In the interest of trying to keep this blog focused mostly on me and my horse life, I started a new blog for the new additions to the farm and to keep track of the other livestock additions that may come in the future. Future goat news will probably be posted there as well.
This is a great article by Enumclaw’s own garden guru and author Marianne Binetti.
Now is a great time to get the scoop on poop
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Most of Saturday and Sunday afternoons were spent by myself, Little Cowboy and Paddock Boy dismantling the run-in shed.
Buena supervises:
Sunday, Little Cowboy and I removed nails from the boards that were salvageable and started a bonfire with the boards that weren’t useful or were too far gone/broken/rotten.
It began snowing again while we finished up. The snow was all gone by morning, though. Only the drifts and snowman and snow fort remain, and they are quickly shrinking.
Hay cost, bad economy put squeeze on horses
High hay prices and the dour economy are being blamed for a growing number of horse owners who are giving up and abandoning or neglecting their animals in Idaho and other Western states.
I have lots I want to say on this subject. I will come back and add commentary later.
Click on the image to view the QuickTime video.
At the point that I started to open the barn door I had to stop recording as the snow drift had already prevented me from opening it completely. I had a shovel stashed outside so I could dig in/out of the barn! I had difficulty getting out, too, and I was only in the barn about 20 minutes tops! This is not normal Western Washington weather!
I am happy to be a part of a new venture. A few months ago one of my friends asked me to help her with a logo for the new web site she was getting ready to launch. Not long after that she approved the final design which is based on a photo of her and one of her dear horses. Here is the press release about the web site. Please visit the site and spread the word. Hopefully this will be yet more more way to prevent a good portion of horses from becoming dinner for a foreigner.
Almost every horseperson can tell you about “the one that got away” - a horse they used to own or ride that they have lost track of and still think about. Maybe circumstances have changed and they’d like to buy the horse back if it is available. Maybe they just want to find out if it’s in a good home. Or maybe they have a horse they love - but that horse’s past is a mystery and they’d like to get in touch with former owners and find out their horse’s story.
Too often, registration papers are lost or not transferred, or the horse never had any, and so there is no way to find information or locate the horse. Sadly, many of the horses that go to slaughter every day have someone somewhere who would have rescued them - but that person did not even know they were in danger.
HorseReunions.com was created to connect people and horses. Horse listings are absolutely free - just sign up, create your listings and upload pictures. The comments area allows you to tell your story. If you know about a horse who is in danger, use the search function to see if he has been listed. A broad search - for example just searching for chestnut Thoroughbred mares - is more likely to yield results than a highly specific search. You do not need the horse’s registered name to search. You can search for a bay gelding who cribs or a sorrel tobiano mare with one blue eye.
You do not have to have owned a horse to list him on HorseReunions.com. For example, you can list a racehorse that you would like to offer a retirement or “second career” home to when his racing days are finished. We do ask that you be serious and financially capable of following through with any home offers.
With rescues overflowing and many owners unable to continue caring for their horses due to the poor economy, we need a way for horses in need to find the people who already care about them and want to help. HorseReunions.com seeks to fill that need but it will only work if horsepeople take the time to list the horses they care about. While we will continue to maintain the Responsible Breeder’s List, we encourage breeders to list every horse individually on the main site if possible.
Please bear in mind that HorseReunions.com is merely a listing service. We have not checked out or approved any of our members as adoptive homes for horses, and we strongly recommend you do your own research and check references before placing a horse with anyone - even the horse’s own breeder.
Enjoy the site. You can ask any questions on the site’s forum at http://forums.horsereunions.com/ and also get advice on your search!
Horse Reunions
http://www.horsereunions.com
Welcome Home - A Listing of Responsible Horse Breeders!
http://www.horsereunions.com/welcome/list.html
I also have launched a new site of my own to promote my design and publishing skills. The economy and job market out there is tough right now and our family needs every little bit of income we can get. The banking collapse has affected our family significantly and I need to start bringing more in to help offset that. If you or someone you know needs help with a web site, newsletter, book or blog, or even just a little bit of banner advertising creation, please send them my way! I am taking on new clients.
TOO COLD!
One Wunderground station near us recorded a low temp of 9.5°F last night! That’s just too cold!
The horses, goats and dog now all have heated water buckets in the barn. Already had a stock tank heater outside, but since the run-in shed is no more, the horses get brought in at night and if the wind is blowing. The goats have a new straw bale condo set up. And the barn cats huddle en masse either in the barn or out in the hay shed somewhere. I have seen them venturing out and about in the sun today since there is no wind. Also, I spotted a little mouse in the barn last night when we were installing the heated buckets. Barn kitties must not be doing their jobs very well! Mouse looked cold scurrying around on the rubber mats int he stall.
We made our trek into Forest Service Land today to get our tree. There’s not any snow to speak of in the mountains yet, so we were able to get quite high up today and made a great find. I have wanted a tall and skinny tree ever since we moved into this house. That happened this year, finally! Ten dollars and a little bit of fuel and hiking can get you a decent tree.
Mt. Rainier has been putting on quite the cloud show the past couple of days. It was a sign of the rain to come, which finally did this evening.
I am proud to have such talented and generous friends as Patti Hall and Kerry Anderson.
Several talented and accomplished country music artists, along with Buck Brannaman, internationally renowned horseman and best-selling author (The Faraway Horses, Believe) have come together to create an inspirational compilation of songs, spoken word and poetry on a CD produced exclusively to benefit Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center. On Horses’ Wings conveys a strong message about the relationship between horses and people and the life lessons we learn through developing that amazing partnership. At the same time, the music will lift your spirits and entertain you with beautiful songs of horses and a simpler, less complicated life.
Patti Hall, long-time Little Bit volunteer and supporting patron, is the Executive Producer and driving force on the CD project. Inspired by a song she heard, James Cain’s He’s Gonna Run, Patti engaged several country music friends from Nashville and the Northwest including Wylie & The Wild West, two time Grammy nominee Mary Ann Kennedy, platinum selling songwriter Templeton Thompson and XM Radio Outlaw Country number one hit artist Antsy McClain to contribute their songs. An accomplished recording artist herself, Patti received the 2007 Breakthrough Country Artist of the Year at the New Music Awards in Hollywood last November. To pull this all together Patti called upon the horseman she respected the most, Buck Brannaman, to share his philosophy about horses and people, and how mutual respect, humility, kindness and patience can hold the key to peaceful and satisfying co-existence in all relationships.
To top it all off, another long-time Little Bit volunteer and supporting patron, Kerry Anderson, has donated her incredible artwork to the CD, and it is gorgeous! Buck Brannaman, the country music artists and Patti Hall have all donated their time and recording costs to this project. Eclectic Horseman has donated all graphic production and all fulfillment and distribution costs. This means that all proceeds of this CD will go directly to Little Bit.
Buy the On Horse’s Wings Benefit CD from Eclectic Horseman
For those of you in central Washington state that don’t already have plans this weekend, you might want to head to Ellensburg for some good cowboy fun!
Thanks to Crunchy Chicken I dried a decent batch of cinnamon apple slices last week. They are already half gone and I need to make more!
And then thanks to Suzanne McMinn at Chickens In The Road I made a tasty batch of Crock Pot Apple Butter, only I left out the rum and raisins this time around.
Paddock Boy sampled the tiny leftovers from the canning and decided it was worth opening a jar for immediate consumption! And I sent a jar home with the in-laws the other day since my M-I-L helped by occupying the Little Cowboy much of last week. They even made an apple pie! I unfortunately knocked a jar off the counter and it crashed on the floor. :( Another jar went home with friends this evening... At this rate I guess no apple butter is going to make it to Christmas for presents this year unless I make some more.
I notice that there are quite a few new visitors today, mostly coming from Fugly Horse of the Day. Thanks for stopping by! If you haven’t been here before, I hope you enjoy browsing around. You might be interested in taking a look at a few past posts about my horses, but more specifically, the ones about Ariel and Lana. Those two horses’ stories may be similar to the FHotD post about Alibar.
This blog is a rather eclectic one and topics aren’t always about horses or horse related. And if you have questions, please feel free to leave comments. I try to respond to as many as I can.
There are small houses and then there’s an 84-square-foot house on wheels in Olympia that Dee Williams calls home. Click on the image to be linked to the video segment from King5’s Evening Magazine.
If you’d like more information about Dee’s little house, send her an email at Dee . boxcar @ yahoo . com (remove spaces).
For more resources, check out these links that Dee sent to me to share with folks:
