Dream came true



When I was thirteen we got our first horse. She was an old appy mare and us kids rode her all over the desert and back. I always wanted to be able to camp out with my horse. I made plan after plan with my friends in high school to ride towards New River, have them meet me half way and camp out in the desert overnight.

We'd sit under the Ramada at lunch and make plans and lists. Who had horses, who could bring what, who needed extra gear, and who could bring extra gear. We had great plans, but we never did go.

We're setting again

This year was supposed to be the year I raised chicks for the freezer from eggs we hatched instead of buying chicks. The last batch I got a decent hatch. 32 eggs set, 19 hatched. I think I lost two right at the start. One had it's insides on it's outsides when it hatched. One just up and died. I had one chick with spraddle leg that didn't thrive and died. 16 chicks made it over to Heather's once they were feathered enough to leave the brooder.

Very Cherry

A friend of ours showed up at the house the other day. "Hey, do you want some cherries?" Oh hell yes. I've been scoping out some trees as I drive through town, and here comes Chris telling me he has a sour cherry tree in his yard, and do I want some. He brought me over a grocery sack half full the next day.

Blog-a-Day Fail

I failed the June Blog-a-Day challenge. I had a good reason for it though. Right in the danged middle of it we moved my sister from Arizona, to up here in Idaho. Between the move, the unpacking, and summer shave down season kicking into high gear at work, I just didn't blog. The trip to move Heather couldn't ever be called anything other that memorable. Scotty and I drove down to Nevada and met our friend Honey and her friend Lisa, in Ely. We drove both trucks down to Phoenix. Her with her horse trailer, and us with the flat bed trailer, stopping in Vegas to pick up Jesse. 

Leaving Gooding Idaho

In the front yard at Moms in Phoenix,Az

Loading the arena to bring it back with us

Jesse escaping the heat

Loading horses

Getting ready to leave Phoenix

Heather, Scott, Mark and Me

Hot damn, we made it

The old barn that needs to come down

Me looking all hillbilly and crap, standing in the rain in my Star Wars jammie pants, and dairy muck boots

Tired ponies in the round pen after a long drive

Heather's horses out on her pasture

We took Mom, Karl, Heather, Jess, and Mark down to Shoshone Falls.

Mark, Me, Mom, Heather

Me and Heather

Jess and Mark

Me and Mark

Look out Arizona, here we come

Scott and I are leaving tonight to head south to Arizona. We're bringing  my sister, her son, dogs, and horses, out here to live in the little house next door. We'll be driving the Dodge, pulling a flat bed trailer. We're meeting our friend Honey in Ely. She bringing a friend down with her. She'll be driving her truck, pulling her three horse trailer. We're supposed to meet her around 4 in the morning so we can drive down before it gets too too hot. We're also making a stop in Vegas to grab Jesse. She'll be coming back with us to Idaho as well. It's almost 6pm here, and I think I'm gonna catch a couch nap before getting all our crap together and ready to go. 

Gratuitous pony pictures

I spent the afternoon and evening tonight after work digging ditches in the pasture next door so the irrigation water will go where it needs to, and switching gates opened and closed. I didn't take any pics of that, so enjoy this one pic of Scott, Pat, and Larry fixing the Tee in the pipe when it blew out last time we had water.

Holy crap, they can CRAP

I need a fence.

I have free ranging chickens. The wander around the property, they eat bugs, tasty bits of grass and alfalfa. The hunt and scratch in the the dirt. And they crap. Everywhere. The crap on the porch, on the deck, they crap in Scott's garage. They leave chicken sized land mines in the grass in the front yard. We don't leave the garage door open without feeding them otherwise they come in the garage looking for something to eat and leave dropping in return.

Mountain Trail Challange

I took a day to play hooky yesterday. I wasn't at work and I didn't do anything on the farm. I was invited to go to a trail riding obstacle course to watch some friends compete. What a blast it was. I got sunburned, dehydrated, forgot my stuff in Carrie's truck, but I'd do it all over again. 

Goose Goose and Giblet go for a walk

   While Connie was in Utah, Giblet and the Goose got to take a walk with me down to the pond for a swim.  These two are the best of friends. The follow each other around, sleep next to each other, and the turkey even goes wading a few inches into the water while the goose swims.

It had to happen eventually

Five years I've been in Idaho. Four of them here on the homestead. Four years we've managed to avoid losing any livestock to anything other than a dog or two that were brought out by friends that snagged a chicken before we knew they were loose.

Adding to the homestead

I've made two mortgage payments on it, I have homeowner's insurance on it. I turned on the electricity, and the kids next door are gone. It's all ours. Five acres to add to our five acres, fenced, cross-fenced, a pond. There is a ton of work to be done over there. Heather will be here in two weeks with her kid, horses, dog, and all her crap.

Working Echo

Echo is finally lice free, she's gaining a little weight and starting to come around. I would have loved to turn her out in the pasture with the other two knotheads, but we ran into a snag. We couldn't catch the bitch. Each day she got a little harder and it took a little longer trying to get her to let us slowly inch our way up to her without her turning into a blowing, snorting, spooking idiot. Scott and I tried all the tricks we knew, but she was getting away from us. If we didn't get help, we were going to turn her into a monster.

Chicks get new digs

14 chicks, two goslings, two ducklings, and a turkey can make one heck of a stink in a 4x4x4 brooder in a week. Not to mention running out of space pretty fast. When we got back from Minnesota the little chickies went down to the new property. I kicked out the five teenage chickies to free range, and moved the little chickies into the coop down there.

Blog-a-Day

I did it. I signed up for Carolyn's Blog-a-Day over at krazoacres. She's noticed, I've noticed, we've all been guilty, of slacking in the blog department. We sat around all winter long dreaming of what we wanted to get done come spring and now I'm still stuck in procrastination mode. I have a ton of pics I've taken, a bunch of blog posts I wanted to write, and didn't get to any of it. So starting today I'm going to try and do a blog post as often as I can. I don't think I can hit one every day, but I'm gonna try.

I'm a math idiot, not a hatching idiot

So we almost gave up on trying to hatch out our own chickens. This was round three. I excitedly candled my eggs the day I took the egg turner out of the incubator. I had four eggs I was pretty sure had nothing but yolk in them. All the rest had a baby chicken in them. Monday last week I got hoping to see a baby chicken in my incubator. I saw nothing.

Echo gets an upgrade

This poor little mare came to EverStuff Ranch today. I'd been seeing her advertised here and there on the internet for a while. She was listed the first time for something like $1200. She's six years old, only halter broke. Cute little head, nice bloodlines. She's actually related to Spooker Dude, the paint gelding we used to have. I saw her listed again a few other times, each time at a lower price. I wanted to go take a peek at her each time I saw her. None of the pics I saw were ever really good pics.

Making babies, We're in lockdown

We're on try number three incubating eggs. Three days before they're due to hatch you're supposed to take the eggs out of the turner, if you have one, lay them flat, add water to the incubator to increase the humidity, close the lid, and leave them the crap alone. No opening it for anything. Not for the first few chicks hatched. Quit turning the eggs, just keep your damned fingers out of the incubator. Yeah, that's gonna be hell for me.

I want to see what's going on inside those shells. I want to shine a light through the shell and see what's going on. So I compromised. I candled them all after I removed the turner. Out of 32 eggs

Dirty, Dirty Birds

The temps are starting to get back into nice, but the nights are still cold. We had a spell of clouds and rain that lulled me into not draining the hoses at night. I just wasn't getting below freezing. It wasn't getting much above freezing either though. Now the clouds have moved out and it's been in the 20's in the morning. Like low 20's. Scott went to go fill the horse's water the other morning and nada. Frozen hose. So it's back to slinging them over the fork in the tree behind the chicken condo and draining the water out. The chickens like it and run behind the hose and peck at the mud left behind the hose as it snakes across the ground.

Speaking of mud and dirt

Granny Squares, burning pastures, new land owners

I fell in love with crocheting a few years ago. I think my sister Jeana tried to teach me to either knit or crochet years ago before I left Arizona and I was a dismal failure at. I watched a few videos on you tube. Made some hats and a scarf or two. I made this blanket that I was immensely proud of. It was just a double crochet and the sides are a little uneven.

Chickies

It's starting to feel a little spring-ish. The daffodils and tulips are starting to poke their leaves out of the ground. The robins have been hopping around for a few weeks. The killdeer are piping away at night and the red wing black birds are starting to hang out by the canals again. I even heard a couple of early frogs at night.

Spring means chick days at the feed stores.