OCTOBER 2022

It feels like a wet fall here.  We are soggy, muddy, cool.   But we didn't blow away and all are fine!

Everything is fine here also.............still hot in the afternoon but cool at night.

Watching horse racing on NBC.......

Everything is fine here too. It's been a really pretty day, though a bit windy. There have been quite a few boats and pontoons out and about. Quite a few going up and down the road as people start pulling them out for the winter.
The jet ski is all clean and shiny black. I just have to clean the mildew off the seat and it will be ready to winterize and shrink wrap.

A younger cousin is expecting a baby in early November, so I just finished knitting an outfit for "him". Another younger cousin is also expecting but we don't know yet whether it's a boy or girl. I might have to wait until it is born to do the knitting. That's okay; baby things don't take long.

Here's another scam warning for you.
If you get a text message saying that there is a problem with a package being delivered because there is an issue with your address, DO NOT respond.  It will take you to a site that looks like the USPS website.  It is not.  They want you to pay $3 by card to redeliver the package.  (I should have known.)  
After I did what was required, I began to get suspicious.  I looked it up and sure enough, it's a scam.  So now, I'll be making a trip to the bank tomorrow to get a new card.
By way of explanation, I had ordered a stool from Amazon.  It was supposed to be delivered last Monday.  There was some kind of problem and it got dropped off at the wrong address and I never got it.  Amazon was replacing the stool and it is supposed to be delivered today.  It hasn't arrived yet.  That's why I fell for the scam.  I'm beginning to wonder if the Amazon company I ordered from is legitimate.  I will definitely sic Amazon on them if that stool doesn't get here.

A little later: It got here.

ELLEN:
Sorry about that scam. I hate that. Too bad people can't put their energy into doing something good, not stealing from others. I think I had the beginning of one of those calls the other day, but the recording stopped in the middle. It mentioned USPS.


We got our barn back in order. Everything put up to help with the hurricane is now stored again. We were very lucky, just a lot of rain with no wind. We didn't get any flooding into the barn. The last of the hurricane moved off yesterday afternoon after a drizzley day. Today is sunny and 61 degrees. Nice.


We have a pair of fawns living in our pasture and barnlot. They are fairly comfortable around the horses and will graze with them. We don't let Shadow, the dog, chase deer, so no one bothers them. Their mother was killed by a car when they were very young and it is surprising they survived. They lived on our neighbors' fenced in property until about a month ago and now live here in our fenced in area. They are so cute and pretty. One watches in one direction while the other watches in the other direction. They have raised themselves. We think they are about 4 months old now. If they stay in a fenced in area, they might survive. Cars and coyotes are their biggest worries. Yesterday I walked up from the barn and used the horses as a visual block. I got within about 20 feet of them before they saw me. So pretty!

Be careful, Ark.  You'll probably end up feeding them for the winter.  


Scam addendum: I called the bank this morning and the card was shut down with no fraudulant charges. This afternoon, I drove to the bank to get a new card. Easy. I love my bank. They make everything right as easy as possible.
It was a very nice drive. It's a beautiful clear sunny day and the leaves are starting to change color. Not at all an unpleasant trip.

The shrink wrapping is done and everything is secured for the winter. There are boats and pontoons moving all over the place to their winter hideouts. From the air, there would be acres of blue plastic all over the place. Anybody that has an empty field can fill it with pontoons for the winter. At $35 per month, it would be a handy little income.

Hi all. I'll bet the boats lined up in the field all wrapped in blue look a lot better than the boats all
storm wrecked in FL. Holy cow whatnot a mess...Prayers continue for all in the US that have been
taken by storms and fires.

It's cooler here about 90 in the hot part of the day. At night we have feral cats in the hood and last
night they dragged a p hen in and had a feast. YUK. We haven't had that in a couple of years.
It makes me sick literally.

I wish our friends would show up again.

GRAYMARE:
When you wrote p hen, did you mean peahen? As in a female peacock? That would be quite a bird for a cat to kill. I guess the cats have to eat something.

ELLEN:
Might be worth buying a little lot somewhere to house wrapped boats....


It is cooler here this week, in the 60s during the day. I rode Ivan a couple of evenings ago and when I climbed a round pen panel to get on him, I slipped on a rail. I have a bruised rib or two.... or something. Feels like someone hit me with a baseball bat. Ivan stood there while I flopped onto his back at the front of the saddle, practically on his neck, and then wrenched myself back into the seat. Such a good horse. It would have been a good time to be spooky. Anyway, I won't be riding for a few days until my ribs are under control again. It's always something....

Donnie is working hard on the neverending job of installing the heatpump! I do believe he is going to get it done soon! Then we won't be so dependent upon the woodstove. He's been working on metal stuff all week, cutting it and getting ready to install one of the heatpump units in the ceiling over one of the bathrooms.

Well my contact for the squarebales I wanted to buy has equipment problems and won't be making squarebales after all. Now I have to find a different hay guy. And I thought I had hay figured out for the year.

Hello All,

Sorry to hear about your bruised ribs ARK. Glad to hear that IVAN was a champ and just stood there. Sounds like Donnie is getting the heat pump project done just in time. You'll have a snug house for the winter.

My latest challenge with the horses is finding the briar bush they are getting into daily. Every day I have to pick briars out of someone's mane, tail or forelock. Thank goodness for Cowboy Magic detangler gel. There is another detangler that is a spray on that works ok, but Cowboy Magic is the best. I can't tell you how many times I have walked the pasture and the woods and I still haven't found the plant but it's obviously out there somewhere.

One of these days I might get the time to ride one of the horses, but right now I have to be content feeding and grooming only.

Indy, are they reaching through or over the fence someplace to get into the burrs? Those detanglers are great.

It's getting colder, for sure. The trees are changing more, and more and more leaves are on the ground. There aren't enough to rake and burn here at my place yet. I'll just mow over them - frequently.

Hello everyone. Just checking to let you know we are still alive & kicking here in PA. Sept flew by in a rush and here it is October already where is the time going? Life hasn't changed, things are still as crazy as they have always been. I managed to catch the FLU not Covid but the good old FLU. It kicked my butt..for 2 weeks. Finally feeling like my old self. I turned 74 on Friday. I am getting old and bouncing back is harder than it used to be. BUT I'm back on my feet and I walked 1/2 mile yesterday. Can't keep us horse girls down for too long, we fight our way back.

Happy October everyone. Keep up the good fight.
Love & prayers..

Hi Trudy. I'm really glad to see you post. I was getting worried about you.

TRUDY!
How nice to see your post! Sorry about your flu bug, not fun. I am glad you are recovering. AND!

Happy 74th Birthday, Trudy! Did you have cake?

ELLEN:
It was 32 degrees here this morning.....sigh...I guess winter is coming. The leaves are prettier this year than they have been in awhile. Winter is not my favorite time of year.

GRAYMARE:
What are you up to with your pup? Doing any training? She sounds like such a sweet dog. Does she like your horses?

INDYAPP:
I despise those sneaky cocklebur plants and any other kind of sticky seed head! When I had angora and cashmere goats, they were the bane of my goaty existance. Now the worst one to get them is Trinket, who lives right down at their level and has a long mane and tail to sweep them up. The other fall nuisance plant here, besides most weeds, are pokeberry bushes. The berries are ripe and there are tons of those bushes along the fencelines. The horses get under the bushes to eat the grass and wipe purple streaks all over themselves. And then there are the birds who eat those delicious purple pokeberries and poop on top of our vehicles....

Ivan was very good the other day when he stood while I flopped like a fish almost onto his neck when I slipped on the roundpen panel I had climbed to get on him. There are days when he is great. Yesterday I decided to see if my still sore ribs would allow me to ride. So I used a mounting block and rode around for several minutes on Ivan. He was good when in one moment a very loud motorcycle went by on the road while overhead an extremely loud small plane did maneuvers over top of us, and a bunch of walnuts decided to dive out of the tree next to the arena and all plop down at once near us. He didn't flinch. I was amazed. Then two minutes later a little bird jumped out of a bush about 20 feet away and Ivan had a mini heart attack. I kept my seat, he got over it, and we continued our ride. My ribs did fine during the ride, but hurt getting on and off of Ivan. So on average, Ivan did great!

TRUDY & INDY,  it's so good you're back.  Belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to TRUDY...................I was so afraid you were
angry with us and INDY was too busy for us.  I was sorry to read of your cold/flu TRUDY, that must have been
really rough.  I'm hoping you're back on track without overdoing. Same for INDY as you have an entire herd of
horses to care for plus working full time.   (((((((((((((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))))to you both.

ARK, Nellie is doing great.  Her house manners revery good now and what she does outside is just
playful and crazy.  She is simply a delight.  She does not bother the horses as she is afraid of them.  So far
she just plays over our little place.  She is good. about staying near me as she must sense I can't chase her.


God bless.  Everyone have a good evening.

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone.  

ARK:  YES, I had cake.  Son number one (Stacy) brought me a cake and a plant, son number two (Kevin) brought me another cake and KFC, daughter Amy came down and said "thank God I didn't get you a cake too.  LOL  Neighbors brought me a box of cookies from my favorite local bakery.  I've been on a sugar high ever since.  LOL Thank God Ivan was such a good boy and you didn't get seriously hurt when you slipped and fell on him.

GRAYMARE:  I wasn't mad at you guys.  I don't get angry about much nowadays, time is too short to waste being mad about anything, especially things I have NO control over.  Sept was just a whirlwind of a month and then I managed to get sick.  Have fun with your doggie. I miss Ace.

That flu was bad....I had such a sore throat I couldn't eat or drink much of anything for a week.  Called the doctor and he said "just take some over the counter meds and tough it out, unless you have a serious underlying health issues there is nothing we can do for you, it's a virus and there are no meds for a virus."  Alrighty then...break out the Theraflu...and the magic mouthwash from my dentist.  It numbs everything.

I'm back to my old self, went to church yesterday.  Started back on my walking program too.  Stay healthy have fun everyone..

Glad to hear you are feeling better MANYGATES. I totally understand how the days take over a person's life.

I think I mastered the cockle burr plants!! I also made a good dent in the Jimson weed and Pokeberry crops. The only nice thing about the Pokeberry is that the purple does wash off the horses, cars and clothes without leaving huge stains. It took me 2 days to dig everything up in the horse's pen but by gosh I got it done. It got away from me because the mower was at the tractor doctor all summer. Next year should be much better. I still have pokeberry along the fence line but I'll work on that a little at a time. The plants themselves are pretty easy to cut down, it's digging the roots out that is so hard. Those root masses get HUGE.

The weather has been perfect fall lately. The leaves are changing but not yet falling. It has been sunny and cool. If there was someplace the weather was like this all year I'd move there.

Halloween will be here soon and my great-niece and nephew got their costumes yesterday. When I went to their house they had to tell me all about their costumes. After telling me about them, my niece went and asked her dad if she could put on her costume and show it to me. I overheard her asking "Dad... Aunt Deb wants to know if I can put on my costume and show it to her..??? " LOL. I loved how I wanted her to put it on to show it to me. Of course little brother wanted to put his Batman costume on to show it to me too.

Good Morning Foops,

It's a cool morning and I'm up and drinking my tea and checking my mail. After a long weekend of activity I am pretty weary.. John and Priscilla were home with three dogs for Thanksgiving. They put in all my wood and stacked it in the basement, fixed my clothesline that got knocked down with their motor home, John forgot that it was there. He also cleaned my stove pipe on the wood stove. I'm set for cold weather now.

Survived the hurricane! It hit the other end of the province and with a vengeance. Cape Breton and a couple of the counties before that were hit hard. Allison lives in Antigonish and was without power for eight days, people still without in some parts of CB. We had wind and very little rain, actually I went to bed Friday night and got up Sat. a.m. and the deck was completely dry. My power was out for a coupe of hours when a tree fell on the lines but that was it! Consider myself lucky, the destruction was terrible where Fiona landed. Didn't get any of Ian.

I'm still battling symptoms from covid, head full and exhausted most of the time. It will get better soon I hope.

Haven't had time to read the previous posts but will now that all the activity is over.

I have Eastern Star tonight and the District Deputy is coming and all chapter work has to be performed and since I'm Conductress, I'M IT! Lots and lots of walking for me tonight and my back is so bad I'll be glad when it's over. I have a massage tomorrow a.m. so that was good timing. I'll go to Digby later in the day to visit my friend who finally got into a Rehab facility to get her mobility back after having her stoke the middle of June!!!! Our local hospital has a physio department but they are so low on staff that she was only getting physio once or twice a week, can't get your strength back that way.

Hope that this finds you all well and able to enjoy all your activities. Ill be back soon.

Hugs

Donna

It's wonderful as everyone is checking in.

I bet the kids looked proud and darling in their costumes INDY.

DONNA, it's great to see you here. I'm glad you're safe. I haven't turned on my CB radio station for awhile.
I love that station. I'll bet you'll be whooped tonight after running the meeting of Eastern Star. Rest well
and sleep in tomorrow morning.

The neighbors are all relieved the heat is over.......

Everyone have a good evening.

It's good to see everyone checking in again.

Today was the follow up CT scan to see if the Watchman is in the proper place and if it's "healed and sealed". I won't know the results until a week from tomorrow. I'm certainly hoping that all is well so I can stop taking Eliquis.

After that, I met a friend in Ft. Wayne for lunch. We met at 2:00, just to have lunch. LOL It was 6:45 before we finally left the restaurant. We never seem to run out of anything to talk about.

It's great to see everyone!

DONNA:
I am glad the hurricane didn't damage your place. It was sure a nasty one. We had a couple of days of rain off of Ian, but no damage here. Have fun at your meeting!!

INDYAPP:
Next year we are definitely going to be more proactive about sticky plants. We've also got an infestation of a plant in our upper field. It looks like johnson grass in its dried form and the horses don't eat it. It's going to go away next spring. It's another plant brought in from another country that spreads like crazy.

GRAYMARE:
Nellie sounds so sweet. I am glad she is working out so well! Our collie, Shadow, has his own set of rules he follows. He doesn't bother our cats or chickens, only barks at the horses when they roll (and then runs when they come after him for bothering them), and came already house trained. He doesn't bark at people, just trucks with trailers and occasional loud cars. He rarely ever barks in the house at all. We didn't teach him any of that, he is just that way. When we had a Sheltie, Kelsie, we got her at 6 weeks old and she had her own set of rules, too, from day one at our house. Amazing dogs.

ELLEN:
I hope your Watchman is nicely healed up! It will be nice to get off those blood thinners. I haven't had a great friend gabfest at a restaurant since the pandemic started. I hope that changes for us soon. My friend hasn't been well, so she can't get out as much.

TRUDY:
I don't know if it works or not, but we got our flu and Covid booster last week, so we have done about all we can to prevent them. Other than a sore arm, we didn't have any problems. The only good thing I can see coming out of the pandemic was no flu bugs since everyone was wearing masks. I guess the bug is back since masks are pretty much gone now. Sorry you got it! It does knock the socks off of one.


We are going to get a load of square bales tomorrow, hauling it ourselves. Our hay deal fell through because his baler isn't working and he can't get the parts. So I am back to scrounging for hay again. We have 40 bales to get tomorrow. I want at least 100 more. And we are getting a load of shavings in our red truck, then unloading the hay from the trailer hauled by the blue truck, then getting another load of firewood Thursday or Friday, depending on rain. Busy week!

It's raining. (Wednesday evening).  At least it waited all day so we got our 44 bales of hay into the hayloft!  

Donnie lifted the hay 10 feet up to the hayloft door with his tractor bucket, then I pulled it into the hayloft, put it onto my handy-dandy auto worker's sled and rolled it down the length of the hayloft (40 feet), and stacked it.    I just discovered this device last year and think it is the greatest thing I ever bought for dealing with hay!  I don't have to carry the haybales, they just roll along on the sled.  Why I didn't think of this years ago is beyond me.    

   

Ark, that looks like a great idea. Much easier.
It reminds me of the overhead hay trolleys that were built into barns in ages past. Barnwood Builders sometimes find those in the old barns they take down.

There is almost always something to entertain me here at the lake. My next door neighbors' son and daughter-in-law came across the lake on their pontoon to take the canvas canopy off neighbors' lift. Neighbors' pontoon had already been taken out for the winter. Son simply pulled their own pontoon into the lift to give them easy access to the canopy, without cranking it up, thinking it would float there while they worked. They started removing the canopy, were almost done and the wind caught it and blew it into the water. They got it and were carrying it up to the house. Meanwhile, their pontoon decided to go walk-about on it's own. It floated out of the lift and was headed down the shoreline on the wind. Fortunately, the wind was in the right direction to bring it back to shore in a short distance and they were able to retrieve it.
I'm certainly no genius, but I could see what was going to happen with the canopy and the pontoon when they started. LOL Sometimes, it's so satisfying to be right.