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!