Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who have that wonderful but thankless job of parenting. I have a teen and a tween, and the tsunami-esque hormones that flood through our house on any given day often leave me grasping for the nearest life preserver; usually my husband or a bottle of wine. He was armed and ready today with roses and a bottle of red in case there were any ruffled feathers to smooth or any unintentional snubs to soothe. My stormy tween bought me a lovely gift which brought me to tears, only to revoke it two days later at our next head butting session, which brought me to even more tears. My teen now has a girlfriend and I know that she was mostly responsible for the very first store-bought mother’s day gift I received today; bless her heart!

All in all it was a great day, waking up to snow on the fields and on the roof, the horses unexpectedly put in the barn last night were extra eager to get out to their grass this morning. Tom made breakfast biscuits that Martha Stewart would be proud of and we drove through the beautiful rolling countryside talking and pointing out which beautiful estates we would gladly accept and which ones we would turn down; which lovely porches we would like to add to our house (mostly Tom), and which barns and indoor riding arenas we would like to have out back (definitely all me). Tom, being a photographer, likes to hang out the car window while driving on narrow hilly roads and snap pictures left and right while I cling to the passenger door narrowly scraping past those roadside country mailboxes, until he sees something he really likes then stops smack in the middle of the road and lines up a really good shot. Usually at this point we are directly in front of some very beautiful old farmhouse whose occupants I’m sure are standing in their kitchen with their morning cups of coffee wondering why there is a red Toyota parked on the road out front and paparazzi-like lens pointing in as if on some Brangelina sighting. Now I’m generally scrunched down so far on the front seat with embarrassment in order to give the impression that such a loony stalker is working alone and in no way would have a nice respectable wife riding with him. We arrived back home without incident or buckshot in the trunk, and some very nice pics from which to do a few paintings.

Tom made a fantastic roast and it was great to have us all at the table for a wonderful dinner. It couldn’t have been a nicer day, and yes Tom, you are the goodest husband that ever lived.

April Showers

We haven’t had too many of these this month, but everything is starting to come up in the garden; the grass is green and the tulips are blooming. Hands on hips, taking a thoughtful survey of things to be tidied up, pruned, clipped, moved and divided, I’m always amazed how from one spring to the next I seem to forget which plants I planted where and which new flowers were added in the last season. I know I’m supposed to make a map, but this way it’s a lovely surprise every spring...”oh yes, I forgot I had planted that beautiful new iris, and that creeping phlox; strange, I thought I put it in just a little more in that direction, over there to the left. Now where is that new brilliant blue perennial geranium? Vanished! Into thin air.....the garden fairies have been at work again shifting things around. Garden fairies my sweet patootie! This can only be the work of the fastest claws in the west, able to scratch up an entire bed in a single afternoon – the Chicken Gang.

The war begins each spring. I erect my small wire fence around the perimeter of the garden, leaving no openings, and once the garden really explodes into bloom, there is no room for the chickens to get in and root around. Until that happens, they are finding some way in most days and the garden currently has large dirt craters where they like to sand bathe. I think the biggest fattest hen just stomps down on the wire with a big scaly claw and holds it while the others hop in and get to work. Mostly it’s my fault because I can’t bear to keep them in their coop on such beautiful days as we’ve been having this spring. Yes, this means hunting for eggs outside and only getting maybe three out of five hens’ eggs, and dealing with the torn up garden, but there must be a balance somewhere. When they are shut in their coop, I can hear their angry calls from my studio upstairs in the house and while I’m trying to be creative it’s most distressing to hear the tin cup clanging across the bars out there.

I was sitting in the sun this morning on my chair outside the barn door waiting for senior horse to finish his breakfast, when little red hen came back to the coop after some early morning bug hunting. I was guessing by the way she seemed almost frantically searching for something, that she was looking for a nice spot to lay her egg. Into the tack room she went, scratched around in there a bit and came out again. Passing me in my chair she let out a squawk , went into the coop and jumped up into the laying box on the far left, missed and landed in a pile of hay below. She was really pissed off now by the sound of things (I knew she wouldn’t go for me scooping her up into it). She went for the next box and made it but the shifting around, facing first this way then that, then settling down , then shifting around again made me wonder if she would ever get around to business (finally I would see which egg little red hen was going to lay). By this time senior horse was finished and junior horse came in hoping that I would let him snuffle up any leftover crumbs. I let them out, went back to the house for more coffee and forgot all about red hen’s egg until later when by some miracle there were four different ones in the same nest. I still don’t know which one is cheating me!

Wanted: Miniature Horse (must be very very short)

I fell off my horse this week. I knew my days were numbered; there were just too many close calls in the last nearly two years to make me think I could escape the inevitable much longer, but I'd managed to cling on thus far during the bucking fits and sideways spooks if only out of sheer terror of dropping the stomach-churning twenty feet to the ground from his back.

Willie is a big horse, part Clydesdale, part mountain, and this spring I've been using my western saddle during those early haven't-been-ridden-all-winter-and-might-spook-at-just-about-anything outings, thinking that extra handle at the front would save me. When I hoist that thing onto his back, do up the cinch, strap on all my protective gear, and clamber up from my largest upturned bucket, I feel as though I'm sitting on top of the world's largest circus elephant in one of those little tassle trimmed booths the Rajas use. Looking down, the last thing I want to see is the earth coming up to meet me at great speed.

At least my husband was out walking the fields with me that day, taking photos of us with his long lens...there we are cantering lovely circles on the hill..snap...oh, there's Willie deciding he's had enough of me making him go on the correct lead..tail swish..snap..Willie's ears going back...snap, and the wild west show begins...snap snap. After that, he thought he'd better put down the camera and make haste to where I was laid out on the ground. I don't even think I made nine seconds, but like a good cowgirl, I tried.

Later in emerg. the doctor was wonderful and kind, and I explained I had suffered a bit of amnesia directly afterwards, not remembering catching the horse and going back to the barn, untacking, etc. I mentioned the "Natasha Richardson" debacle and immediately sensed an internal eye-roll on his part, but he patiently explained to me why he was pretty sure I wasn't going to end up like she did. I was pretty sure too, since my burning left butt cheek told me where the point of impact had been (I should go back and look for the crater). I'm not really speaking to Willie at the moment; I wonder if horses understand the cold shoulder, but I'm not afraid to get back up there and keep working - Hi Ho Silver...Away!!

Has anyone seen a very large horse hiding behind a very small tree....

No treats for you today buddy boy

Happy Easter

To all my peeps...........have a Happy Easter, may the Easter bunny leave you all kinds of little presents..not the small round brown ones, but Cadbury Easter Creme eggs, and Lindt eggs, marshmallow eggs, jelly beans, chocolate eggs and caramel eggs and ......... bring em all Easter Bunny!!!

Sitting Duck

In summer, there is an auction on Saturday mornings in the town of Woodville. It is a livestock auction, not an antique auction so wear rubber boots and not dressy “I’m out in the country for the day” looking swish shoes which should never have to navigate a mud bog, slippery uphill climb, or heaven forbid...any pile of assorted critter poop.

If you take your children with you, pack your steeliest resolve and firmest “Nay-saying” voice or you will be bringing home with you every sad-eyed, thinnish, needs a good home, save the donkeys, oh aren’t they really cute” animal that they lay eyes on. This is how we acquired Liam the duck.

He came home with us in a batch of fluffy yellow, peeping oh-so-cute siblings, after only a mere ten minutes or so of “Oh PLEEEEEZE Mom...come on, PLEEEEEEEZE?!?!” I caved surprisingly easily; it must have been those little webbed feet. We made a home for them in an empty stall in the barn, and it wasn’t two days until some predator burrowed up into the stall from outside and spirited one away...um, weren’t there five ducklings mom? No sweety, I’m sure we only brought home four.

They moved into a steel dog crate after that for awhile until they got too big, then were relocated into the concrete-floored chicken coop under much protest from the chickens, who picketed and held anti-duck rallies. The kids had fun watching the ducks swim in the fake plastic pond we set up for them and fed them lettuce and treats, then lost interest in them completely. I was left to be mother duck and fed and cleaned them every day. For anyone has had ducks, they are the messiest things on the planet. I led them out to play in the day and back in at night, and when they started to fly, they could do a circuit of the barnyard then land on my back. Trust me, you don’t want to carry one around for too long...they poop every 20 seconds without fail.

Liam was the cutest one of the four, he was dark brown where the others were mixed browns, black and white, and he didn’t have the big red warty thing above his beak like the other muscovies developed as they got older. One afternoon I came home from work and found him sitting on the floor of his stall looking very sad. He had been bitten in the side by a fox perhaps. He wasn’t too bad off, but his wing looked broken and we didn’t know how bad the damage underneath was. Luckily Tom’s cousin was a vet and graciously accepted my frantic call. We took him to her house and he was the perfect patient, letting us flip him onto his back on her kitchen counter while she carried out an examination. She cleaned the wound, dressed it, and even came back a few times to change the dressing. Sure, the ten dollar bunch of ducklings turned into several hundred dollars in a short period of time, but what could I do?

He never was able to fly, but healed up just fine. Several bottles of wine later, I was just fine too, but decided to give the ducks away to another farm where they had lots and lots of other ducks and fowl to play with. I am told Liam has children now and is as happy as can be. He’s not the only one, the chickens have repo-ed their home and have taken the plastic back off their furniture.

Bunny on Deck

There is a bunny that comes every morning to the deck area just outside the kitchen window where the bird feeders sit along the rail. Just as it’s starting to get light out, he peeks up over the edge of the deck, looking left and right to make sure the coast is clear and in profile looks just like a big chocolate Easter bunny out there (that’s not why I like him so much). As it gets lighter, he comes onto the deck scrounging for seeds that have dropped from the feeders, and I can see the beautiful colours of rust and grey in his fur.

I love this bunny and whenever I see him I wish I could scoop him up and squeeze him and carry him around all day like Paris Hilton’s purse dog. He is that cute. I would be careful though, not like Lennie in “Of Mice and Men”...I think something bad happened to the bunny in that story. If anyone has seen “Watership Down” or read the book, they have been traumatized for life like myself and I can give you the number of my therapist. My mother took me to see the movie when I was about ten and I tell you I have never forgotten it..or what parts I remember seeing from between my fingers which were gripped tightly over my face. Thanks mom, love ya!

I am going to quickly check my reference above online, however, we have had quite alot of snow this morning and I’ll need to execute emergency internet snow removal procedures first: 1) open bedroom window, remove screen making sure drifts of snow stuck to screen fall outward and not onto bare feet inside bedroom 2) lean way out with kitchen broom and brush snow from satellite dish without dropping two stories to unglamorous death, blog yet unfinished and reference unchecked. 3) Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Internet is back up and running...yahoo....and now thanks to marvellous modern convenience (kitchen broom), I can publish my blog then fix little bunny a nice salad for dinner.