Ordinary Time

  Heard in the car this morning on our way to church: L.: "I think it is very unfair to blob fish when they say they're the called ugliest fish in the world. Because they look like normal fish under the right pressure. It's just when we bring them up here that they look bad because they're not in the right environment. It is an unfair representation of them."  I'll add that no one in the car at this point was discussing blob fish... or the ocean... or even water. Randomness stated with a very large vocabulary is a significant part of my life. 

We sat down to dinner at 8:30 which was late even by our standards. Usually we get dinner on the table anywhere between 7:00 and 8:00. The reason dinner was so late is that I perpetually underestimate exactly how long it takes to make stuffed spinach pizza . The whole 'change the pony's hoof poultice' routine played a part in it as well, because I underestimate how long that takes as well. But people are willing to wait patiently for stuffed spinach pizza.  For the non-Chicagoans among my readers, thus is a type of pizza particular to Chicago. It's not deep dish because it has two crusts with the filling between (hence the name stuffed) and the tomato topping goes on top of the top crust. It is difficult to find out here on the edge of the onset map, so I'm glad I know how to make it. 

And here it is the end of April, which seems to have zipped by. Being at the horse fair all day last Saturday meant that I felt as though I was playing catch-up all week. I'm looking forward to having a whole weekend.  I unearthed our electric ice cream maker and L. is entranced. She made some very good cookies and cream ice cream earlier this week. Yesterday was our last day of co-op. I will very much enjoy having Thursdays back.  I can feel my enthusiasm for school wanting drastically. I think we just need to take a few days to work through the schedule and be done. I do this every year. L. has suggested setting up a betting pool to see who comes closest to the actual date when I officially declare summer vacation.  The horses had their farrier appointment earlier this week. She's pleased with how Vienna is doing. Not that Vienna is completely healed yet, just that her hooves are where the farrier expects them to be. It's a long, slow process and the farrier said we are p

I love having friends who want to pack up a bunch of children and head out to the zoo. The weather started out cloudy, but the sun eventually came out. It was a lovely day and everyone had a great time. Our children all get along well together and we moms are good friends. I can't tell you how nice it is to have found these people.  First you have to sit through several peacock pictures. I have never been so close to a peacock with his tail displayed. He was even doing his dance.  I found the back of him to be as interesting as the front.  The peacocks were all calling today and they are loud. I had briefly looked up raising peacocks a while back because they're cool and children were interested. I'm afraid they have fallen into the donkey category of not an animal for us, and hearing them call confirmed it. My neighbors can rest in peace that Zorro will continue to be the loudest animal on the farm.  Some other pictures. One of my friends somehow managed to get even my cam

When J. and I were still doing youth ministry, we made a point to see the shows that the youth in our program were in. One of these was the local high school's annual student written, led, and directed production. One of the songs in the show was about Chuck the Tractor.  "Oh the life of Chuck the Tractor was a long, hard one. He plowed the fields of farmers in the hot, hot sun. But when the day was through, he would sit inside his tractor shack and think of all the things he'd do if he were not a tractor. ... " I wish I could share the tune because it is very catchy. So catchy that over thirty years later, J. and I can still sing it. This is why, when a friend offered us her tractor that she no longer needed, it had to be named Chuck. Chuck arrived this past Saturday while I was at the horse fair. L. has already learned to drive it. J. is very excited to have it and it has already proven itself useful. J. would like to get some attachments for it which will make it e

I don't have anything progress to show on anything. It's been that kind of a week. Actually, I wasn't even sure I would do a Fiber Monday post there was so little to say. And then I went to the horse fair over the weekend. I'm wandering around the exhibition center where all the vendors are and happen to see someone selling jewelry made with horse hair. Since I still had Bristol's tail hair sitting in the studio, I decided to take a look. (For non-horsey people, when someone has a beloved horse die, often they will cut off the tail hair to have made into some sort of jewelry to remember them.) I really liked what she had made and we started chatting. Well, one thing left to another and I mentioned I was a hand spinner which started us down the fiber arts rabbit hole. She then says she's been weaving with horse hair.  G. was with me, and might have heavily sighed at this point and muttered something about being there for a while because I was very excited and sta

I left two of the clinics we had gone to yesterday at the horse fair. Sometimes a clinician's personality just doesn't match your own and sometimes there are just so many egregiously wrong things that you can't stay because to do so would indicate support. I want to briefly discuss the latter. The minute the word 'respect' came out of his mouth, I knew we were in trouble. Not only do I problems with requiring respect from children, but I have even more difficulty with using that frame of reference with a horse. It just doesn't make sense and if you read current ethology research it is not how herds function. It's outdated and damaging.  [An aside to head off comments. Yes, I expect my horses to be safe to be around. They don't push in for food, they don't push ahead through a gate, they don't push me aside. Those aren't safe behaviors for horse-human interactions. I work very hard to be sure my horses understand how to safely be around people

G. and I were up and out of the house to head up to the Midwest Horse Fair this morning. We had a great time and only saw a handful of snow flakes. This is an improvement over actual snow one year and drenching rain another. I feel as though I do not bring good weather to the event as it has never been even vaguely warm when I have been there. But we assumed the weather would be unpleasant, so were prepared.  We saw many beautiful horses, did some shopping, learned some new things, and watched some clinicians who were a decidedly very mixed bag. One of the highlights was watching a team of six Belgian horses being harnessed and driven. One of the team was over 19 hands. For the non-horsey among you, this means that at the base of his neck he stood over six feet tall. G. took a few videos of them, so enjoy this one and I'll give more details another day. 

L. woke up with significant pain in her lower right abdomen. Now, I don't know about you, but this is one of those things which causes parent alarm bells to go off. I'm pretty low key about most medical things these days, often taking the wait and see approach. Pain in the lower right abdomen that caused a child to squeak a bit when I push on it? Not good. Since W. had an emergency appendectomy a while back, it makes me even more jumpy. It makes me so jumpy that I actually called our doctor's office to see if they would rather us come there first. I try not to ever call the office because the process is so horrendous, instead taking care of everything I need to do when I'm physically in the office. This particular phone call was actually quick and painless with the nurse returning my call within a half an hour. We went through all the triage questions and she confirmed my initial gut instinct that this required a trip to the ER.  I have actually lost count of the number

Vienna continues to improve. What relieves me the most is that she is standing much more normally instead of having her back legs tucked underneath her. She is not, however, entirely convinced that she is pleased with Buddy's appearance in her life. Buddy is cute, but he also has no problem taking what he wants. This is what Vienna objects to. She spends a lot of time standing far away from him and staring. It's still early days in their relationship. It's actually not unlike how Major was in his relationship with Java at first. He was not a fan of Java's pushy ways. Somewhere along the line, he decided to stand up for himself, and they've been good friends ever since. I expect the same thing will happen with Vienna and Buddy. These things just take time.  Some pony videos for you. They aren't exciting videos because they're just eating, bud I think watching horses eat is soothing. 

Negativity bias is the description of our brain's tendency to focus and remember the negative or scary things that happen to us. It really did serve a purpose because it's how humans stayed safe from saber toothed tigers and the like. It's important to remember the times you saw a predator or the near misses to ensure they didn't happen again. This was great until it wasn't. There are very few predators in our modern life, yet the way our brains are hooked up didn't change along with civilization.  This is not unlike modern domestic horses living in fenced pastures and barns far from grizzlies and mountain lions. They are still going to assume the plastic bag floating on the wind is a predator and run away before doing anything else. It doesn't matter how many times you tell them there are no mountain lions in the forest preserve because it's how their brains are wired.  Our negativity bias doesn't have us running away from the random blowing bag. In

Taking a break from cleaning out yet more flower beds, I decided to sit in the shade next to the hot tub pond. If you sit very still while the chickens are out, they will wander over to you. Some may even pose. The roosters even joined the fun.  Fluffy, who is now six years old. See his spur? They are wicked looking things. And Zorro who is about nine months old and just starting to grow a longer tail, but the spurs are yet to grow. And spring is officially here because the very large frog that lives in the pond has reappeared.  This picture makes him look bizarrely huge. He's probably four or five inches long in reality.  We have done our very best to enjoy this beautiful weather. We have one day left to go before the weather turns again. 

Today was one of those beautiful though somewhat rare days that are both the perfect temperature (high sixties, in my open) and sunny and fall on a weekend with nothing on the calendar. We did quite a bit of cleaning up outside, but some time was also spent working on the tree house.  Floor boards are getting installed, so I sent L. up with my camera to the some pictures.  The ones of J. and L. working on it I could manage myself. Here is a better picture of how high up it is. I sat for a while and watched. It was a perfect day just to sit outside and enjoy spring. I had a pretty nice view. It almost felt as though I could almost see the trees leading out. I'll admit I still pinch myself that this is where we live. I get the same feeling when we're working outside that I had when I was little and would build the outline of cinder block houses in my backyard pretending that was my house. It feels like play. That's not a bad place to be. I did do some gardening. I got the lon

I spent the evening at our church's inaugural disability inclusion game night for older teens and adults. I think it went very well. H. had a great time.  But since I have nothing left, I'll leave you with a fritillary picture. This afternoon I discovered the fritillary in our side garden was blooming, but I hadn't noticed because it was hidden in the dried ornamental grass I had yet to clean out. I freed the fritillary and discovered this year it has six blooms! I was so excited because I love it. 

I made the realization today that it was seven years ago today that we signed the contract on this house. (You can read about that day on God's Provision .) It made me sit back a bit and appreciate how much has changed in the past seven years. It is also a little painful to read all my emotional roilings from that time. We were in the throws of possibly the biggest change in our married life and I was a mess. I knew I was a mess, but couldn't be anything else. There were too many unknowns and too much imminent loss which could not be counterbalanced by the vague hopes and dreams I had for what was to come.  Yet here we are, settled in a good place with friends and connections of many varieties in the community. There are even horses, five of them!, in the barn. In those first years I didn't think we would ever really feel comfortable here, then just as we thought we were finding our feet, Covid hit and we very much went nearly back to square one. It feels good to be on this

Today was a gorgeous day and the first day where it felt comfortable enough to have teatime outside. Here was our view. Everything is starting to bud out and there is a light green haze beginning to cover all the trees and plants. I do love this part of spring.  But onto Lonesome Dove. After three months, we are now a little bit over halfway through. Yesterday we read chapters 57 and 58. They were brutal. In my looking to see if this was an appropriate book for high schoolers I never saw these chapters mentioned. Had I known they were coming up, I would have skipped them and given a synopsis. Of course that would have meant I had to read them beforehand, and really I would have preferred a synopsis as well. You would think someone would have mentioned them. We were caught completely by surprise. And not in a good way. Plus, I have never been so angry at an author for killing off characters that I liked. It was just traumatic all the way around. Today when we sat down to read, I said th

The eclipse took over yesterday, so here we are discussing fiber on a Tuesday. And believe it or not, I have a couple of small things to share.  The first is that my long awaited heddle bars for my loom arrived.  They are very long, thin pieces of metal that hold the heddles (what the yarn is threaded through) on the shafts. Each shaft needs two, a top and a bottom. I have six shafts that needed them, so there are twelve heddle bars in that box.  It's going to be a process to get them on. The six shafts need to be removed from the loom (they're heavy), then the bars need to be installed. Once they are on, I have hundreds of heddles (~200 for each shaft) that need to be threaded on. Finally, the shafts need to be rehung. It doesn't sound like a quiche weekend project, so I'm anticipating the loom being out of commission for a couple of weeks. But once it's back together, I'll have twelve shafts to play with which I am very excited about. My painted warp scarf has

Because, really, what else could today's post be about? We did do other things, such as learn about Renaissance music, did some math, had a business call, paid bills, and did the grocery shopping, but aside from that it was the eclipse. L. also spent part of the morning researching eclipse conspiracy theories for fun.  But after lunch we all headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and use our eclipse glasses. R. looked through her glasses, but I think she was pretty be baffled by the whole thing. Y. and K. H. understood something of what was happening. Our explanations about why the moon waxes and wanes were too good, though, because I couldn't convince her that she was seeing the actual moon and not a shadow. L. L.  For a treat to go along with the eclipse viewing, I bought ice cream cones. We also had Magpie and Mambo here because W. and MC drove down to the area of totality.  We were at 94% coverage, but even that wasn't quite enough to make it look that much diffe