I didn’t get around to writing about it then so I need to now. If I don’t we wont know when it was. It’s a very important thing to know. It was very inconveniently postponed due to the whole baby thing, we really should have planned better. And we are going much smaller than usual this year, again the whole baby thing, quite a nuisance. But finally, two weekends ago we (he) got the seeds started for the garden.

My devoted gardener husband tries to get them going around the end of February. Middle of March isn’t doing to bad all things considered. Along with a complete lack of sleep due to two children who are up all night he has been very busy all day with various farming and cattle related chores. On the days he’s not busy at work that is.

Last weekend he replanted the seeds that didn’t come up plus a few others. The Goblin Child has been fascinated by the seedlings wanting to check them constantly. This has been a bit stressful. An energetic enthusiastic toddler and tiny delicate plants are not a great combination. Morning and night she helps him check for new sprouts though and so far everyone has survived.

This weekend he has begun preparing the greenhouse. His devoted follower (hint: not me) helped him get the rototiller ready and pushed to the garden, then watched in concerned fascination as he worked the soil. She offered many tips advice and orders as to what he should be doing. Poor guy as if he didn’t have enough people telling him what to do already.

We dug up the tree that got way too healthy a start in there last summer. We should’ve moved it when it was smaller, who knew it would get SO big. Hopefully enough roots went with it and it will survive. I think it’s a mulberry, other people have doubts. If it lives time will tell. I love the mulberry trees even if they are considered weeds like and a mess making nuisance by some, none of us but some weird people. I have very fond childhood memories of playing and eating on one that grew near the barn where we boarded the horses outside of Omaha. That one has long since been plowed over and buried under endless suburbs.

After lunch and after finishing the greenhouse my hard working husband took his faithful follower and they worked up the end of our new smaller garden plot that he had been unable to reach with the larger equipment. After wrestling the rototiller through the sod for a couple of hours they went to do some work on a tractor, then to get another tractor ready for the field and now, to the best of my knowledge, they are out in said tractor farming. Because he hadn’t done enough gardening already today, he wanted to do some on a much grander scale.

I know it has been difficult lately with your inability to do the things you want to do that make you happy. You can’t ride your horses, you only just a couple of days ago were able to start driving again, you can’t get a good night’s sleep, the list goes on…sometimes it seems there are more things that you can’t or aren’t able to do than things you are. But I hope that maybe you can feel happy knowing that you are raising our two beautiful children. I realize that it’s a very, very hectic, busy, exhausting, challenging job to do…one that doesn’t have set hours or holidays. The pay is lousy and the working conditions are less than ideal. However, age is on your side. Someone as young and as strong and as healthy and as spry as you are able to get the job done without too much difficulty. Slowly we will begin to get things back into a scheduled routine like you want. Spring is coming, all three of you can start going outside to play and hang out. Things will get better and become easier. So happy birthday to the best wife/mother in the world, all of us love you and appreciate the things you do for us even if some of us can’t put it into words yet. Not as special as the present you made for me on my birthday, but I hope that we can go to Dairy Queen for a meal sometime today on your special day! I will have one of your favorite breakfasts ready as soon as I am done typing this…

When my parents came out they brought with them something almost as exciting as a new baby, and maybe more fun.

Princess Onna is a pretty little black Morgan mare. She is very nicely bred with Flyhawk up close, like on her papers, many times, plus some Funquest and Triple S breeding . She is supposed to be, not that I doubt it just that I haven’t had a chance to try it myself, very strongly gaited and incredibly speedy. I can’t wait to see what she’s like. It’s almost harder than waiting for a baby.

Unfortunately it is hard to get a good picture of a black horse especially when you are busy taking care of a new baby.

But we made it out to see her in this nice warm weather. No riding of course, I’m impatient but not a complete idiot. We just played with her and gave her some cake. And worked on a few ground manners. She is very sweet and well behaved but with small children underfoot I like them to be extra careful of people on the ground. I also want to teach her, or find out if she already knows (mom?), how to step over for mounting. It is one of the greatest skills ever, I can’t believe more people don’t teach it. Or maybe I am the only one who can’t get on from the ground.

(We got her out again this afternoon and I see that she does know it. The Goblin Child saw me ask for it once and wanted to try too. She got it immediately then kept the whip and worked on sacking Onna out or possibly fishing. Either way she had fun and Princess Onna started getting used to children.)

This is not the post I started writing. That one was too much work and sat started then untouched for days. This one will be simpler. One day I will get to the gory and interesting, to me at least, details. For now the basics.

We are home with our beautiful baby boy. Mostly very sweet and well behaved but with the rather regrettable difficulty getting back to sleep after his night time feeding. I spend half the night with my arm draped over the edge of the bassinet holding his pacifier for him. I think sometimes, like tonight, I am not doing  a good enough job keeping him awake to eat as much as he should. He ate at three, was up till at least four and again at five. Now, five thirty he is sound asleep. As long as I hold him. I am debating whether it is worth going back to bed until six. (It was worth it, my darling husband shut off the alarm and we slept till six thirty. Definitely worth it.)

My parents came out to help us while I was in the hospital. They were a great help, now they have gone home. We miss them dreadfully. The goblin child loved having Grammy and Different Papa to play with. Her other grandpa is also papa and when they first got here my mom was explaining to her how this was a different papa. She said it one time, before they met and our small brilliant goblin recognized him immediately and identified him as Different Papa.

The Goblin Child loved her baby brother from the start. She couldn’t wait for him to “pop” out of mamas belly. I think she got it from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, he pops out of his egg. She wants to hold his hand and give him his pacifier. It made life much harder trying to keep them apart when she came down with a high fever, then pink eye and now a nasty cold all starting as soon as we got home from the hospital. She is fascinated by my stitches, technically staples, and wants to see mamas “wowy” all the time. It was slightly embarrassing showing it to her in the city park, where she was playing with her grandparents, after the staples were removed.

Now the weather is beautiful, the sicknesses nearly gone and I am able to move again. I have strict orders not to ride horses or do anything fun for six whole weeks.  It’s hard to behave myself now that even off the hard pain killers things aren’t hurting as bad. I stopped the pain killers early once it was pointed out to me that the narcotics were passed in the milk and that was the reason he was sleeping SO soundly. The sleeping was nice but the weird drugged quality was freaky. Without drugs he is much more awake and showing lots of personality, as much as any baby can show that is. He eats, sleeps and poops there can only be so much personality in that, but he is adorable doing it.

Like the best one ever.

I know my sister-in-law had a great one that she really enjoyed, but I hate baby showers.

When first asked if I wanted one I flatly refused. The last thing I want, ever, is to have to sit there and have people look at me especially when I am the size of an elephant. I hate being the center of attention.

My party planning friend finally relented and said we could leave the kids with a sitter and go to town for coffee. That sounded good to me. As stay at home moms week days are the easiest time to get away. I asked about inviting another friend and was told that she wanted to come but couldn’t get away.

We met and dropped the kids off then stopped for gas. Who should come walking out of the station but the friend who “couldn’t get away”. What a great surprise, just as big as the surprises still to come.

We got to town and parked in front of the coffee place. I got out and waited for them to turn and cross the street. They started walking the other direction. Looking up at the buildings in front of us I realized they were heading for the new nail place. I had never been in a place like that in my life. I’m not exactly a girly girl. The building is old and beautiful, the ladies working there tiny, skinny and very non english speaking. They asked, I think, if we wanted manicures or pedicures. Thinking of my old married lady legs I said manicure. They talked me into a pedicure so we could relax in the massage chairs and gossip while we indulged in the luxury of having our feet worked over.

Giggling nervously, on my behalf at least, we settled into the chairs. The chair controls took a bit of figuring out but once they got going it was an incredible massage. I thought I would either fall asleep or go into labor. Our feet soaked in a bubbling bath between being worked on. There were three ladies working there. One spent the entire time we were there doing the nails on a very constructed (Frankenstein like) looking college girl. The girls hair was carefully dyed very black, her skin tanned a dark leathery brown, cleanly shaven legs and apparently long well decorated finger nails. I so don’t get that standard of beauty. The other two ladies took turns on us.

Us old married ladies who stick to a much more natural beauty standard sat laughing about  unshaven legs, talking about our kids and telling labor horror stories. We were treated to an education in popular music via the giant TV playing videos on one wall. I didn’t realize I was so out of touch. Taylor Swifts non country music is even more vile than her country stuff had become and we all stared at each other in shock and horror during the hip hop song that was nothing but cussing. Most of the videos made me glad we don’t have cable. We did discus with great fascination the wonders of having three whole channels, how there is always something to watch. Got to love this life.

The instigator of our outing got a very tiny and skinny woman to do her feet. She got yelled at every time she moved and was ordered to shut her massage chair off because it was causing her feet to vibrate. She got no massage and little foot filing. She really got shorted.

The other lady was much nicer and more thorough. We got leg massages clear to the knee, hot towels, the works it was awesome. My toes are now more beautiful than they have ever been in my life. I want desperately to wear sandals, in February.

Finished there we headed across the street to the coffee place where we feasted on soup and salad and sandwiches and a huge terribly unhealthy but ridiculously delicious coffee. We enjoyed a morning away from the children that our lives revolve around. Of course we spent that morning talking about our children but we were actually able to finish sentences without being interrupted by said children. We ate our food without having to get up and take anyone to the potty or share food. I forgot what life was like before children. I don’t miss it but a childless morning once in a while is heavenly.

Thanks Heather and Erica, loved it!

I have finally reached that point.

Up until now I have been feeling pretty good. When people ask how I’m feeling I have mostly been confused as to why they were asking. I last got on a horse after Christmas sometime, it was all I could do not to go for a real ride. With the nice weather it’s hard not to grab Coyote and hop on. I declared after last weekend that I was done feeding. Bouncing across the rutted ground was getting to be a little much. My family had been (lovingly) harping on me to quit for quite a while now. Other than being a bit sore by the time we finished and completely exhausted when it required getting up at five thirty, that extra half hours sleep is an extra half hours sleep it’s important, I wasn’t ready to quit yet. I am finally ready, really ready.

The child has been enjoying going to feed still with her father on weekends. Especially when Jack and Kayle come along. During the week we are not waking her up at five thirty, it’s just to early for a small child.

I am still not waddling. Except maybe in the evenings when I am just plain tired. I’ve decided it’s like collection in a horse, just need to be gathered and working from behind. When I hollow out and carry the weight on the front end, along comes the waddle.

In the evenings when we have a chance to sit and do nothing for a bit this creature in my stomach decides to do acrobatics. Tonight, as we watched God’s Not Dead, good movie by the way, I swear he was trying to crawl out my belly button again. I know some women say they like being pregnant but surely even they can’t mean that they like these last few weeks? As miserable as this is getting I am not looking forward to days spent in the hospital and months of waiting for my stomach to grow back together with two small children to watch. It’s going to be nice to have my mom out to help for the first bit, after that I hope it’s not too bad like my husband remembers instead of horrible and awful like I remember.

My memories pf the last time could be tainted by the weeks prior spent in a hospital hours from home and afterwards having a child still there in the NICU, the whole thing was a bit stressful. Mostly I just get so incredibly whiny about the whole pregnant thing. I will be thrilled once we have him and I can ride again and walk and sit and sleep comfortably. Especially once he starts sleeping through the night and I get my first full nights sleep in what by then will probably be a good year. Oh my, there I go being really whiny again. Of course I am writing this at nearly midnight, because I can’t sleep, because everything hurts and he is digging frantically at my belly button.

So anyway.

We have been enjoying the February thaw. All that melt meant lots of mud though. The Goblin Child has been loving jumping in muddy puddles (too much Peppa Pig I think). The rest of us have been taking turns getting vehicles stuck. I think I have done it the most, twice, not sure who wins for most impressive. They were all pretty good. Twice the feed truck required a large tractor to pull it out as it sat buried to the axles. Fully loaded it’s more than the payloader has traction to get out. The other time I stopped fighting it immediately and was in a good spot to pull out easily. When the payloader got stuck it took another payloader, don’t think anything bigger would’ve fit through the gate, two broken chains and a tow rope to finally set it free. I think everyone is glad it’s drying up a little.

Supposed to be cold next week with many chances of snow. Hopefully the dry spell will hold or the child will. We planned carefully for February because usually it’s a slow time with calves sold already and calving and most importantly farming not started yet. I must admit we should have thought more about the weather especially since our other reasons are not panning out this year. The calves are consigned at least. For the day I get home from the hospital. Oh well, sounds like it’s a long standing family tradition.

Good luck with that. Sorry your birthday had to fall in the middle of such a rotten week. Or would any week containing the change to the big four oh be at least a little rotten?

We treasure your birthday even if you don’t, it means that we have you. Without that life just wouldn’t be the same. Or be at all for one of us. We want to make it as good as possible, even if our “help” sometimes makes it worse instead of better. We were so excited to see you for lunch today, and every day for that matter, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot she started going on about seeing your blazer. Someone so little doesn’t know yet about little things like gravity.

Being greeted at the door by a bleeding screaming child after she has crashed face first into the cement unable to catch herself at all because her hands are buried in her pockets is no kind of a birthday present. Wish we had gotten you something better. Can’t wait for you to get home tonight. It’s the end of the week you can catch up on a little bit of sleep tomorrow I hope. Things always look better after some rest. We will have a nice family supper and sit and do nothing for a while that’s always nice.

In the mean time and on the bright side no babies yet. I was pulling for today so you both could share a birthday.

I have had the latest Maroon 5 song stuck in my head a lot lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fmTKcyp7tmo

The other night cooking supper I had it playing upstairs while we all worked in the kitchen. I may have played it more than once. As we sat down at the table The Goblin Child started singing “Yes please” over and over again along with the song. We need to start paying close attention to the music we play. But at least this is teaching her good manners.

We went up to the stock show last weekend. A good sweet and dear friend offered to keep The Goblin Child for us All Day. It was awesome. Like a date, or maybe it just was a date. They managed to get her to sit mostly still through church with them and took she took the child to her in-laws house for supper. All kinds of fun things and she got to play with her other favorite boy all day. Sorry Jack you aren’t her only love.

It snowed the day before but the roads were getting better on the way up. We got there just in time for lunch. At HuHots, I don’t think we have any longer a drive to get to a HuHots than the rest of my family, so much for the benefits of living in a big city. And ours had clams and calamari. My only regret was that I couldn’t eat any more.

We stopped at Manards and looked for a light for the nursery. Found one but not in stock. Oh well that’s what Amazon is for.

And then for the whole reason for going up, we went to the fair grounds and watched some of the ranch horse competition. Of course we got there just as they broke for lunch. Oh well. We looked at the big trailers with living quarters. My non-horsey husband was justifiably horrified. I’m horrified and I’m used to the behemoths. The excess is ridicules. I fondled all the beautiful tack ohhing and aweing over the butter soft leather. Scowling about all the nasty roping type bits that seem to be the equivalent of putting barb wire in a horses mouth. Seriously who needs to have chain and all the sharp twists on a mouth piece to control their horse and why does the number and severity of these bits seem to be increasing all the time?

Then we sat down and waited. My farmer husband found something for him when the tractor, a cute little case, pulled into work the arena. And work the arena. And work the arena, until the lady waiting patiently to give out awards was able to catch his attention and tell him to stop, please.

Finally the next class up was the novice. I was sorry to miss all the exciting fence work of the more advanced classes but the novice has excitement all its own. Most of the rides were excelent with well train nicely ridden horses that all just needed some polish and experience. A couple needed lots more work. One girl who handled it nicely and didn’t get dumped was run away with out the open gate. She didn’t loose her temper and brought the young horse back patiently schooling him through the pattern.

Another lady on a fully grown Palomino who was very hot and screaming desperately the whole time also managed not to fall off as he spooked and shied and really tried to dump her the whole way through.

Only one guy gave a good example of the cow work. I was a bit disappointed even in his. I wanted to point to these people doing fence work, fast and exhilarating galloping down the long side to turn the cow on a dime with dirt flying and tell my doubting husband to look, I used to do that. From what he saw I don’t think he quite was able to appreciate.

We went to the stock show proper and looked around, we got gas, looked at the book store and ate some more. Olive Garden this time. Then missing the child and quite ready for bed we headed home.

The next day looking through one of the horse magzines we had picked up I came across and add for Haythorn’s horse sale. They had been up there and I knew them from way back when, so I paused to look at it.

In the middle of the page was a young black horse. He caught my eye because of shear ugliness, a mile down hill, ugly head, I know I always say how completely unimportant it is but this really caught my eye. He really just did not appeal to me. I read his write up to discover that he was still a stud and my horror increased. We can maybe credit some of the down hill and ugly to being so young, a coming two year old, but shouldn’t only the best of the best be bred? Not just anything with the required parts? That is pretty common though so not too surprising. The part that bothered me was where it said that he would throw colorful offspring because, and I quote “his mother is blue roan and his father palomino.”

Wait a minute, Seriously people? Haythorns are big time, they have won the AQHA remuda of the year in the past they spend a fortune on horses and stud fees and advertising and they have some really nice horses.  And still they don’t, or the person doing their advertising doesn’t, have the most basic grasp of genetics? That is what I have, the most basic of understandings, and it stuck out at me like a sore thumb. I double checked just to make sure I had my facts straight and yes I do. This BLACK stud has a possibility of throwing color, we assume they mean roan and palomino, because that is the color of his parents according to them.

The only problem is, can you guess? Do you know the answer? I should wait till tomorrow to say. I know/hope my mom has it already.

Answer:

Both of those are dominant genes. They can not be covered by another base color. In order to pass on they must first be present and if they are present we will be able to see them.

Grey could cover it. If he were much older and already greyed out it could mask the other color, but he is not grey. He is black.

If he is really a smokey black he could be carrying one dilute, or cream, gene making it possible that he could throw palomino or buckskin and the like. He looks slightly faded, we will give him this as his only possibility of throwing color, other than being bred to a colorful mare, but it’s a long shot as they strongly believe him to be black. Of course they have already given us reason to doubt them in this.

He is definitely not a roan so that is not happening. He is not palomino and not a buckskin. This is not the first big time breeder I have known who lacks a basic understanding of color. While it is not imperative in a breeding operation, I suppose, it does seem like a good idea to know what you’re talking about.

Mostly I enjoyed finding this little error in an area that I love and am fascinated by on behalf of such a big time breeder. It made my day.