What Price Progress?

Baby steps at the homestead these days. I don't know what to throw money at first.

Do I buy a camper or try to make the mudroom live-able? Mudroom is cheaper, camper can accommodate additional people thereby increasing the pool of available labor.

Do I build a barn or buy portable stall panels to put up in the garage for now? Garage option is cheaper, and likely best, so long as I am not living in the adjacent mudroom. Barn would add resale value in the event I decide to throw in the towel, or the bank says we cannot borrow sufficient money to do this.

Do I rent a tractor or hire someone to run a machine to make corral space? Hiring a tractor is cheaper and I would have the machine for longer, but to hire a pro is likely more cost-efficient and would result in a neater job.

Do I splurge on RAMM Fencing? I think it would be the safest for Tag, but I don't expect these first corrals to be permanent. This is definitely what I want in the future, however.

Re-commissioning the well is the one item not in dispute, I need it to live there and to burn the brush I hope to get cleared next week. Well guy is coming out to evaluate on Wednesday, hopefully he can get the work done shortly thereafter.

Construction bids are coming in fast and furious, and all over the map. Eeney, meeney, miney, moe... Methinks a call to the building inspector is in order, to level the playing field somewhat.

Took a walk out to the back forty and found the old well that is marked on the plans. Shallow, hand dug, stone-lined and pretty. I think I will put a bench nearby and call it a reflecting pool.

Right now, in the Underground Lair...

I have a fairly big sofa. I also have three small dogs. Somehow, three pomeranians (collectively known as the muppets), with a combined weight of no more than 35 pounds, have me neatly confined to one corner of it. And I soon as I get up they try to take that too. I am typing with my left wing clipped by the arm of the sofa, and my right elbow resting on the back of Willow. Her muppet name is Miss Piggy. Wylie, muppet name Gonzo, is making himself as large as his fluff can on the other end. Midgie, muppet name Animal (or sometimes Beaker, but usually Animal), is actually behind me, sprawled across the back of the couch while resting his cute little chin on my shoulder. I think he's spying on my web-surfing habits. He'll be pissed if he sees me on Petfinder looking at Poms that are waiting to be adopted. He likes being the baby and has no desire for a new sibling.

Speaking of babies, Pepper is growing up quite nicely!

Sucks to have to sell her. Maybe I won't. I paid the stupid tax and bought a Mega-Millions ticket tonight. You can't lose if you don't play! If I don't lose I'll be sure to post it here first. Ha.

That's right, I'm talking to you

To the guy in the black ford ranger with the cap over the bed on Rt 27 in Stoughton at 7:30 this morning: Fuck.You. You pathetic Scott Brown wannabe. Keep on rollin' that glorified el camino. Next time you honk at me and flip me off for stopping while the light is still yellow you will find your high beams firmly embedded in my trunk. I roll company wheels pal, I don't give a fuck who hits me. In fact, I could really use the money and should have braked harder. My neck hurts just thinking about it.

FYI - This is a truck.












and you'd best hope I'm not driving it the next time I see you. 'Cause I'll put all 365 horses riding 660 lb-ft of torque directly into this matchbox.


It'll make a most gratifying splat.

No No No No No No No

I knew my inability to say "No" was going to catch up with me eventually. So I find myself in the damnable situation of having one too many horses. Reason is my old man Monte, who has been leased out as a lesson horse for many moons now, has to come back to me. Not enough lessons to go around, apparently. So I am searching for someone else to lease him, at least half, preferably full. My horse priorities (man, this is like having to pick your favorite kid), are as follows: Tag above all others, Monte 2nd (he's old and has earned the right to a happy semi-retirement), then Pepper ('cause I'm god as far as Pepper is concerned, she is on this earth because I made her), then the pony girls. But really it's whoever I can sell first, Pepper or the ponies. Or lease someone, at least until I can get moved into the new house. Taking care of them myself costs half as much as boarding.

In the meantime, if anyone is looking for a super-safe, been there and done that lesson horse, let me know. Showed Morgan class A until two years ago, former Reserve World Champion, rides, drives, loves trails, honest as the day is long. All the kids have to do is sit there and smile and they leave the ring with a ribbon. Available for free lease, and I visit often. Here's my old man:



I just love him so much. He's the best boy ever. Adding him to the feedroll means I have to stop contributing to my 401(k). And I really don't want to do that. But of course I will. 'Cause the only stock I buy has four legs!

Here are the pony girls:





Matched pair of buckskin shetland ponies, registered, ride, drive, proven broodmares. Make me an offer. Someone. Anyone. Please????

Rock Star

I'm pleased to report that Tag's surgery went well. To quote the clinic vet "she's a rock star" :)

She handled everything as serenely as always, and her extended stay at the clinic while I was out of town did not bother her at all. I love that she is such a great blind horse ambassador. Also happily (for me), the eyeball was removed without rupturing and it is now in a jar, on my desk. It's bigger than I expected, but otherwise pretty much like you'd expect an eyeball to look like. I can't wait to freak out my nieces and nephews with it. And anyone else squeamish . I'd post a picture but I don't think a photograph conveys the full effect. If I get any requests for it I will post one, how's that.

I felt validated in my decision to remove the eye, and a smidge guilty for not doing it sooner, when the surgeon told me that Tag's resting heart rate pre-surgery was an elevated 40, and post-surgery has dropped back to a normal 30. So that is my best gauge so far of how much pain and stress she was having, poor baby. I can already tell she is feeling better. She'll be hand-walked for a few more days, mostly to keep her from rubbing the eye on anything outside that might pop the stitches out, and after that her life resumes as normal.

On a non-horsey note, when talking on the phone to a guy for the first time, having met online and been emailing, and he mentions having a hard time getting a pistol permit due to a prior arrest for assaulting a police officer, don't walk, run. Run and be glad you preserved your anonymity. I was rendered speechless, truly. I suppose it could have been a joke, but who would joke about that with someone during their first-ever conversation? Yikes. I'm going to be single forever.

Evolution

This blog is evolving, as is everything else on this planet. So rather than having it be exclusively about someday farm, I am hereby throwing open the gates to the rest of my life. Which my non-existent audience will undoubtedly find just as boring as I do. So. Here goes nothing.

My sweet, blind mare Tag will be having her right eye removed Tuesday. After five and a half looong years of trying and failing to slow the progression of vision loss due to Equine Recurrent Uveitis (ERU for short, aka moonblindness, aka Periodic Opthalmia) , glaucoma has set in, secondary to the ERU. While glaucoma was not unanticipated, I did not expect it to sneak in the way it did. Looking back , I have known for several months that Tag was really not quite herself, but with everything else that was going on in my life last year I did not worry as much about it as I should have. So when Tag started a bad flare-up last week, I began treating it as usual, although it did prompt me to have the talk about enucleation with my vet that I kept forgetting to have. Vet encouraged me to have a consultation with a vet from a nearby equine urgent care clinic, as they have a specialty piece of equipment that vet does not have; i.e. a tono-pen. Tono-pens measure intra-ocular pressure, that is, the pressure inside the eyeball. Normal is below twenty, over twenty is glaucoma, over thirty is bad. Tag's left eye (also blind but thankfully flare-up free, for now, at least) was an excellent 16. Tag's right eye was a very alarming 87. 87!!!! What a migraine that must be causing. So do to the danger of the eyeball rupturing on it's own, I scheduled surgery post-haste, for this Tuesday.

The hard part is that I will be out of town for work when my baby goes under the knife. I will be able to bring her to the clinic on Monday morning, to help her make that transition, but I cannot be there for any of her post-op care. So Tag will stay at the clinic until I return, she will come back to the barn a week from Monday. I expect by that time she will be quite her old self, pain-free and spunkier. Lookout world.

On the "DarcC is a freak" front, the surgical vet, while surprised my request, has promised me that yes, I can have Tag's eyeball in a jar, assuming it comes out in one piece as planned. Apparently sometimes, well, they don't. For all the squeamish people who don't read this, I won't elaborate. That eyeball has cost me a lot of money, damnit; it's mine and I want it back. Someday in the hopefully distant future I want to be able to bury it with her so she's whole again. Or maybe I'll just keep it to freak out small children - it can become a neighborhood legend, Boo Radley-esque. I'll be the crazy eyeball lady. "did you know she keeps an eyeball in a jar? No-one really knows whose it is, but some say it was a little kid who gave her a dirty look one day..." Or something to that effect.

Good times

Good times in West Brookfield yesterday. Two of my nieces (ages 7 and 9) arrived, chauffeured by my mom, and paid for their nickel tour. They were both a wee bit freaked out by the place, I don't think they could get out of it fast enough. Oddly, it was the farthest from home they'd ever been, and the most country. They are complete and total city slickers, which made for some amusement over the course of the day. They had heard that there were lots of deer around, and hoped to see them, and didn't understand that I could not just summon a deer at will. I think I cleared that particular misconception up for them while on our brief jaunt across the yard to the peach tree. They'd heard of the fabled peach tree and it's bumper crop a few weeks prior, but again, did not grasp the fact that there were no more peaches to be had until next year. They found that very odd. They also asked, repeatedly, where my horses were, and I seemed to think that I was already living in the house, sans mondern amenities. I cleared that up for them too.

We went apple picking at a nearby orchard, and I spotted a bald eagle soaring very close by, and so low it was easy to identify. That was a neat thing to be able to point out to them, but again, they were not as enamored of it as I was.

Returning to the house, we then took a walk out back, down the logging road towards the clearing that isn't a clearing. We left the road to go out into the woods for a ways, and then rather than backtrack, we had to do a bit of bushwacking to get back to the road. Nothing major, just winding around to find the best footing and least thorns, but the girls were really, genuinely concerned that we were lost in the woods. Luckily, we spotted some wild, fragrant concord grapes within arm's reach and assured them that even if we were lost at least we wouldn't starve! I don't think that made them feel any better. I don't think they felt really better until our cars were back in sight.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, an hour or so of cutting back underbrush revealed the oft-glimpsed, never touched cornerstone that is the end of the stone wall. I cleared it back enough to sit on without being attacked by thorns. Couldn't do too much more than that as one weedwacker looked like its gas somehow got contaminated, and the mower deck is still out for repair, waiting on a part. So after apple picking and our walk in the not-quite-hundred-acre wood, I found a trunk of winter clothes, loaded up the cowgirl cadillac, and headed home.

It was a quintessential New England fall day, replete with family and foliage.