F and T

This evening while Finn and Tali were upstairs playing they prank-called some guy on the phone. Lord have mercy! These two are going to do me in. They called some guy and talked to him on the phone. He spoke English so at least I hope he was somewhere in the U.S. and they didn't call Thailand or Brazil. This led to a long discussion about not talking to strangers. Geesh!

One Month

I haven't posted in awhile, and I will soon once the crazy pace of the beginning of the school year slows down a bit. But I had to celebrate Ruby's one month anniversary. Ruby will have been home one month tomorrow, and TODAY we put a saddle and bridle on her. Pretty amazing. After only one month. I will write more about the experience later, plus rooster, children and school stuff.
Students come tomorrow, but Cathy and I are ready. We have 24 as of right now with 16 of them having IEP's. 4 of them are on a first grade reading level. I am a little overwhelmed with how we are going to make this work, but it will be nice having another colleague much less a good friend in the room with me.

Promise

Promise is home. She is our new Nubian milker. We picked her up yesterday. She is having a pretty hard time adjusting. She just wants to follow me around and calls to me when I go to the house. I hope she adjusts soon. It is hard to see her laying around inside instead of out in the pasture with the other goats. She hardly ate anything today. Last night when I milked her she gave a ton of milk, but today it has gone down a lot. Probably from the stress of moving and not eating. She is very pretty and super friendly. Huge though. I am used to the smallness of the mini-Nubians, pygmys and Mr. Tumnus. She is really big. And her udder and teats are enormous. I thought I would never be done milking last night!
Today we cleaned out the area where Tank and Diego were and turned into my milking parlor. It was nice tonight to not have to fight the goats to get the job done.
I went shopping today for Finn and Tali's school uniforms. All I could find were clothes for Finn though. He already had plenty of pants so I got him some shirts and belts. They had nothing in the way of clothes for girls. It was very frustrating. I was able to get Tali two pairs of beige pants, some belts, and I had to resort to a boy's white polo. I really wanted to get her some jumpers. If anyone knows where I can get some, please let me know.
Tonight we gathered up the roosters for the big day tomorrow. They are going to the place where all roosters go when their crowing is driving you bonkers and they are attacking you when you bring them their food. Today Banjo attacked Tali. He flew on her from behind. Good thing they are going tomorrow. Tali will have the last laugh though when she is sitting down to dinner. :)

Hot days

Yesterday Tali and I went to the Paint and Plain Saddle Club horse show at the Ashland Co. fairgrounds. It was so beastly hot we just melted. The show was in the center outdoor arena and the only place to sit was on the metal bleachers in the sun. We only lasted about an hour. Then we went to Taco Bell for lunch. It was a nice mother/daughter day. There is another one in October that I'm going to try to go to. I need to ask Rachel what the fun events are to watch. We watched a Walk/Trot/Jog. Boring, but something I could definitely do! I can walk. I can trot. The winner won $500!!! And all they did was walk about the ring and then trot and then walk again. Sounds easy, right. The second showing we saw were little girls on the horses wearing flashy shirts with their mothers or trainers on the ground wearing matching shirts. The mothers would lead the horses around and the little girls would sit up straight and smile their faces off. It was kinda funny, but Tali could do that! The little girl who won was so proud of herself. They were so tiny sitting on top of those big horses.
This morning Tali comes up to me all upset and tells me that Finn called her "Sweartogod". I just burst out laughing and couldn't stop. She glared at me, gave me a little hrmmphh, and stalked off. I should have left it at that, but no, stupid me. I called them both in to find out what happened. I didn't even say a word and both of them started wailing and throwing these huge hissy fits. Then they both turned on me when I said they needed a nap and started yelling at ME! When does school start?????

Garden

One misty, rainy morning Finn and Tali wanted to go out and play on the swingset. This is a picture I took of them inspecting the garden together when they thought no one was watching or listening. Their little chatter as they looked for the growing vegetables was too sweet. It brought tears to my eyes.

Here are some grape tomatoes they picked tonight with Grandma EE.

Scout

Well, tonight was quite an adventure. NOT! First, Ruby stepped on my toe again. My pinky toe. The broken one. The one that she stepped on already and broke that was still healing. The one that was supposed to be covered by my STEEL-TOED SHOES!!! I now wager that the steel does not cover my pinky toe. I guess I need boots completely encased in steel. I no longer have a pinky toe. It is completely numb.

Then, while we were out checking on the rams in their new pen, somehow Scout got out of the house. She came down the yard to see what we were doing. As Scout was sniffing around the electric fence, Mark and I were wondering to each other whether she had been zapped yet. The answer was a huge NO as she ran for the house yelping her head off. I thought she had stopped at the side porch, but once I came up to the house I realized she wasn't there. My first thought was to go look on the bike path. Way, way, way down the bike path by Baumhart I saw a small, black shape. I see small, black shapes on the bike path all the time. They are cats or groundhogs usually. I really didn't think that Scout could run that far in that short of time, but I had to go look. I kept calling and calling, but the black spot didn't move. Finally, a biker came by and I asked him to see if that black spot was a small, grey dog and if it was to stop, but if it wasn't to keep going. It was Scout. All the way down by Baumhart. Poor thing. She got zapped and just started running and ran to the place where she liked to be. When she gets out of the house, she usually just sniffs around the property and comes home. I'm not sure she would have found her way back this time. Luckily the bike path was the first place I thought she'd go.

Ruby

Ruby and I are coming right along. I just can't describe the feeling I have when we are working together. Rachel came by two Fridays ago and we had our first lesson. She showed me how to apply the fly spray and how to work with her on the lunge line. Frankly, it was awful. I felt so clumsy. At one point I was holding the lunge line and Ruby got her head and took off running with me hanging on for dear life on the other end. Hello rug burns! The second time I thought, "Hell no!" and just let go. She went flying down the corral with the lunge line trailing behind. Luckily Rachel has the patience of a saint and just laughed and moved on.
I have been reading some books that are helping me to better understand horse psychology. I stopped forcing a lesson on her first thing in the morning. She is only two after all. A baby, and the morning lesson was leaving both of us tense and frustrated. Now I just let her out of her stall and wait until mid morning or afternoon to work with her after she has gotten some energy out. I learned that when confronted with something new, horses either fight or take flight. So, it is okay for Ruby to dance around when I apply the spray. Once she realizes that it won't hurt her, she will settle down. And that is exactly how it has been going. Each day she dances a little less. I can get the spray on her and I can even put on a fly mask. That she took to right away. There was no fighting and a lot of trust. Another thing that has happened is that my fear of her has gone away. I don't know if it is the steel-toed shoes, or the crop. Probably my gaining more knowledge has been the most influential. During Rachel's second lesson I finally "got it" when lunging. I know where to stand now and I know how to get her to move where I want her to. Now I am working with her by myself every day. I put on the fly spray and then do a little lunging. I do the twist from side to side, and back up and whoa. Today I introduced her to the sponge, water, and the sweat scraper. I picked a hot day so that she would enjoy it. I think she wanted me to keep going, so tomorrow I will do a little more. This week Rachel is going to bring out a grubby saddle and bridle and we are going to put them on her. I might be riding her a lot sooner than I thought!

Goats and Milk

Well, it pains me to say that poor Raisin is just not meeting our family's milk needs. Finn and I have come to blows over who gets the milk for their morning cereal. Just kidding. But seriously, one milker is proving to not be enough for us. So, I asked Mark if I could get another goat, and after getting his approval the search was on. I decided on a Nubian since we could breed her with Charlie. I got many offers and we decided to purchase Cruzin Acres Jane's Promise from Legacy Ridge Farm. We went to the Cuyahoga Fair last night to see her. She is a very pretty roan color flecked with white. When up on the milk stand she was very calm and easy to milk. Her teats are GINORMOUS! Its like milking a pastry bag! Especially next to Raisin's itty bitty ones. I told Mark that Promise would be a good goat for him to learn how to milk on. We pick her up next week and I am so excited at the prospect of having more milk in the house. We have been having to subsidize with store-bought cow's milk. Horrifying!
Today Mark finished the temporary ram pen and we moved Tank and Diego out there. They seem very content. Tomorrow I can clean out the area where they were living and get it ready to be a milking parlor.
Tali and I are going to our very first horse show tomorrow. It is going to be beastly, but I promised her. It is a Paint show and it is in Ashland. Hopefully indoors, but I doubt it.

Charlie

We got our mini-Nubian buckling, Charlie. He is so pretty. Gold and white, with very pretty eyes. He is a cutey patootie. He blubbered a little bit at the girls when he first got here, but hasn't seemed that interested since. However, since he's gotten here Raisin has gone a little bonkers, so she may be lookin for love. I will post a picture soon.

Summer Days

I haven't posted in a while and I'm feeling neglectful. To recap: Amanda was supposed to come up with the crew so that we could go to Soak City for Hannah's bday since it rained the weekend we were supposed to go. Driving down the street to get onto the highway, on a beautiful, warm, sunny day, a large limb crashed down onto my sister's car as she was driving. One limb smashed into the front window and cracked it. The other branch hit the back window of the van and the whole thing shattered on my nephews. Amazingly enough everyone was okay despite some cuts from the flying glass. Ben was completely freaked out though and refused to get back in the car. After help from the neighbors, they cleaned up the car and went on to make other plans. Elena's mom drove Amanda to rent a car and they ended up driving to Cleveland that day after all. We had a nice swim day in the pool and went to Soak City the next day. Ben didn't come.
We had a great time, but the majority of the day I spent with Finn and Tali, which was really nice. The three of us had a good time together. Finn really liked the wave pool and was fearless as he dove in and out of the waves. Tali waited on the edge until the waves subsided for "rest period" and then came in and joined us. We spent 8 hours in the sun. It was a great day!
We had a pool party with Michele, Joe, Cathy, Dave and the kids. Mark had to go somewhere with Erin, so he wasn't able to be there. Everybody seemed to have a good time. Dave played for a long time with Audrey, Sophie and Daniel in the pool. I was happy that Michele and Joe stayed late. We went for a goat hike and Mark took the kids for a "hay ride". I showed the kids how to milk Raisin and like Hannah, Maylin took right to it.

Equipment

What a difference specialty equipment can make. I bit the bullet and went to Tractor Supply today to load up. I got another book on equine behavior, a sponge, sweat scraper, longe line, longe whip, and a riding crop. I also got a curb chain to hook onto the halter to stop her lunging forward. My favorite purchase is a pair of steel-toed Timberland boots/shoes. With my shoes on and the riding crop in my hand I felt much more confident meeting her in pasture. The riding crop is like an extension of my arm. When she started to plow into me from the front I used it to pat her on the chest and tell her whoa. I also was able to use the other end of the crop to bump her in the face when she rolled her head into me. She even stood still quietly while I put on the curb chain. More and more progress every day.

Finn and Tali's Ice Cream Parlor - FARMER STYLE

Finn

Swimming

Here is a perfect before, during and after. I hope it posts properly.

Swimming with Kennedy

On Thursday Ann and Tanya brought Karen's daughter, Kennedy, over for a swim. She was very shy at first, but warmed up after spending time in the pool and on the swingset. Then she didn't want to leave! We had a great time.

Touch and Go

The last few days with Ruby have been touch and go. She is trying to bully me and it is a struggle to know the right thing to do. Gaining her trust and forming a bond is imperative. It is the groundwork that sets the tone for everything else. We are making progress little by little. She won't let me spray the bug spray on her, but I can now rub some on her face. She will let me brush her with a soft brush, and last night I was able to use the curry comb. She is very pushy though and likes to push into me, which is a bit scary. I have to learn to stand my ground, but I admit, I'm nervous. I'm sure that doesn't help. She can read my emotions even though my intentions are determined. Yesterday she reared up in her stall when I had her in a halter and on a lead, and tried to push me into the corner. I finally got pissed and gave her a smack on the chest. That definitely surprised her. It would have been comical if I wasn't in such a precarious position.

Putting on her halter and leading her in and out of the barn is getting better. I really need to get a riding crop. I need an extension of my arm to get her to move away from me. I let her out into the pasture on Thursday. She ran up and down for awhile getting the jiggys out. We kept the donkeys in the other corral for two days so that they could see each other over the fence. Yesterday we let them out together and the donkeys want nothing to do with her yet. They don't rush her like other horses would. She would start toward them and they would begin running with her trotting after. At one point it was a beautiful train of Pickles, JoJo, and Ruby bringing up the rear. I think in time they will like each other.

One thing I do like about Ruby is that she will come to me if I walk out into the pasture. I don't have to catch her which is a real blessing. She is very friendly and likes people. She will stand quietly while I put on the lead. Last night, after running around all day with the donkeys she was beat. She could barely keep her eyes open as I rubbed her neck. It was pretty funny. Rachel is coming over Wednesday for our first training session. We are going to do two weeks a month working on groundwork with Ruby, and two weeks a month me riding at the stables.