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.
I have been lacking in my posting lately. And I do have lots to write and photos to share, just not enough time to get it done it seems. Here is a brief update.
I put tomato seeds in plastic egg cartons on the radiant heated bathroom floor. Had seedlings within a week and just repotted them the other day. They are doing smashingly well. Roma, heirloom and legend.
Put cucumbers, tomatillos and soybeans in another flat three days ago and they are now up!
Paddock Boy was able to rig a shop light stand for me to continue to coddle the plants along until it’s time to move them outside. It may be a while...we had hail and snow this afternoon! And more is in the forecast. Winter isn’t gone yet. But I long for fresh tomatoes for salsa and lots of cukes for more pickles!
And there is a bald eagle currently roosting in the oak tree in the front yard.
Here is another recipe from our Super Bowl feast. I am known as the Salsa Queen in my circle of family and friends. A few years back I perfected making many kinda of salsas, from verdé to roasted chili to this one...my Perfect Pico de Gallo. I am so proficient and efficient at this one that I had to actually practice it to come up with the recipe you see here. Feel free to adjust and substitute ingredients to taste. I love cilantro so I usually have more than some folks like. It can be an acquired taste. This is best eaten with fresh, warm homemade tortilla chips, but store-bought are much less labor intensive. I think this rivals restaurant salsa because of the use of sweet onions. If you find that you have too much jalapeño, use more lime juice to cut the heat.
OK, I just made myself hungry typing this post...time to hunt down the chips and salsa in the kitchen! And maybe a beer to go along with it. Enjoy!
Our local QFC grocery store occasionally has this killer dip in the deli that is outrageously priced. I have succumbed to buying it twice in the past month, but no more. I went through the ingredients on the label and did some internet searching and came up with my own version that tastes almost identical, if not better.
I didn’t perfect my recipe in time for the Super Bowl, but I will now use it as my staple for chip and veggie dipping. And it beats the salt-laden packages of Hidden Valley Ranch and Uncle Dan’s that you get in the stores, too! Tweak it to you heart’s content!
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.
This is the absolute best study I have seen to date. It doesn’t really address the physical or long term health implications, just the trainability ones. It’s yet another supportive argument that grains in many circumstances are not proper horse feed.
Sweets make young horses harder to train in MSU study
I am very happy with how the Hay and Forage Class came together at our place. The weather cooperated, thankfully. There were threatening thunderclouds over the foothills and mountains to the east of us, but the most precipitation we got was a slight sprinkle here and there.
I don’t think the full amount of people showed up for the class. The attendance was capped at 50 so that everyone would be easily able to hear the presenters. We had quite a few empty seats.
Harris Statema and Dr. Bob DeWard had the audience fully engrossed and I think folks realized the importance of testing hay to know what you are really feeding your horse(s). I know that in my few short years here where we grow our own that it has been truly interesting to see the differences from year to year.
Please stay tuned to this blog, the Horses For Clean Water web site and to the King Conservation District web site for more information about upcoming classes and farm tours, as I have a feeling that the nutritional offerings may increase in the future if the interest is there.
I have been informed that the class is full! Woo hoo! Thanks for your support and I will keep you posted as to how it goes and whether on not it will be repeated in the future. If you are coming, please bring a comfortable chair.
Stay cool!
Updating this post to get the class more exposure. Check out more information here on this flyer.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Rockin’ Circle C
FREE!
Are you interested in learning about how pasture management meshes with health issues on horse properties? Do you know what a hay probe is and how to use it? Horses For Clean Water and King Conservation District will show you and will also have an equine nutritionist and an equine veterinarian on hand at this weekday evening event. Learn how you can borrow the KCD hay probe to take samples of your hay. Hear from some experts about feeding and understanding forage and nutrition. Meet resource specialists who can suggest options for pasture management problems, soil testing recommendations and weed control options. Plus, meet the landowners who manage the pastures for growing hay and grazing.
To register and receive directions contact the King Conservation District at 425-277-5581x122 or e-mail Paul Borne.
Washington State Department of Agriculture News Release: Aug. 1, 2008
Contact: Jason Kelly (360) 902-1815
OLYMPIA - West Nile virus (WNV), a potentially fatal disease in equines, has been confirmed in two horses, one in Moses Lake and the other in the Prosser area, the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) announced today.
These are the first confirmed cases this year of horses contracting West Nile virus in Washington. Last year, eight horses were confirmed for the disease, all in Yakima County.
Washington State University’s Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Pullman reported the positive test results to WSDA today.
The 24-year-old gelding quarter horse in Moses Lake appears to be recovering. The Prosser horse, a five-year-old quarter horse mare, has been euthanized. Neither horse was vaccinated for WNV.
“The best way to protect a horse from West Nile infection is vaccination,” said Dr. Leonard Eldridge, state veterinarian. “Horse owners with concerns should contact their veterinarian for information on vaccines and annual booster shots.”
Eldridge also recommended that horse owners take measures to reduce mosquito populations by removing standing water from yards and barns and changing water in troughs or bird baths that could be a source of mosquito breeding.
West Nile virus is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito and can infect people, horses, many types of birds, and other animals. Humans cannot contract WNV through contact with an infected horse. Infected horses do not spread the disease to other horses or animals. Mosquitoes become carriers when they feed on an infected bird.
Horses that contract WNV may show signs such as loss of coordination, loss of appetite, confusion, fever, stiffness and muscle weakness, particularly in the hindquarters. Many horses and other animals contracting WNV do not become ill and show no symptoms at all. About one-third of horses that become ill die.
Veterinarians and horse owners should report potential cases of West Nile virus in horses by calling the State Veterinarian’s Office at (360) 902-1878.
More WNV information is available on the following Web sites:
The Washington State Department of Agriculture Web site is at http://agr.wa.gov/.
...at least in southern California.
08/01/08 | Susan Valot
89.3 KPCC Southern California Public Radio
Thousands of horses and their owners call Southern California home, particularly in South Orange County and the Inland Empire. It’s expensive to own a horse; and it’s getting more expensive, as gas prices, feed prices and other costs skyrocket. KPCC’s Susan Valot reports. Read the full story here.
Or listen to the story here.
This shed is what we use for our manure composting and also as a run-in shed for horses. Take a look at what it was before we bought the place back in 2003:
The first year we moved here Ariel used the shed as her shelter unless it was super cold and icy. That first winter we ended up eventually putting her in the barn only when the ice and wind didn’t let up for 3 days. That was a long week as our son was only a few months old and we also got Buster, our yellow lab. Buster is exactly one month younger than the Little Man.
Anyway, once we started using the barn in the winter and had more than one horse (we have had as many as 3), the shed ended up being a full-time manure-composting factory. It worked quite well. Only problem...no way to get the compost out without a ton (literally) of manual labor. It worked great for a while since I spent time sifting the compost to use in the flower beds, herb garden, etc.
It became increasingly apparent that we needed a tractor and a manure spreader. The stars finally aligned and we were able to acquire both in the past year. This past weekend we put both the tractor and the spreader to work. After we did some demolition on the shed, we were easily able to extract the compost with the tractor and load it into the ground-driven manure spreader being towed behind GT (Grandpa’s Truck).
The whole system worked like a charm and within a matter of a couple of hours the shed was empty and ready to be converted back into a combination run-in and compost shed. Look for further updates on this project in the coming weeks.
Buena gets to be back out on larger pasture! I staked out a new area with Gallagher Pigtail Posts and Turbo Wire on Thursday, the 17th and she now enjoys having a much larger area to roam. This section will be intensely grazed until fall when we renovate and reseed, hopefully resulting in more hay next year!
The hay has been baled! We are a bit disappointed at our bale count, but there’s not much we can do about it except to try and make things better for next year. We put up most of the hay last night with the help of 2 local high school boys, my dad and my friend S. It wasn’t without some stress in just getting started. I bent the top link for the tractor in trying to figure out a way to pull the flatbed trailer with it. I ripped the tarp in the back of the Ford trying to pull out the debris from a few weeks ago with the tractor; way too heavy. All in all though, we got most all of the hay we need put up in the shed. At least two or three more loads tomorrow and then the rest in the field goes to a few close friends. Not much hay left over with a couple of extra mouths coming in a few months. (:-o More on that later.
Here are some of this year’s hay harvest pictures. And if you are in the area here, please make sure to check out the class on August 6th!
Swath:
Cure:
Stir:
Windrow:
Bale:
Buck:
Today was a busy day here at the Rockin’ Circle C, as every Saturday tends to be. Not much horse time, but cathartic for me none-the-less. Gardening and scooping poop are both things that get a person thinking and contemplating life.
It was so bittersweet this morning when I moved the hot-wire to new grazing. Ariel nickered at me, as she always does when I go out to feed. :-( It was really hard this morning hearing that. The next 6 mornings are going to be so difficult.
The girls both got to racing around quite a bit. Gotta love Arabs and their flagging tails and bursts of energy. I never tired of seeing them run. I really should have taken the camera out this morning and caught video. I will definitely make a point of doing that between now and Friday. Ariel is looking healthy for the most part, but slightly on the ribby side despite being on tall, rich, green grass 24/7 for the past month. She may still have a bit of residual pain going on from that abscess. The line across her hoof is pretty remarkable. I need to snap pictures of it. Buena is fat and sassy! Still wants her standard spots scritched even after racing around. This week I picked up a 50 pound bag of wet cob for Ariel’s last meals. It was tough. I don’t ever buy stuff like that; horses don’t need all that sugar and extra carbs. I also picked up a tube of Quietex to add to my stash, just in case Buena is agitated enough to give her some. I forgot I had two other tubes from last year. :-(
After I moved the hot-wire so the girls could graze more super-tall grass, I proceeded to work on the gardening chores that are never-ending. I mowed all of the lawns while Ben and Jackson ran the weed-eater. Or I should say Ben ran the weed-eater and Jackson supervised. It’s been so darn wet lately that the bagging attachment on the riding John Deere mower is a major pain in the you-know-what! Once the mowing was done I headed towards the currant bushes.
The weeds and Himalayan blackberries encroach on the currant bushes every year and I am hoping that this year I won’t have to struggle as much to get the berries harvested. Last year I think I got close to 10 pounds of berries. If I wouldn’t have boiled-over one batch of jelly, I would have a had a lot more finished product last year. As it was, I still had plenty. (big smile) Here’s a picture of half of 2007’s currant crop:
Today was Ben’s birthday. I made a tasty dinner of Copper River Sockeye Salmon with a honey-soy marinade, oven roasted honey mustard red potatoes with Walla Walla onions and peeled fresh baby carrots. Dessert was Fisher scones with Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream and balsamic simmered mixed berries. Yum!
Tomorrow is another non-horse day. The girls will get more grazing, but being Father’s Day, Ben has plans to ride his bicycle from Cayuse to Cayuse with some guys in training for RATPOD in two weeks. Jackson and I get to do sag wagon duty again, but there should be some snow to play in on the passes! Hopefully it will be a mostly sunny drive, too! Last weekend it was sunny for the ride up to Crystal and back.
Once we return from RATPOD, horse time begins in earnest! More on that later! Yes, I know I said that it started on May 1st, but the weather and life in general wasn't exactly cooperative!
It is with much sadness that I report that I have set a date for Ariel to cross the Rainbow Bridge. Sometime on the morning of Friday, June 20th Dr. Bob will be on hand to administer the drug cocktail to allow her to run free from this world. My heart is heavy with having committed to a date finally, but I also do see a light at the end of the tunnel. This special horse, with just a little something not quite right, has taught me, and many other people, so much in her 19 years and 2 months. I can’t even begin to start with the list. To be honest, if it weren’t for her, I may never have gone down the paths in horse-keeping, horsemanship and activism that I am involved with today.
For those of you that are local friends and acquaintances and would like to have one last visit, please feel free to contact me and we’ll set something up.
Here is a picture of the girls taking a break from grazing from earlier today (Ariel on the left and Buena on the right):
I have had Ariel for 12 years. She has been my absolute best teacher; well, with help from my mentors and friends, too. I truly believe that if I had not acquired her from her previous owner that she would have ended up as a decadent meal on some foreigner's dinner plate. She went from an uncatchable disrespectful 6 year old green broke mare to hormonally challenged head case to a reasonably predictable quirky mare. Is she solid and dependable? No. Is she safe for just anyone? No. But she is who she is and I have learned to live with all of those parts of her to the best of my ability. Do I trust her 100% of the time? Never. She's not ever going to be that kind of horse.
Last December, The Horse Magazine online e-mail newsletter ran a story about a Cushings syndrome research study that is going to be run at Oklahoma State University. I enquired with professor Dianne McFarlane, DVM who is running the project to find out if she needed test subjects. Amazingly, she accepted Ariel into the program sight unseen. I began making plans to deliver Ariel to OKState once the weather improved in the spring.
Unfortunately, the weather and Ariel's health issues have not be cooperative in this endeavor. The recent abscess in Ariel's right front foot has been on of the most trying and exasterbating experiences have have had recently with her.It showed up back in early March on radiograph I had taken when she was going through a laminitic episode. Within a week she was 3 legged lame and not putting any weight on the foot. It continued like that for the next 3 weeks before any sign of the abscess showed on her hairline. When a small area finally release some pressure inside the foot, her comfort level greatly improved. However, it was short-lived. Within a few days she was even more sore and uncomfortable than before. On Ariel's 19th birthday, April 19th, she was extremely depressed and in a great deal of pain. I began a short course of banamine to help relieve some of her discomfort. She was quite sucked up from trying to hobble around. She was still eating and drinking, but not at a normal level. And she thankfully was spending some time laying down when stalled.
Finally, she started blowing some pressure out of an area on her hairline. The stench was some of the most disgusting I have smelled in quite a while. The past 2 weeks or so have been spent flushing the area and trying to keep the drainage flowing and wrapping it keeping it clean. She has been in so much pain that trimming the foot was impossible and the other front foot has has some terrible flattening and flaring because of the weight constantly be placed on it. Thankfully I was able to get a slight trim done on both front feet a few days ago.
Thanks to all of the above I am pretty sure that I am scrapping the trip to OKState to donate Ariel to the Cushings study. I am researching other options. It is not fair to Ariel that she suffer through another year of not being able to graze and be a normal horse. With fuel prices and her health being so unstable, I am ultimately looking at some sort of euthanization scenario. The OKState option was so appealing because there would ultimately be some answers at the end of the process. Does she have a pituitary tumor? Are the other internal things going on? Those kinds of things. I may look at Washington State University to see if they have some sort of research that she might be utilized for, but I don't relish hauling her 4 hours as she isn't healthy enough to haul even an hour right now. I am going to ask my vet about how much a private necropsy locally might be, perhaps at Pilchuck. And the last option is euthanization without any necropsy and just have the rendering truck pick up her remains.
I welcome any suggestions that others might have as well. And selling and/or dumping at an auction are not an option, of course.
It was another crazy busy/packed weekend. Saturday was a bit gray and ended up WET by early afternoon. In the first part of the day we worked on renovating a paddock that had spent all winter getting hammered. The ground was still a bit slick, but the resulting tractor work looked better than before and also looked better than when we first bought the place 5 years ago.
Ariel has been very slowly trying to blow an abscess and I think she is finally on the road to recovery. Buena is gradually working back towards grazing on pasture full time. She had her 30 minutes or so while I prepped the stalls. Horse time was limited to cleaning stalls/pens and getting the girls tucked in to their stalls for the evening. They were thankful, it seemed, to get out of the ensuing steady drizzle.
Sunday turned out to be fairly gorgeous. We unfortunately had dinner plans yet again so a majority of this day was also spent doing housework and preparing a quite yummy pork rib dinner.
And Monday was spent helping save a horse and doing more tractor work; only this time I got to do the driving! We used the rock rake today and then spread new seed when that was finished. Now I would like a little precipitation (NOT a lot!) to help the seed germinate!
Pictures to come!
Every horse owner comes to a point with their horse(s) and needing to decide when “it’s time.” Whether it’s time to sell, give away, donate to a research program, or ultimately euthanize. Then there is a portion of the horse-owning public that also thinks that selling into the slaughter pipeline via an auction or a dealer is acceptable. I have spent quite a bit of time the past few years becoming educated and educating others on similar subjects. I have made some great friends in the process, and also distanced myself from others because of their beliefs on this, and other, topics.
May 1, I had the privilege of meeting a young woman who is doing a wonderful university-level senior project. She came to take pictures of my girls and hear their stories to add to a compilation. If you know of me on the internet already, you may have seen lots of pictures and some of our stories already. This gal’s project will be a fundraiser for Save A Forgotten Equine (SAFE) and I am proud that my horses are slated to be featured in it. We compared notes on our horses and she took what I hope are some fabulous pictures (I am sure they will be) of Buena and Ariel. The timing of her doing this and being able to capture some images of Ariel and me is poetic. I have been struggling for the past couple of few years now about what to “do” with Ariel. I owe this horse so much for all she has taught me. Without her, I would not be the person I am today in every aspect of my life.
Anyway, this was a very good way to start my new journey for the year. There are lots of changes in motion here in Enumclaw at our small farm. I look forward to seeing what my horses have to tell me this year because I know that it will be what I need to hear, whether I like it or not.
I will elaborate more in the coming weeks and months about what is in store over the next year and beyond.
