Well it is official! We made our first sale.

For anybody who hasn’t noticed the link to it, over there on the right hand side of the page under general links I believe, I opened a store on Etsy. After I started making dresses for the Goblin Child and every friend and family member I know with a girl of the proper age I decided to get serious about this. It has taken an inordinately long time with every thing else that’s going on, farm stuff, horses, child, garden. But I finally got it set up and enough dresses made to stock it, very sparsely. Ten dresses has been my goal and I’m not there yet, and I wanted to get a banner designed before I declared an official grand opening and/or made any attempt at advertising.

But we made a sale! This is way more exciting than it should be. Now I guess I am going to have to put some work into this. Winter is here, the garden is done, there is no horse to train, things should be slowing down. So this will be my first step in announcing my shop.

If you have not already please do visit PumpkinVineFarms.  If you do visit, how do you like my beautiful model? Any mention on Facebook and sharing with friends who have children or grandchildren would be greatly appreciated.

I’m going to add a new category called that I think. It comes up often enough.

I almost burnt the house down this morning.

We were cooking breakfast for once instead of cereal. The pan was sitting on the burner with grease in the bottom and the burner was on, I thought, “Hey, I’ll go ahead and add the hash browns.” I stood the child on the floor at my feet in her usual spot and dumped the frozen chunk of hash brown into the pan. I sometimes forget that on our ancient stove that particular burner only has two settings, off and high.

Grease began to splatter violently and I was afraid it would burn the child so I picked the pan up. As I lifted it off of the stove it burst into flames. Not little controllable flames but huge ferocious flames. I had half a second to ponder lids and baking soda before the fact that the flames were licking up the cabinets and across the ceiling distracted me. We have good tall ceilings, that was a lot of fire. I kept a hold of the pan and stepped back into the center of the room trying to get away from all that wood all the time screaming frantically for my husband. The flames settled down a bit with distance from the heat but the were still tickling the underbelly of the ceiling fan. I was afraid they would catch the coating of dust on the never used thing on fire. I was afraid to take a step because I knew the child was down there somewhere, I was to preoccupied to look to see where, and there is no way out that doesn’t involve steps.

I know clear to my bones that the way to put out a grease fire is to put the lid on and/or smother it with baking soda. I have seen the Myth Busters episode where they see what happens if you poor water onto flaming grease. Honestly though it is easier said than done. When on the stove it was trying to catch the cabinets on fire and standing there holding the pan it was impossible to do anything. So I screamed for my husband, I don’t know what I thought he was going to do. Really it all happened so fast there was hardly time to do anything.

My gallant husband must have started running from the other end of our, very small, house as soon as he heard me the first time. after it was over I saw where he dropped his phone as he came, it laid there in the middle of the floor. He rushed into the kitchen and snatched the flaming pan from my hands.

And it went out.

Just like that, he saved the day. The only reminder of our near disaster is a swirl of smoke stain way above my head on the white cabinet.

At about 3:55 looks just like our fire

There once was a child spawned by goblins. She lived with a nice human family who loved her despite of, perhaps because of, the holes in her disguise. They happily overlooked the times she would attempt to bit their fingers off at the joint or burst their eardrums with a particularly spectacular screech. They were merely relieved that she was no longer projectile vomiting.

Her goblin heritage was especially evident in her ability to communicate with the animals. The Goblin Child had a cat as her familiar, they could often be seen meowing and purring during extended conversations. She would growl ferociously at the dog if she tried to retrieve her food bowl from the vicious Goblin Child. They traversed the house, a wild herd of animals wrecking havoc where ever they went. The poor unsuspecting parents were proud of their little changeling.

As The Goblin Child grew and began eating solid foods her goblin like tendencies became more apparent. She ate with the appetite of a horse, a large one, and ate in a rather unladylike manner. Her sweet loving parents had to yank their fingers back quickly when offering her a tasty morsel or risk having blood drawn. As the child rooted in her tray of food they were torn between tisking over her food matted hair and a certain pride for her healthy appetite.

Before too long they began discussing whether her features were undergoing a change. “Surely her nose was not formerly so snub?” questioned the doting father. ” I do believe she is getting a mite plump.” thought her patient, loving mother. As she snorted and grunted her way through yet another meal the alarm increased.

“Now darling” they gently chided, “you really must begin to develop some manners.”

Their darling child looked back at her devoted parents, skin glowing healthy and pink, and oinked at them before returning to rooting in her food.

“Oh, sweetness, that simply will not do!” her parents exclaimed distraught. “They say you are what you eat. If you continue to behave like this I fear you will become how you eat.”

The light of their lives gazed back at them blankly, her formerly large beautiful eyes appearing a bit beady, then oinked.

Her parents were greatly distressed, this had to be their fault somehow. Her mother had obviously not loved her enough, feared the poor beleaguered mother. It must be all her fault because she had resented having to get up with the poor, poor, child three times a night when she was only a year old, practically a new born.

“No,” said the gallant, loving father. “I must take full blame, it was I who offered her chocolate as her first taste of solid food. It obviously started a

lifelong trend. Forgive me my love,” he hung his head in shame.

They consoled themselves with the hope that it was just a trend, all children are messy eaters after all. They carried that hope with them

until that night when they changed their darling into her pajamas. As they changed her diaper before bed they noticed a protrusion from the child’s lower back. It looked almost like, no it couldn’t be, but it almost seemed like a tail. They cried themselves to sleep that night.

Sure enough, the next morning when they went to check on her instead of their little Goblin Child they found a piglet.

There is a bright side, it has worked rather well for them. They no longer have to try to keep her out of the dog food. It is considerably cheaper to feed a piglet than a child. Turns out it is even easier to house train a piglet than a Goblin Child.

Well it’s not quite a pig, but….

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Thank you to everybody who offered their condolences on Nev. Sorry I didn’t get back to anybody, I really do hate to talk about it.

Now as an alternative to sitting around eating chocolate all day I have began looking at horses. It is cruel that my training tendencies were reawakened. I had been so content to plod, as much as Coyote ever plods, around bare back in a halter. Now I want to train. I want to drill and practice and work on collection, suppleness and softening. I once again became addicted to training, dressage and reining. Now here I am with an overly opinionated grouchy old gelding and a once great but now lame and completely out of shape mare.

My complete lack of an actual need for another horse makes it hard to say what I am looking for but I have decided there are two completely separate lists of requirements. Really I need two horses. A young project for me and an old quiet horse for the husband and child. Gaited keeps topping my list.

I want an Icelandic, I even found one that was perfect. (here) Twenty three I think and very quiet, even cheap, that is a pretty major requirement.Unfortunately she was in Connecticut, a definite deal breaker.

I found a Halflinger on Craigslist. I thought she could fill both needs. She’s green, I could have a project, but quiet and a good size for when the child gets old enough. I can’t picture a halflinger cutting or reining but I need to remind myself that I won’t be either. My mom keeps pointing out that I really want gaited and maybe should look for a foxtrotter.

So I did, there was nothing anywhere close, to us or my price range. On a whim I looked for a paso. They are a good size and gaited. I found one, old, quiet, cheap and close. She is even, almost, the same color as Coyote. So I called. We are thinking about it.

I am going to have to do this eventually so I might as well get it over with.

A couple of weeks ago Nevel was hit by lightening. He was eating happily on their round bale in one of the lowest spots on the place out in the open surrounded by much taller trees, metal buildings and power lines. It didn’t make a difference. His life was short and sweet, I was glad to be blessed with him as long as I was.

When I commented in the last post about Nates muscling showing how poorly he had been ridden  my mom sent me a picture of her gelding Smoke and asked what I could tell by his muscling.

While I admire the nice side shot at a good angle, it is a bit hard to tell a whole lot with saddle and rider. Not that I am any kind of an expert anyway. But I definitely like his neck. Even if it is a bit cresty, but that is well known problem and completely lacking in relevance.He is reaching beautifully into the bit making his neck look even better muscled than it is, which is very nicely muscled. I understand he was mostly just mad about having to stand for silly games. The muscle is all on the top with a complete lack of development of the muscle on the bottom of the neck. If you look at Nate it is nearly the opposite, looking worse here in the picture than it was in real life, I hope, because he is fighting the draw reins.

But back to Smoke, I like him, it’s hard to be unbiased about a horse you know.  His neck is nicely set, coming high out of good withers. The shoulder angle is average not horribly steep but not a lot of slope. I just happen to know his back is nice and short, the way I like them at least, paired with a good long underline, making for that incredibly fast walk he can perform when he wants to. Front legs are straight with good short cannon bones, hind legs set pretty square under him. I happen to know that he goes soundly barefoot, so I’ll say his hooves are nice without being able to see them. All in all he’s a good horse with a quirky personality. Quiet but not and strongly opinionated. I had the pleasure? of starting him and he is definitely one of a kind. He has come a long way from that spoiled, incredibly ugly, rotten, little, orphaned colt the the big pretty boy he is now.

Technically, I have pictures of Nate. Like on paper, back then cameras didn’t hook up to computers. Fortunately mom, probably dad really, had scanned one.  It is amazing looking back at old pictures. I was so young, nineteen maybe? I see the trusty old two horse in the background. It was a good trailer, nice and roomy. It rusted out years ago, fortunately not dropping the horse I was hauling onto the road when the floor detached. And of course Nate is gone.

It is good too though, that things change. I had draw reins on the poor boy. Today I wouldn’t be caught dead with draw reins, or martingales, definitely not tie downs. Any “training device” for that matter other than a light snaffle. For training that is. I would be happy to have a true bridle horse, although I would prefer to go briddleless. Right now I seem to do most of my ridding in a halter, due to laziness really.

The only thing worse than no trainer is a bad trainer. I wanted dressage lessons so badly, the barn I worked at wouldn’t take me seriously because I rode western. So I found this lady. She had Morgans too and traveled the open show circuit giving Morgans a bad name. She immediately put Nate in the draw reins and we trotted endless circles trying to get him to slow down. I did learn a little more about leg yields and the like, haunches in, and good stuff like that.

Now, one good dressage trainer (who took one look at the muscling in his neck and knew he had been ridden in draw reins) and two very good reining trainers later I would love to have him back to try again. I would lose all that stuff on his head and work a lot on flexing and giving to the bit. He worked nicely off your legs, I/we knew that much long before any lessons. Now having felt true collection I look at his nose braced and stuck in the air and cringe even more than I do at my legs stuck out in front of me.

He was a beautiful boy brave and willing. I rode him through downtown Omaha in the River City Round Up parade and down many tricky trails and he always gave his all, and then some. Granted he bashed my knee into a tree at a full gallop, miles from home of course. Leaped a creek at a bad crossing, under a railroad bridge nearly cracking my skull, we spent the rest of the day moving cattle any way. And got covered in blood when he stepped away from a gate, when I grabbed for the reins I drug my wrist across the barb wire slicing it open. Oh, can’t forget the time he went over backwards on my in front of everybody at the endurance ride. My personal favorite was the time he had a nervous breakdown and leaped the creek (different one) with a baby calf on the end of my rope, I dropped my coils and caught my hand in them dislocating every finger on that hand. Someone who thought that they were big and tough and could fix him hoped on. Nate leaped the creek again and kept going breaking the bit in half in his mouth when he jumped the wire gate on the other side.

The one thing all these wrecks have in common? A good, willing, if hot, horse and an ignorant rider. With good training none of that would have caused any problems. Do I know better now? Maybe, I sure hope so. I know I am not near as brave/stupid as I was then. For some reason everything hurts now. None of my recent horses have caused me serious bodily harm though. Maybe someday I will have the chance to try again at the training thing.