"March"ing along

We missed updating you in February, dear readers and friends. It was a muddy, frozen month and quite frankly the camera rested in its bag for much of it. But now. Bang! Snap! It is March and time to plant the peas.

We brought home two new horses in February and Dolly for one was mightily displeased. Two Spot was ever the gentleman and attempted to smooth her ruffled nerves but the pony spent weeks alternately pouting and punishing us for our disloyalty. She is pretty sure she could carry a full-grown person, as any self-respecting Shetland would, thank you very much. Who needs a couple of Morgans anyway?

But really, Dolly, there are still three children under 50 pounds around here. There are plenty of mane braiding and river trips to come for you, spunky pony.

To be truthful Dolly and I share this aversion to change. Once I learned how to be present in the moment I realized how difficult it can be to move on to the next. Transition issues, anyone?

Murphy the dog had a little anxiety too, facing so much change, now that I think of it. He lost his best friend Molly over the winter and now he is growing attached (read: devoted?) to Madeleine. In this photo she is heading out to the horses. She thinks.

Murphy doesn't so much mind Sam and Richie's arrival, but they don't quite know what to do with a pony-sized dog yet. Similarly Richie seems to believe Jane the ewe lamb is a very fat poodle with a habit of rushing in to steal his dropped grain.

We all learn and grow. And change.

In less-philosophical farm news: We planted two peach trees and an almond tree. (You can see Grace digging one of the holes in a picture posted here!) This brings our orchard to three mature apple trees, one mature tart cherry and two sweet two-year-old cherries, one young fig tree, one mature pear and two two-year-old pears, the new peach and almond trees, and five grapevines we planted last year. Oh! And a quince, a 40-foot multi-variety raspberry hedge, and three blueberry bushes. This week I hope to renovate my strawberry bed during the break between school and dance each day.

And in school news: Grace's piano lessons are a treasure hidden in each week. I know I may be stage-momming but I have to say I think she plays beautifully, and she loves it. Her shy and quiet goes away when she is practicing and a new giggly glow comes over her. Is there anything to make a mother tearful like her child finding a happiness and joy? Which is a perfect segue into Madeleine and algebra. (Yes, I am thinking I am funny.) Homeschooling (who made that word?) kindergarten through high school is its own brand of mommy crazy but it is still working for our family in part because Madeleine and Sarah are both so self-starting. Madeleine would rather "start" with math, and Sarah with literature. They work incredibly hard each day on their "schoolwork"  before they play in the rain with the ponies and then get cleaned up, Monday through Saturday, for ballet/tap/jazz/modern. It is simply stunning to be as involved as I get to be. The best way I can describe how it feels to "teach" them is that I am allowed to rediscover my own love of learning while they explore new subjects. Meanwhile Grace is still loving second grade if not as much right now as she loves dance and music, Laura is a super-precocious kindergarten ballerina princess scholar, and Salvador has absorbed his alphabet and counts to 17 (skips 18 -- but goes on to 19 and 20 -- what's up with that?) at age two while he gets to know his Legos really well. How lucky am I to be seated at the same table as these children?

Something on which I don't always update you: The in-case-you-follow-small-business news: my husband's engineering, project management, site development and land survey business has evolved significantly to better serve our still-struggling Oregon economy. I am unspeakably proud of how hard and smart he continues to work, traveling the state and region and taking on new lines of work to diversify. A tiny part of me sometimes wishes we could go back to a homesteading lifestyle, selling shares in dairy cows and harvesting trees to build the new addition we need so badly at this old farmhouse. But. His skills and certifications are helping many others in the development and land use planning fields find ways to accomplish their goals as well. The office looks different than it did five years ago but, again, change is good. Right?

And finally the farmhouse renovation news: It certainly is good to have change to report on that front. The upstairs bathroom, completely unusable a year ago, is becoming beautiful! Since moving every last thing to the studs, we have insulated and had the plumbing repaired. The new black-and-white flooring is installed and the toilet and pedestal sink are in. Two custom-made built-in cabinets (squee!) hold linens and hair bows. Last to finish is the tub end of the room, but I hope to have a surprise to share next month. A dear friend visited for the first time in a year and in giving her the tour I was impressed with our progress, which is hard to see in the day-to-day of it all. New kitchen flooring, new kitchen nook with wainscot, new stairwell, new pantry, new paint in nearly every room, newnewnew! Through her eyes I didn't see the flooring still to replace or the bookcases to build, but the beauty in what we are creating. I was surprised by how much change we've wrought one spackle spot at a time.

Oftentimes I am like Richie or Sam, newly arrived at this place, not sure of what I'm seeing but grateful for the fresh growth of spring grass pushing through last fall's leaves. A change can be a surprise. And a surprise is like a present.

Again with the daisies and dandelions

I love those little lawn daisies ... you know, the three-inch-high flurry of white that hovers above your lawn just an hour after you mow? (Or is that just my lawn?)

Also the dandelions. A little later in the season the yellow polka dots will dominate my acre or so of grass that pretends to be a lawn. And as an aside, you know you're a country girl when you give serious consideration to just haying your back yard. For horse feed. Or profit. Because hay prices are related to weather and gasoline prices, we're anticipating paying approximately three thousand dollars a ton this summer. Since we are only feeding three horses it shouldn't bankrupt us much.

And speaking of fiscal parasites... I think I have figured out how the ponies can pull their own weight. It makes perfect sense! Work with me here: Gasoline is expensive and so is horse feed. Cars need maintenance but ponies just need love and the occassional hoof filing. So you see, a pony cart is on my wish list. It'll come in handy in case of global financial collapse or my increasingly likely conversion to Plain living.

But back to my lawn "problems."

I just choose to like the lawn daisies and the dandelions. It's a glass-half-full thing for me. Not to mention that they're pretty. I hope you're okay with that.

I also have a much-beloved whirligig clothesline, just erected this past weekend thankyouverymuchhoney, that would be against CC&Rs in most neighborhoods but which fits right in with my glamper and my attractive weeds.

too busy for capitalization

upon pouring my third cup of coffee (french roast)

i realize

it's been too long

i realize we've been draining the last of summer

just another half cup of energy for the cozy winter to come

the grasses are nearly colorless

we wait for the returning rain

half hoping

it's funny that way, anticipation, foreknowledge

a book by a favorite author

spine not yet cracked

new baby, new pony

old dog gone to chase squirrels in the clouds

lake turned cold and text turned to page twelve

it might be time for fall

Hay. It's hot.

Our haying season in Western Oregon suffered from a very, very wet spring and early summer.

My photography season suffered from a very, very long pregnancy.

But the ground and skies dried and the baby was born and, hey, there's hay on the ground and more importantly in the barns. And it's hot outside.

So of course I'm headed for the ocean today. Isn't that what everyone does when haying season is about done? (Not that I bucked a single bale, steered a tractor for a scant moment, or stacked anything whatsoever. I didn't even have time to take pictures of the sweaty workers. You know me and the postpartum excuses.)

Have a beautiful weekend!

Dolly, everybody's shaggy darling

Seven gets all the glory. Two Spot gets all the delicious fattening treats.

I get a strictly rationed diet, limited time on the grass and the pleasure of carting all the small kids who sometimes kick.

But I also am easiest to reach when it's time for French braids and head scratches.

Two Spot the Steady Eddie

Seven gets all the glory. Seven is fast. Seven goes in the trailer to large bodies of water and larger mountains and those arenas where other horses snort and paw at their temporary walls.

I'll just stay here and watch over the place. If it's all the same to you.

She's back.

Just look at the eyes on that horse.

I think I mentioned my mini crise de nerfs when we sold the incomparably beautiful, sweet and well-bred Seven before Christmas. And I'm pretty sure I updated you last week that she'd been, well, abandoned at the boarding barn when something happened in the would-be buyer's life that kept her from following through with a lot more than farrier care and stall rent.

Now we've Seven back. Like a lucky penny I guess. (Isn't that how it goes?)

Someone asked Madeleine yesterday as she was mucking stalls whether Seven is for sale again.

Like a mom (and, to be honest, like a salesperson) I answered with a price. Meanwhile Madeleine kept her back turned and continued picking the stall clean.

And then I got in big trouble later with my oldest daughter. It's an emotional roller coaster, this adolescent girl and horse thing. Not to mention how I feel about it.

This is after all the horse Madeleine came off of and broke both arms. This is after all the horse on which that same tiny but fearless girl broke the barrel speed record in her age group. When she "wasn't even trying." It's a pretty deep chasm between the two experiences and it's somehow to be crossed with possibly the same difficulty and certainly similar trepidation as raising a soon-to-be teen. Letting go and hanging on. Risking and protecting. Balancing happiness and inevitable pain.

But did you see those eyes?

The book and its cover

On our recent little weekend camping trip we passed this appetizing sign.

For low-resolution screens and/or dial-up readers like me, it reads: Ye Old Green Coffee Shoppe Salmon.

Yum. Yum. YU-UM.

I made my husband turn around not only for the photo but for samples.

And that's when I remembered about judging a... what? cafe... by a ... what? thoroughly moldy name.

The girls and I waited in the car while my husband ("as you wish") wound his way between the apparently hundreds of customers. He returned with THE BEST thick-but-not-bitter coffee and AN EVEN BETTER flaky-but-certainly-not-low-fat croissant. So that'll teach me.

ANYWHAT.

Today, and by that I really mean yesterday since it's now about 2:30 in the morning, was kind of a rough day. It was the kind of day that makes me want to go back to the beach.

I used to work in real estate. (Did I mention?) I also used to have a funny (snarky?) little saying that I'd either get out or grow the requisite blackened heart of a Realtor. (Yes. They insist on the capitalization. Stupid but trademarked.) So anyway a couple of months ago we decided, for reasons of expanding family and choked market and hallelujah in general, that it was a good time to let my license go inactive.

Maybe even before the last corner of my heart was all scummy.

I jest. Sort of.

The past two and a half years of my real estate career I have worked in a wonderful office with some folks I just admire with every bit of me. (I would not lump them in with the vast majority of housing sales personnel. You may know a good Realtor. Hang on to her. And if you lose her number, maybe she left the profession for a reason. Call me. We'll have coffee.)

In the years before that personally delightful but financially devastating association (The market. The market.) I may or may not have lease optioned my soul to the (real estate version of the) devil and predictably paid dearly to get out of that there contract. I try (believe it or not) to speak mostly positively so I don't have a lot more to add about that office.

Let's just say I had to see some of those less-than-favorite brokers the other day and I have spent too much energy on them anyway. It pushes my (aforementioned real estate averse) Pollyanna to her sunnyside limits. It makes me less than likable to myownself. It points out that judging the book by its cover goes two ways.

And then? My agony over the sale of my beloved mare Seven? Fell through. The woman who bought (but didn't yet pay for) the horse abandoned her at the boarding barn. Leaving us with a six-month board bill, a horse who hasn't had farrier care in far too long, and a new wrinkle in the supposedly permanent press that I'm making of my life.

It points out that the common denominator in my bad experiences is, um, usually me and my judgment.

ANYWHAT.

Late in the night I left my comfy bedcovers and pillow behind to eat a bowl of cereal. Because I'm pregnant and obsessive, that's why.

As I was sitting at the computer, eating cereal and reading blogs (thanks, y'all) and sorta acting like a teenager with the sleep deprivation and the coffee shop yearnings, I could have sworn the dog started serenading me. Singing!

My dog is sensitive like that. He would've made a great therapy animal.

OR. He actually had Barney in his mouth. One of those infernal (probably invented by a Realtor -- they all have side jobs) battery-powered singing Barneys.

At least Barney and the dog love me. And I love them. And we're a happy family.

(Is the Barney song stuck in your head? If not, your kids are probably older and you're past the trauma. And I'm jealous.)

It must be the mud

(Photos by the girls' friend Katie. Thanks, Katie, for the evidence.)

The horses come in from the paddocks each evening.

They rub their crusty, muddy selves all over the barn.

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They further shed mud on the girls.

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The girls help the process along with curry combs and, on warm afternoons, with water hoses and sometimes with my kitchen towels. (Hah. They thought I didn't notice?

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Then my daughters bring the mud in to my laundry room. It's not an intentional transfer of property, but it seems to me that they're moving an awful lot of soil. Possibly they could find a way to put that directly on the garden on their way back to the house?

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The next morning the horses go back out and roll themselves in mud like it's a spa treatment. They graze in the sun, moving along with it all day until the mud bath is cracked and caked like a facial.

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As the sun gets low in the sky and the maple trees cast long shadows, the girls call the horses in.

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They cluck over their charges and mildly chastise Dolly and Two Spot for their errant mud-seeking ways. As spring blooms, my girls inhale the essence, the best parts of my childhood: warm horses, hay-seed-dusted barn floor, saddle soap. It's odd how comforting those scents are to me today, even in the face of the laundry pile. Maybe especially in the face of the laundry pile.

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So the girls transfer the dirt from their horses and I transfer my girlhood joys to my daughters.

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Lather, rinse, repeat.

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Last night I was visiting with a mom from our community. She and her husband are raising three boys and a tiny daughter. Her days, she said, are full of footballs and wrestling gear. Calls to insurance agencies over sports injuries. Carpools for three sons in three sports apiece. (Her daughter, still a preschooler, has yet to assert any extracurricular interests.)

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I wonder whether our fifth child is a boy or a girl. I wonder whether this baby will love horses. Or books. Or ATVs or firefighting or something equally foreign to me. I wonder how this child will change our family in ways I can't imagine now. And I wonder what little parts of my childhood, and my husband's, we'll relive with this new life.

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(Before you decide I've lost myself with the pregnancy-mush-brain-sentimentality: I know it probably all involves mud. And laundry.)

The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Farm G. Suite

Yesterday ended our Christmas vacation here at Farm Suite. All three big girls (11, 9 and 5) were eager to return to formal (as it goes around here) school. They sat down, breakfast eaten, fully dressed and chores done, at a couple of minutes after 8 a.m. to master personal challenges ranging from multiplication tables eight and nine all the way through creating a book of alphabet sounds.

Laura (2 in a few days!) is finding that school mornings are a perfect time to create trouble. It seems I just get her set up with toddler-size Legos or crayons when I turn to help with a long division problem and then she's off and spreading someone's Polly dolls all over the staircase or pouring out an entire bag of cat food into the litter box. I must say, I've never parented such a busy baby before. On the other hand she knows her alphabet song and many of the letters (and their sounds!) by sight so she is undoubtedly picking up on Grace's kindergarten work.

After lunch it was a beautiful, sunny 55 degrees outside so I declared recess for all four of them. I used that time to clean up worksheets and books and set up our art project for the afternoon -- we have decided to do science experiments, art and other potentially messy projects while Laura naps. It's self-preservation mainly, plus we get to have fun without distraction of the toddler type.

Speaking of outside, we finally clipped the hens' wings. I know, I know, it sounds cruel. But the real cruelty was in letting them wander across the road after flying effortlessly over their six-foot fence. (Why does a chicken cross the road?) Anyway it took the help of Madeleine, Sarah and their 12-year-old friend Zoe for me to catch all nine hens one at a time. The first few were easy -- they are tame after all -- but after two or three they seemed to "catch" the general hysteria and their evasive techniques got fairly creative. Katie the Rhode Island Red even hid at the back of the compost pile before her haircut. Yuck.

So now the hens are all safely inside their chicken yard again. The rooster can still hop the fence with ease but he doesn't tend to go far when his harem is cooped up. (Har har. Cooped up.)

Seven, Madeleine's horse, is sold to a lovely neighbor who keeps her gelding Sun at the boarding barn. You might say he's the boy next door. So Seven's not actually paid for yet but after just word-of-mouth advertising for a week we feel blessed that she'll go to Michele, who's loved Seven for the past year but despaired that we'd never sell her. And a year ago, I wouldn't have. My love for Seven was all wrapped up in her resemblance to the horse of my teenage years, a black Polish Arabian named Shamarrh. Seven and Shamarrh shared that certain dreamy big-dog quality of appearing to listen. They also shared a love of coffee breath and granola bars. Shamarrh had to be put down when I was 17 after a dog ran her through our fence and her front foreleg was broken along with my sense of all-is-right-with-the-world.

The moment that I saw Seven five years ago, I knew she was mine even though she wasn't for sale -- just a beautiful dishy dark filly head peeking out of a stall at a property I was showing. I immediately felt a rush of (mushy and ridiculous alert) youthfulness and joy. That is what Seven is. But you really can't go home again, no matter what Bon Jovi says.

So today for afternoon projects the girls and I will be making resolution collages. We don't go too heavy on the resolutions at this time of year -- sometimes we make fun "predictions" for the coming year such as "Laura will be potty trained by June" or "we'll go to Disneyland in October" (more a wish than a prediction, I know). I think my collage will have some horse pictures. Probably not black and probably a lot slower and cooler of blood than the horse(s) of my youth. Because I'm a different girl than I was 20 (or even five) years ago, that's why.

Everybody's back to work... the farmgirl edition

The hens all went back to work just in time for the holiday baking we've been doing. If you look closely you can even see that a few of those eggs are pale green... my Easter Eggers are laying!

The New Year. The new year is an opportunity, of course, for buckling down to face resolutions and inner revolutions and the most important of all, closet organization. It ought to be for me a time of much, much writing. Lists and such. And the occassional blog post.

Instead:

Football games. (Feel free to pause a moment for the Oregon Ducks.)

A new man door f0r our detached garage (I have dreams of converting this into a schoolhouse/guesthouse. Also: "Man door" (?!) -- there must be a better word for the door through which a person walks to enter a garage.).

Selling my beloved, of late Madeleine's beloved, black Quarterhorse mare Seven. (My reaction to this event in all its swiftness, in a severely depressed horse market no less, astounds me and I just can't seem to find adequate words.)

Happy New Year to you and yours. I sure hope I can find a little time to make a resolution or two. How about you?

If you know what's good for you

This past week has seen my novel (sounds so grand, doesn't it?) fall far behind the word count goal. I'll catch up! I must!

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It's not my fault, Ossifer, I have good alibi:

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Three doctor appointments. Three volleyball practices. Two volleyball games. Two music lessons. A repeat of the ever-escaping pony drama.

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Ooh. Let's lean on the pony drama.

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On Saturday we were watching Madeleine serve it over the net and score on a small town near us where the players are all fed Miracle Gro or some such supplement so as to make our team look like miniature players on a full-size court. That was my view from the bleachers, at least in between serial battles to keep Laura from, er, borrowing extra team balls and hucking them into the field of play. I think she was trying to confuse the other team. Or get us some penalties. It's hard to tell; she's not yet 2.

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Anyway between Games A and B I had to miss out on the ever-tempting concession stand lunch to run into town for my H1N1 immunization appointment.

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This is when I abandoned my mother and Mr. Suite in our group efforts to corral Laura and cheer on the mighty Wildcats.

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And while I was gone, my husband's cell phone rang. It was our next-door neighbors of the B&B, now for sale and looking oh-so-French-Country should anyone out there be interested.

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So Mr. Suite answered. He didn't figure it was a social call. Never has been.

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Nope.

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Dolly-the-danger-girl Shetland was out of her paddock, causing my elderly Arab much anxiety.

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Dolly never ventures far, mind you. She just wants to taste the grass on the other side of the fence and it's a bonus if she can drive her pasture pal insane in the process. Just because he's not willing (or able) to commando crawl under the bottom wire. Gee whiz. It never occurs to gentlemanly Two Spot that he could leap the top wire with ease. He's just a law-abiding sort deeply offended by Dolly's disregard of the order of all things barnyard.

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Anyway this escape caused the neighbor (did I mention their house is beautiful and for sale?) much consternation as he is not a "horse person" and his wife is allergic. (To horses, not him.)

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Mr. Suite (otherwise known as my long-suffering non-horse-person husband who loves me despite my horse habit) was 30 minutes away from home and I was 45 minutes to an hour away. The hour existing in case I might have time to pull through Dutch Brothers for a mocha. Full disclosure. And, hey, I'd just had a SHOT. In the arm.

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Recap, without parentheticals:

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I'm in town. My husband's watching four children and a volleyball game three small villages away. One pony is out and one horse is pacing the fence and whinnying like a heart attack. The neighbor is worried about ... well, who can blame him? ... his lavender plants.

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So Mr. Suite does the most expedient thing possible and gives the combination to our barn lock to the neighbor and explains the steps to capture said pony.

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Oh, poor, poor neighbor. For a non-horse-loving person to be subjected to this: Open barn, step over feed sacks and assorted tack items, scoop out can of grain, call for unhaltered naughty pony, open gate in (schlocky deep) muddy paddock entrance, shoo away full-size panicked horse from open gate, maybe even step in the mud in order to lead stinky pony inside, close gate, re-lock barn against tack thieves... it's all too horsey for words.

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Also I think this is why good fences makes good neighbors.

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So I'm driving home like a maniac, sans mocha. Mr. Suite is driving home much more safely because he has Laura and Grace on board, having left Madeleine to finish game B and Sarah to keep Grandma company and further to beg for Taco Time on the way home.

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I beat my husband and the babies home by a few minutes, long enough to watch Dolly look left and right, to simply step over the lower rail and duck under the middle rail to freedom. By this time Two Spot was bored of the drama. As might you be if you lived with Dolly.

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I called to the naughty pony, opened the gate and she marched back in with her head held high.

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Then Mr. Suite went to town and bought some solid field fencing. He and his dad spent a happy (okay, that part's maybe not true: it's a frigid 40 degrees out here in the evenings) afternoon fencing our lower paddock. The openings in the field wire are three and a half inches square. In fact it resembles a volleyball net, just a little, so that's bringing the themes together for you. Such service with the tangents.

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Dolly has not figured out a way around (through, under) this. Yet.

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Just like I haven't yet figured out how to catch up on my word count. 'Cause I've been too busy catching ponies. Yeah, that's it.

Keep horses off grass

I don't know why this was so funny to me.

Maybe because it was at the Humboldt County Fairgrounds. All the horses in the barns there were stumbling around, laughing at the most inane jokes, scarfing down their feed.

Only in Northern California do you have to keep the horses off grass.

Spring Cleaning, With Fur

The maples are flowering. I hope the photo doesn't send you any allergens.

We took a couple of hours this morning for sunny day clean up of two very dirty ponies.

And then a ride. I can't bring myself (still) to photograph the girls riding. But trust me, Two Spot and Madeleine shared a nice uneventful ride. She wore her helmet, as always. Dolly tried her best to distract us and get the attention, as every Shetland should. But Two Spot remained fully focused on his 60-pound charge as though the long workless winter was of no consequence to his perfect manners. He even used his gentlemanly good tricks to bow down for the princess to dismount. Manoman I love that horse.

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Although Two Spot didn't witness the fall from Seven that caused M to break both of her arms, I have this fantasy that maybe he knows. Maybe the ponies talk about it at night. Sort of like Black Beauty. Remember Merry Legs and all the rest? Remember their conversations after the peoplefolk retired for the evening? I maybe believed in those stories too much as a girl.

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Also my parents had a talent for choosing what are known as "bomb-proof" horses. My girlfriends and I would lie on horseback in the summer sunshine, completely without saddles or bridles or a care in the world. I remember clearly the way my pure black Arabian mare radiated the sun's heat back at me as I read book after book with my head rested on her rump, one arm flung across my forehead for the glare, the other arm holding my book aloft.

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For crying out loud, that was dangerous. Other summer afternoons found us, my best friends Teri and Jennifer and I, STANDING on horseback to reach the highest cherries in the trees. Um. Standing. Alternately, when the cherries were done and the weather was too hot to read, we'd trot to Teri's place and ride the horses right into the small man-made lake at the upper end of her pasture. With nothing but halters on the horses and cutoffs and tank tops on ourselves, we'd float backward from the manes of our horses while their hooves stirred up the coolest water from deep in the pond. In the fall we regularly got in lots of trouble with Jenny's parents for running the fat off the cattle and sheep while we played rodeo. In the winter we huddled with steam breath rising in one Pony Club barn or another.

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Crikey, but did our parents know where we were? I'm sure they did, but my memories are so independent of parents that it sobers me to realize that my oldest children are coming to that age. They've always had opinions that stun me; now they have activities and interests that may or may not include me. The best I can do is choose bomb-proof horses, cross my fingers, and hope to sneak backstage periodically.

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And stick around to clean up the brushes.

Sleeping Through the Rodeo

My husband woke up early this morning and rounded up the pony in the dark on his way to a VIP (Very Important Proposal). He lost the dog in the meantime. But don't worry, both the dog and pony shows are back to their regularly scheduled programming around here.

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Also, because I am practicing looking at the bright side, I'll have you know my husband made it to the office with his khakis unblemished by mud or pony poop. I think. It was dark, and I was sleeping. I only became aware of the breakout upon his wake-up call to me. That wake-up call being literal, not figurative. You know, the call where your honey gets to work and you're still snor--I mean, snoozing?

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It's been awhile since Little Houdini (otherwise known as Sarah's beloved pony Dolly) staged a midnight raid on the neighbors' lawns. In fact, it hasn't happened since I was so pregnant as to add an element of clown to the rodeo as I galumphed around after the stinker.

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Ponies, Shetlands in particular, are notorious for their -- a-hem -- independent spirits. Dolly is of the age when a lady no longer wants to advertise her age, but she's not retiring gracefully into a peaceful pasture ornament. Oh, no. She's of the feisty retiree variety, jumping fences or commando-crawling under them, as the case requires.

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We were JUST DISCUSSING new-and-improved fences, thank you very much, upon the occasion of our Saturday drive. I took so many fence and gate and falling-down-barn photos that I flat wore out the Nikon's batteries. Both of them.

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The fence pictures were research. Split rail, woven wire, corner bracing research. The barn pictures are just an obsession. I have my own little barn, thanks, and it's not of the falling down variety nor am I about to aspire to owning one.

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Also I am declaring a moratorium on hyphens in this here post. Just in case you hit your limit.

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So our place needs some new fencing. There's an old farm and ranch (crikey, but the hyphen urge was strong with that one) adage that says you build your fences before you get your livestock. Also, good fences in any neighborhood, as anyone knows, make "good neighbors." Maybe because that way the pony can't eat the B&B's flowers and I won't have to delete the snippy post I put up just the other day. (Yes, I did delete it. I never should have posted it. It doesn't reflect well on me to snipe at the greenhorns.)

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I hate when I get snarky and no one smacks me around about it.

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But I sure love it when I don't have to chase the pony through flowerbeds in the wee hours of the morning.

Singing the Praises of My Trail Mix

The good news:

My grocery store has my beloved trail mix again. No banana chips, no peanuts. Just my favorite nearly healthy mix of dried mangoes, apples, coconut, raisins and almonds with a little granola. Which reminds me of a story. (Of course.)

In late January, our area was blessed with a series of ice and snow storms alternating with high winds. Big trees plus ice plus wind equals power outage. At the time of our first multiple-day outage, our baby Laura was mere days old and yet on the second day of the outage the EGE was urgently needed at work in the city. He took my Suburban, for the four-wheel drive. The girls and I settled in to play Little House On The Prairie. I make a pretty cute Ma, but casting would have to ignore the anachronistic use of gas appliances.

For the first four hours or so, a generator ran a space heater and we all snuggled up to play Bingo and Go Fish. I nursed the baby (chilly moments!) and made cup after cup of cocoa. We fought with the oil lamps. They're nice to look at, but how do you stop all the smoke? (Mental note: Figure that out before Winter's first storm.)

When you live in the middle of the sticks, you're likely to be the power company's last priority. This is perfectly understandable. Sometimes they even forget us. We're that close to "off the grid." Our neighbors warned us before we moved here about the weeks without power, but I thought to myself, this is the 21st century, for crying out loud.

I also thought to myself when hearing their cautionary stories, there's a school right across the road. Surely the school and next-door country church wouldn't go without power for days on end? In the Year 2008?

Ah HA! I later found out the hard way that the school and church are on a different power grid or transformer or electric doohickey and whatchamacallit than the lowly residences on our rural road. You see that my common sense and vast knowledge of electricity will take me far in this world.

So while the generator whirred and its accompanying tiny space heater (Mental note: Continue to beg the Powers That Be for a woodstove before Winter.) struggled to warm our ancient farmhouse, the wind whistled a happy tune through the siding, and Madeleine called my attention to a flurry of snow outside the window. It was then, through the near-white-out, that I spied the warm glow of the church porch light.

The electric porch light. Or beacon of warmth and hope. Or, invitation to move in to the church. Whichever way you want to look at it.

Faster than you can say "frostbite" the girls and I had doubled up our socks (already had coats and mittens on) and packed a backpack with tiny diapers and cocoa mix and graham crackers. We trudged less than a quarter mile to the back door of the church. (Thanks, Charles, for the key.)

I had a little moment of guilt when I cranked up the thermostat in the nursery to 85 degrees. (Mental note: Give a little extra to the church for electric bill.) It wasn't long before the girls were playing in their shirtsleeves with felt apostles and palm trees. They were coloring Bible story workbooks and I was making coffee and rocking the baby in no more layers than the average person wears in a snowstorm. We looked out the window periodically to see if our own porch light was gleaming back at us.

When it finally did, just before sundown, I was reluctant to bundle up. I didn't want to walk across the road to a house that might take hours to warm up. But I knew the EGE would be driving home, and so we cleaned up the church nursery and the kitchen. We wrapped our scarves around our necks and pulled our boots back on and trudged through falling the snow to home.

Crashing in the front door to hear the reassuring hum of heat blowing in was a lovely feeling. Madeleine and Sarah rushed around turning off lights and appliances that were on when the power had failed. Grace, at the time 3 years old, stood stock still in the center of the kitchen and said solemnly,

"Hal-Lo-Lu-Yah. Now we can watch TV."

(That spelling attempts to give you her precious pronunciation. I included it especially for Barb, my favorite writer.)

All of this to say, hallelujah. They fixed my trail mix. It's been a long cold summer without it. The electricity, the spark, was gone. Or something like that.

So finally, I come around to the bad news, and reason for the picture above (and you thought the picture was unrelated to today's post. Hmph. Ye of little faith.):

The bad news is that Two Spot, our elderly gentleman horse, likes my trail mix too.

Frankly, My Dear...

It says, "Yes! You can weigh your own produce."

Healthy and encouraging too. Exactly what I was looking for in a roadside stand. Unfortunately the doctor was not in. (Remember Lucy's 5 cent counseling fee?)

In all seriousness, I have been asking the EGE for a couple of years to build a produce and flower stand for me. Because it's not enough to have three or four children, three or four jobs and three or four horses all at once. I need to throw in a little side business selling eggs and zinnias.


Big horses.

Little girls.

If I close my eyes and breathe in and out very slowly, I can conjure that exact hot, dusty stable smell, timothy hay and clean stall shavings and horse heaven in one breath.

Although we keep a couple of horses on our little piece of land, we recently moved Maddy's horse Seven to the barn you see in those pictures. It's a mile and a half away and has a very 1940s movie set feel, with echoes of the racing Thoroughbreds it was built for. The local lore says Clark Gable had a horse there in 1955. Mr. Gable was shortly thereafter married to the ex-wife of the stable owner, and can't you just imagine that the drama was not all in the beauty of the landscape?

I just love that kind of drama... the kind that's over and done with a long time ago!

Yesterday was our typical whirlwind. The EGE was gone to Portland. (Powell's Bookstore without me. I can't wait to see the credit card receipt.) The girls had at any given point in time from one to six friends over. This is not a typo. I don't know what I was thinking proclaiming that we oughta be the hangout house. Maybe I was thinking kids are a lot quieter and cleaner (and easier on the pantry) than they actually are.

But how could I deny them a gaggle of friends when I round the corner of the house to see my grape arbor thus decorated:

It was really charming until I discovered there were eight children under there, eating underripe grapes and plotting how to catch fairies. Okay, so the fairy part is still charming. And to the other moms? I'm so sorry about the sick tummies.

I just can't get over the ghost of Rhett Butler roaming our little village. This will be bad for my Scarlett O'Hara syndrome. Mark my words. The next thing you know, I'll have a produce stand that's painted with the lettering, "As God is my witness, I'll nevah be hungry again!" And then I'll sell cute little bundles of basil while wearing a velvet gown made of draperies. It's all so dramatic and cinematic, I can hardly stand it.

Oh, why oh why wasn't I born to wear hoopskirts on a plantation? With nannies to help with the children?

Electroshock Therapy, Anyone?

Yesterday, in search of the missing peace, I spent a little time with my horse. Well, with the horse who came with my horse.

My horse, Seven, is a stunning true black Quarterhorse mare with a flowing black mane and tail. She is powerfully built with a "neat" head and huge brown eyes. The moment I saw her three years ago I knew ... it was corny... it was true... it was fate that we met.

And she was a package deal with Colorful.

Now, Colorful is a gentlemanly sort of gelding. He's three times Seven's age, and he's an Anglo Arab. What the heck is that, you ask? Think of him as the guy Scarlett O'Hara wanted to marry, the one who chose Melanie instead. If I could think of his name, that would be good. Suffice it to say that Colorful is no Rhett Butler. And with a name like "Colorful," who could be?

The girls renamed him Two Spot in an attempt to give his manliness a boost, but it was no use. He is trained through-and-through for dressage, and no amount of rodeo name change will alter the scent of this rose.

Weird metaphor mixing aside, he's a nice boy and good to hang out with in the paddock. He leans his dishy head in close for a forehead rub. He lowers his unbelievable eyelashes and gazes at me with soulful brown eyes as though I am the only girl in the paddock. Well, I am. Seven is off at the trainer for a couple of months. Because she's Madeleine's now. There's no stopping the passage of time, and Madeleine and Seven, they're like that. Two peas in a pod, two firey comets shooting through a youthful sky, the whole ball of wax.

Two Spot is nearly twenty, which is middle age in horse years. He's seen a lot, done it all, and is phased by nothing. Sort of like me. (Did I hear a snort?)

So yesterday I was communing with my horse, pondering the fact that my true horse love has chosen to bond instead with my daughter, and that my whole comfort system is a little off right now. When not even the act of pulling weeds in the dewy morning will lift my spirits, we know (mysteriously, like Miss Clavel) something is not right.

Whilst leaning in to the warm shoulder of Two Spot, baby monitor clipped to my pocket, sun shining on my farmgirl bandana head, I leaned just a little too far. My right shoulder contacted the top wire. The one that keeps the horses from reaching over to greener grass, you know, the electrified wire?

The shock of that wire traveled right through me into venerable old Two Spot. He barely flinched, which is more than I can say for me. Maybe I'm not as bomb proof as I thought.

Sidetracked Tackle

I "see" your "kitchen" challenge, Lexi, and I up the ante to a "FIX SOMETHING MECHANICAL."

Now, if we were playing poker, you might call my bluff. But I have proof. Just ask my neighbors who run a b&b -- I fixed the electric fence charger, and my horses are not now nor were they ever eating anyone's lavender hedge. I promise. Because I am such a farmchick that I can fix fencing and electrical thingamajigs when my EGE is at work even.

Today I was all about finishing up my laundry room. An L-shaped room with five doors to our downstairs bathroom, the kitchen, the outside, the water heater closet, and the stairs, it is impossible to place anything in our laundry room. And yet we have "placed" plenty in there: an antique icebox used as pantry storage with laundry supplies on top; a stacked front-load high-capacity washer and dryer set; my treadmill; four hampers for lights, darks, bleachy needs, and delicates; and finally, a dresser for linens because my ancient church of a house has no storage whatsoever. I started the laundry room tackle last week, and my local farmchicky friends can attest that I have been digging it out with gusto. I WILL walk on that treadmill. Especially since now the weather is finally nice. Hunh. I WILL NOT have 10 loads to wash in my spare weekend time over Mother's Day. We WILL walk straight to the bathroom instead of detouring around hamper overflow.

But I digress. Backing up to the horse fencing: If you could have seen me in December, 9-plus months pregnant, losing rubber boots in the thigh-high mud, resetting posts in my last pair of maternity pants that fitted well enough to wear to the doctor's office, well, it was not a pretty picture. It was likely amusing, but not pretty. I didn't "glow," I glowered. Anyhoo, I have been fixing the fence since December. At least I'm not pregnant anymore, because it's really ugly to see a pregnant woman shocked with low voltage when the charger comes back on inexplicably.

We had a brief respite from fence fixing when my father-in-law (the nicest man on the planet, really) took pity on my pregnant patheticness and gave us a "bull killer." Now, do not call PETA on us. This is merely a rancher/farmer description for a fence charger that will shock through something thicker than dandelion puffs. They should call it "weed burner." No, that would be bad for Smokey the Bear. Anyhoo, it is a charger strong enough to remind the livestock they need to stay put. Even when it is turned off, they remember for a really long time the last time they were reminded. It works for me.

Until this morning. Yes, this fateful morning the EGE mentioned casually on his way out the door that the charger might need new fuses... he'd pick some up on his way home... the fence is off.

OH DRAT... double, triple, lousy stinky asterisk and exclamation point. If the charger is not working, I have to watch the horses like a horse hawk. I cannot leave my kitchen window unless it is to chase them back in the paddocks. Two Spot will not challenge the fence, nor will Seven. But yesterday we brought the naughty pony home from leased pasture and she is a Horsey Houdini. Dolly is her name. (I can think of a horror movie about a Dolly, too.) She will break out of her paddock at the first possible opportunity and head straight for the horse-hating b&b property next door and immediately commence munching on their flowerbeds.

All plans of polishing off the laundry room project were abandoned. I determined to FINALLY FIX THE FENCE. I'll fix that fence, my pretties!

It involved a lot of lying on the ground (remember me fixing the washer? I do rock the fix-it scene, huh?) and then on the floor of the barn with wires wrapped dangerously around my head. It involved my brother (don't tell the EGE I had help, cuz I plan on milking this one) arriving from town with fuses. It involved me stringing new extension cords and testing currents. I tell you, it was both technical and mechanical. It was astounding. No, I was astounding.

The horses were amazed at my ability. They had counted on a day of escape and chase but were foiled by little old housewifely me. A farmchick at last.

And that, my friends, is why I didn't finish my tackle today.

oh! and... later that day...

The sun is out! The girls took their bikes up to the schoolyard to re-discover a bird's nest Madeleine left on the ground there on our last sunny day. I braved the bitter cold and fed the horses... rabbit... cats... that's it. Our menagerie is a little down in the numbers this year. We are down from 4.5 horses to 2.5! Hurray! Remaining are my QH mare, coal black and barn-named "Seven," the Arabian gentleman barn-named "Two Spot," and the family's -- read: Sarah's -- Shetland named "Dolly." So Seven, Two and Dolly lived happily ever after. Well, not quite yet. Two lives on-site while Dolly and Seven are grazing short-term rented pasture adjacent to the schoolyard.