I love horses.

Belgian/Reg'd Paint cross filly "Breezy" (sire is Payday's Flashcat). Very sweet, but quite cow-hocked at this point of time. Here is a little photo of her daddy from the Warkentin Ranch website.

Percheron/Paint cross colt. The odd mousy coloured tail and extremities may mean he will end up a true black. This is a lousy photo, but I really like this colt's attitude, and he has good straight legs. He is one of my favourites. Notice he still has the auction stamp on his rump! We can't get close enough yet to remove the stamps.


TB/Percheron cross filly. She is likely related to my other favourite in the group (below): She is very nicely conformed, but already a little mare-ish in attitude.


This is my other favourite guy. He is a big galoof, and is all leg at the moment. Not sure how he will turn out, but he has a wise eye and is very interested in people.

* * * * *

Plain and simple; I have loved horses forever, and I suspect I always will. It's like a chronic illness, causing the most misery when I'm in a living situation not allowing any access to them. Our time in New Jersey was brutal for this; horses are definitely only for the rich and famous there.

Our neighbour Arnold picked up another small herd of horses from Manitoba earlier in the fall. This is the nicest bunch he's purchased by far (my hunter/jumper/eventing background making me biased!). They are draft horse crosses, either with Thoroughbreds or registered Paints. And they are LOVELY. He also picked up two almost two year old colts for a song earlier in the year. He is not internet-savvy, so I brought home his paperwork and have done some investigating for him. Two of the colts have very impressive pedigrees; both have Percheron moms (my favourite draft horse) and their sires have heavy doses of Bold Ruler, Northern Dancer, Nijinksy and more! I've only heard back from one of the three ranches; hoping that the others will be as helpful.

On Monday, he asked Alison if she would come and help him introduce the two older horses to saddle. And she and I are both working with the weanlings; using natural horsemanship techniques with them. Horse training has grown by leaps and bounds since I was young; the advent of natural horsemanship techniques (such as round-pen training, and join-up for building trust) and Parelli games have been awesome for the industry (although they are really only formalized versions of "Listen to what your horse is telling you"!)

These horses were foaled at pasture, left at pasture, weaned early, sent on a train from Manitoba to Ontario, auctioned off and trucked to homes, all without being handled. We've been visiting them since their arrival. It is so rewarding to watch their different personalities unfold; the early adapters -- "Wha ..? Oh, that's good. I'll do pretty much anything for that grain!" to the very cautious. One in particular has captured my heart. He's a big galoof of a colt; really tall and very gangly. Also one of the most shy; but he watches you when you're in the pen with them, ears forward, and follows your movements. He has "the eye"; he has a lot of potential. I've been playing the normal games with him; we don't have a round pen available, but body language still works wonders with untamed babies. For instance, looking directly at a horse is very scary for them; that's what a predator would do. To invite them to approach you, you avert your eyes, and become as small as possible. I finally had victory with my big galoof #119 yesterday. He approached me and nibbled at the grass I was holding, then (more importantly!!!) came back quite a few more times. There is also a chestnut filly who has been quite shy, and she also accepted my invitation to feed her for the first time yesterday.

At one point I was crouched in the middle of their pen, and six out of the eight were surrounding me, heads down and blowing through their nostrils at me. It was a great moment; these six have finally begun to trust me. Although I do miss riding dreadfully, this is equally rewarding and our family is very grateful that Arnold is willing to let us play with his babies ... (heh, heh ... Arnold is an old-time horse trader; he's getting help gentling his horses for free. He's pretty smart!)

At some point I will try to get some photos of the horses! In the meantime, I reiterate ... I. Love. Horses.

Out of the mouths of babes :-D

This gem from our good friends' the Cylkas little guy Ben (pictured in the apple picking post), and quoted from his mom's gmail tag this morning:

Ben, after being told to take the necklace from the dress up box out of his mouth: "But Alison wears bracelets on her teeth! She does!!"

This made me laugh! Alison now has braces top and bottom, and I guess they're a little more visible. She babysat the boys on Saturday night when their folks went out to dinner, and this is what Ben remembers :-). Gotta love four-year olds!

Only dogs wag their tails when they are happy .... right? Check this out ...

This is Billie Holiday, our loaner from Bill Stearman. After an aloof beginning, she has become an adorable pet. I will miss her when she leaves later this month :-(. Look at that tail go!

Here is a photo from today of both girls' 2007 lambs.


Alison is currently completing the secretary's book for the 2007 Prince Edward County 4H Sheep Club, and it has been fun looking back over the year to see the changes in the lambs, and all the fun events the girls have been involved with. I'm regretting my decision to breed all our ewes Shetland this fall ... it works well for our personal flock goals, but the sheep club is going to ramp up and allow kids to raise a market lamb to auction this year. Jazzy and Latifah should be bred Texel, or Cheviot (even though I don't like Cheviot temperment) to produce market type. So I'm praying about what to do ...

And here is a closeup of sweet Billie :-).

Yesterday was my youngest child's birthday!

Iain turned 10 yesterday. No more single digits in our family. We were blessed in that our realtor (yes, the realtor that has given us a lot of grief in the past, for those in the know) had a client appreciation day yesterday. Their office rented the Mustang Drive-In in it's entirety and ran two family movies, had a barbeque, with cotton candy, castle, the playground and the whole nine yards. Best of all there were things our family could eat; they bought locally, which meant incredible 100% beef burgers from the butcher in Picton. (This is the same butcher who, not too long ago, begged me to supply him with lamb ASAP. Man, the market I have, without the space to produce it :-(. I have four legs of lamb in my freezer; he said his retail price for them depending on weight would be $40-$50. Each. Wowza.

Anyway, I digress. We were able to have a very fun family time which was great. Another indication that Iain is growing up; he doesn't really want anything for this birthday! This is a huge step for him, the collector of all things lego and Playmobile and aquarium-related. One thing we are definitely going to do: Kev will take him to a Belleville Bulls hockey game sometime soon :).

We're having his birthday dinner today, and we will be breaking out Bill Stearman's chicken for it. Birthday tradition in our family involves the birthday child having their choice of supper. We've done this ever since the kids were really little. Apparently Iain has had his eye on this chicken for a while :-).

Iain is definitely growing up; but in many ways he is still the same. Still a very hard worker, he made sure he was the one who planted our newly acquired mock orange bush yesterday, despite the fact that "birthday day" is the one day per year that our children are excused from chores completely. He did it because it was fun! He loves gardening, science, building things, designing and inventing machines, and playing computer games. He also loves singing and has written some songs of his own. He would like to learn to play the guitar, bass guitar, the saxophone or the trumpet. He loves nature; exploring and identifying animals and their tracks, plants, rocks, or whatever. He is keenly observant and is the one of us who will notice the tiniest baby turtle at the side of the road, then gently carry it across to the marshy area it was aiming for. His self-control is growing by leaps and bounds (school is giving him many opportunities to practise this!). We were discussing with our kids last night which parent they most strongly identified with; Iain truthfully said he was both a mom AND dad's boy ;D.

Happy Birthday, Iain! May this be a year that you gain new understanding about your faith. Step by step, Little Man! We love you.

Photographs ...
Here is the cake that Claire made; when our children were younger, I made all the cakes, however they now take turns making cakes for each other! I help as need dictates. This cake is supposed to be a cup o' joe, and the brown icing is mocha flavour. Iain has LOVED coffee, weirdly, since he snaffooed his first sip at 18 months old. At 8, we finally started allowing him to have the occasional weekend cup (bad parents!).


Here is Claire carrying in her masterpiece ...


And the finale :-) ...

Rain, glorious rain!

Thunder. Lightning. Magnificent rain falling. Wave upon wave of clouds over head, pausing to rest then dumping more. I haven't seen rain-streaked windows in a very long time.

Life is good. Sodden, but very, very good :-).

When I was young, it was stray puppies and kittens, if we were lucky!

Here in rural Ontario, over the last almost-five years, we've now done our share of herding and capturing much bigger animals. Let's see, on the way to church one Sunday morning a couple of years ago there were three horses loose on Fry Road. Our pastor was expected to come by within a few minutes, so Kevin waited for him while the kids and I caught horses, (me in a skirt and heels!), located owners, then made our way to church.

Then last year, we were on our way to Belleville, and something (Someone :-) ..) directed us to go visited some friends. We arrived just as three of their horses escaped, and plans for Belleville were scrapped as we spent almost six hours chasing them through back-country. This was a tricky situation as the horses were from Manitoba, not yet tamed, and used to wide open spaces.

Stray cows? All the time. Mostly my next door neighbours. I've had none of his cows on our lawn this year so apparently he has fixed some fences. One cow that we tried to catch about three years ago turned out to be feral; she'd been loose for over a year, happily munching on farmer's fields and scrounging in the bush in the winter. She is a local legend.

Last night I was just preparing supper when three horses raced by our front window along Bethesda Road. They belong to a neighbour from the other direction, an Arabian, a registered Standardbred and an old blind grade mare. We grabbed lead ropes (don't leave home without 'em!), a bucket of oats and ran to attempt to catch them. They weren't willing at first; the wind in their ears and the scent of the alfalfa field across the road were too much for them. Eventually, though Alison was able to grab hold of the head horse's halter (very helpful if you know this information) and we walked them all home ... to a deserted farm. No owners in sight. So we put them back in the field, then walked the fence and found out where the fence was down. Did a quick fix, then trekked home for dinner which Kevin thankfully had prepared in my absence. He's much more willing to cook than chases horses, although has done so in the past!

Horses are big animals, and drivers don't recognize just how much damage will occur if they hit one. Several weeks ago a county dad was killed when he hit a horse on Jericho Road. Very, very sad. But livestock does get out, and I'm just paying it forward for those who helped us when animals escaped from Oxer Stables when I was growing up. This is what neighbours do.

I am mortified ...

and thankful that not one of my blog readers would have been listening to "The Edge" radio show on UCB last night.

The announcers called for Kevin ... live on air ... (not completely true; prerecorded a few minutes before play) ... and asked for him. He had just raced in the door to visit the little boys' room ... which I alluded to strongly in my conversation. And then all these voices yelled "Gotcha! You are live on UCB 102.3 The Edge!"

At which I responded, "Oh, crumb." I thought it was a friend of his. Truthfully, it WAS a friend of his, with the added dimension that the whole conversation was recorded.

After I'd hung up, of course, all this back-and-forth banter about how I wasn't very happy with them (uh huh) ... yes, let's just emphasize over and over again to 20, 000 listeners that my hubby's in the john and I blabbed on him. (Edited to add: major exaggeration here; The Edge show turns off most of the station listenership. In reality, probably about 100 teens who wouldn't really care were listening . But still! Besides, they're all on Facebook. Should I be scared??? :-D)

**sigh** Alison's response to these shenanigans? "I just love our family!"

(And SHHHHHHHHH, don't tell Steve, one of the announcers responsible for my radio premiere, but I have the capacity to make his life ... well, inconvenient, to say the least ... his company hosts the website I work on ... I'm contemplating a flood of tickets containing pointless questions to his attention ... hmmmm.)

Starting today on UCB, the morning show emphasis is on practical jokes. Needless to say, I warned Kev last night that our phone number could not be involved in any of them :) !

More Rural Economy: Grapes and Apples

Apple picking in Prince Edward County, October 2007

Even I, a newcomer to the County, recall that days when locals could wake up after a windy night and race over to the nearest orchard for $4 per bushel windfall apples. How I miss those days! Many of the orchards are now "bigger business" than they used to be; and often associated with the rapidly expanding viticulture industry in the area.

For those who are not aware, Prince Edward County is "the new" Niagara region, after some entrepeneurial sort noticed two things; that the county has been blanketed with wild grapes for decades, and that the soil (in the Hillier region especially) is pretty much identical to the soil in high wine-producing areas of France. I highly recommend the book "A Fool and Forty Acres" by Geoff Heinricks for those who want insight into a small winery start up by a fellow from TO. It is warm, inviting, informative and replete with county gossip and lore. Here is the publisher's short for the book:

About this Book

---

foreword by Jamie Kennedy

A Fool and Forty Acres is Heinricks’ beautifully written account of leaving behind the rat race, slowing life down, and establishing an intimate relationship with one small parcel of land in a magical corner of Canada.

You won’t find Prince Edward County on any map of the world’s great wine regions. Yet it is to this dollop of rolling limestone in eastern Lake Ontario that Geoff Heinricks brought his young family in pursuit of a dream of creating a truly world class wine. The County, as the locals call it, is a long way from the Niagara Peninsula, and three thousand miles from Burgundy, yet Heinricks and a few hardy souls like him claim that their wines will one day rival those of the legendary French province.

A self-described 21st-century peasant, Heinricks follows the seasons in his vineyards with exquisite attention, from digging the earth, to grafting and planting the vines, to trellising and pruning, to tending the young grapes, to harvesting the fruits of his labours. Along the way, he sketches the human history of the area, the native peoples whose tools and clay shards are heaved up by the soil, and the United Empire Loyalists, whose tidy barns and farmhouses still dot the landscape today.

He also presents a cast of his colourful County neighbours: from old-school farmers to refugees like him from the city, convinced in the wisdom of producing and consuming locally the very best food and wine in harmony with the land.


Anyway, back to apple picking and things of family concern :). We joined our friends the Cylka family and the MacKay family the weekend before Thanksgiving for our traditional hike into the orchard. Here are some photographs:

Claire and her best friend Angie digging in!


"A-tisket, a-tasket, fresh apples in a basket ..." Alison and Brenna.



"He did it!" Iain and Ben.

Alison and our buddy "Eli"

Rural Economies

Although Prince Edward County does have a fairly steady tourist income, family incomes are substantially less than in more urban areas. People fall in love with the county, then do what they can to survive here. I've always said that I'd rather be broke here, than rich anywhere else :).

Yesterday was a typical day in our rural economy. A couple of days earlier, a Shetland sheep breeder friend, Bill Stearman, e-mailed me to let me know that while vaccinating his ram, he had an unfortunate meeting with something sharp that required 16 stitches. Ever the busy man, he continued on, until his leg puffed up with infection and his doctor threatened to hospitalize him with an IV antibiotic. However, Bill had urgent chores, so he called me to find out if I was up for a trade.

Alison, Iain and myself headed over yesterday. We stacked a cord and a half of wood, moved 15 bags of feed, and Alison moved his 30 meat birds a new area. In return, Bill will lend us a ram for six weeks this fall (no lease required!), will arrange to transport the ram and Billie Holiday back and forth to his place, AND he sent us on our way with a magnificent $27.00 organic chicken that he raised himself.

Bartering is alive and well in rural Ontario, and I am thankful :).

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to you all!

The race has been run, but another one to come :)

The cross-country rain-date was today; unfortunately Claire was sick and had to miss school, and the regionals :(. Alison is positive Claire would have moved on to district (encompassing Prince Edward, Hastings, and Lennox/Addington Counties). Alison did make it to district, coming in 10th in her division.

While homeschooling, track and field was a big deal for us, and for quite a few years with Alison we've been working on her distance. She does not have a lot of initial speed, but has good staying power and a great end sprint, which wowed them today. The local newspaper took a photo of her final sprint, and she was told she might make it into the paper, although who knows. You'd think they'd put the winner in, not 10th place. She is also quite surefooted over uneven terrain (could that be because of all the time she has chased horses and sheep through pastures???) So she's quite excited ... except that she thought she'd be done today and now she has to run again on Thursday :).

Weird sleep night in our house last night; 3 of us couldn't sleep. I managed 4 hours, and got up at 2:30 a.m. and did some work and wrote e-mails, going back for another half an hour or so at 6. Someone remind me that I CANNOT do caffeine at 3 in the afternoon! Kevin also ended getting up at 2:30, and headed into work, only a couple of hours earlier than usual. We both hit the wall early in the day, but prior to that I managed to ...

... work for two hours for NLGH updating their website
... wash and fold two loads of laundry
... move the sheep to a new pasture, kicking myself that Kev had the camera at work. I would have loved to post video footage of them racing around, kicking up their heels with joy to see green pasture again.
... moved feeders, fences, etc.
... completely updated my flock records (required for governmental purposes by anyone raising livestock).
...burned all of the PEC 4H Sheep Club photos to a CD rom for taking to Walmart tomorrow. Alison was the secretary for two clubs this year (one too many) and she's hoping to submit the sheep club secretary's book for a competition.

... and then collapsed into a useless heap by about 2:00, when Claire and I decided to watch "Twister".

So the day ended lazily, but I felt it was justified :).