Dinner it is…

Seeing as how yesterday was Mardi Gras and as usual I was mostly oblivious to that fact, today I decided to make Jambalaya.  Just as a nod to Louisiana and New Orleans.  I’ve not been there, not sure when I will get there, but spicy food is good and Jambalaya is good when it’s spicy.  It’s Shirley’s fault, over at Gluten Free Easily.  She posted this yummy sounding recipe and suggested Popovers to go with the Jambalaya.  Yummy.

FYI – Shirley appears to be some kind of gluten free angel.  If you follow her on facebook or twitter, she posts all sorts of gluten free recipes from a variety of websites.  She’s tipped me onto some great blogs, this just happens to be the first recipe of hers that I’ve made.

Did I mention that I’ve never made either of these before?  Jambalaya is just stew, right?  My mom used to make Popovers periodically, for whatever reason I never have.  Their only purpose seems to be to hold copious amounts of butter.  Who doesn’t need more butter?  (Actually I need more butter, I’m all out of the good Kerry Gold stuff, guess I’ll have to do with the regular Organic… and really there is a huge difference in taste.)

Being me, I couldn’t follow the recipe for Jambalaya exactly.  I thought it needed chicken and bacon.  Because everything needs bacon, that’s why.  Oh there was that Jalapeno I added, and the Cayenne pepper too.  For the most part though I did do what she said.  And there was much rejoicing.

The Popovers really, really popped!  So many crannies and crevices for butter.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Now I know why I haven’t made them before.  Highly, highly addictive.  Between the Jambalaya and the Popovers, I foundered myself tonight.  No, the Popovers are not a heavy bread… but by the time you eat three of them you know about it.  I showed great restraint not plowing through two more before I finished my bowl.  As far as the Jambalaya, I can’t say as the bacon or chicken added anything, they didn’t seem to be a detraction though.  Got the heat just right too.

Now for pictures, because we all like pictures, right?

Whenever we can we try to provide toys for the horses.  Really, anything non-toxic can work.  One day there was a rag, what appeared to be an old T-shirt that the colts were playing tug of war with.  The cone game works something like this… whoever is toughest gets to play with the cone.  The filly gave up on it when the colt said he wanted to play with it.  The object of the game is to get the cone picked up and wave it around and try to scare your pasture mates.  If they aren’t scared of it, then play of war.  Or decide it’s a boring game and just go bug someone.  I have not managed to get many pictures of the bay colt recently, because he will not get far enough away from me.  His goal in life seems to be to become a lap dog.  Since he’s already the biggest of the three yearlings, I’m not too sure how that’s going to work out for him.

Now, some random, gratuitous sunset pictures…

The road to nowhere?

On that note, I’m going to leave you as I go lay down to digest.

Now.  Now I use it in a very genuine way.  Mostly in regards to bodies, and parts of bodies that aren’t working like they would like to.

Maybe it’s a sign I’ve grown up.  Maybe it’s a lesson I’ve been learning.  The one about remaining in awe of our world.  I haven’t mastered the lesson yet, but I’m on my way with it.

I also use it with the horses more.  I think they were the ones that got me started with using the phrase in a real way.  No pretensions, just honest awe and wonder.  Those moments when a horse does something totally unexpected and instead of being upset by it, just stepping back and trying to find the lesson.

Bodies, both human and equine, have been helping me to deepen my connection to the phrase ”isn’t that interesting”.

The person who has neck pain that is helped by the work I’m called to do on their hips.  Isn’t that interesting?

Recently I had a two-legged client with pain in their left shoulder that was helped by a bunch of work on their right shoulder.  When they ask how does that work?  My reply varies between “I don’t know man, I didn’t do it.” And “Well, isn’t that interesting?”

The first answer because I really don’t know why.  It just happened that the right shoulder had all sorts of angriness and heat that worked its way out.  Was that tension pulling against the muscles and the spine putting causing the left side to be stretched and painful?  Maybe.  Is there another explanation?  Probably.  Will it work that way the next time their left shoulder hurts?  Possibly.  Possibly not.

There aren’t always consistent connections.  It seems that each of us get our bodies screwed up in ways that are our own.  Sometimes, there are similarities.  Sometimes not.

Isn’t that interesting.

Then the horses.  When I work on a horse I try to collect information about it from the owner,  rider or trainer about what issues they may be having.  Sometimes there is a logical seeming source that I can locate.  Othertimes, not so much.

Being reluctant to relax and bend through the neck and connect to the bridle to the right when his poll is jammed up makes sense.  Why the left lead was weird and the only thing I can find is some tension in the left side of the ribcage?  Doesn’t make as much sense, but the left lead improved.  (A horse typically has to let the outside side of their body stretch a bit more at the lope… in this case the rib tension would have made sense to me on the other side of the body.)  Why the stuckness of L5 and the Sacrum didn’t present an issue with forward motion completely puzzles me.

What I find is that the more I approach each body as its own unique opportunity to find out about what is interesting to it the more readily its own issues reveal themselves to me.  If I approach with the idea that x must always cause y and therefore if I release tension in x then y will improve, doesn’t seem to work all the time.  Yes I would probably be able to find tension in x, but the release of that won’t always fix y.  Each body has its own story to tell.

Isn’t that interesting.

What can I say, my dog is cool!

Bruce is three and half or so years old now.  He is getting to be a very, very useful dog.  No, I don’t typically work cattle with him.  Yes I have had to come down on him extremely hard about biting things.  We may still need to have a few chats about that. The first time I actually worked Bruce on cattle he was about a year old and we were trying to get a bunch of Corriente bulls put away that had escaped.  At that point, I didn’t really have a great handle on him.  I could send him, but he went fast and hard because it was fun!  He also learned then that biting sometimes was the only way to get those suckers to move.  He will on occasion bite the horses, if he thinks that is the right thing to do.  Since biting horses is never the right thing to do, this is an ongoing discussion we have, it has gotten much better.  I don’t care if he bites cattle (if they need it), biting the horses is another story.

Some things to know about my dog.  He is a workaholic.  He is ball crazy, unless there is something to move.  He’s proven to be handy with helping to push reluctant chickens into their house when it’s time for bed.  Really, he’s a chicken herding dog.  Sort of a new take on a bird dog, eh?  We’ve had discussions about not biting the chickens too.  They tend not to survive being bit.

More about him, he gets really pesky when he thinks it should be time to work.  Like in the mornings, if it’s icky outside and I’m content to dink on the computer, he gets whiny and yippy and starts poking me with his nose to go do something.  If I don’t get up when he thinks I should he’ll swat the bed with one of his paws, shaking it just enough to rouse me.  That and he has a really high pitched whine that can turn into a yip quickly.  If the paw shaking the bed doesn’t get me moving quick enough, he’s figured out how to poke me in the ribs that way.  He’ll lay on the bed waiting while I get ready in the mornings, as soon as he hears my jeans get pulled on, he is right there stretching and making Wookie-like noises… telling me he’s ready to go.  In fact it’s more like he’s telling me “jeez mom what took you so long, I was ready like two hours ago.”  Like I said, he’s pesky.

Before I moved here he would ‘help’ me with round-penning horses.  His help consists of running the perimeter of the pen and poking his nose in where he thinks it is appropriate to keep the horse moving.  When you have a young heeler pup, you sometimes make choices that help get them worked down and worn out instead of the ones that will help make them a good dog long-term.  This was one of those choices, I figured a tired puppy is a good puppy and I was taking any road headed to tired puppy.  Not that this ruined him, but anytime I go to work a horse in anything resembling a round-pen (which my working pen pretty much does) he thinks it is his job to help.  Sometimes I wonder if I seem that incompetent to him – as though he thinks I just couldn’t even get a horse to move with out his help.  Often times, I will tie him up while I’m working the horses, so that I know they are working for me instead of him.

None of my horses are afraid of dogs, or of Bruce.  They are aware of him though.  Karat likes to act as though she’s going to stomp him.  She might if she got a good chance too.  She goes after all manner of small critters.  Once I watched her chase the yellow tomcat through her pasture.  The chickens have often come fluttering out of her pen in a hurry too.

A word about horses who are afraid of dogs.  I suspect that they were raised in a sheltered environment and not allowed/expected to think.  I also suspect that when they have met dogs, it has been the wrong kind of dogs.  The sort of dogs who do senseless, pointless things.  Most herding dogs do everything with purpose and intention.  They will transmit that they intend to get the horse to move from a ways away.  Also, my horses seem to understand that Bruce answers to me.  Which translates to them as he is an extension of me.  The horses will look at me if he is getting close, wondering if there is something they should be doing, or something I should be doing about the dog.  Basically, the horses here think most of the time before they act.  A useful trait.

It’s taken Bruce a couple years and quite a few discussions to understand that it doesn’t work to get rough with the horses.  His most recent educational experience was a few weeks ago with Jr.

That’s when he caught a hoof to the nose.  At least it looked like that’s where Jr caught him, and certainly that’s where Bruce was bleeding.  It went down like this…  Jr was on the hot walker, he has learned that if he stops, the walker stops too.  Because the motor keeps trying to work and belts and such will get worn out when the horses stop it, this behavior is frowned upon by me.  My options to get him to not do this – (1) put a chain on his nose so that additional pressure is applied when the walker pulls on him when he stops.  It’s effective, not necessarily nice, it can get you in a really bad spot if the horse sets back hard with the chain over his nose (broken nasal bones, severe damage to the cartilage of the nose) so is not a first choice.  (2) Get the BB gun and let one fly every time he stops the walker.  This is also effective, but requires me to have the thing, loaded and ready to go.  It also doesn’t work well if I am trying to hold onto another horse while the shoer is working on him, which was the case that day.  (3) Send Bruce (or any useful dog) in to ‘help’ the horse move forward again.  Effective, doesn’t require any skill on my part (aiming accurately at a target) and if I’m multi-tasking is my first choice.  Only problem with option #3 is that Jr is really smart and he always knows where his feet are.

I’d sent Bruce in a couple of times to step Jr forward again.  Bruce was being good, hadn’t bit and was listening to me when I told him to come back.  The most Bruce had to do up to that point was bump Jr’s back leg with his nose.  We must have had a communication breakdown the last time because Bruce went in a little too fast and was going for a bite, meanwhile Jr got his hind legs sucked way under him as he saw Bruce come up.  Bruce thought he would get the bite the same time Jr fired.  Because Jr had his legs so far under his belly there was nowhere for Bruce to go when the kick came.  He was ducked down, but still in too close – the kick connected and he tumbled back pretty hard.

There were definitely a couple of egos at work there.  Bruce was going to teach this cocky colt to keep doing what he’d been told.  Jr was going to get this dog straightened out about being so bossy.  There is a lesson in here for where not to be if a horse kicks, I think Bruce is a little more aware of how far under the horse he goes to follow those hind feet.  Jr may turn out to be one of those few horses that will sucker a dog into his space just so he can stomp on them.  (Not surprising given his mother’s propensity for attempting to stomp small animals.)

I know a few people would have freaked out about their dog bleeding from the nose.  I don’t.  It’s not that I’m calloused, although I may be a little, really it’s that I know just how tough these dogs are.

There is a sort of long story with the heeler I had before Bruce, somehow she cracked her skull open.  Literally, she busted open her sinus cavities above her left eye.  I will probably never know how it happened, I had been gone and when I got home her head was busted open.  The next day I took her to the vet… she was still cruising around at normal speed for most dogs.  She hopped up on the exam table happy as can be.  She gave no indication that she was really hurting.  I could tell that she had been taken down a few pegs, she didn’t have her usual quickness going on.  I think the vet was kind of surprised too when he got in there to clean out the wound and assess the damage.  She healed up fine, other than having a permanent dent in her head.

So a bloody nose with no other signs of injury didn’t cause me great concern.  Yes I watched him for a while to be sure he wasn’t disoriented.  I also did not allow him to go back in after Jr.  Although Jr really didn’t need any more encouragement to keep going.  Bruce was game enough to go back in, I just wouldn’t let him.

I also know stories about heelers that have been mauled, kicked hard and even shot.  None of them get too fazed by it.  Many other dogs would be in a corner in a pool of urine.  Every heeler I know just comes back ready for more.  As Vicki Hearne, one of my favorite authors says in the Introduction to “Animal Happiness” regarding an Airedale named Texas, “he was ‘encouraged by the success of his last encounter.’”  (In fact what I look for in a dog has been greatly influenced by reading works by Vicki Hearne – I highly recommend reading “Adam’s Task“, “Animal Happiness” and “Bandit“.)

Bruce is also indispensable for me in helping load horses.  It took me a little bit of time with him, but he will stay behind the horse and help make sure they keep moving forward to the trailer.  Most of mine don’t need much help, a couple of them though… lets just say it’s way easier with his help.  It was probably one day last summer when he finally got how to help with loading.  You know how it is when you have to explain to someone what to do to help?  And how nice it is when you work with someone that just gets it?  That’s what happened with Bruce and the horses.  For a while I had to constantly tell him, “No” or “Get over there” or “here” or just have to keep an eye on him.  Then one day he just was where he should be, waiting and watching for that slight signal to increase the pressure a little more.  Maybe not perfect 100% of the time as evidenced by his recent kick to the nose, but mostly getting how to be helpful.

But really, his help in rounding up chickens is the handiest thing he does.

Anyhow, since this turned out to be a mostly indoor day, I figured I’d cook and bake.  The stew is simmering away on the stove.  It smells good, hopefully it tastes that way too.

After reading this post which includes a very yummy looking recipe for banana bread, which I have yet to try, I was feeling braver about trying to substitute gluten free flour for the regular stuff.

I’ve had this bag of Crystallized Ginger by The Ginger People for a while, it was one of those things that just begged to come home with me.  I figured it would be tasty in something.  The back of the package has a recipe for Chewy Ginger Snaps.  Looks like a good recipe.  Since my last attempt at gluten free ginger snaps was simply to add some ginger chips (also from The Ginger People) into a molasses cookie recipe.  Those didn’t turn out bad, just not the ginger snap taste I was looking for.  I used to love the little Triple Ginger Cookies from Trader Joes that have the pieces of ginger in them, seems they don’t have a gf version.  Plus going to my nearest TJ’s is a five hour round-trip.  All in all, this recipe was looking promising.  And I’ve been wanting some good gingersnap cookies.

Here is a link to the recipe.  Other than the ingredients being in a different order, it looks the same.  No wait, what’s this 2 cups + 2 Tbsp of flour?  On the back of the package it only calls for 2 cups.  Hmmm, could this be why my cookies spread way out?  And went beyond chewy to super crispy?  Or is it because I subbed the gluten free flour?  The dough wasn’t quite as stiff as I remember ginger snap dough being… so I’m leaning towards the extra flour being needed.  Not having made this recipe before though, I didn’t really know what the dough was supposed to be like.

The cookies that didn’t get overly crisp are like a ginger lace cookie.  These things really spread out on the pan.

The ones that got overly crisp are now in a ziplock baggie.  I’m thinking they will turn into ginger cookie crumbs for a pie crust.

I haven’t decided if this experience has shattered my new found sense of confidence for baking with gluten free flours.  The cookies do taste good.  The flour didn’t seem to alter that.  Anyone out there know if those 2 Tbsp of flour would make that much difference?

My upside in the kitchen is the loaf of Paleo Bread I made turned out the best so far.

This is what my Friday night consists of…

1. Feed Horses
2. Feed Chickens
3. Feed Cats
4. Feed Dogs
5. Feed Me
6. Watch youtube videos of horses

Can you stand how exciting my life is?

Dinner (for me) was actually Paleo-approved.  Pork chops with green beans almondine.  Some red wine.  Life is good.

Videos are for the stallion that I currently need to save pennies to breed my now yearling filly to.  Is it bad that I have already picked out a stud for her?  Check him out – WR This Cats Smart.  Sort of late for Valentine’s Day, huh?  I’ve got a few years before she’ll be ready to be bred.

Happy Friday!

In the interest of not being a tech-tard, or not fearing the new stuff and thereby showing my age and increasing resistance to new stuff, I signed up for a twitter account yesterday.  These are my observations so far.

1. It is awesome for following sports games that I don’t otherwise have access to.  I haven’t been following hockey for quite a while, because the games are all on cable and I am just too cheap to pay for cable or satellite or whatever.  My boys lost yesterday, which prompted me to look up how they are doing in general.  Not so hot.  If the season ended today, they wouldn’t be in the play-offs.  You got another month and a bit boys, get crackin’!  #Avs

2. The only followers I have so far seem to be nice girls that have porn sites.  How sweet.  Not.  Consider your sweet-orgy selves blocked.

3. I think I get the idea of the #hashtag and how to tweet directly @somebody.

4. I think I still like facebook better, but am going to give twitter a chance.

With that in mind, if you twitter please, please track me down.  Don’t leave me to the porn site queens.  @CowgirLiz1.

Now to figure out what is up with my printer.  Grrrh!

Last night when I let Bruce back in from his last effort to bump the coyotes out, I noticed he was wet.  This was about 11:00 at night.  Quickly I opened the door again to figure out why he was soggy.  It was snowing!  Duh, how else would he have been wet when it’s otherwise freezing.

This morning when I went to let him out again, there were snow drifts at both the front and back door.  About a foot had drifted up against the front door.  Thinking it would be better at the back door, we went there… about two feet out the back door.  Nice powdery stuff for the skiers out there.  Except there are a lot of bare spots because the wind is blowing it all around.  Hence the drifts at the doors.

What you need to understand is that Bruce loves the snow.  He acts like a five year old kid that has just downed half a dozen Pixie Stix and a Root Beer when he gets in the snow.  Ok, in truth he acts like that at other times too.  But he does the craziest sliding thing in the snow.

It’s something like a snow angel in motion.  Or maybe it’s like the penguins cruising on the ice, except he is on his back.  Before he starts in on that though, he tries to attack the snow.

Crazy dog.  Happy dog.  Right now, kind of a wet dog. 

Ok, luv ya, bye.

They say you can make a small fortune with horses… if you start off with a large one.  Large fortune that is.  Get it?  Got it?  Good.

Once upon a time I took an Ag Econ (Agriculture Economics or something) class in college.  If I recall correctly it was an upper level class, lots of reading, tests etc.  We also had a project that was a giant What-If scenario built in Excel.  Before Excel did that sort of thing all on it’s own.  Some where I probably still have the 3.5″ floppy disk that was my project.  There might even have been paper involved.  Most likely several trees worth of paper.  My project was about how to be profitable breeding and raising horses.  I was so proud of myself because I proved that it could be done.  If several factors consistently stayed true.

This was what had to happen.  You had to own your own mares and stallion(s).  Have high pregnancy, foaling and weaning rates.  Also it was imperative to sell the offspring as yearlings.  Even better if they sold as weanlings.  Once you had another year of feed, as well as time and/or money into training the numbers started to turn red.  I think that they had to run on pasture, minimum maintenance there.  Also that kept the feed bill down.  The scenario I had going did not have the foals selling for a high dollar amount.  But, that was back in the day where if a you could get the horse loaded in a trailer it was worth $1000.

That last thing, the horse market floor, is where things are really wonky now.  It seems in some cases people will just about give you money to take their horse.  Most of us in the horse industry right now have seen the market hit rock bottom, with a resounding thud over the last few years.  Watching some of the sales, prices may be on the rise again.  A faint glimmer of hope for anyone breeding or raising horses.  There is still a long ways to go for most of us to be profitable.

This year I have no mares due to foal.  There was only one mare I tried to breed last year, but she didn’t settle.  Karat is hopefully, going to settle in foal this year on the first or second try.  Last year there was about $2000 that was sunk into the attempted breeding.  That was with a “free” breeding that I won.  The “free” is in quotes because there is no such thing as free, right… I did however not have to pay the stud fee to a very, very nice stallion.  We’ll make a couple of attempts to get her in foal this year, if she doesn’t seem able to carry it (she is 22 years old), then we will try to flush an embryo and implant it into a recipient mare.  If we can get her to carry it, – by the time her care is paid for, the shipping on the semen, the chute fee, etc – I expect to say good-bye to another $2000.  If we need to do an embryo transfer, that will be an additional $2500.  Plus an extra horse to feed until the foal is weaned.  If you feel inclined to do the math on how much I am going to be into this foal, if it should ever be born, please do not – I repeat DO NOT – share that number with me.  I’ve been feeling pretty happy lately and don’t need you raining on my parade.

There is a very, very cynical part of me that believes anyone who spends this kind of money on a gamble to even get a healthy live foal that might go on to be something good is an absolute idiotic gambling-addict pipe-dreaming fool.  Every time I start to go there, I realize I resemble that remark.  In the interest of not being too hard on myself I quickly change the subject to something like how much fun the babies are.  Again, with the not raining on my parade idea.

By and large I deal in reality, with the one exception noted above.  I have a critical eye when it comes to horses, mine in particular.  My goal is not to collect horses, but to produce them and find them good homes where they will be cared for and appreciated.  In an effort not to accumulate horses, the yearling colts are priced equivalent to the stud fees to breed them.  It was the only way I thought I could be competitive in the market place.  Not sure how competitive I am as the colts are still here.  Even if I can get them sold for what it cost to procure their sire’s services, I’m not breaking even.  The mares had to be bought.  There were expenses incurred to get their mommas in foal.  There have been additional expenses incurred to keep the mommas and babies healthy.  If I can get them sold for the price I have on them, I am simply cutting my losses.

For comparison sake, I’ll tell you about the results from the sale at the National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity Sales in 2011.  The high seller went for $125,000.  If I recall correctly a half-brother to one of the horses I have now went for $155,000 in 2008 as a yearling.  This past year the second high seller went for $59,000.  Both those horses were two-year olds.  Sounds great right?  Get them to that point then make lots of money on them.  Just to keep perspective, let’s look at the low end of the sales.  The lowest price that a horse sold for at last years NRCHA Select Sales was $1,400.

Back to talking about these yearlings I have now.  Here’s what needs to happen if I want to send them through a sale like that.  They will need to be started by someone who is reputable in the industry.  Professional training in the cow horse disciplines runs about $1000 a month.  Then the colts have to prove that they have talent for the job.  They need to be peaking at the time of the sale, looking good – not in some funky growth spurt, working good – not stuck at some boneheaded spot, sound and generally solid all-around.  All that to probably get in around the average price.  Last year the average for the two-year olds was $15,217, up from $11,387 the year before.  The increase in the average is a sign of hope and watching other sales so far this year it is a trend that appears to be continuing.  The horses that bring the top dollar are really truly high end horses.  The ones in the average are good horses.  The ones at these sales that are at the low end are not anything to sneeze at either.  It’s just what happens when an average looking girl who didn’t get all dolled up is hanging out with super-models that have everything put together just-so.  The average ones start to look less attractive, because everyone wants to go home with the super-model.

None of us has control over whether a horse is going to go on a growth spurt just before a sale, or if they are suddenly going to get in their head that stopping isn’t so fun anymore.  There are a whole lot of things that need to go right for a horse to do well at a sale (or at a show for that matter, different topic though).  The flip side is that any one of a number of things can go wrong and just wreck everyone’s idea of a good time.  The stuff that can go wrong ranges from turning into a dink, to some major vet bill, to being dead.  In my super-Excel what-if spreadsheet, I don’t think I really looked at the potential for things to go wrong.  I figured there would be a percentage of mares that wouldn’t settle.  If there are 20 mares and a few don’t get in foal, it may not be that hard on a breeding program.  If you have one mare to breed and she doesn’t settle one year, you have a serious drop in production.  In many ways, with the market being what it is, I am not too sad that I don’t have any babies coming this year.  In light of the amount of money put into this foal that isn’t here this year, it’s a bit painful.

So the question is when does one stop throwing good money after bad?  What do I do if Karat doesn’t settle this year?  I have other mares, but they are not the same quality as she is.  These horses all cost the same (relatively) amount to raise.  The better quality I raise the better prices I can get.  Attempting to breed and raise “just horses” doesn’t seem sensible.  Particularly in such a buyers market.

After putting all these cheerful thoughts together, it has me thinking why on earth do I do this.  Here’s why:

and

and

and

and

and

and

I think they are all very good reasons.

1. Attempt to fill said holes with a mixture of native soil and water, which turns to a very concrete like substance.
2. Encourage the dogs and cats to exterminate you.
3. Keep a .22 pistol available for anytime you pop your little heads out of the burrows and attempt to exterminate you myself.

I admit that you are cute and I appreciate watching you scamper into your burrows by the road.  For your own sakes, please relocate to a more accommodating area.  It may seem that you have found an area that is protected from the coyotes, even if it is with the trade-off of having no ground cover to hide from the hawks.  In fact you have traded the coyote predator for an enemy in me.  If you do not leave, I will eradicate you.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Sincerely,

CowgirLiz