What a Lovely Day

We have had some truly beautiful weather here in the last few days. I'm thankful for the bright sunshine, blue sky, and light breezes, as well as for the warmer temperatures. I think our garden is confused. Not long ago, it was below freezing, and now it is in the 60s! The poor veggies don't know whether to give up and die or live and thrive. I was able to harvest some collards, broccoli, and rutabagas this morning. I think we will eat some of them for lunch.


My summer garden seedlings have come up. I am having a good time trying some new tips on seed starting, and God has really blessed our gardening efforts. In the pictures, you can see our very professional seed trays, which are made of two cake pan lids and some cardboard, and the shoe tray beneath them that protects the table. Fancy! It seems to work well, however. At least I don't have to wonder which tomato is which. We put the seed trays in our sewing room, because we can keep that door closed. That means the cats (a seed-starter's worst enemies) cannot sleep in them, chew the seedlings, or make a litter box out of the dirt. I am determined to keep the furry marauders out of my tomatoes this year.



Here is a picture of Miss Bunny, the Pit Bull, in her cosy coat. She is the happiest dog around. That blanket has kept her quite warm. However, since Bunny leads a very active life, she keeps getting tripped up by her new clothes. She goes tumbling head over heels many times while she is wearing her coat. Does it bother her? Not a bit. She just picks herself up and keeps on running (and leaping, and jumping, and hopping....).



Today's memory verse is 1 Peter 1:15.

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. 1 Peter 1:15 KJV

Happy Birthday, Annie!

Yesterday was my sister Annie's birthday. To celebrate her special day, we all went into town and shopped in some backpacking stores. Annie really likes to look at backpacking gear. We tried on packs, tested trekking poles, and laughed at the variety of unusual freeze-dried, vacuum-packed hiker food. When I read the titles of some of that food, I realized that hikers aren't a picky bunch. I'd have to get pretty hungry to eat packaged, powdered, no-bake cheesecake on the trail, not to mention the dehydrated navy beans and salt pork. We don't do hiker food. The rest of the hiking gear was really interesting. I liked looking at kayaks. Annie admired the Camelbak hydration packs.

After we went shopping, we went out to eat at one of Annie's favorite restaurants. Then we headed home and had dairy-free ice cream sundaes with chocolate and caramel syrups, bananas, dried mango, and dried figs. It was good! The activity for the evening was an old Western movie. I think Annie had a good birthday.

Buddy may not be very pleased with my gift to Annie. I gave her a set of horse clippers and a bunch of grooming supplies. Now he'll have to become beautiful. We'll see what he thinks of being clipped.

What A Morning!

We went down the road to feed the neighbors' horses yesterday morning. Their water was shut off because of the cold, but we needed to refill the stock tank in the horse pasture. Daddy turned on the water and noticed that the pipes in the barn had burst. He quickly shut off the water, and Momma drove home to call the neighbors. In the meantime, Stretch, Lady, Julie, and Tux had no access to water. Annie and I led them to the pond so they could drink. Nobody seemed thirsty, and they were too busy being frisky to pay much attention.

After consideration, we became worried that pipes had burst in the house as well. Since we were unable to enter the house, we decided to fill the stock tank from the broken pipes at the barn. We were so thankful that before we were able to drive down and do that, a helpful neighbor filled the tank for us. We are blessed with really nice neighbors.

When we returned home from the neighbors' house in the morning, a neighbor from the other end of the road called us. She had hit a Red-faced Screech-owl with her truck on the way to work. It survived, and she took it home. Since we needed to go to her house yesterday morning anyway, we got to go and see the owl. It was so cute, poor little thing. Our neighbor took the owl to the vet school to be cared for.

Cold Weather

The weather has been quite frigid here lately. A few nights have dropped down into the teens, and I think that every night this week has been in the 20s at least. Pipes have frozen, although thankfully we've had no burst pipes so far. The animals, who are not accustomed to such wintry temperatures, are complaining. Our cats, with the exception of Spunkabitty, are spending all their time indoors. Bitty has a desire to hunt that sends him out in all weather, and he also possesses a thick, fluffy coat (and a significant layer of fat). The horses have grown their winter coats, but we like to put on their insulated blankets when we bring them into the barn for the night. Abby, the Golden Retriever, has a lovely warm layer of golden hair to keep her cosy, but poor Bunny is slick and shiny with hardly any hair. She shivers and looks miserable, so we bought her a winter coat. Bunny loves her little jacket!

Sadly, our garden has suffered from the cold. I'm not sure what will be left when things finally warm up a bit. The strawberries are doing well, however, thanks to the layer of black plastic with which we covered them. The first blooms have made their appearance, so the berries are on their way.

Yesterday, I started the seeds for our summer garden. It seems odd to be doing that while the temperatures are so low, but I am excited. We purchased some new varieties of heirloom tomato this year, as well as some old standbys that are proven to be delicious. This year, I am going to try growing paste tomatoes so that we'll be able to make tomato sauce. Polish Linguisia and Cosmonaut Volcov are my choice for paste tomatoes. I also started seeds for three different cherry tomatoes: Black Cherry, Sungold, and Mexico Midget. The Mexico Midgets grow to be just half an inch in diameter! I think that they will be perfect in salads. I started eggplants, hot and sweet peppers, kiwifruit, and a garden berry called Chichiquelite Huckleberry. I am praying that God will bless my seeds with abundant growth.

It Has Been a While

We had a lovely holiday season, but now it is time to get back on schedule. I'm looking forward to settling into a routine once more.

After Christmas, Annie, Daddy and I began step one of renovating the horse barn. We started with demolition, and that was a lot of fun. One doesn't realize how entertaining it can be to cut, rip, hammer and pry out lumber. We really tore into the barn. The reconstruction was an interesting project as well. We rebuilt the divider between Buddy and Rusty's stalls, and we did the same between Poco and Peg. Buddy and Rusty lived in very large stalls, which required large amounts of bedding. To gain more space in the aisle and save on pine shavings, we made their stalls smaller. Resizing Rusty's stall left us with a strip of the aisle that was bare dirt, so the next task was pouring concrete. Now we are finished with our first project in the barn. Annie and I feel very blessed by our better barn every time we go out to do something with the horses.

We had to move some of our horses into different stalls after the barn project. One of the rearranged equines was Jack. He found his new home quite interesting. Jack especially enjoyed playing with his gate latch, which was different from the one in his old stall. One morning before Annie and I had been to the barn, Daddy opened the outer gates to release the dogs. As he continued on his way to his workshop, he thought he heard one of us letting the horses out. Soon I headed outside to feed and care for my horses, only to see Jack and Rusty happily grazing in front of the barn. We determined that Jack had opened his own gate and then freed Rusty. Jack's best buddy, Peg, was mad, because Jack didn't help him escape. I captured the mischievous Houdini and put him back in the barn. His gate now sports a double-ended snap that he cannot open (at least, not yet).

We have a real soft spot for animals in trouble. Momma, Annie, and I were driving home from a trip to the grocery store and the feed store one morning with 150 lbs. of feed, 250 lbs. of pine shavings, and our own groceries. There, standing beside a busy intersection, was a beautiful Great Dane. She was thin and had a sad, lost look about her. We passed her, then turned around and went back. One doesn't see a Great Dane on the side of the highway every day. After convincing her to climb into the car, we drove home with her. Annie was in the back seat, so she got most of the slobber. We got the dog home , named her Bella, and found her to be sweet, loving, and extremely strong. Thankfully, Abby's walking harness fit her, so I put it on. It took Annie and me with two leashes to hold Bella when she pulled on us. I suppose she'd never had a leash on before. Momma called several veterinarians to see if anyone had lost a Great Dane, and one vet's office knew the dog. :( They told Momma where Bella lived and that she wanders frequently. With that information, we loaded the dog into the car and took her home. She made it clear that she'd rather stay with us, but we left her there. Her owners were not home, so we never found out her real name. We enjoyed having Bella around.

Annie and I are horse-sitting for our neighbors while they take a trip to Colorado. There are four horses, and we feed them twice a day. We drive down in the morning, because the horses get grain and hay, which takes a little while. In the evening, Annie and I ride down there bareback on Buddy and Peg, and we give the horses hay. We like to help our friends in this way. These particular horses are quite well-behaved and easy to manage, and that is an added blessing. Their names are Stretch, Lady, Julie, and Tux. Lady is my favorite, but they are all sweet. Stretch is a big clown, and he likes to pick things up in his mouth and wave them at you. He'd like to eat my scarf, but I won't let him. Horses are entertaining creatures. I'm glad God has blessed us with so many opportunities to be around them.

Here is today's memory verse. I have been blessed by reading Psalm 51. It is filled with spiritual meat.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17 KJV