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The horse thing is killing me. I know I sat here and typed out the whole “giving up on this for now” post, but we all know that was laughable.
I’ve been out to see another horse.
Not going to buy it, but went to see it. Would’ve seriously considered buying it if not for the I’ve-never-seen-it-this-bad foot fungus problem… that and I suspect she might have a sore back issue as we bucked Jim off rather soundly.
And that’s when it hit me. I’ve moved into the desperate stage of my horse search. I was actually willing purchase an unsound horse if it got me that one step closer to riding again.
It was a big wake up moment.
So I had a firm talk with myself and promptly went here and fell in love with this and this and this.
Hey… at least they’re sound and ride-able and come from a reputable place.
Sigh.
I’m afraid I’ve been a bear to live with for the past few weeks. I’ve cried over Aimee again and again and again. The horses at VSH remind me of her, which reminds me that she’s gone, which reminds me that I don’t have a riding horse which makes me look at their horses and then I cry all over again.
Sigh, sniffle.
So… I’ve tried to focus on Beau and Leo.
Beau is coming along nicely, still a bit jumpy and spooky, but coming along. He’s getting easier about being casually handled and I lead him around the driveway without a single incident. He was definitely uncertain and relying on me to clue him in to what was going on, but he listened well and didn’t play up at all.
Leo, on the other hand, has turned into a bit of a menace. The weather here has taken a slight turn towards Autumn, the mornings are cool and the days aren’t quite as hot and I think the combination of weather and food has turned our once sweet boy into quite the devil. He levelled a fine karate kick at me just the other morning (he missed and hit the water trough instead) which made me realize something.
The gonads have gotta go.
Seriously. On our little quarter mile road there are 16 equine. Of that 16, five are geldings, five are mares, four are jennys, one is a jack and the other is Leo the colt. Two of the jennys are bred but that still leaves seven ladies to love and one gent to fight. Zeke, our jack, is better mannered than Leo, but isn’t happy about the colt being here either. So I’m waiting for the vet to let me know when he can come out to do shots and then we’ll schedule his procedure.
FYI- I don’t own all the horses on our road. We have 7 horses and 5 donkeys.
Ok, after typing that I feel the need to explain. Yes we own 7 (EEK!) horses. Here’s the run down-
Alise- white Percheron mare, approx. 30 years old. I retired her several years ago although the kids do sit up on her from time to time. She’s the boss mare of the pasture and at about 17.2hh she’s got the size to keep that ranking.
Fantine- white PercheronX mare, approx. 10 years old. She is a PMU mare and has absolutely no concept of horse behavior. She is unpredictable at best and while I have high hopes for her, I’m realistic that she’s pretty much going to be a pasture ornament. She’s about the same size as Alise.
Maddy- bay Appaloosa mare, approx. 14 years old. She is the gigantic mare that Julie rides. We got her the summer before Jim and I got married as a “if you buy this mare will throw the App in free” kinda thing. The mare we originally bought, a OTT TB didn’t work for us so I gave her to a friend, but Maddy turned out to be a real gem. Maddy grew from about 15hh to 17hh in the first year or so that we had her but we never thought about how big and well boned she was (particularly for an App) because we compared her to Aimee. Next to Aimee everybody was small!
Belle- bay Mustang mare, 17 years old. Ah Belle. My first from the ground up training experience. I should’ve picked a more sane horse as Belle has always been a bit on the screw-loose side. Belle is maybe 14hh… although I would say she’s shorter. I have ridden her and even did lessons on her for a while, but eventually she was retired because of her unpredictable nature. We’ve toyed with gifting her to somebody that wants a companion horse, but we always come back to the fact that Belle eats very little and her actual maintenance is slight and she’s Maddy’s best pasture mate so Belle stays.
Skye- blue roan POA gelding, approx. 12 years old. Skye is very nearly as wide as he is tall. He hasn’t been the best pony in the world, having a distrustful nature (yes, normal for a pony I know) but Xander loves that he’s blue and has spent quite a good bit of time lead-lining around on him. He’s also a favorite of my nephew Spencer. I think he’d make a fine cart pony, but I have neither the cart nor the harness to make that happen.
And of course there’s the boys-
Beau- bay Mustang gelding, approx. 7 years old.
Leo- Palomino TWH/QH colt, approx 18months old.
So while I have 7, some of them are special needs and some of them are retirees. Only Maddy is truly ride-able and that’s Julie’s go-to mount and since Julie is my go-to riding companion… well you see the predicament.
Sigh.
Have I mentioned that I miss Aimee? Cause I really, really do.
Since I don’t post all that often anymore (why is that anyway?) I thought I would force myself to do an entry while taking a bit of a break from cleaning up. Yesterday I spent the bulk of the day making a birthday cake for one of Jim’s co-workers and in my typical style I managed to dirty nearly every surface in the kitchen. This morning I was determined I would work until I could find the bottom of the sink (and that’s saying something if you’ve seen our sink) and I’m now waiting on the dishwasher to do it’s thing before starting in again. At least my technicolored fingers are fading. Unfortunately the kids are still alittle hyped from the icing frenzy or it could’ve been the strawberry muffin they had with breakfast.
So anyway… M’s started pulling some of the potatoes. We’ve enjoyed all kinds of new potato dishes, my favorite being new potatoes boiled and then finished in heavy cream with chives. I think partly this is my favorite because everything in it was produced on the farm (potatoes, cream, chives and butter… all made right here!). Probably not something you could eat everyday, but definitely yummy!
M has finished up planting all the tomatoes and peppers and I believe that she’s made a second planting of greenbeans (the first didn’t do so well). She’s made all sorts of little lettuce boxes on the porch and I am very excited about having our first homemade salad! She also made boxes for carrots and radishes and for the first time that I remember we actually have little carrots coming up! The radishes have made glorious tops but no radish… not sure what that’s all about, but the greens taste good.
Let’s see what else is new?
We put up another clothes line. It’s much higher than the other one, although right next to it. Now I can hang out King sized sheets and they have no threat of touching the ground, which is a good thing. I love our clotheslines, we got them from Lehmans and it’s just too cool to walk out on the porch, roll out the laundry and not have to drag the clothes basket along with me. Yeah… lazy… I know.
Jim possibly destroyed his phone this morning. Maisie side stepped and kicked the bucket (not figuratively… she’s still alive) which caused a great tidal wave of milk to slosh over the side which somehow (and I’m a little sketchy on the details) his phone was completely drenched. I purposefully saved by old BB Curve just in case something like this happened… but here’s hoping that his phone is actually ok, otherwise he’ll be carrying around a pink phone and he’ll lose all kinds of man-points for that. Just kidding of course… if his phone is totally dead then I’ll give him my Storm and I’ll take back the old Curve. But I’m still hoping his phone is ok.
The pigs are growing nicely. They are soon going to outgrow the pen they’re currently in and will need to move to the “permanant” pig pen below the sheep paddocks. Only thing is, that hasn’t been fenced in yet. Good thing Jim is finished with school for a little while and can work on it otherwise I think the pigs are going to succeed in digging up that big dogwood tree in their current paddock!!
The pigs are so funny! I enjoy watching them and their pure joy whether it’s eating or wallowing in the mud… they are thrilled with themselves! They, unlike most everybody else, can tell the difference between my voice and M’s. I call them up with a good ole “pig, pig, pig, pig!” ala Farmer Hoggett’s wife (from the movie Babe) and if M does it they just sort of cock an ear and roll their eyes but if I call them they come running! Smart wee piggies.
I think I already mentioned that we put the new chicks out in the big poultry paddock. They don’t have that much longer before the meat birds are ready to be… harvested? what is the right word? processed? Whatever… I’m looking forward to it as the price for free-range chicken has gotten appreciably higher (most recently we payed roughly $6/lb for breasts). The naked necks will take a little longer to grow off, but the others should reach prime size by the end of next month I think. Again, it’s a good thing that Jim’s going to be off for a bit as we’re going to be mighty busy!
And in completely unrelated to the farm news: Jim and I will be taking our first ever just-the-two-of-us vacation. The only other vacation we’ve had was 9.5 years ago… when we got married. This vacation (and I use that term lightly) is only for one night and we still have to do farm chores (ie milk) so it’s not like an escape-it-all kind of affair. The hospital periodically has silent auctions to raise money for Rape Crisis services. This year one of the items was a night at La Bastide, including dinner and breakfast. Jim won that one and also the weekend loan of a X6 BMW. The X6 is made right here in the Upstate and I think Jim is just as thrilled about getting to pick it up at the factory as he is about getting to drive it for the weekend. Luckily too, La Bastide is relatively local as it’s on the TR side of the Cliffs. Also the chef there is big on sustainable cuisine! Anyway… I’m excited… even if it’s only for one night.
And the whole dressing up for dinner thing led me to realize that I have no shoes to go with the dress Jim bought me so I found myself at Belks since they were having a shoe sale. But unfortunately I had no Jim with me for a second opinion so I had to resort to this:
yes, a pic of the contending shoes…
complete with the little footie sock that the shoe-woman all but attacked me with. She’s a serious footie-pusher, and she almost got mad at me for the pics, but she let it slide… this time. Not too many weird looks… but there were a few. Hey… I don’t like to shop alone! The dress Jim bought for me is a black and white number. So what do y’all think… black shoes (which are comfortable-ish) or candy-apple red ones? which I will have to practice walking in as they are the highest heels I’ve ever worn… seriously I think I am well over 6ft tall in these jewels but they are soooo pretty! By the way, M, I bought the red ones, they were seriously on sale (like under $30). The black ones ended up being under $20 once all the discounts and coupons were added up. So I have options. Jim likes the red ones, probably because I have to hang on to him to walk in them! Xander, y’all might recall, has a thing about women and their shoes. My fellow KG APs will remember the fine shoes that most of the women sported over in Bishkek (I should’ve bought a pair of the pointy toed shoes… just so Xander would be happy!). Anyway, Xander has been most upset that I seem to have an “ugly” shoe collection (I sport Danskos as a general rule, although I’ll occasionally wear a pair of Keens just to mix it up… LOL). He has taken to pointing out women with appropriate shoes (and clothes) when we are out in town… going so far as to physically point me in the right direction when he’s spotted a particularly lovely lady. So you can all imagine his joy when he spotted me showing off my new heels to M. He was like “FINALLY!!!” everytime he sees them he grins and gives me a thumbs up. He likes the red ones too. I modelled the whole outfit for him and he was most impressed, telling me I was quite “prilly” but would be even “prillier” if I did my hair and put on my face.
Seriously.
So anyway… the dishwasher is done and I must return to the grind… especially since I now have 3 children telling me that they are starving and are desperately in need of lunch. Tacos anyone?
So my pal Michelle crowned me a Queen of ALLL things Awe-Summm!!! even though she accused me of an unverified addiction to Facebook since my sporadic blogging has become more sporadic than normal. I’d play the “busy” card but she’s not buying it (it’s that whole doctor thing)… but I must say that if I could find a WordPress app for the Blackberry I’d blog on an hourly basis.
ANYWAY!!! The way it works is simple! First I give you 7 reasons why I think I’m awe-summm!!! and then I nominate 7 peeps to be totally Awe-Summmm!!!! Queens too 
This should be totally interesting since I don’t think I’m all that awe-summm!!! (or even just awesome) at all!
1. I’m the person everyone wants to know when they need info. Need directions? I’m a whiz with a map. Need to find a restaurant in a state I’ve rarely been to? I’ll find it! (and have multiple times… just ask Kyle). Need to modify a recipe? or recipe fail? Call and we’ll work it out. Need to google that guy that might be a potential suitor? I’m all over it. The Internet is my friend
2. I can cook anything and can typically replicate meals I’ve eaten out with relative ease. I personally enjoy this ability as I love to cook and while I love to go out to a fine restaurant, I can’t always justify the expense. The only thing I don’t attempt is sushi. I just don’t think I can match the quality at our local sushi place… that and I just don’t like handling fish.
3. I’m a regular she-bear about my children. I’ve fought doctors on Sophie’s behalf (garnering myself a reputation with her b/d group) and teachers on Xander’s (anyone remember the McD’s episode?). I think it’s awe-summmm!!! as I wouldn’t have always thought I had the strength (or the fortitude) to stand in the face of their education and experience and say “this isn’t right for my child” and know that I am right.
4. Everyone says I have an amazing memory… but I don’t think so. I can remember really weird things like snap-shots in my mind, but can’t remember what I was supposed to pick up at the grocery store… I’m blaming it on having kids.
(running out of ideas… asking family…)
5. I can make cheese and other dairy products. Apparently this is akin to working magic for Jim and his crew and the kids think it’s “cool” too.
6. I know how to make my own food from scratch (grow it, raise it, kill it, clean it, cook it) or at least know enough to muddle thru and come out with a usable product. I know how to clean, spin and knit wool, and I know how to ride horses and drive a team. I can milk a cow and assist with birthing a lamb. I know how to preserve the food from our garden. Everybody wanted to be my friend back during the whole y2k scare
7. I’m really ok with being highly eccentric (geneticist certified!).
Wow… that was really really hard to do!!!
So on to my 7 similarly awe-summmm queens!
1. Sally- homeschooling, unschooling, birthing babies (her own very soon!), living and learning in her old farmhouse in VA… we met when she still lived locally and became good friends just before she moved far away to VA!
2. Robin- Sugar maples and mega-mooing bulls… she’s living the dream somewhere up north… I never can remember where… I feel good about saying NY… she’ll correct me if I’m wrong.
3. Mia- Even if Mia and I are complete and total opposites, I think she’s pretty darn cool
4. Andrea- The mother of “Dandy’s Baby”… she’s totally cool :)
5. Esther- Even if she’ll no longer be local, I’m sure she’ll be totally awesome way down in Florida
6. Rosemoon- Totally awesome, totally almost my neighbor… hey NC isn’t THAT far away 
7. And even if she did crown me, I’m totally crowning her back: Michelle! Here’s hoping that we can work out that visit this summer during break I’m determined to keep Des on a bottle until L can have a go at feeding him
So there you go Takes me forever to get around to these things!
- the boys dentist appointment went well, although Beckett screamed like a banshee for the duration! No cavities! Yeah!
- continuing on the farm front: We’ve made the decision to raise Desmond as a beef. We took care of his “bull-ness” earlier this week and all seems well on that front. Honestly, he doesn’t seem to even notice.
-I’m growing tired of all the people who think that we will not actually take the pigs and Des to the processor. The pigs were brought here with one purpose in mind. Desmond had the possibility of being our herd-bull, but his size ruled that out. Our desire is to breed for ease of calving and his birth wasn’t exactly easy.
-Sophie has taken over Des’ bottle feedings as well as feeding Zenzi, although Xander “helps” to some degree. Sophie really likes feeding Des because it’s over quickly, but she doesn’t like to feed Zenzi because it takes so long. Seriously. The other morning Sophie was sitting on the edge of a bucket, legs crossed, arms crossed with her head in her hand while feeding the lamb with an extremely bored expression on her face… I wish I had the camera… it was a classic M pose.
-Jim is being very patient about me blogging instead of doing morning chores… even if I was playing QWERTY just moments ago because I was suffering from a continuing bout of writer’s block.
-Just to pat myself on the back: I played the word “sermonizingly” which caused the person I was playing to leave the room. That so amuses me. Of course I just had my butt kicked by the last guy I played… but it was actually a really good game.
-We are averaging about 5.5 gallons or about 44lbs of milk a day, which is somewhere between AWESOME and OVERWHELMING! I need to make more butter and cheese, which is probably on the docket for today. The pigs shall be happy regardless
-Speaking of butter. We finally broke down and bought an electric churn. It’s lovely. It has a really quiet motor and best of all can do 2 gals of cream at a time! WooHoo!!
-We also went ahead and upgraded our canners. We’ve had the same pressure canner for ages so we decided it was high time for a new one. We now have an incredibly cool looking All-American Canner 930. Yes it is wickedly expensive, but since so much of our pantry is stocked by home canned goods then I think it’s perfectly ok… plus the thing should last forever. We also went whole-hog and got a Weck water-bath canner(no photo on that link but have a look-see at those beautiful jars) as well (with faucet), simply because it can be used for cheesemaking as well as canning. We did break down and buy a couple different jars… how can you resist? They’re just too lovely. Even Angry Chickenmentioned them on her blog a couple times FYI: Weck doesn’t have online ordering, but their phone people are so incredibly nice that it’s sort of fun going old-school with a call-in order.
-Feed situation update: We are now mixing the feed half and half with no problems whatsoever. Seriously, I totally don’t understand why the feed doesn’t bother them as long as it’s mixed with the old. We’re going to keep weaning out the old feed to see what is the lowest percentage of mix they will tolerate. Even at the current rate it makes our feed bill much nicer.
-just read the above paragraph and realized it’s a grammatical nightmare. Meh… I’m leaving it.
-And because I really need to jump on the whole dairy aspect of my day I’m going to stop here. I seriously hope to have something more interesting than a “bullet-post” next time!
-Maisie is doing excellently. She’s giving very close to 6 gallons of milk every day. Jim and I have taken to milking together to speed up the milking process. He milks one side and I milk the other. We had our first teat-tiff this morning because he kept squirting milk on my fingers. I only retaliated once and then Maisie voiced displeasure and we resumed normal sane behavior. I started milking with Jim after he said I should be more involved in the whole milk process… as if carrying 30+ lbs of milk all the way down from the cow barn twice a day, pouring it up, making butter (cheese, sour cream, buttermilk etc) wasn’t enough… apparantly I need to be more “hands on”. Hmph. Actually I don’t mind.
-Sophie had her first experience milking and did really well! See photos to the left in the Flickr thing. She was actually mad at me for not allowing her to do more… maybe next time!
-M’s birthday is Monday… everyone say HAPPY BIRTHDAY M!!!
-I made mozzarella cheese with fair success… better than the paneer that I scorched (eww…).
-I made a sour cream pound cake out of our own butter and sour cream (and eggs too). It is delicious!
-Zenzi is doing well although still has issues with sucking a bottle. She won’t take the bottle until you force the nipple in her mouth and then she sucks just fine.
-Desmond is growing by leaps and bounds! He’s still in his “awww he’s so cute” stage. I need to take more pics of him. He thinks I’m his mama… everytime he sees me he runs up to the fence and starts licking his lips!
-No new lambs yet. I was fairly certain that we would see some lambs this past week, but nothing. This week is looking good though!
-Zeke will be going in with the ladies in another week or so. He (and they) are very eager to get acquainted!
-We’ve put in an order for Poulet Rouge type poultry. Our chicks will be arriving sometime in/after May. We’re excited to experience these high quality birds. 20 will be replacement layers and the rest are for eating.
-We also have duck and turkey eggs in the hatchers right now. These will also be for eating.
-M, with the “help” of Dandy and possibly Jim, planted onions and I think strawberries in the garden. M has just started transplanting her seedlings… look for Flickr pics soon.
-Xander and Beckett are doing well. Xander still tries to reason his way out of mischief (I tease that he’s going to be a lawyer) but Beckett inevitably rats on him!
-Xander’s Southern accent has deepened considerably… Beckett still speaks in “3-year-old-ese” but is starting to drawl out a few words. It’s a bit alarming.
-Sophie has so much going on with her “issues” that I don’t even know where to begin. We now have an “advocate” at the peds office who is helping to point us in the right directions concerning therapy and the best courses of action. It is overwhelming to say the least.
-For those who knew that Sophie had genetics testing done- the results came back confirming that the only thing genetically wrong with Sophie is that Jim and I passed on our eccentric genes. Seriously. That’s what the geneticist said. Seriously. I’m not kidding. He said “you are eccentric, eccentric people tend to marry eccentric people and then have eccentric kids….” I really like the geneticist. He’s kinda out there too.
-The shearer is supposed to be coming sometime… but when? Who know!
-And that’s about it. I’m waiting on the cow guy to call me back but I need to be out working on the sheep barn. At least two of the children are at large on the property and Beckett is clingy… looks like it’s going to be a fun day
Nothing Earth-shattering going on here. Xander did a “mock” up of pre-K this morning with me and he loved it. He suggested that maybe he could just stay home with me and Sophie and do schoolwork. I’m holding off judgement until tomorrow when I’m hoping I’ll be far enough removed from the incident to be more level-headed. Of course the fact that M’s started calling Xander “Mickey D” isn’t helping. And at least now I have a fairly good idea how we got this horrid cold. Oh and upon further inquiry Xander informed us that the PlayPlace was fun, but “icky” as there was POOP in one of the tower things. POOP. Yeah. Great.
Deep breath in…. exhale….
Poop.
So ANYWAY.
I’m planning on making a restorative batch of minestrone today. Nice happy, additive and preservative free soup.
Dang.
I’m telling you I can’t get away from the whole LITTLE DEBBIE CAKE thing either. I can feel my hair starting to stand on end and my elbows are itchy. That’s sooo not a good thing.
So anyway, SOUP. I’m making SOUP today and hopefully some kind of bread. M’s been on this incredible bread baking spree and it’s been heavenly. I’m going to start angling for more of the cinnamon bread that she made. She used to make it when I was younger but now with Vietnamese Cinnamon… it’s ohhhh so much more addictive!
Of course now I want sticky buns, and that requires brioche, that requires butter. Hmph. Did I mention I miss having a cow in milk? Did I also mention that every time I say that M and Jim glare at me as they were the ones that milked said cow? But doesn’t making butter and cheese count for something???
OK. M’s conceded that a milk ANIMAL would be nice, but she’s angling for a goat.
Say Goat Cheeeeeese!!!!
I miss Flossie. She was such a hammerific goat, complete with Nefertiti-esque goat boobies.
Apparently I need to lay off the cold meds and the flavored coffees this morning. Geez…
Goat boobies… *snort*
Donna over at Donna Knits and Spins tagged me for meme that’s frightfully similar to one I did not so long ago, but since I love memes (and making lists in general) I thought I’d give it another go!
The Rules
1) Link to your tagger and list all these rules in your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs
4) Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
1- I still haven’t finished Folklore and I’m fairly certain it’s going to go to the “unfinished video game” pile (hey if knitters and sewers can have unfinished piles, why can’t gamers?) along with FF v and FF vi (which is actually FF3). I refuse to put Heavenly Sword (if only because I like playing Kai) or Jeanne d’arc in that category… yet.
2- I love apple fhoomping.
3- I am inordinately jealous that Jim got his braces off before Christmas and that I have to wait until the middle of January to just see if mine can come off (grrr… it was a small consolation listening to Jim learning to speak with his retainer, until I remembered that I would go through the same thing later).
4- I still don’t know how to darn socks (sorry Mrs. England… I’ll never make a proper English wife).
5- I have used every ounce of my charisma on the barista at Leopard Forest and she still won’t even smile at me, which is slightly annoying as I’m usually able to charm most everybody at least when I put that much effort into it.
6- I spoke with my best friend from Junior High School just a couple days ago. It was shocking as I had driven by her old house the day prior and had been thinking about her. We grew apart during our high school years (she went to Gov’s school) and then the college years had us moving in very different circles. The last time I really spoke to her was when I was pregnant with Sophie… so it’s been a long time! Our lives are as different at two people can be, but that old spark of friendship is still there.
7- Hmmm…. a seventh weird/random thing….. I have an affinity for Maneki Neko, which might explain my Hello Kitty fascination as well. I have a huge Maneki Neko bank in our kitchen that the children love “feeding” whenever they find change around the house. I have a maneki neko noren across the doorway to the kitchen closet (ours is the short one, not the long one). I got it from this brilliant little Asian Imports store that used to be in the old mall off of Woodruff. That’s the same store that unbelievably had a jade bracelet large enough to actually fit me, mind you I can NOT remove it from my wrist, but it’s beautiful so I don’t mind
So that’s it, 7 more things about me I’ll forgo tagging anyone else as I think everybody that reads me has done this one now too… if you haven’t consider yourself tagged and let me know!
Andrea over at Holding on for the Ride tagged me for this little meme. I’ve been meaning to get around to it, and have finally found a relatively quiet moment
7 Weird Facts
1. Walmart wigs me out.
2. As does Bi-Lo.
3. I have a sporadic phobia of people. Typically huge crowds don’t bother me and then other times it totally sets me over the edge. The worst time it ever happened I was at the Grand Canyon.
4. I sometimes like being a stirrer (definition 4 a & b also 5).
5. I still haven’t finished Folklore.
6. I don’t like to go outside after dark if I’m home alone. However if everyone is home then it doesn’t bother me. And if there’s a farm emergency then it doesn’t bother me at all… I’ve walked our entire acreage at 3am looking for a lost horse and never worried about the first snake, predator, dog… nothing and that’s without a flashlight!
7. I’m glad Jim’s decided not to get another motorcycle/scooter in the near future!
I don’t think there are 7 people that still read my blog so I’m just going to have to leave this part out!
After voting yesterday we decided to go on a bit of an adventure as none of us had any desire to sit around watching the returns, knowing that the election results were not going to be surprising.
So we piled into the car and headed up to Hendersonville for more apples. We didn’t actually pick apples this time, we just mixed up 3 bushels of Cameo, Arkansas Black, York, Jonagold, Pink Lady, Stayman, Rome and maybe something else, but I can’t remember. We have plenty of apples to make juice and applesauce and to dry a few for pies later this winter and we even have some to store in the basement! We were excited to stock up as the season is pretty much coming to an end.
The drive to NC was gorgeous! I think we hit the perfect day! The sun was bright but the sky was overcast off to the east so it really made all the leaves POP!
On the way to Hendersonville.
Another on the way to Hendersonville.
From NC we decided to drive to G’ville to hit a couple craft store sales. We racked up on some discounted Halloween supplies for next year and a couple Christmas things. At checkout we got 3 more 50% off coupons! WooHoo!
On the way to G’ville.
Another on the way to G’ville.
We did manage to enjoy the free Starbucks coffee and free Chik-fil-a sandwiches which, it turns out were just free for anyone, not just for voters as it is against the law to have voting promotions… or so we were told by a manager. We attempted the free Krispie Kreme, but the line was around the building with no parks so we decided it wasn’t worth it, although the Hot and Now sign was on… so we were sorely tempted.
When we pulled into the driveway I was met by an unhappy sight. The non-breeding flock was somehow mixed with the breeding stock! Eek! Of course it was dark, so that made the separation even more difficult, but luckily we were able to sort the sheep without too much ado! Nick has once again cracked open his head… I think he’s going to sporting a ram-shield soon!! However I don’t think the ewe-lambs were bred as Nick wasn’t showing much interest in them… he was more interested in crashing skulls with Ernie and Egin.
