APRIL 2021

I just got off the phone from spending money. Some people splurge and buy themselves clothes, or shoes, or jewelry. Me? I buy a 3 point hitch landscaping rake to attach to the tractor. Hopefully this is going to make my life much easier gathering up the smaller tree limbs and breaking up piles of horse poop in the pastures. I started looking at UTVs online last night and about had heart failure at the cost of those things. My ideal one would be one that is kind of like a golf cart with a little dump bed on it. The used ones I saw cost more than the used car Bill bought 2 years ago. I don't think I'll be buying one of those anytime soon.

ARK I think it would be fun to take Tiberius on a ride with Ivan. They sound so much alike. Two teenage boys ready to rock n roll.

Indy, when will your new "toy" arrive? I hope it works really well. As we all know, it takes a lot of work to take care of horses. Anything that makes it easier is a good thing.

I bought the rake from a local equipment store. They have it in stock at one of their other locations. I expect to be able to pick it up Saturday. It may be available sooner, but they're only open until 5 and I work until then. I just realized I forgot to ask what color it was. I hope it goes with my Kubota red tractor. Oh my.

Shooting is out of control in the U S. What the hell is wrong with people including police. I just stick to my
self and only go out when I have to. We've had several murders right here in Az, and that nutcase that killed
her own children and moved to HI is just another example of loving motherhood. She's currently in ID
awaiting trial. Holy cow.

I know covid 19 is stressful but what has happened in the US?

I'm finished venting..............

Everyone have a good evening and stay positive...............I'm watching the birds bed down. Very peaceful.

Just my opinion.... Too many parents are neglecting to teach their kids that there really is such a thing as right and wrong. Most don't have any idea of the 10 commandments, especially that one says don't kill.

INDYAPP:
Congrats on your new toy! I hope the color matches your other equipment .


GRAYMARE:
I don't know why we are such a violent society....except that there are more guns than people in this country and folks seem to want their 15 minutes of fame as they go out in a "blaze of glory", taking as many people with them as they can. Shame on them all. Shame on us for putting profits of the gun industry over the lives of people. And shame on the lack of good sense that even something as tiny as background checks get people riled up over losing their "God given rights" to own a military style weapon designed to kill people as fast as possible. I am sick of it.


Just two weeks left until Donnie retires. We are trying to get postponed medical and dental appointments done before them. Our calendar for the next two weeks isn't exactly filled with fun.

Our new neighbors have brought their second mare home. Both QH mares, one a pretty chestnut and the other a red roan who is fairly spectactular. The red roan is only two. The couple built a paddock that the mares already escaped from, so more fence building is in their future. Luckily their outer perimeter fence is good, the mares escaped into the house's backyard. The poor husband is new to horses and didn't know how to get the mares back into their paddock. Never heard of a bucket of grain, I guess...

Yesterday, Neighbor Cheryl came over and we painted my dock. It took us about 4 hours to paint the 5 sections. This was a paying job for her, and I was very happy to pay her. It's a big job. The dock is sparkling white and ready to go in the water.
It hasn't been as warm the last few days, but we got spoiled after a week of 70s.

I think a lot of the problem with all the violence is that the younger generations and I have to include my generation and I am in my 50s have been raised on violence as a form of entertainment. They just don't get that violence is real. They (we) have always had tv, movies, games etc that glamorizes violence. There is more to it than that, but I think I would be singing to the choir here.

Saturday was a bust for me and my new toy. Bad news and then good news so it will all work out in the end. I hooked up the truck and trailer and went to the lawn and garden store to pick it up. The guy sends me out to my truck and he'll bring it around with the fork lift. He loads it on the trailer and starts to waive and drive away. Thanks for the business.
ME: Hold it! I didn't know I had to put this thing together.
HIM: Oh, well. It's not hard, just uncrate it, drop the pins here and here and your good to go. The manual is in the pipe.
ME: Hold it! Where is the bag with the bolts and pins? Are you sure everything is here?
HIM: (big sigh, roll of eyes, climb off the forklift). Here's the manual and the parts are ..... oh, they're not here. Let me go look. Gets on forklift and drives off.
While he is gone I rip open the manual and look at the directions to put it together. Seems to need a lot more than just the couple of pins he told me about.
HIM: Here are the pins (handing me parts) These go here, you'll use this to drop here to adjust that... you're all set. They forgot to include the bag when they sent it from the other store. I've pulled pins from other places.
ME: Um... that pin is way too big for those holes...
HIM: You got to be kidding me. You're right I'll be back.
He's gone quite a while. I don't feel comfortable with this at all. I decide to track him down and tell him I will wait for the parts from the other store, they can put it together and I'll come pick it up next Saturday. He shows back up.
HIM: We don't have everything here to give you. I will get the parts from the other store, put it together and deliver it to your home next week. Will that be ok?
ME: Sounds fair. Thank you.
HIM: Sorry for this. Thank you for your business.

So I didn't get to play with my new toy, but I don't have to put it together either. I can live with that.

Indy, I think you are very right about kids growing up with violent games. The creators have done their best to make it look very real. One of the earlier ones was, and is, Grand Theft Auto. It pretty much teaches kids how to steal a car. So many TV shows glorify perversions and lawlessness of all sorts.

I hope you get your new toy all put together and ready to hook to your tractor and put to use. Maybe you'll get to drag it through the snow that is on the way. ICK!

INDYAPP:
 Wow, you handled that very well!  Good for you!  Now just hope they put it together correctly.  We bought a wheelbarrow from Lowes not long ago and believe it or not, it was not put together correctly.      


ELLEN:
 Nooo, not snow!!  I sure hope it doesn't get further south.  My apple tree is blooming like crazy and I sure don't want the blooms damaged....again.  Last  year we didn't get a single apple from it, the first time ever.  The frost hit it three nights in a row.

Donnie has been in our lower field using his new chainsaw to trim trees away from the hay areas and killing those yellow flowered weeds that are blooming right now.  Not sure what they are called, they are pretty, but not good in the hay.  They take over if not controlled.  

I have to give Areion a bath tomorrow.  It is supposed to reach 70 degrees and she is filthy.  I saw her lay down in the barn where she and Ivan relieve themselves all night this morning.  She isn't exactly the most girly horse I have had.  Kazi was pretty good about staying clean,  Areion rolled in the compost pile this afternoon.  She looks like a paint.   We are taking her and Daisy to Virginia Tech Wednesday for hoof trims.  She has been consistently and embarrassingly dirty every time this past winter.  Hopefully if I get her clean tomorrow, I can keep her clean for 24 hours some how.  I may have to put a light blanket on her overnight.   Today she also broke the strap on the new grazing muzzle.  It has leather breakaway straps holding it onto the halter.  So she broke one and had the muzzle hanging around her neck while she ate grass as fast as she could.   I replaced the strap and then watched her sidle up to a fence post to break another strap.  The horse is too smart for her own good.....smarter than me, for sure.

Hey, INDY...........great manipulation of delivery........You rock!!! And, the company you purchased from
did what should've been done in the first place.........WHOOPEE!

ELLEN, you'll be floating in style this year!!!

ARK, scrubey dubey dub.............and have fun with Aerion's mask.............

April 20th, and it's SNOWING! Drat. My poor pretty tulips.

Oh ELLEN, drat.............hope it melts soon.

We have SNOW! That's just not right. Not much. I think ELLEN is suppose to get more snow than me. Sorry ELLEN, but you can keep it. The worse part is that we're suppose to have hard freezes for the next two nights. No flowers for us any more this spring at least not our perennials. Probably no fruit either.

Sophie the Wonder Pony has to wear a grazing muzzle too. She hates it. She has mastered putting her head down to eat and then stepping on the very edge of the muzzle and then pulling back tearing the velcro loose. Another one of those horses that are too smart for their own good. I keep telling her that she has to wear the muzzle over her nose, not hanging from below it otherwise it's back to the dry pen. She doesn't listen.

Indy, they changed the predicted amount of snow from 3-4 to 1-2. None would be a better number, but it's too late for that. It's starting to accumulate a little bit.

We are supposed to have below 32 degrees temps on Wednesday and Thursday nights. My poor apple tree is in full bloom. It's supposed to be windy on Wednesday night, so we hope it won't freeze the blossoms then. We are going to try to spray water on the tree on Thursday night like they do with the citrus crops in Florida, but I suspect we are going to lose all the apples again this year. The first time it ever happened to this tree was last year, we didn't get an apple.

I don't think we will get any snow or flurries, and am sorry you guys are going to lose your flowers.

Poor flowers didn't have a chance. I tried covering my peonies but I don't think it worked. There was too much water on the plants from the rain, snow mix before got them covered. Everything is frozen this morning.

My tulips looked pretty sad early this morning when it was still really cold. But, now that it has warmed up into the 40s, they are looking better. They aren't as perky as they were yesterday, but not dead. I still have some that haven't bloomed, so I'm hoping they will fare a little better.
We only had about a quarter of an inch of snow that stuck. It was melting as it fell.

A few hours later....Again with the snow?!  It looks like January.

Five minutes after what appeared to be a blizzard, the sun was shining.  It wasn't warm, but the sun helped.

Thursday evening: The tulips live! It didn't get as cold for as long last night, and they all stood tall and reached for the sky today.
(I know you were all holding your breath waiting to hear about the health of my tulips. )

Hurray for the tulips!!


We finally got the first hard freeze on our apple blossums last night (Thursday night). I don't know how it will affect the apple production yet. Everything was white this morning with the heavy frost.


Daisy and Areion did well getting their toes trimmed at the Vet School. Daisy had gained 7 pounds, Areion had lost 15 pounds!! Daisy didn't want to get on the trailer on the way out. The wind was howling, it was cold, and she refused. After arguing with her for about 15 minutes, I looked her in the eye and said "Daisy will you PLEASE get on the trailer!" Her eyes got big and she walked right onto the trailer. I think she had a lightbulb moment. She didn't put up a struggle on the way home and got on pretty quick. Silly horse.

Next time they go back in 6 weeks, they will get their teeth done, too.

I did find out that my favorite vet who basically has saved my horses from pain and possibly a quick death due to laminitis, is going to retire this summer. I am really sorry about that. The world will be losing a genius at lameness issues.

Had a mammogram AND later gave blood at the blood drive yesterday. What a day....

Spring is back today! Hooray! The migrating wood ducks have made an appearance. They are such beautiful ducks, I love seeing them.
Now that the cold has gone, I'm hoping my dock guy will show up SOON. He said he would come last week, but I didn't blame him at all for not showing up. The weather was miserable.
The snow-bird neighbors got back from Florida yesterday. It's good to have them back.

There is a little town, one stoplight at the main intersection, that had their Maple Syrup Festival this past weekend. The weather is reminding me daily that I live in Northern Indiana. Friday was nice so I took the Great-Niece and Nephew to it after work. We went on the kiddie rides and ate fair food for dinner. Saturday it was cold and it rained. Sunday was sunny but still cold. Monday was OK and today is gorgeous. Go figure.

My landscaping rake was delivered last week. I had to wait until Sunday to try it out. It was well worth the wait. I was able to do a deep clean in the horse dry lot area in just a couple of hours. I have so much planned to do with it. I get excited over the strangest things.

Work is now paying for lunch to entice people to come back to the office to work instead of working from home. They set up a line of credit through Grub Hub and you can only use it if the food is delivered to the office. No pick up no delivery other than the office. I'd gain so much weight if I were to use it everyday. They allow us $20 a day which makes sense if you live in New York City, but in Elkhart, IN. That's alot of food. Only problem, I've used it twice and the order was wrong both times.

On $20 a day, you could live really high on the hog for lunch.  The places I go, it would be good for dinner too.
I was wondering how you were getting along with the new rake.  It's always extra nice when a tool works as well or better than you expect.
Yeah.  It's actually hot today.  Neighbors and I are going out to dinner this evening.

Later: We had a very nice dinner at one of the local places. It was so good to be able to have dinner with good friends. Things are getting closer to normal around here.

INDYAPP:
Wow, $20 lunches. I would balloon right out, . Does your office require the employees coming back to have the vaccine? That seems to be controversial, but practical. Congrats on the new rake! We need pix!

ELLEN:
I can't wait to actually eat INSIDE a restaurant again!! Might happen soon! Today we had lunch at the river, so at least the scenery was nice.


It was a scorcher today, 82 degrees. I got a bit of a burn from being outside all afternoon trying to keep the grazing muzzle on my genius escape artist, Areion. I finally gave up and put her in the arena with a little hay. Everyone else got to eat grass with their muzzles on. The only thing that is going to keep that grazing muzzle on Areion is thumbtacks. That won't go over too well.....

Today we went to the dentist, then I went to the ear-nose-throat doctor, yesterday Donnie went to the eye doctor (his eyes have actually improved by themselves!). Tomorrow I go to the dermatologist to check skin patches, and Friday Donnie gets a colonoscopy and retires from his job. Last week was much the same, different doctors. We waited for that time after our Covid vaccines took effect and the end of this month when Donnie retires to do all the medical things we didn't do all last year to avoid getting the plague. We appear to be very healthy! It has been tiring going to all these medical places in two weeks, though.

Knowing that you are healthy will make for a fun retirement.

I had to feed the horses early this morning as I had a breakfast meeting to go to for the local Boys & Girls Club. My Optimist service club donates snacks to the club for the kiddos. Such a great organization. I went out to feed and had to wake the horses up.