JUNE 2021

Hi Nancy! It's always good to see you here. I'm so glad to hear that you are still doing music event.
Here in Indiana, everything is opened up. Businesses can choose what they want to do about masks. Most have abandoned them.
Our local school was open for the whole school year, from last August until about two weeks ago - the normal end of year.
Everybody who wants to be vaccinated, can be. Vaccine is readily available.
Distancing is mostly done. On Saturday, the theater where we saw Jeff Foxworthy was full. People had purchased tickets more than a year ago and weren't going to miss it. They were there from all the surrounding states.
I hope Canada can get back to normal life soon.

Ellen, that is really good to hear. My understanding is that American rates of vaccinated people is further ahead than ours. We had some difficulties with vaccine availability so it’s been slower here.

Such fun seeing Jeff Foxworthy! Would love to do that.

I love being able to picture you at your home, sea-dooing all over the lake

I'm on a mission. I'm looking for an old style "little red wagon" and i don't want to pay a fortune for it. My brother wants it to be able to hook it to the back of his motorized wheelchair to move things around in his yard. Pick up sticks, things like that. So I've been watching yard sales. I haven't any luck with the wagon yet, but I did pick up a shovel, a scraper thing for drive ways and a long handled claw like hoe all for $10 bucks yesterday morning on my way in to work. This morning I stopped at the garage sale the kitty rescue was having as a fund raiser. Didn't find my wagon but did buy a $10 home made cat nip filled flannel cat toy. Holy Cow they had all kinds of stuff that had been donated. Didn't have time to really look around but did determine they didn't have the wagon. So that was my part for helping reduce the cat population around here. The majority of the items were under the cover of a tent and in a pole barn so technically inside and not a mask to be seen on either the volunteers or patrons.

Between those who have been vaccinated, and those who have the antibodies from having had COVID, I think we are doing pretty well now.

Good to see everyone posting!

INDYAPP:
Hope you find the little red wagon. I wouldn't mind having one of those myself. Very handy item. We used to have a GardenWay cart, but after a gazillion years it sort of fell apart.

ELLEN:
How fun to go to a comedy act!! I think everyone needs to go to something to cheer them up. It has been a long year and a half.

NANCY LEE:
Wonderful that you are doing a singing gig! I hope Canada gets vaccines soon for everyone. Truly, I don't understand why anyone is refusing them. I ran into a lady today at the grocery and complemented her on her cute rainbow colored mask. She said she had had covid and had been hospitalized, and later got the Moderna vaccine. Now she doesn't want to give anything to anyone else and will continue to wear her mask. Thoughtful lady. We are still wearing our masks in stores, we don't want one of those variants to sneak up and get us after being careful for so long. Lots of people are not wearing masks and we know they never got a shot.

GRAYMARE:
I saw some video of one of the fires in AZ. I hope they contain them soon. So why does your neighbor want a helicopter pad if he doesn't fly a helicopter? Doesn't want to keep up a lawn? There is a billionaire who owns several hundred acres down the gravel road that runs down the back side of our property, about a mile and a half down the road. A few years ago he decided he wanted to close the gravel road for anyone but himself. Well, that went over well. We went to the community meeting about it just to watch. It would have actually benefited us, I would have had a safe road to ride Ivan on with no traffic, but we didn't tell anyone that. He would not have been able to keep us out since we own the first 1500 feet of the property along the road. No one showed up to present his side at the meeting, but a lot of anti- road closure people did show up and were quite irate about it. It turned out that it is the only other way out of the little community at the end of the gravel road if the main drag was closed by an accident, so the state didn't grant the rich guy his personal road. Some folks sure ask for a lot!
Oh, and he has a helicopter pad. I doubt he flies it, but we do see a helicopter from time to time.


We finished our first cutting of hay on Monday. It has been raining ever since. Our barn was slightly flooded in the front after a deluge came down, but it wasn't bad. It didn't get into the hay or sawdust stalls. It poured again off and on all day today. I keep getting caught out in it. Areion was her usual muddy mess when we took her and Daisy for trims to the Vet School. Try keeping a white horse out of the mud. Both horses were very well behaved and loaded both ways easily. Funny beasts. You never know what is going to make them decide to be ratfinks. While Daisy was getting her feet x-rayed and standing on wooden blocks, someone started to bring in a gorgeous horse. I said, uh-oh, we are going to hear it now....and instantly Daisy let out a tremendous neigh at the horse. But she never moved off her blocks! Her feet are doing well.

Indy App I love those little red wagons. Never had one but always am attracted to them and the old sleighs, oh yes and toboggans.
Yay! Hay for Ark and Donnie!

Hey Ark, can you advise me on how to change my avatar?

Indy, check Tractor Supply. They have a pretty good assortment of wagons and yard carts. I have one of the yard carts that will hold 1200 pounds. The handle swivels so that you can pull it by hand or hook it to a lawn tractor. The sides drop down or come off completely. Very handy.

IndyApp, I also have a possible alternative. I just love the collapsible wagon that I bought for transporting music equipment from van to venue at gigs. It is made of a nylon canvas with a metal tube frame and is quite deep, maybe 18”. About 3’ long by 18” wide   Collapses down to a nice size for storage. It holds a lot. Because it has a removable solid floor it can hold a fair bit of weight.  Worth checking out.

I also use it for yard work

NANCY LEE:
Where did you find your foldable cart?

As for your avatar, click on your current avatar photo, then click on your profile info. It should have a place somewhere on that page for downloading a new avatar. I see different pages than non-admins, so I am guessing a little bit. Here is what it said on mine:

"Displays a small graphic image below your details in posts. Only one image can be displayed at a time, its width cannot exceed 200 pixels, the height cannot exceed 600 pixels, and the file size cannot be higher than 64 KB."

So you have to be careful as to the size you wish to download.
And if all else fails, send your photo to me and I will try to install it for you!

Arkazivan@gmail.com

Ark, check the Tractor Supply website.  They have the folding carts too.

When it's 90°, there's nothing like sitting in the lake for a couple of hours. The water is just right.

Whoa!  How’d the avatar turn out so big? Ark, if you want and are able, just reduce that. I don't like dominating the page..
Thanks Ark for the help. Had to go to the laptop to get it to work. Wouldn’t go from the iPhone for some reason. Then it wouldn't load the whole picture with Jim and me in it. Had to try the edited cropped version

I got the wagon from our Canadian Tire chain, but I bet you could get one on Amazon. It’s a Woods camping equipment brand.
Yes, I just checked Amazon.com  If you put Woods folding cart wagon in the search you will find numerous brands

Ellen E wrote:

Ark, check the Tractor Supply website.  They have the folding carts too.

When it's 90°, there's nothing like sitting in the lake for a couple of hours.  The water is just right.  

Ellen, sounds just lovely... it's cooler here the last couple of days than it has been. A nice relief after a stretch of mugginess.

After several days of heat and humidity, today has been just perfect. Around 80°, low humidity, and a light breeze. It just doesn't get any better than this.

Busy weekend. Started Friday night by taking Madison and Chase to a local arts / crafts music festival. It was more of a multi- level- marketing fair (candles, bags, avon etc.) than a craft fair, but we did find a lady who made cute signs so got one that said Madison's Room with a unicorn and one that said Chase's Room with a racoon on it. Ate fair food for dinner then returned the kids to their parents. LOL

Saturday was changing the barn over from "winter barn" to 'summer barn" Took the horse trailer out of storage, hooked up to the brush hog and generally died of heat stroke getting the back yard mowed so I could park the horse trailer. I got it all done just in time as my hay guy called and wanted to deliver a load of hay on Sunday morning that he baled about a month ago. It's been sitting in his barn on a trailer. He wouldn't have been able to deliver hay with the horse trailer and the bush hog in the barn.

Sunday was of course hay day. I wasn't much help. Must have done too much on Saturday. We had 210 bales stacked by 10:00 a.m. I expect my next load sometime next month as he said the field is coming along good now after our slow start this spring. Sunday afternoon I found my brother a little red wagon that will work perfectly at a flea market. $20. I knew I'd find it eventually. Thank you all for the suggestions. I was about to break down and buy a new one for him and I happen to see this one sitting out as I drove by. Immediately turned around and went back to check it out.

ELLEN, you must have had cooler weather than I did on Sunday or I just was overheated all day from the hay in the morning. LOL. This week is suppose to be fantastic.

Oh boy.  Here we go.  We're under excessive heat warnings for the rest of the week.......115-116.  Now that's only for
about 2-3 hrs from 4P-5P. Then temps down in the PM to around 90 at midnight.  So early AM is the time to be
outside.  Horses go out from 7A-3P and then take a shower.  They are happy campers.  Spoiled, too.

I'm tired, lazy and spoiled.

I'm eating too much, LOL.............ice cream ice cream ice cream.

No complaints or any more upset from helicopter man.The subdivision across the canal is up in arms.

Wally day.  

It's overcast..............not so bad..............

It's been a little bit windy today, but otherwise, it's a perfect day. Bright and sunny, high of 76°. My idea of perfect.

ELLEN:
Your weather sounds perfect. We are supposed to be 76 tomorrow. It was still hot here, and MUGGY, today. A nice lake nearby would be very nice.

NANCY LEE:
I changed your avatar size. No problem. If you want the one with you and Jim in it, just send it to me, I can fix it.
It's great to see you posting lately!!!!

INDYAPP:
Congrats on the new red wagon! I bet your brother will love it. Good deal, too!
Moving hay is so awful, doing it in the heat is just miserable. We have trouble finding anyone to hire to help move it here. No one seems to like working in hayfields much anymore. Our neighbor came by when we were doing the last couple of loads and helped the other day, he is so nice. And strong....

GRAYMARE:
Wow. Just wow. I hope no one gets heatstroke. Your temps are just horrendous. I can't imagine a week of that. Stay cool! Maybe swim in the ice cream.....


Our fields look really nice since the hay has been removed and the rain has perked up the grass. It looks like a big lawn. We finally got our yard mowed yesterday, it had rained every day and we couldn't get to it. So for this moment, all our grass is mowed all over our property!

Donnie raked the arena today, so I hope to ride Ivan tomorrow when it is a bit cooler. We are supposed to go on a trail ride on Thursday at Pandapas Pond. I had a brief, bareback ride yesterday on Ivan and he was very good. It's been a couple of weeks since we've done much.

NANCY LEE:
 Well it turned out there was a problem.  My computer didn't recognize the file you sent (heic).  I couldn't download your photo into my image program.  So I took a photo of it off your email into my phone and used that for the avatar.  As you can see, there are weird lines in it.  If you  could send me a jpeg file, I can make it much nicer.   Sorry about that!  

So I had time to think last night as I was driving up and down the pasture mowing. What do people who live in apartments or condos who don't own horses do after work? Last night I came home from work, fed the horses, Tiberius was missing his fly mask, got on the tractor and started mowing. And mowing, and mowing and mowing. I had one little hiccup with the mower but quickly got that resolved. I determined that the hour meter on the tractor doesn't really reflect actual time spent on moving tractor. I wonder why it's called "hours"? I got about 2/3 of the field mowed and called it a night. Discovered it was almost 8:00 p.m. I took the fly masks off the rest of horses for the night and looked around for Tiberius'. No luck. It was brand new on Sunday. It didn't even make 2 days. pfffttt. Went in the house, came back out to water flowers in hanging baskets, then ate part of a bag of tortilla chips for dinner and called it a night. I came to the conclusion that people without property and horses must have a lot of time on their hands.

INDYAPP:
Yep, but those folks don't have HORSES!!! Life just isn't as sweet without a horse in my field. What we need are robots. Hard working robots who go all night while we sleep, cleaning, mowing, more cleaning, fixing the tractor mower, etc.....And maybe cooking. Congrats on your mowing job!! I am sure that flymask will show up sooner or later.

NANCY LEE:
I fixed your avatar! The new email still wasn't a jpeg, but I could download it on my phone, send it to my computer and change it on the photo manager. Looks pretty nice!!


Sunny, breezy, and not hot!!

Information: The Royal Ascot is being televised on NBCsports channel every morning this week starting at 8:30.

Well, today is the first day of Monsoon season for AZ...........so far, it's nonsoon.
And, I still laugh when they state on the news the stupid driver rule. Our drought is serious
and scary. I worry about future generations..............not that I can do anything about it but
my heart breaks for the younger generation.

The fires are the big news around here with hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent
in the communities affected.

Indy, you're on a roll...........I'm too old to get much done but it all still makes me feel good.

ELLEN thanks for the info on the Ascot races.

NANCY LEE, sure is good to see you here. I was so glad you're still doing music. And glad to
see your new photo................

No other news here. God bless and everyone have a good evening.

We're having another beautiful day here. Upper 70s and low humidity. I wish it were like this all the time. I was able to finish mowing the pasture last night AND I happened to find Tiberius' face mask in the woods.

We're having technical difficulties here in the office today. Problems really do come in threes. One of the other people I work with is working on fixing a problem for a client, I was notified of an error that was made while I was on vacation that I am working on fixing and the telephones are out. I'm not going to ask what else could go wrong because something will.

Those of you with wonderful weather enjoy!!!! Those of you with excessive heat, stay cool.

We are one of those who had perfect weather today! Sunny, breeze, 75 degrees, LOW HUMIDITY!! Lots of hay being mowed around here, but we are done for a couple of months. A neighbor asked Donnie to mow her straight up hill and we could have the hay. Nope, not worth it, but nice of her offer. Tipping over a tractor is a distinct possibility on that field.

Congrats on finding the flymask, INDYAPP!! I keep two masks for each horse and spend a considerable amount of time in search mode for the one lost in the field. A few have spent several weeks hidden in a brushy spot. They all do eventually show up. Ivan is the worst for dumping his flymask. Areion is more into destroying grazing muzzles. The more expensive it is, the greater the challenge, says she. She has broken the supposedly 'nearly unbreakable' Green Guard grazing muzzle in two places.

Ivan and I are off to Pandapas Pond tomorrow for a trail ride! One of the ladies is bringing her new Icelandic horse, Balti. We haven't met him before. He is the same height as Ivan, 14h. His gaits are different, so it should be an interesting ride.

Donnie trimmed Ivan's feet today, we are ready for the ride tomorrow.

Graymare, I heard that it is supposed to be 117° at your house today. That will sure give your AC a good workout. Stay cool.

Only 114-115.  LOL.......it's cool here.  I will bring the horses in about 11-12 this morning.  They
are happily munching right now.  It's no different than your very hot humid days......not good
but bearable.  BUT, we're having a big population explosion......I can't believe the changes.

Our fires are out of control and many have been evacuated as far as Klondike......that's
over where Pirrko went to ride in Aravaipa years ago. Gads.  Prayers needed.

On to make some sun tea...............

Addendum: It's a beautiful day in England.............Go Stratavarius. He reminds me of Secretariat.