Squishyishy on Sunday

Have you ever noticed how many strange meanings are attached to words in English? I do, but that's probably because I spend so much time explaining such things to deaf children (including DD). We'll start with the "dirt" on Sarabear (a.k.a. the latest, the skinny, yadda yadda). I think half the time (maybe more) I totally forget to report back on some of the stuff I talk about here.
Gee, I was going to add to that, but I forgot what I was going to say... Do y'all have that problem? (I think it's called AAADD or Age-Activated ADD). Ha. I am deliriously happy to report that SmartPak's SmartBreathe Pellets worked. Sarabear ate them easily (which was a big worry) and even better? Her cough has disappeared completely - hooray! I tried to take a picture that was close enough you could see what the pellets looked like; I'm not a big fan of powder, as it tends to slip through the feed no matter where you put it. SmartPak is apparently trying to convert a number of their supplements to pellet form, which is awesome (click here to visit their site). For those of you who are dog owners, they also offer a great selection of supplements for canines (click here). No cats though (my apologies to Banjo and Sparkle, et.al.).

Took a trip to visit my bestest galpal, Sandy, which is part of the reason this post was seriously tardy. Can't tell you ahead of time, as it's not the brightest idea to post to the world you won't be home for a day or two. Is this not the cutest little bunny? I think Sandy said she found him when he was itty bitty, and hand fed him (and do I remember? Nope. *bangs head on desk*) So anyway, I had an absolute blast at her house (and don't I always?) I'll have some photos for you next time - although my camera battery died, so I didn't take as many as I wanted to. Forgot the charger at home. *snarl* Can you believe it? Of course you can; hardly a shocker. *sigh*
Speaking of such mental moments, I don't normally post videos from YouTube but I just couldn't resist this one in case I'm not the only who missed it (click here to watch it if you are an email friend):

It's like looking in a mirror, I'm telling ya.... Yeesh.

I've been spending my evenings hooking, and oh my doesn't that sound dirty. (Aha! There's another meaning). I joined Ravelry to confirm the fact that I am indeed a Duly Dedicated Dodobrain (another 3D reference for you ;o) After all, do I need anything else to do? Probably not. And do I need to expose myself (Ha. Another "dirty" sounding statement) to a site that contains thousands of free crochet patterns? Noooo, I most certainly do not, which made it absolutely irresistible. I'm under "EpicFarms" of course, and have no friends as yet (how sad). So if you're into crocheting or knitting, leave a comment here or look me up on Ravelry. I could use a friend or two.

The third and final meaning of the word dirt I'm going to talk about today is the one in the literal sense. We finally got some dirt for the pasture. Hooray!! Apparently, my concerns about The Girls' reaction to a monster dump truck invading their territory were groundless (hee). I was mostly sure that as long as I was out there with them, they wouldn't be too terrified (those things make an awful racket) but you never know; it only takes one horse to create a panic. I'm sayin' we all stayed pretty calm. You think?:

The Girls looked at me several times for confirmation that all was well, but other than that we just stood around, spectated, and snuffled at bits of dropped dirt (well, I didn't but they did ;o) Isn't that photo funny?

Bella was a bit mifffed by the humongous pile of dirt blocking her path to the hay pile. She actually turned around and looked at me, expecting me to move it out of her way. My "go around it, silly" response was distinctly unappreciated (but she did).

Lady had the same thought when she arrived at the pile we put by the hill leading down to the stalls and water trough:

Horses are what I would call OCD/COH (obsessively compulsive definitive creatures of habit) which was a contributing factor to all that erosion we had. Walking the same exact path every day created distinct trails, which were slightly lower than the rest of the ground. Since the pasture is on an incline, that's where the rainwater always went washing down (taking more and more dirt with it each time). The repeated combination of extreme droughts and "gully washers" over time made a heck of a mess with ruts everywhere. On top of that, we had a uber evil mole that tunneled all over the place and after a certain amount of topsoil was gone, they collapsed making an even bigger mess. We have a couple more loads coming this week (because the 3 loads we got didn't go as far as we'd hoped), and then we'll have to wait awhile for the rest. Stupid as it sounds, dirt is expensive :oP 

Sarabear did offer to help us spread it out though; wasn't that nice?

That's enough for now, I suppose. I've got to go work on the patio/visitor area - we're finally making some progress there too (and hot diggity dog! :-D Have a big horsey hug and a marvelous week everyone! (what's left of it anyway - Oy).

Sometimes I am easily confused...Are you?

...and mudboggin' on Monday. Wow. It is definitely possibly to have too much of a good thing (except for chocolate cake, that is). Where is the sun? Does it still exist? Is it seriously soggy at your house or dry as dust? Or are you one of the lucky few that is somewhere in between perhaps? I pass a little pond every morning on my way to work that I look to as an unofficial water table. At the beginning of the year, that thing was down to a large puddle (and had been that way long enough there was grass growing where there had been water). I've never seen it get that low in 20+ years. Anyway, not only is it slam full, it's on the verge of brimming over. Not sure how much rain that translates to, but I know we've had umpteen inches in the last month or so. I sure do wish such things didn't always seem to wind up feast or famine. *sigh* Like the photo? Kinda puts you in mind of soaring eagles and majestic hawks, doesn't it? Ha. Apparently even vultures look pretty darn good from a distance. Huh. Sounds like some kind of life lesson to me ;o)

I wanted to apologize to my email subscribers for the previous post. *smacks palm on forehead* I totally forgot that the video clips don't show up in the emails and did not include a hyperlink to it for you (how rude). If you missed last week's clip and want to see it, click here to watch it on our Vimeo channel. I'm sorry, and I'll try really hard not to forget next time (have a hug?).

I have a couple of photos to share with you today. Pamplona may have the running of the bulls, but around here we have the running of the hay. The horses are quite familiar with the sound of the tractor and the moment that engine starts, heads pop up out of the grass all over the pasture. Most of the time, I let the girls into the training area [which is normally closed off] to distract them with forbidden forage so we can run a rope across the area that leads up to the hay without interference. Because we have to bring the rolls in through the Moo Crew's pasture, we block off the bottom of the girl's hill leading to where we set the roll so no one winds up in the wrong field. For some reason, this never fails to create an atmosphere of giddy anticipation among the girls.
While this next photo is hardly brilliant, it cracked me up because it looks like Lady (L) is giving DD the evil eye for closing off the upper pasture before she can sneak up there (which she actually managed to do last time - the heifer):

Now that I have a modicum of understanding with regard to camera settings (aperture, to be more specific) I finally managed to get a couple of halfway decent shots of the girls charging up the hill toward the hay. I think I should have uploaded at a higher resolution, though:

The pasture is, of course, a disgusting muddy mess...

Not so fast Rina... Woo!

Lady and Sarabear bringing up the rear...

Other than the icky mud, I thought this was a nice photo of Sara:

And finally: (though completely irrelevant to the theme I had going) a pretty sunrise over the tree tops on a misty morning just for you (I forgot I was going to post it last month :o)

As always, thanks for reading this far and have a wonderful week everybody!

Tilly Comes Home and Jen Gets Wired

Now I'm not the brightest bulb on the porch (a fact I've readily admitted on more than one occasion) but these days I feel like I'm spending inordinate amounts of time just scratching my head in puzzlement. Do you ever feel that way? Friday morning, I received an email from a local scrapbook store inviting me to a "Midnight Craft n' Crop" at 10:00a.m. (and silly me, as I always thought that was mid morning). Apparently I don't have the whole concept of time mastered nearly as well as I thought I did. 
I made the simple dessert in the above photo last Sunday for dinner at my parent's house (it's sinfully delicious and very easy to make, by the way, by layering ice cream sandwiches, cool whip, and chocolate syrup as many times as you feel like it...yum! ;o) Anyway, I found myself pondering the label on the syrup bottle:

Is anyone besides me confused by the phrase, "Genuine Chocolate Flavor"? As opposed to what? Fake chocolate flavor? How can you fake a flavor? Wouldn't that be some kind of oxymoron? I dunno, maybe I'm just losing it...if I ever had it in the first place, that is).

Of course when I got to my parent's house, I realized I wasn't the only one who was sometimes confused. My Dad expressed similar sentiments over the reasoning skills (or maybe it's just reading skills) of a local home improvement store's employees following a delivery of roofing materials. Duuuuudes, seriously?

On another note, I guess I won't be doing any gardening for awhile (we are, of course, pretending I had big plans to do so soon - Ha - not). I walked out the door the other day to find it occupied by four very hungry little birdies peeping and cheeping away. I believe they are Wrens. Can you see the dried grass just barely poking out from underneath my hand rake and pruning loppers? Although I have to admit I don't appreciate the bird poop in the garage, I just haven't got the heart to disturb them, so I decided to try to take pictures of them every day (or as often as I can remember to ;o) It's fairly difficult to get good photos, as it's dark underneath there and the zoom is having trouble focusing. I managed to get this one, which I thought turned out rather well (another happy accident!)

I am absolutely delighted to announce the addition of two more victims [so sorry] er, volunteers at Epic Farms. The first is Ann from over at Scrap, Edit, Snap. This photo is of Duke, her Westie, and the apple of her eye - isn't he cute? (I'm sure he's probably looking over her shoulder as she works; he keeps a pretty watchful eye on things over there). Ann has graciously agreed to loan us her assistance with any digital dilemmas we may be facing: she has some bodacious skills with Photoshop :o) She's what I've dubbed a virtual volunteer, as she lives hundreds of miles away. I have to tell you, though, her help is extremely important to us no matter where she is geographically. In fact, she is this very minute helping us with a supersecret fund raising idea. Thank you Ann!
The next is slightly shorter and definitely closer. Her name is Abby and she came out and worked for a few hours Saturday morning helping us get the meeting area ready for the concrete man (who is coming next week - Woo!)

To be honest, the "before" photo is probably closer to a "during" photo (but who says that?) The Jasmines - Confederate and Asian - were running completely amok and the back side of the house had almost disappeared under some serious jungle growth. Word to the wise: should you ever decide to plant a species of Jasmine, figure on some major excavating equipment should you ever have the need to remove it. Even Tilly couldn't get it all out (OY!).

Of course all work and no play makes volunteers just run away, sooooo....

We played around with the horses a bit (and maybe got just a little silly in the process ;o) Thank you for your help Abby!

 Have a wonderful week everyone, and don't forget to have some FUN!

Fraternaling the twins: Which one are you?

Hooray for hubby...

and the planets, which must have mysteriously gone into alignment (it only took four little ol' months to make it happen too... isn't that amazing? *rolls eyes*). We FINALLY got DH's work schedule, the neighbors schedule, and the weather to all match up so we could go get Tilly [the tractor]. Because it was right around the corner from us, and we don't have a trailer, DH was going to just drive it down the street, around the corner and down the road to the house (and that sounded SO simple when we said it, too ;o) This is the main reason it took so long; their house is situated on a curve in the road and when you are putt-putting along at 2mph it's always a good idea to have clear weather (you know, so you don't get squashed flat by a ginormous SUV careening around the curve at 40mph).
The girls were more interested in the implements that came with it (and you just know that little Miss Taya made a beeline for the front yard when she heard that tractor motor sputtering up the driveway *laugh*).

DH got some work done on the patio too, and the first piece of metal is up - yipee!! He had to cut a small section out to go around the post on the end; it was getting dark outside so he only did one, but I'll bet you can guess exactly what I did when those sparks started flying...dove for the [Canon] camera, of course! What else? Woo! :o) Is that wild or what?

Like my new sidekick? I don't. It's driving me absolutely dotty (can't wait to mail it back in another week). This is an event monitor and I've been sentenced Er, instructed to wear it for 30 days. It monitors your heart rhythm and records any irregularities. Do not be fooled by the picture that shows only two small wires to be attached (photos can be tricky). There are at least 59 separate wires growing out of that evil little box, and every last one of them has attempted to strangle me at least once (and we're not going to talk about the ones that have been zipped and buttoned into my clothes, either). It's been a royal pain staying wired up 24/7, and I only thought dropping the cell phone in the *ahem* pot-tay was a worry (can you imagine dropping some little $30,000 piece of medial equipment in there? eek!) Hopefully it will explain what's up with the heartbeat hiccups, gallops, thumps and thuds going on in there. We'll see. It is definitely a nifty little piece of technology though. When the alarm goes off, I just call the (800) number on the front, give them my ID number, hold it up to the phone and press "send event". Goes right through the phone lines and pops up on the other end. Then they send it to the doctor's office. Pretty cool, eh?

A baby shower for a friend from church and 5th grade's turn to bring food x2 pretty much annihilated my [post bills] checking account for the month. Sometimes it's awfully handy to be able to make your own gifts; had I not been able to, she might have ended up with a small bag of M&M's (but hey, chocolate, right? Ha). Anyway, I made her a mommy's memory box with a poem I composed last year on the top. There was a cute little coordinated strip wrapped around the divider cards that came in the box and I used it to make a matching tag to put on the bag. I don't think I'll type the whole poem on here, 'cause you just know some rude person is going to steal it and I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to put them in my Etsy shop (I'll share the box with you though ;o)

I'm pretty sure she liked it (hope so, anyway!) Guess that's enough for now. I'm trying to put together a short video clip of what Bella and I did this week (we've been playing *cough* working really hard...honest! ;o) Here's a hint for you...

Just so you don't hurt yourself squinting, the jar says "horse treats" on it. As for the square thing behind it? Well. If you're not sure, I suppose you will just have to wait and see, 'cause we're not talkin' ;o) Have a great week everyone!

 

Sometimes I'm just a regular Nellie Normal...

Although I do have an annoying tendency to think I'm peanut butter according to my husband (let's see how thin I can spread myself this week *rolls eyes*). He's right though. Do you do it too? My poor neglected marvelously patient friend had to wait months for me to finish this frame for the name I had crocheted for her; it was a gift for her parents and thankfully she wasn't in too much of a rush. I'd been making them for years, but never attempted to mat and frame one before, so I wanted to give it a shot (and why, oh why did I feel the need to try?) It was worth it, though, in the end. Then there was Meghann of Little Studio (another long suffering wonderful friend) who has also had to wait forty forevers for a little something extra I wanted to make for her as a wedding present...actually, I'm not sure hers has even arrived in her mailbox just yet. I seem to be stuck moving at the speed of sloth and I'm getting all over my own nerves while I'm at it (grrr). On top of that, I often sit down at my desk to do one thing, and wind up doing something else altogether (having completely forgotten why I sat down in the first place *sigh*).

I am, however, always happy when I open the mailbox to find something that is neither bill nor junk. After all, it seems to be so doggone rare these days doesn't it? It was Christmas in July this month compliments of Stacey over at Behind the Bit. She sent me some fun goodies not once, but twice (and how awesome is that I ask you?) The first was for a correct answer on a blog post; and the second, for  regular voting in Purina's  Blog-O-Spondent contest. The grass mileage pun was terrible [I loved it!] so of course I immediately put it in a place of honor on the Epic Farms' filing cabinet. I have to admit the sticky notes came in awfully handy; I'd run completely out and there's only so much room on my forehead. Not to mention that it's a total pain to have to write everything backwards. Ba-dum-bump.

...but other times I'm sooooo her strange sister Abby:

My latest (greatest? flakiest?) undertaking would have to be The Piddlin' Puddle Project (the stranger the idea the sillier the name I assign to it; what can I say?). Okay, I'll admit to having some pretty weird notions regarding the horses; we have conversations - the horses and I - about these things on a daily basis (and no, that's not the strange part). This one has to do with housekeeping issues (so please pardon the picture below). Purportedly, stallions are your basic neat freaks when it comes to (ahem) bodily functions; geldings fall in the messy middle; and mares are, essentially, serious slobs. Initially, the girls were all (pardon my French) tinkling in their stalls at mealtimes which, while not a huge deal, was kind of gross; not to mention a bit stinky when the weather started warming up. Since I knew it was possible to potty train other species, I started to wonder if there could be such a thing as being horsebroken (and wow, that was bad :o) It wasn't long before I decided to give it a try; you never know, right?
It is important to note that our horses are not KEPT in their stalls; they are only in them at mealtimes, voluntarily for shade and to get out of the rain (this is definitely not a reasonable option for full-time stabled horses). Would you believe it worked? The short answer is that horses are creatures of habit which, coupled with [my] daily consistency was largely responsible for our success. It took us about 3 months for the four girls to completely relocate their tinkletime habit from inside to outside the stalls. Considering that Taya actually stopped in mid-stream the second week (I spoke her name sharply and stomped my foot on the ground), I was pretty sure it was a realizable goal. Without yelling (or hitting), here's what I did: made an obnoxious noise (clapped/stomped my foot or the buzzer/wrong answer sound), stated No and their name quite firmly, then immediately "covered up" the puddle with dirt. Whoever had done it would be the last one to eat for that meal. Their stall door was closed afterward, and remained closed between meals for the next 2 or 3 days (allowing the odor, barely discernible to people but easily detected by the horse, to dissipate). This meant they had to wait outside their stall while everyone else got to wait "inside", and increased the chances of them piddling where I wanted them to. If they did, I made it a point to dash out and unlock the stall and let them in as a reward. While there was some initial confusion among the girls about the exact issue (the location of the bodily function, not the function itself), consistency got us through it fairly quickly. What was interesting to me, was that I never had to lock more than two doors at one time. Food is a very strong motivator, so it didn't take too long before they had all figured it out and we were having lots more hits than misses. Lady picked up on it very quickly, and now will even walk back out of her room to "go" before a meal. The funniest [stubbornest] one was Bella, our resident brainiac. She tried so hard to find a way to get away with it: discreetly using the corner of her stall one time thinking she wouldn't get caught; then, when that didn't work, she tried putting her feed bucket on top of her puddle (it had already soaked into the ground) in an attempt to hide it; and when that didn't work, she tried piddling next door in Sara's stall, thinking to have the added benny of getting Sara (the only one who has never gone in her stall) into trouble. I gotta admit, she was pretty doggone creative with her defiance :o)

The last incident was about a week ago; and it was Bella's way of expressing her opinion. I had opted to brush Rina first after breakfast, and what was I thinking going out of order like that? (It's normally Bella, but she had not finished eating). At the very next meal, Bella marched into her stall, whinnied loudly to get my attention, then showed her irritation with me by making a very large puddle smack in the middle of her stall; glaring at me the whole time. Sorry chickie, although I love you to pieces and value your opinion most of the time, this one's definitely a no go. Annoyed or not you're still eating last. Find all this hard to believe? Maybe so, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  
Oh, and I'm sure you've noticed the blog's new look; do you like it? It's still a work in progress; and I really couldn't say WHAT possessed me to do it as I have driven myself completely 'round the bend

this week tweaking and squeaking [okay, snarling] at my screen over Blogger's new design changes and subsequent hiccups *snarl*. Last, but certainly not least, we were invited to Duke's 3rd birthday party over at Ann's Snap Edit Scrap. Since we weren't sure we'd make it I didn't tell Duke we were coming, but I think it's safe to tell him now.The girls made the doggie card pretty easily (though spelling is obviously not their forte), but then there was the problem of what to wear...What about a party hat?

Well, that's it for this week (more than enough, probably). So how about you? Are you a Nellie or an Abby? Maybe something in between? I'm pretty sure we could always use some company here on the Funny Farm. Yep, I'm talkin' to you, Abby...   ;o)