AUGUST 2021

Congratulations on the new great-grandson.

I have been praying for this country for a very long time. It's a mess.


Just to change the subject.... This morning, I drove a neighbor to a place to pick up their small motorhome that had been repaired. That place was very close to "Sweet Corn Charlie's". That is a farm that grows acres and acres of sweet corn. They pick it early in the morning and sell it the same day. They have several roadside stands all around this area. This is the main farm where they grow it. We picked up a dozen ears and shared them.
When I got them home, I looked it up to see if they could be blanched in the microwave. Yes, they can. So, I chopped off the butt end, peeled off a couple of the outer layers of husks, popped them in the microwave for 6 minutes (4 ears), pulled them out, grabbed the tops of the husks with the silks and shook them until they fell out of the remaining husks, and right into ice water. The dreaded silks just slid right off with the remaining husks. Then I vacuumed sealed them and put them in the freezer. No mess to clean up.
That was the easiest processing I've ever done. I will definitely get some more to last through the winter.

TRUDY:
Congrats on new great grandbaby!!


ELLEN:
Cactus is 24, Trinket and Daisy are 18, Ivan will be 17 next month, and Areion is 12. Hard for me to believe they are all that old. Cactus is feeling fine now, whatever his problem was, he is over it.
Our new farrier did Ivan's feet this time and did a good job. Donnie was happy not to have to do it...

Unless the weather changes, Donnie is cutting our upper field tomorrow for hay. It won't be a lot of hay, it's been so dry most of the summer. We still have the lower field to do, but need 5 good days for that.

We have been harvesting our apples and dehydrating them. My house smells like apple pie! We put up 6 quart sized jars of dried apple slices today and have another batch in two dehydrators going this evening. The horses are happy, they get an apple apiece with their evening meal, and the deer have been snacking on the lower branches and windfalls for awhile, so they are probably happy. The chickens get some of the peelings...not sure if they are happy to get the dregs or not....

Did you see the article about the race horse at Ellis Park? She was on her way to the starting gate for the first race of the day when she dumped her rider and took off down an interstate highway. She ran for about half an hour before she got tired enough for those chasing her to catch her. She had a few minor scrapes, was very dehydrated, but otherwise unhurt. In order to make sure she would be well treated, she was taken to a receiving barn until they were sure she was okay. 5 AM, and the barn burned. She has burns on her back.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/racehorse-that-ran-down-a-kentucky-highway-is-being-treated-for-burns-from-a-barn-fire/ar-AANBy5w?ocid=msnews

Wow, poor horse! I suspect her racing career is over if she inhaled much smoke after the exhaustion of running for a half hour down highways. Her day sure didn't go as planned. I hope she recovers. What a story.


Donnie is out fluffing up the hayfield as I type. Yesterday he started cutting it and the drum mower snapped two of four belts immediately. We went into search mode trying to find 4 identical belts to replace the broken and unbroken ones. We found three. So the mower is working using just three belts, but doing okay. We've had the mower for 8 years, I guess it is about time it had a few problems. Now if the weather will just hold...

Ellen,  Bossy looks somewhat like Barbaro...................are they genetically related?  Just hoping for a good outcome.

Don't forget today is the national day of prayer for/about Afghanistan...................

Graymare, I looked it up on Equibase. She is by Strong Mandate, who is by Tiz Now. The mother's side is not well-known breeding.

MG Congrats on the new Great-Grandson.

ELLEN, we have a few Charlie stands around here. I wondered where they were from. Your microwave blanching sounds like something even I could do.

ARK, I feel for you, working on your baler. I spent Saturday running around getting parts to change the oil and air filter on my lawn mower. I can't believe the process just to change the oil in this thing. I even watched a youtube video to see if I was doing something wrong and the narrator of the video said that it was a design flaw of the tractor. You have to attach this drain tube to the plug to drain the oil and then snake the tube around to have the oil drain out into the pan. The kicker is trying to get the tube snaked around without a kink in it. It took way too much time.

I had a load of hay delivered yesterday. 240 bales stacked in the loft and then the aisle all swept. A hot dirty job, but such a feeling of accomplishment when finished. I have one more load to be delivered and I'll be set for the winter.

Indy, the Sweet Corn Charlie farm is just a mile or two east of Millersburg.

ELLEN:
Isn't TizNow the stallion we all went to see at the KY Foopfest? Big guy, supposedly worth 100 million smackers.... wow. I wonder how Bossy is doing? Any news on her?


INDYAPP:
I admire your mechanical talents! If something happened to Donnie, the machinery around here would not live long. It was the mower that broke its belts, not the baler. He finished mowing the field with it using 3 instead of 4 belts, and is now into 'fluffing' it up. (Tettering it? sp) He hopes to bale it tomorrow. Hopefully the baler is feeling well, it is not easy to work on. It broke last year in the middle of baling and we lost a lot of hay to a thunderstorm. Luckily, he has a good relationship with the dealer who sold us the equipment. That guy has saved Donnie's hide several times with his good advice.

We have 14 quart jars of dried apple slices, so far, and more drying in the dehydrators. We went to Rural king to find a fruit picker (basket on a pole), and of course, they didn't have one. They had a bunch last year when the apple tree didn't produce any apples. We may try making our own. We've traditionally just used windfalls, but the picked apples are unbruised and so much nicer. The deer think so, too.

Ark, yes. Tiz Now is the one we saw then. At now 24, he has been a very good stallion and has produced a lot of good babies. Very often he stamps them with his dark color and white feet.

Mechanical Talents More like trial and error by necessity. I am forever thankful for YouTube videos. I, on the other hand, am in awe of everyone's cooking abilities. Dried apples, frozen corn, I can't count the number of times I've drooled over the meals described here. I live vicariously through you folks.

Did you ladies know that there is a tube that is part of your furnace that water from your air conditioned air flows through? I did not. I discovered this when I went into the basement to get something only to find water all around my furnace the the bottom of it flooded. I did call the professionals out for this one. For some reason this tube got gunk in it and clogged causing the water to back up and out all over the place. Water vac and and fan dried up the floor and the HVAC guy cleaned out the tube. Said I should be good for another 20 years. Aahh, the joys of home ownership.

The heat is back in PA.  High of 91 today with humidity of 71%.  Gonna be a stinker.

So far we have frozen corn, tomatoes and green beans for winter.  Now that we no longer plant anything except sweet corn, our wonderful neighbors have taken up the slack and provided us with veggies.  We donated 240 more ears of corn to the church food bank yesterday for their Fresh Express drive thru distribution this evening,  The corn is almost finished.  Thank God.  LOL  The darn corn hides, just when we think we got every ear more comes out from hiding and laughs at us.  

Grandson Aaron and his family stopped in for a visit.  They live in Pittsburgh and were on their way home from vacation.  How great it was to see him, his wife Courtney and baby Cameron who is 4 already.  Time flies.  Aaron spent every summer up here, he is our favorite grandchild.  I know we are not supposed to have a favorite butttttt he is special to us.

Stay safe and healthy everyone.

Trudy, like you, I'm really tired of the heat. Yesterday was 95° with high humidity. It will be like that until at least Monday. It's been so hot the water is too warm to be refreshing.
I think all of us have favorite relatives, whether or not we admit it. In the same way, we have unrelated friends that we like better than others.

91 degrees here today, too. I don't even know what the humidity was, but my clothes were soaked. We put up 78 bales of hay into the hay building. Nice hay. We are frazzled.

The horses wore their grazing muzzles all day, I didn't think they would mess with the haybales in the field since they really couldn't eat them. When we were bringing hay down from the upper field to the hay building, we left the gate open. The horses were near the barn until then, they zoomed up the hill and played tag around the little round bales. Ivan was chasing one that he knocked over as it rolled down the hill...unfortunately it unrolled completely. We ended up scooping that one up and stuffing it into haynets. The horses had a wonderful time, Donnie fretted and worried over his haybales, LOL. Two others rolled down the hill after the horses played with them, but they didn't come apart. Like us, the horses were covered in sweat.

Horses can be crazy people....

I think it's super hot everywhere. Sophie has to stay in the round pen since she won't keep her grazing muzzle on. I don't have a hose long enough to reach so I carry water to her. Last night I led her over to the water trough for the rest of the horses and she distinctly told me she did not want any water thank you very much and tried to walk away. Then I sprayed her with the hose. Ohhh she liked that. she was more than willing to stand for me to hose her off. Yup horses are crazy people.

The farrier is suppose to come tomorrow. I'm going to suggest that he come another day when it's cooler. Last thing I need is for the farrier to have heat stroke on me.

The entire world is going crazy, not just horses.............horses have horse sense.  Some humans have none.

We had a huge explosion today in Chandler, 4 taken to the burn center, 2 in ICU.......it was some sort of gas leak
from the news.

Our covid numbers are up again. So far so good with us.

Everyone have a good evening.......God bless.

Where is everybody?

GRAYMARE:
I think we are all melting...

INDYAPP:
Did your farrier make it? I agree about the heat stroke risk.



Well, I am sure glad I already wormed my horses and donkey and don't have to buy any Ivomec from a feedstore. Sheesh, people can be so stupid. They are injesting animal wormer, but won't take a vaccine to prevent Covid 19. Good grief.

Everything has become so political, nobody believes anything anymore. The animals have way more common sense.

It has been so hot here that I haven't been doing much of anything outside. Yesterday morning, I got the jet ski filled with gas, but where I pulled up to the gas pump there was an enormous amount of mossy gunk that immediately clogged the intake. So, I limped it home, went for a dip and reached under to pull out all the mess and get it cleared. If anybody ever creates a way to clear jet ski intakes without having to get off and reach underneath, they will make a fortune.
A younger cousin and his family will be here for tomorrow and Sunday. I have the ice cream made and will make brownies. Sunday morning, I'll do biscuits and gravy.

It's going to be a HOT weekend.

It's 78 here today.  Not too bad after the high 90's of last week.  Thunderstorms predicted every darn day.  So glad Ace isn't here to be tortured with the storms.  We miss him a lot...

Picked the last of the corn today (I'm praying it's the last).  The deer will be happy campers once we open the gate to the garden and let them chow down this winter.

Yes, our country is in a huge nightmare.  My heart breaks for the Marines who lost their lives recently.  The Veterans are so upset with what is going on.  God help us...

We are in the middle of a HUGE clean out and get rid of stuff.  The trash guys came on Weds...hauled 2 pickups of stuff George had been saving (in case someone wants it) old micro waves, vacuums and even a old fax machine.  He is such a saver of broken things that he is going to fix.  HAHAHAHAHA  Hopefully I can keep him moving forward with getting rid of things.  We gave them corn.  HAHAHA

Hang in everyone, Fall is coming and it will be here sooner than we think.

Trudy, I have often said that we spend the first 50 years of our lives acquiring stuff, and the next 50 getting rid of it.
I did a major clean out when I moved up here. I still have some things that need to go, but not too much.

It is the hottest today and tomorrow that it's been all summer. I am being a sissy and staying in the house. A cousin and his family are coming soon and will stay until tomorrow. They are welcome to go "play" outside if they like. I'm staying in.

Holy cow, I've already seen the destruction that IDA is causing.....................

On the bright side, we are hanging in there and the horses are still our go to calm.............it's still hot here but
it's not a hurricane or wildfire...............

Everybody have a good evening..............

I contacted my farrier the day before he was to come to find out if he really wanted to come. It was to be SO hot. He thanked me for asking and agreed to come when it cools off. When that will be, who knows. My guys can live with their toes a little long for a little while.

This mess with Afghanistan frightens me more than the CoVid controversy does. Especially with the US leaving behind so much high tech artillery. I guess all I can do is continue to pray.

It's scary for sure Indy....................

I think I heard that a lot of the equipment they left behind had been disabled. Hopefully they will be disabled in such a way that they can never be repaired....


It has been so hot, not my favorite kind of weather. I have been letting the horses in the shade of the barn and feeding them a bit of hay during the heat of the day. The hurricane's rain will be coming thru here Tuesday night and much of the day on Wednesday. They say we will get 2 to 4 inches of rain if it follows the path they think it will go. We'll be working on the ditches around the barn and hay building tomorrow, hopefully the rain won't come in deluges. Not a lot of wind coming, gusts up to 35 mph possible. Heck, we get that about any time of the year. We'll be picking up some branches in the pastures, probably.

Donnie plans to cut our lower field's hay on Friday, there are several days with no rain predicted for the week after the hurricane finishes up with us. I hope it works out, it would be nice to be done with our hayfields for the year. We have 200 bales reserved from a guy we got it from last year. It's going to be a squeeze to get it all under shelter at once.

At last! The weather is much cooler and much more pleasant. We were all ready for something better.

Cousins came Saturday and stayed until Sunday afternoon. They brought a good boat with them, so we had a good ride and three of them did a little bit of skiing. The jet ski got some exercise too.
More cousins are coming this next Sunday and stay until Monday. I'll be making more ice cream and brownies. LOL