30 August 2018

Camping Trip

My parents came out to see us. We had been planning the trip most of the summer. They were off on their yearly pilgrimage to the west coast.  A group of Morgan people were meeting at Fort Robinson for a weekend of trail riding. We all decided to drive over and, kind of, meet them. We are only so sociable so we decided to camp up at the wood reserve instead of staying with them in the fort proper. Unfortunately as the weekend drew near we realized it was the same weekend as Friendly Festival but if there’s one thing we’re willing to miss Festival for it’s a weekend of camping and horses.

Mom and dad got here on Thursday. We had, another, birthday party for The Goblin Child. I think that makes four parties now? She may be slightly spoiled 😉  Then Friday morning we got up bright and early and were off to the fort. Only, not. As much as I thought I had everything ready to go already it took hours to get everything packed and animals fed. Then just as we were finally ready and about to load the horses there was a phone call that some neighbors were working cattle and had found a bull in with them that wasn’t theirs. We had to go get him and bring him home before we could take off with the trailer. We pulled into the neighbors corrals and nothing was there. We called to see where this bull was supposed to be. North of the house they said. We went to the house and there was a barn to the north, but not even a road to it much less cattle being worked. We called again trying to figure out what in the world was going on. Finally they added a rather important piece of information. They weren’t working cows at their house but over at their pasture. That little bit of info would have helped from the beginning.

Once we got him home and put out with the horses that would be staying there we were able to load our horses and get going. Down to a friends to pick up a horse we got to borrow for the weekend. She had been standing patiently most of the morning tied to a trailer. She walked right onto the trailer and we were off. Again.

We made Chadron for a late lunch then off towards the fort. Again. It was hot. We pulled into the campground at the wood reserve to find it packed. Loads of big living quarters trailers were squeezed in so tight we could barely make the turn around them. I was muttering grouchily about them when I realized, I knew them!! It was my good friend Kay and her riding group.  That didn’t make me so grouchy after all.

I have millions of pictures so I will try to tell the rest of the story through them.

Category: Family, Horses | 1 Comment on Camping Trip
15 August 2018

First Day Of School

The Goblin Child was happy to be off to kindergarten. She knew most of her classmates and was glad to see some old friends join the class. She knew the routine and loves school. We never worry about her and school.

8 has done nothing but want to play in the preschool room for the last couple of years, we thought the transition might go well. We thought wrong. His excitement over playing has disappeared. He went happily the first day but his reluctance has grown ever since. Hopefully he starts to enjoy it, this is the part that is supposed to be fun. If he doesn’t like it now he’s really going to hate it as he gets older.

Category: 8, Goblin Child | 1 Comment on First Day Of School
11 August 2018

Happy Birthday Goblin Child

She’s six now and just about to start kindergarten. How did she get so big?! It seems like just the other day she was born, such an incredibly tiny little thing. We celebrated in the back yard with lots of water, in the pool, out of the sprinklers, on the slip and slide. The kids played happily all afternoon, running and splashing, and eating copious amounts of sugar.

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29 July 2018

End Of Wheat Harvest ’18

I haven’t been on here for a very long time. Far longer than I ever intended it to be. We, well, we got busy and the summer slipped away. I have to make note of when they harvest wheat though and that is done and over with so I better write something about it!

It was a fairly late harvest and still wet and hard to get to with that. They started in on the neighbors wheat on July 11th and finished up on the 26th. It’s been a really wet year. It rained all the way through while they tried to squeeze in between showers and fight through wet wheat and green weeds. The kids are getting big enough to enjoy going along and not have to sit in the combine the whole time. They loved playing in the grain trailers with Jack, riding in the semis, and also napping in the combine. The Goblin Child and I made use of combine time, sending 8 off with his father so we could get some riding done. She’s starting to get more comfortable on Coyote and Rusty is grown up enough to be useful ponying and helping them when needed.

8 had a little accident near the end of harvest. He was riding along in the semi. He had the misfortune of being leaning on the door when another kid opened it. The semi was stopped, his head broke his fall. He caught his head on the steps and it left a pretty good scratch on the back of his head but luckily he wasn’t hurt bad.

Category: 8, Family, Farming, Goblin Child | 1 Comment on End Of Wheat Harvest ’18
17 June 2018

Rodeo, Again

Last year when we went to the kids first rodeo they loved it. We found a out about more coming up the next summer and I told them we could go. The next summer came around, things changed, we lost Onna, but the rodeos were still coming up. The Goblin Child found out about them and still really wanted to go. I told her we’d try.

Coyote isn’t Onna. 8 has been riding him, while being led. T.G.C. has been getting started on him, trying to get used to him after riding her own horse. i have a lot more I want to say but don’t seem to be getting around to writing it. So here are the videos. It wasn’t great. We all survived. I did not get to work with Rusty the way I wanted. There was no way we could have done it without Tanna and Jerry. They were life savers. We are so grateful to Tanna for coming along and always appreciate all the help she gives us.

They scared me half to death here loping back!

 

 

 

I kept watching not through the phone and it would drift down. I’d look back at it and realize I was filming dirt and get aimed again then back to the dirt. Oops.

 

Category: 8, Goblin Child, Horses | 2 Comments on Rodeo, Again
3 June 2018

Vacation Bible School

I volunteered this year. Last year I told them I couldn’t help because I had to work, and, well, I did. Have to work that is, somehow it felt like a convenient excuse though. Then all my friends did it and I was jealous and felt left out. So this year I told them I’d help.

It was a fun busy week. I thought I’d be an assistant in one of the rooms with someone else in charge. Instead I wound up doing science projects. I happen to love doing science projects! But we had to choose from the ones in “the book” that went with the theme and gave a bible tie in and so on. It was fun anyway. We made slime. We made baking soda play dough then added vinegar. That was the greatest. This baking soda is your life. Start squirting vinegar. This is your life on God! I want more God in my life the children screamed. We’d squirt them with more vinegar and their hands, covered in play dough, foamed. That part wasn’t in “the book” they just said to add vinegar to baking soda. Boring. We made tin can telephones and played telephone. And we filtered dirty water through sand, gravel and rice.

The last night the kids got up and did their little program. It was very nicely done. Some singing, some pictures, some talking. Our children were, of course, adorable. Sometimes just by being rotten. They’re always cure when they’re your kids 😉

And I see that it wont load 8’s videos. I’ll mess with them and get them shortened or something. He was adorable dancing to his own personal beat. Totally different from everyone else.

 

Category: 8, Goblin Child, It's a God thing | 1 Comment on Vacation Bible School
11 May 2018

The Drama That Ensued

The hens had been up and gone with the new chicks. All through the day the nests sat empty except for unhatched eggs and the stench of rot. We decided to start cleaning. The only problem was that the hens and chicks were back for the night. Something had gotten into the eggs though, and a few were laying scattered about. We picked up one egg, laying far off from the nest and the children fought over who got to throw it into the dump.
8 won by refusing to relinquish his grasp on it. He threw it and it bounced off some boards and fell to the ground. My daughter told me it was bleeding. I thought we might as well look at the chick that hadn’t made it and get a bit of a biology lesson from it. But the chick that hadn’t made it… had.
Up until then he had been just fine. There amidst the broken egg shell was a perfectly formed baby chick. Egg yolk not yet absorbed and vessels not yet hardened off. He wasn’t dead just not ready to hatch yet. We had killed him, he just wasn’t gone yet.
I picked up the gasping chick and held him in my hand. Instead of, or as well as, a biology lesson we got a lesson in morality. I told them how all babies, even, or especially, those about to die needed to be held and loved. I nearly sobbed over this poor dyeing chick. The children looked at it and looked at me. Then they wanted to know, when could they throw more eggs?
Little monsters
Now that I knew there were at least a few of the eggs in the nest that were still viable I called my friend who is hatching geese in her incubator. She very kindly offered to let me put my chicken eggs in with them.
I covered myself fully with long sleeves and gloves and went to fetch the eggs. Reaching under attacking hens, blindly grasping for eggs I was afraid I would smash chicks so I picked up the yellow hen and set her next to the nest. As I did so chicks fell out of her like large rain drops. Plopping to the ground around her. I foolishly thought the hens set on the chicks, I didn’t realize they burrowed into her like worms. Or ticks, big fluffy ticks.
At my good friends house we turned the children out to play in the yard while we went down to the basement and candled the eggs. She started out doing it but the stench of rotten egg was making her sick so I took over. Out of around a dozen eggs the first few we did were bad. I was beginning to feel like an idiot for rushing these rotten eggs to her house to save. Then we found a good one, then another. The last one I was starting to say was yet another bad one, look it’s cracked, when she broke in that it wasn’t cracked! It was starting to hatch! Couldn’t I hear it?
Listening for a moment I realized that I could hear the tiny peeps coming from inside! We left it there to do its thing, scrubbed our hands, and took the goslings out to play with the children. That egg and one other has hatched. Repulsed by the lingering smell of rot she re-candled the eggs and found two more bad ones and with those gone it smells much better in her hatching facilities. There are still two more to go. Are they good? Will there be four extra chicks? We are waiting to see! And here I thought the excitement of the saga of the hens ended when the first set hatched.

 

Category: Chickens | 1 Comment on The Drama That Ensued
9 May 2018

We Have Chicks!!

They hatched Tuesday. Eight in all. Beautiful little pale yellow and white chicks with brown highlights on heads and backs. Both mothers are clucking after them worriedly. Yesterday they finally took them away from the nest and out to explore the world. When we checked the nest they were gone. As we crawled in to look at the remaining eggs we spied a little ball of fluff hidden in a corner.
One of the chicks got left behind.
We picked it up, cuddled it, and loved on it, as we went in search of the hens. They had found a good soft spot in the dirt and were proceeding to show the chicks how to scratch. Although they cast a wary eye on us as we got close we were able to sneak in close enough to set the chick down and send him off towards them. The took him right in not noticing he hadn’t been there all along.
Back at the barn things smelled of rotten eggs. After being set on for two extra days as the chicks got big enough to roam the remaining eggs hadn’t hatched. It was time to clean house. And that was where the drama began….

 

 

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7 May 2018

Garden Beginnings ’18

We finally got the garden started. No potatoes in the ground by Good Friday this year. It’s been too cold for that anyway. This year the tomatoes and peppers went in the greenhouse at the same time that the potatoes and cabbages and even two rows of corn went in. We also went out on a limb and planted beets, swiss chard, and zucchini. The Goblin Child was actually a big help this year. 8 Still not so much. We planted a corn/sunflower house for them again this year. No maze this time. It never did work out as well as it sounded. This year we just did a circle, with a double row of corn and a wire panel trellis as the entry way. They have already started enjoying it.

Category: Garden | 3 Comments on Garden Beginnings ’18
4 May 2018

The End Of A Challenge

Over on Rusty’s page I’ve spent the last few weeks playing with all the strange ways I could think of to get on my horse. No particular reason. Wanted something fun to do and I had seen a couple of ways that looked cool to try. Turned out I didn’t, couldn’t, do those but did come up with a few others. Rusty was a willing and enthusiastic participant who takes my strange ways in stride.

We worked on lots of little thing and put them together into a couple of big things. I can’t begin to say how proud I am of him and what a fun and enlightening trip training him has been. Not just this part but all of it. Normal horse training drives me insane now. When I see people round penning and desensitizing horses, the pointlessness of it nearly makes my head explode. Desensitizing in my biggest pet peeve at the moment. Why in the world would someone chase a horse around until they get tired enough to accept what ever you are trying to force on them when you could, without ever making the horse scared in the first place, show them how fun it is to chase and play with things they once considered scary?

No, Rusty is not perfect. Far from it really 😉 But he is the perfect example of clicker training and it’s effectiveness. Using traditional, natural horsemanship methods, I got exactly nowhere with him. He still ran me over. He still bounced off the end of the rope.

Now he works off a rope most of the time. He’s nipped my fingers a few times being over enthusiastic for food but has not crashed into me once. He now comes when called, I can’t even begin to think of the vocal cues he knows, walk, trot, canter, whoa, bow, lie down, step big (Spanish walk), and the list goes on. Not to mention being light and responsive to ride.

A quick intro to this video turned into a bit of a rant. But anyway, here is the end result of our little training exploration. All put together into one short video.

Category: Horses | 2 Comments on The End Of A Challenge