Painted Pony in the Fog

www.websterps.com

This photograph taken in 2007, early one morning in North Dakota at my parent’s house.

A man, a plan and a cornerpost

DH was busy last week. He took a week’s vacation and devoted it to Ranchette improvements. My favorite of which is:

New Cornerpost in the big pasture

This replaces the previous icarnation of the “corner post system” which had been rigged up by prior tenants from 3 metal t-posts and a bunch of crazy wire. Big improvement. Way to go DH! We just need to trim the one 4×4 to size and restring the electrical wire to the new corner. If today’s rain and subsequent fear of smote by lightning bolt hadn’t prevented it, I would have pounded in the new ground rods for the solar fence charger. The overgrown trees have been trimmed away from the electric wires (DH’s nice handy work again) so that will be the last step in getting the largest pasture open for business.

We Have Hummingbirds!

No pictures to post as it flew away too quickly. While I was relaxing near the patio, I saw the tiniest little movement out of the corner of my eye. A zip zip zoom of a ruby chested throated hummingbird who quickly inspected the gernamiums that currently represent the only blooming thing at Ranchette. Then, he was gone.

I now am inspired to try to set up a hummingbird area. Anyone know what types of flowers they like?

UP’s in the WGC’s

Ugly People in the Whole Grain Cheerios. What can this possibly mean?

This caught my eye in the search engine terms traffic statistics that WordPress automatically generates for this blog. Somehow this google search phrase directed someone here. The topics at Ranchette are fairly predictable. I totally understand how people arrive at my doorstep by searching for things like the following: training hackney pony to pull a cart; eventing safety; even pony walked on my lawn makes perfect sense to me and makes me laugh.

But, Ugly People in the Whole Grain Cheerios? The whole issue of what Ranchette has to do with this topic aside, the whole phrase confuses me.  I’ve looked on my current box of the Whole Grain Cheerios. I didn’t find them. Are they ugly and I don’t realize it? Why would I care if they are ugly? Are there tiny ugly people trapped inside the cheerios box bobbing through the cereal as if through grain filled life buoys? The mind boggles. Any ideas?

Since I was unable to find any photographic evidence of the UP in the WGC, I leave you instead with this nice wild horse family.

Blue Eyed Stallion

www.websterps.com

Tag Sale

 

Brown Eyed Cowgirls tagged me for this history tag.  I had to think pretty hard on that first one.  Thanks for the trip down memory lane girls!

1)What was I doing 10 years ago?

Most likely testing software for Y2K compliance.  Remember the New Millenium?  I was living with a fun girlfriend,  playing the free & single party game at night and breaking code by day.

2)Five things on my “to-do” list?

1. Find a pony cart for Mr. Banderas
2. Unpack more boxes left from the initial move into Ranchette
3. Get out and photograph some new stuff: new foals up the road and Trumpeter Swans at Carver Reserve
4. Finally mail the envelopes I’ve had addressed and ready…and waiting…since before the weekend
5. Figure out where to plant the garden

3)What is a snack you enjoy?

  I really love that Zen Master Rice Cracker mix with Wasabi Peas or Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies.  I have no self control when it comes to the Thin Mints; I eat them full tubes at a time.  Thank god they only arrive once a year.

4)What things would you do if you were a billionaire?

• Crank call my old office mates like ALL THE TIME.  Leave messages on voicemail that say obnoxious things like “Oh me, Drysdale,  again, just popped over to Harry’s Bar for a little Bellini and croque-monsieur.’
• I believe the phrase ‘buying lots of ponies’ goes without saying.  

5)Places I have lived?

I started in North Dakota and now am in Minnesota.  I like to think I am slowly working my way South towards the Tropics.

6)Do you have any bad habits?

Moi?  As a Leo, I can hardly consider arrogance a bad habit; it’s a charming idiosynchracy.  

7)Jobs I have had?

Farm hand on a horse farm, Al Bundy at shoe stores in high school & college, a Kelly Temp one summer, Software Support at a major corporation, Product Manager at same, Photographer, Digital Printmaker, Graphic Designer (of sorts), Software & Controls Consultant.

Pale Horses

J is on serious probation. Yesterday, he took a kick at DH. DH is fine, but not amused. I was not amused when I received the following text message at the office yesterday: Am ok. J very bad horse.

If he’s the first one home, DH has kindly taken to letting the horses out onto pasture in the evening. A couple of weeks ago, DH, I and the horses had some lessons with the crop to enforce boundaries while the gate is being opened. Everyone had kept a nice respectful distance since then so I thought we were in good shape. Yeah, not so much.

J is not a beginner’s horse. He will seek out the first sign of pecking order weakness and use it to his advantage. It is an unforgiving personality trait that until now I’d thought was only an issue under saddle. He has only ever been handled by experienced horse people but I never in a million years would have guessed that he would actually try anything like this.

I marched out to the paddock last night muttering something about a come to Jesus meeting. DH followed concerned that J would try the same with me. Oh, he won’t pull that crap with me, I responded. How can you be so sure? DH asked seeing visions of me trampled beneath gleeful bay hooves.

In my muttering, I tried to explain that this manipulative buffalo of a warmblood horse would never try that with me because he knows that his world would come to a screeching, noisy, painful halt the second he let the thought of me and kick enter into the same hemisphere of his walnut shell brain. This would be swiftly followed by a blurry vision of a pale horse, its rider Thanatos and the Hell that follows behind.

How do we convince animals that are 10 times our size that we have this kind of power? How do they know the difference in body language? What gives us away?

All went fine when I went to let the horses out. I took the dressage whip but fixed J in his beady little eyes before I went to the gate. He knew the gig was up and behaved like a gentleman. He and the pony, Banderas, made a couple of meager attempts to approach before I’d cleared the way. He quickly decided that he was a very patient pony and didn’t need to come anywhere close to the gate while I was there. DH meanwhile was twitching outside the paddock asking why in the world they didn’t do that for him.

So, now I am left with a quandary. We either need to ensure that DH isn’t involved in the horses at all, J in particular or I need to help train him, a newbie, safely in the Way of the Pony.

I have some ideas for supervised ground exercises with J in halter to help him learn that he needs to listen to DH, but am looking for some good beginner’s books that would enforce authority and explain horse communication. I have a hard time dissembling my horse sense into something that I can verbalize. Anyone have any recommended reading for DH?

I’m not a huge Parelli fan, but open to thoughts there if people think the exercises might be useful for an inexperienced handler. The Lyons book I have assumes a bit too much horse sense; the Cherry Hill Understanding Your Horse is a good start but looking for some additional ideas.

P.S. Turns out that the pale horse in the Book of Revelations actually was referred to as a green horse in the original Greek. Somehow a sage green sickly horse doesn’t quite have the same ring.

Sambal Oelek of My Dreams

A non-horse intermission before getting to tomorrow’s Cutest of the Expo award. Today, the roofers were here giving Ranchette’s top layer a much needed face lift. The weather was miserable so I decided to spend part of the day getting ready for next weekend’s Derby Party.

I set the Gemini Robots (see my love affair with them here) & myself to work downstairs to the sound of the rip rip, thump. rip rip thump. BANG bang thump of the roofers. Amid the racket, I finished the mint infused simple syrup for the juleps and some spiced cashews for next weekend’s party goers. Click here for those party recipes.

I needed a little sustenance during this so made a favorite lazy snack: Deep’s frozen samosas with home-stirred sweet & spicy dipping sauce seasoned with Sambal Oelek. If you like spicy food, you probably already know this happy little rooster label:

A little dab will do, this stuff will burn your tongue off. But it’s oh so good. Recipe for the dipping sauce:

• Homemade jam (white peach, pineapple most will do, just avoid the berry flavors)
• Thin this with vinegar (I used the brine from pickled bell peppers)
• Add Sambal Oelek to taste. Start small, think big.

Think of it as Midwest meets Chutney.  Back to our regular scheduled programming tomorrow.

At the Hitching Post

Mr. Banderas at the Hitching Post

I like being in a neighborhood where it’s not so unusual to see someone either ride up on horseback or take their horse on a lead for a stroll.  Earlier this week I saddled Banderas for the first time with the wee little western saddle and later took him for a walk.

Although the pony seemed convinced that mailboxes are a new species of super scary stationary monster, he did pretty well.  He was level headed with bicycles and tricycles moving noisily down the street.  Overall he’s a bit pushy and filled with piss & vinegar; I can start to see how he flunked out of being a child’s pony on the first try.  Think we’re going to need alot of line driving around the roads before getting a cart hooked up.

miRobot

I ordered a set of floor cleaning robots last month. Perhaps this makes me sound like George Jetson or a cyborg sweat-shop, but really I just really hate scrubbing floors.

The mud room had really gotten out of control:

It took 2 cycles, but after the Scooba (the floor washing version of Roomba the vacuuming robot), it looked like this:

I love my Robot. Now if only I could find a Work-ba to go to the office for me, I would really have it made.

My Robot (Scooba version)

Visit the iRobot site here.

Run for the Bourbon, I Mean Roses

Glad to hear I’m not the only one planning a Kentucky Derby Party. I was organized last week and sent out invites. (quel shock!). I have since done…NOTHING. Other than look up a recipe for Mint Juleps. It strikes me that today would be a perfect opportunity to make the simple syrup and test drive a julep (or two).

Word to the wise, there are those do not know what the Derby is. And still don’t when the Kentucky part is added. Of course, at the additional mention of southern ham and bourbon, those who don’t know, aren’t likely to care.

For those with party plans already in the works, I learned from my track going friend that if you register your Derby party here on the Official Kentucky Derby site, you could be chosen to win tickets to the 2009 Derby. Oooh…pick me. I wonder what the criteria is? I am hoping it is by cutest invitation or at least Cutest Ponies in a Race Horse Role, for which we could be contenders:

Download the full size invitation (5×7″) and use for your own party here.  Or use the cool templates on line at the Kentucky Derby homepage.   

Anybody putting any wagers down on their favorite?  I was counting on War Pass, but have to re-evaluate basis the news of his injury yesterday.