rest of her diet is hay.

It's hard to keep her fit and I certainly don't have the stones anymore to do it under saddle.

So I'm putting her on a program.  She'll get some more disciplined ground work.  I'm talking about my discipline here.  I need to more actively supervise her exercise.

And I got this:

Tough-1 Hay Hoops slow feed haynet
Product review: So far it's just perfect! She's been eating too fast. And that's why she's getting as much hay as she's been getting. So I got that slow feed hay net a week or so ago and I'm just thrilled. She figured it out easily enough. It's slowed her way down so I can give her less hay and not only does it keep her busy she's also spending less time with an empty stomach. All kinds of wins. I have read that the net will break down and tear apart in 6 months to a year so I'll have to get a spare net to keep around.

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.