....and then there were horses

And there they are: Little Red (aka "Beep") and her new "companion" (very Jackie O don'tcha know) Oscar Rudolph. Today was monumental. Two horses showed up at La Bella Vita!That's cause to celebrate and don't any of you worry; I'm celebrating now with a my favorite bottle of Cabernet and some Sicilian olives. Everyone, raise your glass!! Tink!

What a day. I woke up at 5:30 and listened to public radio for an hour. I was running through my mind all the things that I needed to do before 9 am. I was supposed to leave for the (now) old barn at 9 to load up Sir Oscar but before that I had to string up the temporary fence to block off the newly seeded pasture. All went swimmingly. I got the fence in then got the call from Cathy to say that the pony loaded fine. Then Keith called and said he was on the beltline. I was ready: completely caffeinated and sitting on "start." I hopped in the car and got to the (now) old barn and got Oz out of his pen. He grazed for about 5 minutes in the yard before the trailer pulled in. Oscar is an easy-to-load horse but when the trailer door dropped and Beep neighed that sexy pony "hi" he waltzed in. Sucker.

We pulled into La Bella Vita at 10am sharp. I walked Oz off first. He looked around and gave an excited kick. If I read him correctly (and I belive I did) his kick said "hot dog, REAL GRASS...!.. now where's the chick that was in the trailer?"

So then I brought out Lil Red. They did a two second sniff and went trotting up the hill together. Oscar bucked the whole way, hind legs about 5' high and happier than a dog with a stolen hamburger. They walked about all morning, with me checking on them every half hour.

In between, I was working on other chores with Joe. The stall guys were working hard and so were me and Joe. Can't remember exactly all that I did but I know I didn't stop until 30 minutes ago!

Here is what the stall's looked like going in.
In case you are wondering, that's a pig feeder
on the right side of the stall partition. Joe

had to get that thing out with the skid loader. It was heavy!
Here's a photo of Joe taking the pig feeder to the "pit" which is the farm version of a "dump" for you city folk.


As it was going down the road the artiste in me was thinking "is there anything I could DO with that thing?"
I had to admit to coming up empty handed but I'm sure the image of the pig feeder will haunt the artiste reaches of my mind at some point and I'll wish I'd of saved it.

Oh well. Even in its demise it became part of a nice photograph of a skid loader heading east on Muller Road, into the afternoon light with a pig feeder in the bucket.

So the horses are in their barn eating hay. The light is gone and I'm starting to fade too. I heard the Packers won today. I'm so out of the regular world but I'm glad to hear my old team won.

I'm not sure what to do now. Take a shower comes to mind. I have grass seed in my shoes, my hair is a mess and I probably smell like a horse.

Ahhhh. La bella vita.
ciao ,
b

One Hundred Forty Bales of Hay on the Wall....

ear.


So we're getting down to the wire; much to do before the horses come but it's all falling into place nicely. That first photo is what 150 bales of hay look like, sitting on my road next to the barn.

I kicked off today with another school presentation (no photo this time) at the same school as last week. That went well and then I went to Whole Foods to get some cool stuff that you can't get in the country. I don't shop at Whole Foods unless there is something there I really want (in this case it was Meyer's counter surface cleaner, geranium scent). It's kind of fun to walk through the store and go right by the $8 tub of salsa. There must be enormous margins on salsa. Perhaps our team ought to get into the salsa business? That's one way to fund the operations.

I left Whole Foods intact but nearly got schmeared by an elderly lady who decided to make a slow, left u-turn without looking. Seeing as she was to the right of me this posed a problem but nothing a long blast of the horn couldn't fix. No harm done and on I went--to the book store. I had a few minutes to kill before a meeting but found myself surrounded by absent professor types. Bearded men with a glazed look about them. One had his long legs sticking out into the aisle and it's a small store so I had to step over his legs to browse the magazine section. It just so happened that his gangly legs were in the home magazine section and I grew annoyed at having to step around his legs. I love bookstores but officially crossed that one off my list.

Confidential to Barabara: I browsed the Bungalow magazine and saw the ad for Canmore Cottage! I immediately thought of our thanksgiving dinner in the Mayflower pub, the year my life changed for the better. Ahhh, such fond memories! I'll miss that place.

Speaking of missing places, I drove by Hoboken Hostel today. The lawn wasn't mowed and the gardens needed tending. I was sad for that, but am very content at La Bella Vita.

I got back to the farm at 1 and found Joe and we hatched a plan to get fetch the trailer of hay. First I helped him change a tire on his tractor. He's got one of those 30# rivet guns you see the race car drivers use so that was cool to watch.

I knew the fence materials for my arena were to be delivered today so we waited until that truck arrived. The semi showed up and the guy had no way to lower the pallet to the ground. It was 400# of fence material so Joe revved up the tractor, I hitched a ride and we met the trailer down at the arena and got it unloaded. Then it was on to the Weisensell farm for hay. That went smoothly; Joe and I talked in the truck on the way. He was telling me about a cow he had that could produce 100# of milk/day. That's really good for a cow.

So we hitched up the hay wagon and drove it home. We both kept an eye out the window, hoping the clouds would hold off and the trailer would stay hitched. It had been raining off and on all day and we lucked out. We got the tractor into the barn with Cassie's help then those two had to leave for a family dinner function. That left me and 150 bales of hay--but it was dry at least.

Here is what 150 bales looks like from atop the bales, looking out the barn across the street.


I went at it and got the trailer unloaded and the hay stacked in under 2 hours. It was hard work and I swear some of those bales weighed 70#. I took a few monkey bar swings on the cross bar of the trailer. My shoulder did not like that, but it was too hard to resist a nice landing in the hay.

I was going to ride Oscar but was running out of steam so I opted to call it a day. I sat on the last hay bale and took a photo of the stacked hay.

Here are my feet, atop the tired and huddled masses of hay that I'd just stacked. It smelled good in the barn, I'll say that much. This was very nice hay and from what I could tell, it looked like a mix of timothy, possibly orchard grass, alfafa and maybe some other seed. It was something the Trelay seed company mixed up especially for horses. Will have to check with Sara on that.

And now I think I must take a shower. I'm off to Vegas for a few days for work and I'm not happy to leave the farm. I love it here and wish all of you were here to see it!
til soon,
becx

Barbara's Pony

One thing one does with a pony is take more photos of the pony! Let's hear it for digital cameras!!

Here's a photo of Little Red, now known as "Babara's Pony" or "Beep" (BP) for short.
She didn't want to get caught which is classic pony behavior so she'd walk 5' away, stop, turn, and look at you.


And Beep's baby, Rosie, was doing exactly what
the momma was doing. Here's Rosie in her version of the run and look:

You'll note that Rosie is looking back to see if anyone is still following her. We were.

I took Beep out side to trot her around. Cathy walked her a bit first and Cathy has the biggest heart of anyone I know. It's going to be hard for her to part with Little Red and she got a little teary about it. But she is keeping Rosie who is the spitting image of Red.




Here Cathy is leading Red with Rosie following.
Their hooves are sooooo cute and little!

If anyone reading has a nice, smaller horse to give away, let me know. Cathy bought her daughter a horse that turned out to have Cushings disease (fatal). The guy she bought it from knew the horse had the disease and sold it anyway and refuses to come good on it.

THere is a special place in hell for horsemen like the guy who'd knowingly profit off of a dying horse.

Well, on a happier note, Beep will have a good home here. The one thing she's not fond of doing is cantering. Perhaps she'll be on the "Sir Oscar Walk-Trot-and-Runforyourlife" exercise plan?

Stay tuned for that episode: And then there were horses...
ciao,
becx

Pony and Pasture Grass (and book club)

This was an unusual day, even by my standards. I started by giving a school presentation on cycling to White Horse Middle School. They have an annual ride around the lake and I've presented now for 3 years. I'm in that photo, somewhere. The kids were great and every year more and more kids that I talk to know about road biking or have a parent that rides. A good sign.

After that I headed to Monticello to see about a pony for Barbara. She's just as adorable as her photos and here's one of the pony and her current owner, Cathy. I couldn't stop myself and wrote out a deposit and now I get to work on getting Little Red here.

That's easy enough; Keith (the horse hauler) will fetch the little one and get Oscar on his way here. That way the two of them will have a chance to meet in the trailer before they get plopped in a pasture together. Eta on that: October 2.





I had to stop at the grocery on the way home as it was my turn to host book club. I got ample amounts of wine, exotic olives, crackers, cheese and such then scooted home. As usual, Joe and now his brother in law, Cassie, were in the pasture. Cassie had a chain saw and Joe was in the big tractor tilling up the soil more. in his words: Every time I do that I grow a new crop of rocks!"

He sent me to C&D Feed Supply in Columbus for a pasture grass mix. It's a groovy little store, family owned and you can buy chicken feed, bird seed, horse food, grass seed and they will mix it all up for you right there. I got my timothy, orchard grass, alfalfa and something else mix and skeedaddled home.

My first task was to pick out the big rocks that had turned up. That's good for your hamstrings, all that bending and stooping. Got that done and then got to use a seed spreader to get the seed down. After that I dragged it with a harrow behind an ATV. Whooee that was fun. I rode Mitzi's ATV which is "modifield for a lady." Well, this lady was tearing it up and dragging with zest. ATVs are way more fun than a Gator because they have speed!

Here's a photo of how it looked; newly tilled and seeded yard and lower pasture.


So at 5:15 I had to stop the farm chore business and get things organized for my book club. I'd been cooking minestrone all afternoon so got the house reasonably clean and table set and then....nothing. Six o'clock came and went, then 7 and I started to wonder where the ladies were. Turns out that 4 had decided to drive together and they waited for one to show up who never did, then they got lost and didn't have my number but finally showed up. The last one also got lost but she started out heading to Verona (wrong way on 151!). We had read "Desperate Characters" and had a fine ole discussion.

So now it's time to go to work....talk to you soon!
becx

Grass Seed & Shorter days

I didn't get a photo for this posting but picture this: I arrive home (by bike) and pull into the yard and there's a sprinkler running on the newly seeded yard. Guess who? If you didn't answer "Joe" you need to go way back to the beginning of the blog and get ed-u-ma-cated.

The yard is looking good. We seeded it last night with a mixture of rye and timothy and other yard type seed. The frost free pump is working just fine, and the rye grass should sprout in no time. I'll get a photo of that for ya...nothing better than grass growing. Seriously! All paper pushers need to put some seeds in a pot on your kitchen windowsill and remember what the cycle of life is about. It's gratifying, I tell you. And heck, the farmers have known it for a loooooong time. No wonder they know the value of the city life v. the country life. Smart people, those farmers. They can see things from different perspectives which is a skill that more humans could use. That and heaps of patience and I'm working on the latter.

Anyway, by the time I moved the sprinkler over the last section of yard it was going on 7:30 and it was dark already. that makes me sad but I try to remember that come Dec. 21 the days get longer again.

I'm 'tarred' and need to read a book before book club tomorrow. I'm hosting. I've been in this book club for 10 years and it's a great excuse to drink wine (like I need one) and talk about books-my favorite thing. I LOVE books. Our bookthis month is: "Desperate Characters." If I remember I'll write a book report.
ciao for now,
becx

Fambly Farm Weekend

Holly Molly, what a weekend. Much silliness, some good eats and a few highlights. Best told in photos.

The weekend started about 9am Saturday when I heard Joe's tractor start up. I went across the street to find out what we were doing that day (when I hear the tractor it usually means time to work). I found Joe and his grandson, Joe, in the wood bin. we hatched a plan to load a flat bed trailer full of wood into my basement. It was a perfect day for loading wood into a basement and Little Joe was the perfect sidekick. Here he is with his grandpa riding the big tractor.

Joe and Little Joe were a good team; they loaded the wood, I unloaded and stacked it. My stacking needs some work. The pile started out ok, then got narrower which I imagine is a common rookie wood stacking issue. Will work on that. Somewhere in the middle of all this Dad, Doris and Jimmy showed up. Doris and Jimmy live in Arbor Vitae and Jimmy is about to turn 16. He's a hip kid from the northwoods and he had on a belt to die for. I wanted to trade him any cd in my collection for his belt but never got around to that barter. They were on their way to a family reunion so Dad got dropped off and we got to loading more wood.

Loading wood is fun. It'd be more fun without a torn rotator cuff but so be it. I knew I'd be sore but the few logs that whapped me in the shins were hurting more than my shoulder.

After that chore Dad and I did some home maintenance projects including starting up the wood stove. Dad taught me how to start the fire and regulate it and we got it going pretty good. It was *weird* having it be warm in the house. I was comfy and not freezing for the first time in years. My old furnace (the one that finally quit last fall) in Madison never worked well and the house always had a chill. Not now; the wood fire was cozy perfect.

Sunday was another pretty day. Somewhere in the middle of the second cup of coffee the old kitchen light started flickering so Dad got after that one. He found the problem; some old cloth covered wire. He took out the light and we went to town to get a new one. The True Value in Columbus is the bomb! The staff actually know what they are talking about and are polite. What a concept. Really makes you realize how brainwashed one can get living in the city and having only Home Depot at your disposal. Long live family harware stores!!

Anyway, we got a new light (it's only temporary, Barbara!!) only I don't have a drill yet (doh) so we couldn't install the new one. Note to self: must get drill.

We had to put the light aside but that was fine as Sara, Ben, Mike, Brian, Erika, Simon, Doris, Jimmy and my good friends from Madison, Julie and Bill arrived. My goal for the day was to get the barn cleared out and thanks to Julie and Bill, the upper deck was ship shape! They swept up tons of guano. Bill named the climbing wall "Mt. Guano" and I'll have to have little sister Neen give the wall a rating. Ben was helping out too by driving the wheelbarrow full of bat poo.

In between the barn sweeping was the chimney check. Dad and Joe had the chimney open to check for creosote and wanted to show me how to do it. Here's me getting some instruction from Joe.

Turns out I have an insulated chimney and it was sparkly clean--no creosote. Since we had the ladder out I got up to the second floor and knocked a bird's nest out of the chimney. I couldn't quite reach back behind the chimney so Dad went up the ladder and finished off the nest.

I went back to the barn to see how Julie and Bill were doing and it was impressive. They had cleaned out the main floor and it looked great. Here they are, in full sweep mode. Julie used to race for Dairyland and retired two years ago but she's as fit as ever. After racing Julie returned to her first hobby, horses. I followed not long after and between the issues our two horses had, we've been good support for one another.

I went back twice last night to enjoy the clean barn. Thanks you two! That's a huge help and now I can get hay in there!


So while they were sweeping, the kids were discovering the chickens. Ben got one egg, Little Joe got 2 on Saturday.
I have added more chairs to the chicken coop viewing area for those wishing to enjoy the chicken show.

Here's my nephew, Ben,
taking a break from the barn clean up to watch the chicken show.


Ben and Dad had just planted a tree. Dad brought a red pine from up north for me. They planted it in a spot where I could see it out the window, not far from the peach tree.


And just as the day was getting on, I got my other nephew, Simon, out on the yard master. He got to wear the ear protection and steer. Like most little kids, they like a ride on anything mechanical.

Doris and Jimmy wanted to bring me a chicken for a present but couldn't find one. Turns out Doris loves chickens too so they got the next best thing; a fine looking roasting chicken. It got roasted last night and Brian, Erika, Simon and I had a great dinner, thank you very much!

So that was the big weekend on the farm. Much learned and more to come.

til soon,
becx

Meet the Neighbors

I was out walking Wednesday morning with Gabby and we met our neighbors. Not sure what their names are but I'm guessing it's something female/bovine-ish.

They were polite and didn't say much when we walked by. The one on the left kind of looks like my old bike.

It's been a quiet week on the farm except for the mosquitoes which refuse to die already. I was out checking fence posts last night and was wishing for any wind at all to blow the buggers away. I can't even ride my horse outside lest I offer him up to the insect world as sacrifice.

S'all for now...more photos soon as the arena takes shape.

A Peach! (and a Pony)

Barn entrance...before cleanup





and after (right)


Before I tell you about the peach I have to say that this is the first post to the blog FROM THE FARM!! Yesterday was the day...Mr. Satellite guy was here for 3 hours installing the internet and I'll be gobsmacked, but it works! It's a little slow but faster than dialup. And in the first hour of having internet I bought a pony. More on that later...

Back to the peach. ..I was mowing the lawn last weekend and happened to see two peaches on the ground. Here's the thoughts that ran through my head:
"That's a peach."
"What's a peach doing 100' from the house?"
"Did I throw bad peaches out in the middle of the night?"
"Did I have any peaches recently?"
etc....

I never stopped the mower to investigate further but on my next pass I saw my friend Scott standing near a tree, eating a peach. I stopped the mower and it dawned on me that the little tree I had been mowing around was a peach tree. Duhhhhhh. Scott handed me the peach and said it was pretty good. I took a bite and it was excellent! So who knew....La Bella Vita Peaches.
I'm going to have to get a label designed for a crate so when I take fresh eggs or peaches to my friends it'll be properly branded.

Scott has done two tours of duty on the farm now; both involved significant clean up. It's the only way I get to see my friends....they need to come to the farm and while there is usually work involved, I'll feed you! So two weeks ago, with a shovel and a lot of scraping and teamwork, we cleared out the weeds from the horse entrance to the barn. The photos above show the difference.

Now the horses can find their way in to the barn. And, now that the entrance is all cleaned out I'm going to need some flower boxes. I'll put that on the winter list.

The other news is the barn pump was installed last week. I left my camera up north at my Dad's house so didn't get a photo of the gigantic machine they brought in to dig a trench. Why they had to bring a back hoe that was probably used to clear Ground Zero to dig a 12" trench is beyond me. They dug a 150' trench and in the process, dug up a 150x80' swath of the yard.
Joe has a plan to put the yard back in order..more on that in the next entry (stay tuned for "Arena!"). The entire area that was the pond is now just dirt. Looks bad but nothing a little grass seed and tilling can't fix.

And the pony....so I was looking for a pasture mate for Oscar and I posted an ad on Craig's list. A woman called who had a pony named Little Red. For lots of reasons, I needed to get this pony. Barbara loves ponies, I had a horse named Big Red, and well, this pony is the cutest little thing ever. Who doesn't need a pony??

So little red will be arriving the same day as Oscar. That'll be a blog entry for sure!

Time to get the dog out...cheerios for now.
becx