Two Days ‘Till Spring

Ah, Spring.  The birds are chirping. My horses are shedding.  The chickens are laying good.  And it’s snowing.

Photo from 4:30 this afternoon.

Apparently Winter got the memo that Spring is “officially” rolling in in two days.  Winter seems to be telling Spring to eff-off, at least around here.  It may be that in the arm wrestling match of the seasons, Winter wins two out of three in this match-up.  Which means Winter continues until it decides it has better things to do.

There was at least four inches of snow this morning.

The sun came out and started to melt it off.  I pulled Karat’s blanket off then.  She is the only horse on the place that wears clothes.  Because we put her under lights to get her reproductive system thinking it was time to, er reproduce.  Her body also thought it was really time for her summer coat.  So to have her stay warm enough while the weather is deciding which way it will go, she gets a winter blanket.  It was stinky and I thought her coat and the blanket could use some quality time away from each other.  I did not count on it to resume snowing.  No idea why I didn’t consider that possibility.

When I went out later in the afternoon, Karat was none too happy that she was A) wet B) cold and C) not in a cozy stall.  I got a towel and dried her off then put a warmer-drier-and-cleaner blanket on her.  She still wanted a cozy stall.  Spoiled girl.  She has a three-sided shelter to go into, however it seems she chose not to go there when it started snowing.  That way she could be right at the gate when I happened by to complain about her situation.  Hence I needed to towel her off.  Very spoiled mare.

As I type this, there is at least another four inches of snow on the ground.  Why am I surprised?  It has snowed here on the Fourth of July.  Ok, it doesn’t accumulate then, but it does still snow.  We have had accumulations into April.  It always melts off.  But, there is a part of me that believes once it is Spring, there should not be more snow.  Like the Seasons read my ideal descriptions of weather for each one.  Sheesh.

Spring:  Begin at Spring Equinox.  Lows in the 40s.  Highs up to the low 70s.  Light rain acceptable.  Light breezes encouraged.
Summer:  Begin at Summer Solstice.  Lows in the 60s.  Highs up to 100.  Thunderstorms and other light shows are appreciated.  Breezes strongly encouraged on hot days.
Fall:  Begin at Autumn Equinox.  Lows in the 40s.  Highs up to 70.  Rain is acceptable.  T-storms are acceptable.  Wind is acceptable.
Winter: Begin at Winter Solstice.  Lows down to 0.  High up to 45.  Snow.  Snow.  Snow.  Rain is not an option.  Light wind is acceptable.

Right.  Now that I have that all worked out, any idea where to send it to?

Shenanigans

It was windy here today.  I had to haul some horses to the fairgrounds so my FFA Horse Evaluation kids could get a chance at practicing live (as opposed to video) judging.  When I went to load Ki into the trailer, lucky him got to be first in, a big gust came up and blew dust everywhere we were.  I had dust in my eyes, my mouth, my nose, in any cleavage you can think of on a person’s body… and I was pretty well bundled up against the wind. I was also thinking at that time that the last layer of lip balm I put on may not have been such a great idea.  Although the combination of dirt, grit and particulate horse shit probably can be part of a lip smoothing and conditioning regime I should pitch to Burt’s Bees.

In spite of the wind the horses all did very well.  Aside from the dust and grime blowing around the wind was strong enough to about blow me off my feet.  Keep in mind that I am not constructed in a way that anyone, anywhere has ever suggested that a stiff breeze might blow me over.  The tumbleweeds were going down the road faster than I was on my drive to the fairgrounds.

Before I headed out, I noticed the wind had blown an empty feed sack into the pasture with the yearlings.  Here’s the picture show…

Everybody had to check this out.  You can tell how spooky these horses are.  Not!  Keep in mind they are bred to be highly reactive cutting and working cow horses.

The filly sees me.  I might be more interesting than this weird toy the boy has.

Then the bay colt sees me.  Yeah, he’s gotta see what I’m up to.

So now it’s just the colt I call Slick playing with the feed sack.  While his brother and sister watch on jealously.  All three of these are out of the same mare.  They all love toys.  Kanak is out of the same mare too.  They are all by different stallions though.  Don’t think ill of their momma for being promiscuous, it’s just how it worked for her.  Anyhow, in the picture above, left to right, you see Slick, Shilo and Ki.

Ki would really like to play with that bag.  For all I know he got to play with it for a while before it blew into this pen, and he wants it back.

Now the filly is thinking this bag might be interesting again.

Finally she gets back around to it.  But, Slick won’t let her have it.  He’s picking it up, waving it around.  After a while he put it down, stepped on it, then pulled to start ripping it.  That’s where he started to think it was really fun.  She got really bored with it at that point.  It wasn’t a moving target anymore.  Meanwhile, the bay colt is behind me, nosing me, wondering what I’m doing and why I’m not loving on him.  He also was happy that Slick had something else to take his aggressions out on.

Now I’m happy to be inside, out of the wind.  The weather forecast has us windy for the next couple of days.  This might be when I finish up taxes.

A day at the Auction.

Actually it didn’t take all day out there.  It just felt like we were there for 28 hours.  In the freezing cold.  I am thankful for my Arctic-Lined Carharts.  Even with them, I got cold.  The sun tried to sneak out a few times but got chased away by the wind and the hail/snow/slush.  Today it did at least all three of those.

A bunch of tractors and hay equipment was up for sale.  Along with a few items for livestock handling.

We came away empty handed.  The panels were going for about $100 each in lots of 27 and 28 panels.  I was really hoping to get those picked up for at most $80 per panel.  When the bidding got up to $2500 for each of those lots, we walked away.

Of course we had been hanging out in the wind and cold and snow while they went through almost all of the other equipment first.  In all fairness I didn’t get really cold until the last 15 minutes or so.  By that time the wind was absolutely piercing and the hail was coming in sideways.

Some folks got some great deals on tractors.  The highest one went for about $50,000.  A lot of money unless you know they go new for four times that.  Some of the older tractors didn’t even bring $20,000.  These were all in working order and can go out to the hayfields next summer and be part of the money making process.

The kick-youself-in-the-butt-for-not-going-after-it-deal-of-the-day (at least for me) was an old dump truck.  It didn’t look like much, but the bed looked to be in good shape.  It was packing a 3208 Cat engine with an Allison Transmission.  It sold for $2000.  I kept thinking the guy was going to bid on it.  When I realized he was hesitating and I about jumped in there, they called it sold.  Of course if we’d bid on it the price would have gone up, more than likely a lot.

To answer the question from yesterday about what a panel is…

This pen (enclosure) is completely made up of panels.  They usually range from 8′ to 20′ in length and in a sense are portable sections of pipe fence.  Most of the panels around here are 12′ and 16′.  They are held together with either butterfly clamps or chain wrapped around the top and bottom edge on either side.  Yes the one closest to us is ever so slightly bent.  It happens.  Which is why the panels at the sale were so appealing.  They were heavy duty things.  A few of them were bent up, but it must have taken a pretty hit from an angry steer to get that way.

The fun part of the sale today was catching up with a bunch of the old-timers that showed up there looking for a good deal too.  I was one of the few women there, and it’s funny to me to watch these guys chattering away about who’s where and what’s happening, so-and-so’s old lady kicked him out, etc.  It’s kind of like a bunch of women getting together at the beauty shop.  Maybe a little more testosterone.  Then again, maybe not.

Not too bad for a Thursday so far.  How’s your day going?

Something to look forward to.

I used to live in the Pacific Northwest.  If you live in a rainforest you come up with many ways of describing rain.  You know, there’s drizzle, sprinkles, rain, sideways rain, heavy rain, cold rain, light rain, intermittent rain, drips, drops and so on.  Bonus points if you know the difference between partly cloudy, partly sunny, mostly cloudy, mostly sunny, sun breaks and sunny with scattered showers.  I’m beginning to do that with snow.

How many words do the Eskimos have for snow?

What I’m getting to is that it slushed here today.  It would have been snow, except that it was way wetter than that.  It was like miniature snow balls coming down from the sky.   It definitely wasn’t hail though since it was much softer than hail. It did accumulate, even though the temperature was above freezing. The stuff came down as slush and remained slush.  Therefore, it slushed.

The weather is supposed to be the same for tomorrow as it was today.  No, they are not forecasting slush.  Apparently meteorology has not kept up with the latest developments in terminology.  Now, what I’m looking forward to is sitting out tomorrow at an auction of ranch equipment.  (Need sarcasm font).  My function there will be to supervise the guy and help ensure that excessive funds are not spent on the tractor that ends up going for a really, really good deal.  There are already four tractors on this place, plus a backhoe.  No more tractors.  Unless it’s a really cute one with a good loader.  Actually, we’re hunting for a good deal on panels.

Did I mention this will be outside?  Most of the day?  Starting about 9:00 in the morning.  Here’s the weather forecast.  Freshly snipped:

I am glad to get the snow and moisture, we need it.  I just lack enthusiasm over sitting out in it for hours.  There are only so many layers I can get on and still move.  Unfortunately, my ‘winter coat’ has caused my coveralls to be a bit on the snug side.  I really don’t want to be like the kid in “A Christmas Story” who falls down in his snowsuit and can’t get back up.  When that happens to a kid it’s cute and kind of funny.  If it happens to a grown woman, it’s just sad and embarrassing.  To clarify, it doesn’t bother me to go to the auction, just the timing with the weather.  Hmm, can I chaperone from the truck?

The rest of the forecast is reassuring though.  I can deal with cold as long as there is some sun for me.  It’s part of why I moved to the desert, I’m solar powered.

Experimental Cookie Fail

It’s fixing to storm here again.  My arena is half mud.  Too slick and sticky to work in.  New project is going to be fixing the footing so it drains.  That probably won’t get started on until this summer, maybe.

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.

How to deal with mud.

How to deal with mud?  Don’t.  Yesterday I was thinking it would be dry enough to work the footing in the arena and work some horses today.  Wrong.  It took until at least noon for the ground to thaw.   Which means the moisture didn’t start moving through the ground until then.  This is what it looked like at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Yummy, standing water with mud underneath.  I tried walking in the arena and realized I would definitely get the tractor stuck out there.   Maybe tomorrow I can work horses.

Here’s how my day started.  Bruce wanted out first thing, so I let him out the front door and saw that my chickens were roaming about.  Crap!  I forgot to close them in last night.  I treat the flock of hens with the rooster kind of like a Koi pond.  I don’t have a specific count of how many there are, but as a unit they should have a certain look.  As near as I can tell they still look the same, so I’m under the impression none were lost to coyotes.

Then I went out back to let Karat out of her stall.  (She is being prepped for the breeding season by keeping her under lights for part of the night, simulating summer light which makes her body think it is breeding season.)  As I stepped out the door, a little yellow head was in the pen directly behind the house.  Exactly where it didn’t belong.  There was also a small sorrel and bay out there.  Yes, the babies (yearlings) had gotten into the pasture with two of the older horses.  As I held my breath to prepare for the worst – blood, babies being crashed into fences by bigger/older horses, miles of fence down – I realized there was no catastrophe.  In fact the palomino filly was holding her own with Ki.  (She’s so in love with him.)  The colts were sticking to themselves.

I traipsed out to put the babies back where they belonged and at least put a band-aid on the fence.  There was mud right by the barn where they all hang out.  Once I was thirty feet away from there the ground was frozen with a nice crust of snow on top still.  The colts came running up to me.  Probably trying to tattle on the filly, that it was her fault the fence was broken and it was her idea that they should all be in the same pen with the grown up horses and it was because of her that they couldn’t figure out how to get back to their pen.  Uh-huh, yeah, sure.  After I got everyone sorted out to where they were supposed to be, I did a red-neck fix on the fence.  It held through the day.  Fixing fence is someone else’s department and they didn’t get to it.  Maybe tomorrow, huh?

This is what you do when you are a princess filly after you got to run around with the big horses and seriously flirt with your crush earlier in the day.

You nap on a bed of hay the colts made,

and eat some when you feel like it.  BTW, don’t you just love the look of a muddy horse!  I have no idea how she got her hip that covered in mud.

So what did I do all day?  I made stuff in the kitchen.  I knew it was cold enough in the morning that I could concoct things until noonish.  I watched for the snow to melt off the driveway.  When that happened I went out to see if there was any possible hope for the day.  Not seeing any, I took pictures of mud and a muddy baby horse.

So here’s what I made and what I thought of it.

BarBQ Pulled Chicken to make into sandwiches for dinner.  I’d include a link, but I just kind of throw stuff in the crock pot for this and stop when it smells good.  This one had about three or four pounds of chicken thighs (skin on, bone in), a can of pineapple tidbits, a roughly chopped red onion, a yellow bell pepper, a red bell pepper, about 5 cloves of garlic, a bottle of BarBQ sauce, a bottle of hard cider and a jalapeno pepper.  I shouldn’t have used as much liquid (probably could have eliminated most of the cider) as it turned out soupy.  Good, but soupy.

Scotch Eggs.  Sausage and egg married together in loving harmony.  The first place I saw this was in the 30-page sample of Well Fed.  Then I saw a slightly different version at Mark’s Daily Apple.  The version I made was closer to the one at MDA.  I think next time I will try to just bake them like Melissa does in Well Fed.  Not that I mind frying things up a bit, but I had them in the oven for about 20 minutes anyhow before the sausage was cooked even with frying them to start with.  Why bother with grease and potential grease burns (or actual ones, like I wound up with) if it doesn’t hurry things up.

You need to know that I don’t care much for hard-boiled eggs.  Just have never been something that I enjoy.  In a salad they’re ok.  Sort of.  Sometimes I avoid salads that have hard-boiled eggs in them.  These were really good.  I ate one warm in a bowl, it would have been great with a little bit of ranch or mayo.  I used chorizo sausage which added tons of flavor and pretty well masked the stinky boiled egg-ness of it.  I have leftovers for breakfast tomorrow and will likely make them again.

Yesterday (I think, but it might have been the day before) I saw this recipe for Flourless Crack Brownies.  Pretty much any combination of chocolate and peanut butter has me thinking it will be a good thing.  What I love about this recipe and how Brittany has it laid out is that it is so flexible.  Also, the options.  The options that she says are ok and that she encourages you to do what you need to do are awesome!  Yumminess.  Mine were made with normal powdered sugar (trying to use it up and get it out of the house) and mostly almond butter, but didn’t quite have enough so I added a little bit of peanut butter from the near empty jar that I’m planning to not replace when it’s all gone, also I used gluten free oats (again, trying to use them up and get them gone – now that I’m not making granola for my mornings).  I think I shall now semi-worship Brittany as a kind, helpful kitchen goddess.  She has tons of other recipes that look absolutely amazing.  I also love that she is not at all fazed by someone being upset at her calling these Crack Brownies.  Seriously, some people need to get a sense of humor and a life.

I’m almost positive that either part of this recipe could stand on it’s own.  The brownie part would be a flourless tort.  It would be way better and cheaper than the semi-ok one they sell at Trader Joe’s.  The Nut Butter topping would totally work as no bake cookies.  In fact one thing to note in making these is to not mix the topping up too early.  I would suggest timing it be ready as you take the brownies out.  If not, do not sample it, unless you have very good self-control.  I had to walk out of the kitchen and wait for the timer on the brownies, other wise I was going to just set there and pick away at that nutty delicious mess until it was all gone.  Needless to say, the finished combination is heavenly and is calling me back for another bite right now.

Finally, I made grain free flat bread to use as buns for my BarBQ sandwich.  Stupid easy and quick to make, I just mixed mine in a measuring cup and really followed directions (for once!).  They did spread and poof up a little.  I like coconut, I just wasn’t expecting to taste it here.  Not because I didn’t think the taste would carry through, but because I was expecting (normal) buns.  Totally my screw up for having wrong expectations.  These did a good job of sopping up the extra liquid of the BarBQ.  I think for me to love these I need to use expeller pressed coconut oil, to cut down some on the coconutty taste.

Oh and I threw together cole-slaw quick too.  Don’t be too impressed, the cabbage was prepared (from a bag) and the dressing was store bought.  It hit the spot with the chicken though.

I’m off to double check that all my birds are locked up for the night.

Tomorrow’s Forecast

We have mud here.  Mud!  I do not like mud.  Not one bit.  I was going to try for a Seussian rhyme, but it just wasn’t in me.  Sorry.

There was a rumor that we were going to hit the 60′s mid week.  That was started by a weatherman over the weekend.  Now he appears to be wrong.  We still have snow on the ground.  More of it melted off today though.  That made more mud.

Since I couldn’t rhyme for you, let me just gripe about mud for a minute.  I moved here so I wouldn’t have to live with mud through the winter.  At least I tell myself that was only part of the reason.  I really hate mud though, so it may have weighed heavily in the decision making process.  Somewhere, somehow I knew that there would be some mud.  Some.  In my brain that translated to an almost negligible amount.  To my way of thinking that means a little tiny bit.  The small amount that you can easily go around.  As in oh look, there’s a bit of mud, guess I won’t walk right there.  But this. This I have to put on rubber boots that would be most appropriate in a dairy barn to go out and feed. (Although I do love my rubber boots in the snow too, they are very warm.)  I console myself by thinking it will be gone in a day, or two.  There are more sun icons in the ten day forecast, that’s a good sign things will dry back up.

Meanwhile my riding pen is still covered in snow.  It needs to be worked.  If fortune (and the sun) shine on me tomorrow I can get the ground worked and do something with these horses.

Jr is bored.  Every time I go by his pen he is right there, wanting to go do something.  He tore his feeder off the panel the other day.  Absolutely not a sign of boredom, right?

Kanak was playing tetherball the other morning in the snow.  Of course I didn’t even have my phone with me to get any sort of video.  He was poking the ball with his nose then letting it swing around and hit his hip as he bucked, then it would swing back towards his nose and he’d bump it again – back to his hip and so on. I have to be careful to stay away from where his halter is.  If he thinks I’m reaching for it he books it to the gate.  No he’s not bored either.  Why do you ask?

Good news.  I talked to someone that is starting colts here.  Bad news.  He will not have time until later in February to take on Kanak.  He should be pretty easy, a 30 – 60 day project I hope. Just enough time with to understand what’s expected out of him when someone climbs up on his back.  We talked about Jr too… he needs to get started as well.  It never ends.  Next year I may have three to get started.  Better save my pennies.  Or sell some horses.  While we’re marking time off the calendar until the boys can go to school, I need to be working on their pre-school stuff.  But there is mud.

Truthfully, I know better than to really bitch about a little bit of mud (everywhere!).  There are definitely worse things going on in the world.  There are definitely places with more mud!  Certainly we needed the moisture.  It’s just that whining a tiny bit is therapeutic.  Wine seems to be therapeutic too.  As is chocolate.  Anyhow, the whining is out of my system now, so I can deal with the mud tomorrow.  After it dries out some more tonight.  And maybe after some of these other forms of therapy.

A Northwest kind of weekend

My desert let me down.  We had rain, quite a bit of it, and gray skies for several days.  Truly I’m not that disappointed, we do need moisture.  It’s just that I would prefer it in the form of snow instead of rain though.  According to the weather sources my preferences shall be honored tonight.  Meanwhile though, I got nothing accomplished outside with the horses.  Too much wind and apparently I now melt in the rain.  Overall the gray days and on-again/off-again rain pattern reminded me of life on the west side of the Cascades.  I still don’t miss it.

Saturday morning I was being ultra lazy as it had rained all night and was still pretty soggy.  So I was a bit of a bum about taking a shower and getting going for the day.  I chatted with Bruce about it and he declared I smelled better than cat butt.

I was feeling pretty good about things until I thought about who Bruce is, and what his scale for good and bad smells might be.  This is a dog who can find a dead thing to roll in almost anywhere we go.  Instantly too, he will suss out the stinkiest most decayed pile of varmint remains and just roll in there to his heart’s content.  Or, until I yell at him to stop.  If he can not find stinky dead things a pile of well-aged horse poop will do, in a pinch.  Anyhow, upon further consideration, being compared to cat butt just didn’t seem good in general, whether his idea of better than was the same as my idea of worse than, I decided to shower.  And I felt much better.  (Ok, I didn’t really have a talk with Bruce, but he was fascinated by some smell on my PJs – more than likely bacon grease, they got washed.)

Just in case you were wondering who Bruce is... Say G'Day Bruce.

Back to the stinky weather.  The early part of this winter had me really spoiled.  Cold, yes.  Wind, not so much.  Snow, only a smidge.  Rain, none.  By cold I mean lows in single digits warming up to mid-40s.  Clear blue skies everyday.  Almost no serious wind.  A light breeze here and there, but no steady 30-plus mile an hour winds gusting up to 50.  No buckets of rain dumping in short spans of time.  Today actually was the best day of the weekend, except for the chill and the wind.

Tonight I almost wound up making pan-fried Tuna steaks with alfalfa.  Sounds gourmet, right?  With the shorter days during this time of year I usually feed the horses before I make my dinner.  The wind was blowing enough that each horse I fed tonight, no matter which direction I was moving hay, some portion of it blew back onto me.  In my hair, down my shirt, all over my coat.  Any sudden move on my part once back inside, might dislodge a shower of little green bits.  Normally, I ignore this.  It’s all part of doing what I do.  When I was seasoning the Tuna I felt a sneeze coming on.  I walked into the mud room to let it out.  Otherwise, I feared a violent sneeze would dislodge alfalfa particles all over the kitchen and onto my dinner.  My plan worked, the only seasoning I detected was the salt, pepper and cayenne I intended to have there.

Trader Joe’s Ahi Tuna Steaks are worth the two and a half hour drive to get.  I hadn’t realized how much I had been missing fish.  Definitely stocking up the next trip to Town.  These are good enough, fresh enough (frozen) they probably could carry some alfalfa seasoning.  Not sure I’ll push it though.

I’m off to shower to get the hay out of my hair.  Hope your weekends were more productive than mine.