I drove to a farm about 45 minutes away today to pick up a new addition to the Ranchette clan.  Welcome, Hiro, the newest addition to the Mouse Patrol.

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The picture doesn’t provide any perspective on just how tiny he is.  He fits in the palm of my hands.  He’ll stay in the tack room with milk and cookies, I mean kibble for a couple of weeks until gets acclimated to his new home.

image: Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue Trainer’s Challenge. The Challenge has begun and horses and trainers have been paired up for the summer. So far, this good looking boy & his trainer are my favorite duo. He’s already been trailered to a local park to get familiar with trailering & new places and walked along the pretty horse trails at Carver Park Reserve. (Coincidentally Carver is one of my favorite places in the area for wildlife and flora photography.)

Check out the full list of horses and trainers, along with status updates, at the Trainer’s Challenge website: here.

All will reconvene September 13th to show off their new skills and compete for the cash prize. Good Luck everyone!

Update: Kara Myst’s trainer just posted a hilarious update from Sleipner Stables.  Looks like George will have some competition for my affections.   Check it out at the link above.

I’d noticed over the last month that Mr. Banderas, the Hackney Pony, in a never-ending quest to reach the last blade of grass under the wood fence, had been rubbing a section of his mane thinner. And thinner. And then, oh my god, one day. Bald. Pony Mohawk. Ready to join a Punk 80’s Band.

He looks a bit ridiculous. With the last of this stretch of hair gone, I began to worry that he’d actually been itching it off and dosed him up with Ivermectrin ahead of schedule and topped the mohawk off with a little MTG. Has anyone used the MTG (Mane Tail Groom)? Or any other recommendations?

Yesterday, Banderas returned to harness training and strutted his stuff around the arena. I think he’ll be ready to take some ground driving trips around the neighborhood soon. We haven’t had a single tangle up in the lines the last several outings. He chomps at the bit and will likely benefit from some side rein or side check training eventually as he tries to evade contact with the bit still.

Today was hoof trimmer day. In preparation, I free longed J, the Trakehner/Arabian gelding, in the indoor arena. I like to exercise him before the appointment. Old habits from the days when I used to base the multiplier factor to use when writing the farrier check on the number of times J tried to kick at her. He’s a good boy now but still, I’d hate to mess with a system that works.

Here’s a photographic attempt to catch him going over a barrel & side pole. My cellphone camera can’t keep up with fast motion. He looks a bit like a really really large weiner dog in flight.

White peaches are in season.  The means two things: Bellinis and jam.  Since I’ve had no time to make jam and I had over a dozen white peaches languishing in my refrigerator, on Sunday I set about making peach puree in preparation for a nice refreshing Bellini later in the week.

The Bellini, a combination of peach puree and Italian sparkling wine, was first created at the delightful Harry’s Bar in Venice.  Arrigo Cipriani has this to say about proper Bellini tending in The Harry’s Bar Cookbook :

“Like so many things in ‘the good old days,’ making the white peach juice for Bellinis was a lengthy and tedious process.  We had a man who did nothing all day but cut up and pit small white peaches and squeeze them with his hands to extract the juice. 

…Never use yellow peaches to make a Bellini and never puree the peaches by machine…Use a food mill or meat grinder to make the pulp and then force it through a fine sieve.  If the peach puree is very tart, sweeten it with just  a little sugar syrup.  Refrigerate the puree until it is very cold.  Mix it with very cold, dry Prosecco in the proportion of 1 part peach puree to 3 parts wine.”

Since I did not have a man in the kitchen devoted to creating white peach puree for me, I pitted the ripe peaches (skins on) and smashed them through a wire collander with a potato masher.  Strain again through a fine sieve and chill.  Mix with some sparkly as directed above.

Now I think I’m going to order a Croque Monsieur and watch the gondolas go by.

Well, at least tall grass.  This is the height of the grass in the big pasture, the one on which I’m still trying to get the electric fence working.  Mr. Banderas, the Hackney pony, couldn’t believe his eyes.

The horses have had a nice 2+ week vacation while I’ve had my hands full with projects at work.  I hate to break it to them, but summer vacation is scheduled to end this coming week.

It started this winter with the business of The Accidental Vole. This spring Kato, the Grey Ninja, has quickly advanced to birds. Given how fast the barn swallows swoop through the barn and yard, I thought the one above, captured a few weeks ago, was an anomaly. The kitten didn’t really seem to know what to do with it.

Over the course of the last 3 days though the tack room had quickly turned into a gruesome cat snack storage locker: One small live frog kept in the corner as if the start of a kitten entertainment center. (Watch! It hops when I bat it with my paw!) One baby bird, no longer of this world. First one, then the following day a second, full grown barn swallow, also dispatched by the Ninja. (The parents?? - eeek, little birdy genocide!)

Is the kitten a hoarder? It’s possible she’s bringing them to her mother cat who’s been a little under the weather and losing the sight in one eye. The little body land mines were just too much for me last night. DH helped me clear out the carnage and lock the cats out of the tack room.

Food, water and cat beds have moved to an unused stall with a view where the kitten can store all the midnight snacks she likes.

Ok, all I can say to explain is that I’ve been working too much lately. It made perfect sense to me when I ran home between appointments to just quickly throw the wellies on and turn the horses out in this outfit. Dressage whip extra special crazy touch. It occurred to me when the meter man arrived at the same time I was headed out back that this isn’t a particularly normal combination, even at Ranchette. I guess at least the boots match?

Photo: OneGirlOneRide.com

Twelve year old E’leese Madgett-Manrique lives in Plymouth, MN about 20 minutes from my home town.  She has an ambitious plan to ride her Arabian horse Chips ‘n Salsa across the state raising money for military personnel and their families.  This kid thinks big: her mom has helped her become incorporated as a legal non-profit entity.  E’leese dreams of building a resort on 3,000 acres to provide a free vacation destination for veterans and their families.  She has a name picked out already:  The Ranch Minnesota.

She left from Buffalo, MN on the morning of Saturday, June 7 headed towards Duluth.  She’s scheduled to return to St. Paul on August 31.  For more information, visit her website at: www.onegirloneride.com.