Ordinary Time

The best laid plans and all that. In the middle of December, when I was busy doing Christmas preparations and not making a single thing, I comforted myself by thinking about the great swaths of free time I would have right after Christmas. And then I got sick. This has been a tough illness to kick. My energy levels are very slow to return. Yesterday I fell asleep for three hours. I don't typically do that. Today has been a little better, but I still wouldn't call myself one hundred percent. I also have done very little making of any sort.  Today I was able to finish the embroidered towel that I've been vaguely working on for years.  I'm actually pretty pleased with it. And exceedingly happy to move it to the completed column. Here's a close-up. The other thing I've done is get a new project on the loom.  My original plan was to get the blanket I'm weaving for B. and HC on the loom. This is not that. This is a last-minute test of the yarn I'm going to usi...

I'm happy to report that Emmy is doing well. The impaction has cleared and we've begun the refeeding process. At first she was thrilled to be able to eat anything... including soaked grain which she normally doesn't care for. By this evening, she was kind of over the soaked grain bit. I'll talk to the vet in the morning and she'll fill me in on the next steps. Hopefully by the time the ground freezes again later this week and the horses can go back out, Emmy will be able to join them. 

One of the sessions of the horse classes I teach involves a game called, "Do you call the vet?" It covers some of the basic things that can go wrong with a horse, what the signs are, and what you do about it. The title of the game is kind of a joke because as any horse owner will tell you, the chances are extremely good that yes indeed, you should call the vet.  While I was sick earlier this week, J. took over all horse related duties. He told me Emmy was acting a bit odd, lying down and such, but then would get up and seem typical. He and P. were keeping an eye on her. When I finally felt well enough to go out to the barn yesterday morning, she still didn't seem quite right and looked a little uncomfortable. Since this had been going on for several days, I made the call to the vet.  I'm glad I did. She has a pretty significant case of impaction colic. Essentially it's the equine version of being extremely constipated. Yesterday she received a dose of mineral oil ...

We've had various degrees of sickness here the past week, myself included, but we had a lovely Christmas in spite of that. W. and MC truly outdid themselves in terms of Christmas gifts to everyone this year. Each family member received a personalized gnome. The level of detail is astounding. These are all handmade by the two of them. Mine, obviously, is the weaving gnome. But I'll just let you guess the others if you can.  The whole group: And the individual gnomes: Shakespeare gnome Weaving gnome Beekeeper gnome Inside the beehive  And the lower box of the hive Mushroom gnome Collecting basket with miniature mushrooms  Jiu-Jitsu gnome With snacks Movie going gnome Neon and light gnome Who lights up Flower gnome Activist gnome Complete with a miniaturized version of the receiver's divestment plan document  Butterfly gnome Princess gnome LEGO building gnome Also with personal snacks Pokemon trainer gnome With Pikachu  Shepherd gnome With a sheep Geologist gnome...

It's been a busy ten days.  I've done all the Christmas shopping (for 17 people). The gifts are all wrapped. I've paid the bills. D. made it home and we've been enjoying having him home. We attended our church's Christmas cantata last night. P. will be moving back home for a bit tomorrow. (She's changing jobs and will be taking some college classes begining in January.) We're working our way through the Christmas movies we all watch together. We celebrated the last Sunday of Advent. The food is planned. The only things left are to buy groceries in the morning and figure out the kitchen schedule so all my cooks and bakers can prepare the things they've volunteered to make. I would also very much like to be able to sit down for a bit and enjoy not ticking things off a to-do list.  I'm not sure how much blogging will happen in the next few days, so if I don't check in before... From our family to yours, Happy Holidays and a very merry Christmas!

We had a decent snowfall last night and the pastures were well covered. I've been waiting for this for months because snow covered pastures mean it's safe to let ponies out of the dry lot. So that is what we did.  I got the big horse's hay nets all set and let them out first. Then I put the ponies' hay in the dry lot as usual, but left the dry lot gate open to the pasture. Buddy has never met an open gate that he didn't immediately want to go through. When Vienna got into the dry lot, she immediately stopped to eat hay and didn't really pay attention to the open gate. Buddy came back to get her, which I think speaks volumes about how their relationship has developed. I cannot tell you how happy it made me to watch them trot around. After I. stopped filming, they both broke into gallops and galloped the length of both pastures. I couldn't help thinking about how close we came to losing Vienna about a year ago and how long it took to heal her hooves. To see he...

A friend of mine sent me a message with a podcast recommendation. Since I tend to listen to podcasts the most while I'm doing barn chores, I can plow through them at a pretty rapid clip and am always happy for suggestions.  The recommended podcast in question? The Good Whale about Keiko, the orca who starred in the movie, Free Willy. This has everything I love about a good podcast (and good non-fiction in general)... It is very well written, has high production values, and tells a story that has implications far beyond the subject at hand. I highly recommend it.  I have now listened to the five episodes that have been released and am eagerly waiting for the sixth and final installment. I need to know how it turns out, this project of rewilding Keiko. I vaguely remember hearing about the whale on the news in the 90's, but that also coincided with having only little children, so I admit to not following the story very carefully.  While the story centers on the orca, I find ...

That title makes it sound as though the day was eventful, doesn't it. I suggest you take your expectations down a notch or two. It was actually a pretty calm day. These are in no particular order, by the way. 1. I tried to do something with the masses, other than leave them home to go and do frantic Christmas shopping, that is. So we all liked in the van to go see the current art exhibit up at Fine Line. I guess I should pay closer attention to dates because all we saw were people finishing up taking down the exhibit.  2. I did a load of laundry and my laundry is currently caught up.  3. I woke up a couple of hours before my alarm this morning because I had dreamed that the forest preserve behind our house was on fire and our barn caught fire as well. In my dream we had just barely time to get the horses out, which is when I woke up. I briefly tried to go back to sleep, but ended up needing to go downstairs and look out of the back door to be sure the barn wasn't blazing. None...

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the huge fabric haul I made at my favorite thrift store. We'll it's now all washed and ironed and put away ready to use. It was a lot of ironing. This is because nearly all of it was 60 inches wide and no less than a yard and a half in length, though much was far longer than that. Here it is right before I put it all away. ("Put it away" sounds so much nicer than crammed it in the small space available, doesn't it?) You can see how thick some of it is. It's a lot of fabric. And I realized when I was going through receipts last week that I only paid $7.50 for all of it. It was definitely worth all the ironing.  I'm also realizing why I never finish Christmas projects aside from the fact I only like to work on them in December. It's because December is just so busy. I'm not sure what exactly I've been doing since Thanksgiving, but by the time evenings roll around, I have no energy to think about anything. Usually...

I listen to a lot of Christmas music in December. It's pretty constant in fact. Often it's just the accompaniment to whatever I'm doing and I don't pay much attention. But I was doing a lot of ironing last week which is hardly intellectually taxing, so I was paying a bit more attention to lyrics. Not a huge amount, because I can't tell you the songs, but enough for something to catch my attention.  There were at least a couple of different songs where it was mentioned about how meek and mild Mary was. Enough that it started to irritate me because it's not actually something that seems to fit with what I see in the Gospels. In fact what little we do read about Mary, it seems as if she was anything but meek and mild. I did a quick check to make sure I wasn't missing something, in fact. And yes, quick is the right word, because there isn't a lot about her at all. There's really nothing about Mary in either Matthew (definitely a Joseph-centric telling of...

First a word from our sponsor... me. I have some bags leftover from the sale. If you're interested, send me a message. At this moment, I have one chicken, three horses, and one rice bag. Thank you. We'll now return to our regularly scheduled programming. It won't surprise you to hear that I was horse crazy as a child. My room was filled books about horses and posters of horses  and every newspaper articles about horses were taped to my walls. But by far, my most precious horse related items were my model Breyer horses. I had a lot and played with them pretty constantly. I would even take them outside, put them in the grass, lie on my belly and take pictures of them because I thought the resulting photos made them look like real, live horses. I have a whole photo album of these pictures... somewhere. I was going to show a few of these photos with you, but the album is not where I thought it was. It is probably in the box in the crawl space with the apology to my children on ...

 Whiskers on ponies And blankets that fit them. Pumps pouring water And warm woolen mittens. Enough hay in the barn that I'll perpetually fling, These are a few of my favorite things. Boots that keep toes warm And happy sheep faces. Farm sounds that greet me from various place. No flies, just sparrows who fly on their wings, These are a few of my favorite things. When the pumps freeze, when there's wind chill, when I'm feeling cold.  I simply remember my favorite things... Put on my layers and layers of clothing and go outside anyway to take care of everybody. 

We have some extremely cold weather blowing in tonight. That's not overly exciting, but it's only supposed to last a day. The horses all have their coats on, I have blocked the openings under the barn doors with bags of shavings to keep the wind out, and they all have plenty of hay and water.  The big horses all have coats that fit them well; if only I could say the same thing about the ponies. Buddy's coat finally arrived. It was a saga, I now have an extra coat that fits no one, and it came the day the weather warmed up and I pulled everyone's coats off. I am glad he has it now for this round, though.  The trouble is, he is longer than his leg length would indicate. To get a coat long enough to fit means that it hangs a little long because he doesn't have the needed length in his legs. (I feel your pain, Buddy. It's the story of my life.) He is also a very narrow pony, so The extra coat is not taken up by his girth. Instead, he just ends up looking like he...