Bloom Where You're Planted Farm

Today is the first day this spring that we've spent the entire day working outside.  The weather was beautiful and the threat of not-so-nice days for the rest of the week got us motivated to get out there and get going. 

The first thing Terry did was cut down what was left of an old maple tree.  It was huge but so hollow that it wasn't too hard to cut up and haul away.  Getting rid of that eyesore was a great way to start the day!

After lunch we worked on tearing out a section of fence along the horse pasture that was badly in need of being replaced.  We plan to replace a large portion of it with smooth wooden fencing like we have in other places around the farm.  The new fence will be more attractive and provide a nicer area for our customers to visit with the horses.  Plus, it will be safer for both horses and people than the old barbed wire.

Despite wearing sunblock I can feel a little sunburn/windburn on my cheeks.  Ahhhhhhhhh.... Spring! 

This past Monday evening we lost power for almost four hours.  We had very heavy winds here, and six tornadoes touched down within 20-30 miles of us.  I was just starting to fix supper when the outage happened, and with an all electric house I didn't get very far.  So, it was peanut butter and jelly for us.  I talked to some friends who were also without power at the same time and they had PB&J as well.  I'll bet there was a lot of peanut butter consumed that evening.

After an hour or so the winds went down a little, the clouds broke up, and it brightened up enough to go outside for awhile.  What a relief to have something to do besides sit around and listen to the battery-powered radio.  We walked around to see if there were any limbs down (the only one was a dead limb that we'd been meaning to get out of our cedar tree for a year or so--thanks, storm!) and stopped to visit the horses.  It was pretty chilly so we headed back inside for more junk food and a few games of Yahtzee. 

What a relief when the power came on just before 9:00.  It got me to thinking about our house's younger years when there was no electricity.  Even with all our candles burning it seemed so DARK in the house.  I suppose oil lamps were brighter than candles, but I imagine the evenings got pretty long and cold in the winter.  I used to think I'd like to live in pioneer times, but Monday night made me rethink that opinion.  Life was simpler, but I love my electricity too much! 

I can hardly believe Friday is the first day of spring already!  The signs are all around -- the grass on the roadsides, in the pasture, and even in our yard is getting greener every day.

This fat (and somewhat angry looking?) fellow is a sure sign of spring, too.

But why is it, that the first plants to really get going in the spring are always the WEEDS???

I love old barns.  I photograph them on vacations and use a barn in our farm's logo.  I really love our old barn.  Not because it has any particularly flashy architecture or stands out amongst other barns -- I just love it because it is OUR barn. 

When we moved to the farm, even before we decided we wanted to open an on-farm business, we knew preserving the barn would be a priority.  I'll cover more of the before & after of restoring the barn in a future post.  Today I wanted to share with you one of my favorite parts of our old barn.

The barn overall is very "no nonsense" and practical, without any real bells and whistles.  That's why I love these support straps on the sliding hay loft door so much.  Their decorative star cutouts are an exception to the strictly-business hardware on all other parts of the building. 

To learn more about barn history, preserving a historic barn, or for a really cool barn-related road trip, visit these links:

National Barn Alliance

The Barn Journal - "Dedicated to the preservation of traditional farm acritechture."

Sac County, Iowa's Barn Quilts

Our weather has been cold, rainy, and downright gloomy the past few days.  It was a welcome surprise when one of our pumpkin patch customers Deanne emailed some photos of her kids visiting the pumpkin patch last fall.  I remember their family well, because Terry sold his prized "butt pumpkin", a true natural wonder, to their teenage son.  It was hard for Terry to part with his treasure, but having been a teenage boy himself he knew the pumpkin was going to a good home.

The first photo is one I took of the prized pumpkin with its new owner.  The next two photos were taken by Deanne, and show their two girls on the nature trail and the pumpkin in its new home.   

 Ahhh, the fond memories of fall!!!

Yesterday the temps rose into the lower 70s, and when I went outside in the morning I noticed the first little green sprouts peeking out in the flower bed on the south side of the house.  That was all it took for me -- I had Spring Fever, big time.

I was itchin' to get out there and accomplish SOMETHING, ANYTHING toward our goals for the season.  It was too muddy to do much, but I headed out to the schoolhouse with my tape measure, graph paper and camera.  One of our projects for the year will be to turn this...

 ...into a kitchen for concessions.  Making it especially difficult is the fact that this little 7.5 ft. x 10.5 ft. room has two doors, one window, and will need a pass-through service opening.  I think I've finally got it figured out, and the contractor/hubby didn't have any complaints about my drawings when I showed him last night.

In case you haven't been to the farm yet or haven't visited in the past year, here are a couple more photos of the schoolhouse.  It was our old neighborhood school, and my mom, who grew up here on the farm, went to school in this building.  It was moved a couple times and ended up at our county fairgrounds.  We had it moved to the farm last spring and spent the summer renovating & restoring everything (except for the room above, which was originally the entryway and stairwell.)

I'm stuck in the office today working on our income tax paperwork.  Our accountant called over the weekend wondering when we wanted to schedule our annual appointment.  Guess I can't put it off any longer.

Doing our taxes is one of my least favorite things about running this farm business (and Terry's construction business -- he's also self-employed).  If I was a better bookkeeper the rest of the year I'm sure it wouldn't be such a daunting task.  But, I can only seem to get this type of work done when I'm forced to -- and today I'm forced to. 

It could be worse.  It is a little bit fun looking through receipts and remembering back over the past year.  Plus, it snowed over the weekend so it is cold and wet outside.  Not much I could do out there, anyway.  Or, I could be working outdoors building an addition to my parents' house like Terry and my dad and brother are doing right now.  Maybe stuck in the office isn't such a bad place to be.

Have a great week!

We had a really warm, sun-shiney day on Tuesday.  When I came home from work around noon I went out to see what the horses were doing.  This is how I found Sully...

He was so still and peaceful that I watched for awhile to make sure he was still breathing!

I guess he was storing up his energy for these shenanigans with Dash later in the afternoon...

Yesterday I put together my first farm to-do list of the year.  There are still almost seven months until pumpkin patch time, but since Terry and I both have "real" jobs off the farm, we need to be ready to get to work at the first sign of spring.  Ideally we want to get as much done as we can before the heat and humidity of summer sets in.  However, that doesn't usually happen and we end up doing our hardest work in sweltering July and August.  Still, every new year is a new opportunity and we pledge "This year it will be different!"  Maybe this is the year...

Last year it was as bad as it could ever be (we hope).  We had a century old one-room schoolhouse moved here in mid-April.  We (and I use this term loosely, as Terry did over 80% of the work!) poured cement, built a foundation, tore off old siding, repaired and painted the original siding, put on a new roof, repaired and restored the windows and interior, built a new bathroom, installed four new doors, built two porches, and landscaped around the building.  All this in addition to the work of planting, weeding and harvesting the pumpkins and the other pre-opening day tasks nearly did us in.

This year's list is less ambitious.  Besides for the planting and care of the pumpkins it includes painting some outbuildings, doing more work on the schoolhouse including building a bell tower and a concession kitchen, and building a wagon for the hayrack rides we hope to add this season.  There's still plenty to do, and I'm sure the list will be added to as time goes on, but we wouldn't have it any other way!

Sully is the second horse we adopted from the horse rescue in June of '07.  He was not quite two years old at the time.  We chose him because of his sweet disposition -- he came right up to us in the corral, and after getting his nose scratched swung around to ask for a butt scratchin'.  He'd been born at the rescue and was very tame and gentle.  We were told he was part Quarter Horse and part Arabian, which would indicate he would be a smaller horse.  Those factors helped us decide he might be a good horse for me to ride, so we took him home.

He is still sweet and friendly, and his promise of small size held true...maybe a little too much.  Now full-grown at age 3 1/2 he is barely bigger than when we got him.  We've been told that instead of an Arabian mix he's probably part Welsh Pony.  That would make him an ideal size for someone of my stature, but he's become Terry's horse instead...

Sully wasn't broke to ride, and for the first several months we had him he was a very happy-go-lucky, pokey, "ho-hum" kind of guy.  That all changed the first time Terry rode him.  Something came alive inside him, and he bucked Terry off.  We recovered (Terry's shoulder is still recovering 15 months later) and continued working with him for awhile.  But, it became evident he was too much for amateurs like us to train (it's much harder than they make it look on RFD-TV!).  So, after a rest over the winter we took him to Kelly at MidStates Ranch Horses for professional training.

Even Kelly found Sully to be a challenge, but she persevered and did a great job with him.  He's still very spirited, but Terry enjoys the challenge of riding and working with him.  I, however, am a big chicken.  I've been riding Abbie, a tall Paint mare, while Terry rides tiny little Sully.  I'm sure we make a funny picture, but it works for us!

To find a horse rescue organization in your area, click here.

Saddled and ready to go last summer

Wearing his teddy bear winter coat 

Rocket wanted to wish you all a "Happy Monday!"  Hope this will give you a smile to start your day...

Have a great week!

Since my last entry was about our mare Sachi and all the trouble we had with her horse trainer, I thought I'd tell you a little more of her story. 

Sachi was my first horse.  I've wanted a horse for as long as I can remember.  I used to set up buckets in our driveway and ride my bike around them like I was barrel racing.  My dream of owning a horse finally came true when I was 31 years old and I convinced Terry to take me to Heartland Horse Rescue (it isn't there anymore, but to find a listing of horse rescue organizations in your area click here.)  We went into a corral filled with horses, and one of the first to approach us was a beautiful bay mare.  She really stood out among the other horses and I was instantly in love.  We learned that she had been brought to the rescue a couple weeks earlier by the owners of a boarding facility.  Her owners had abandoned her there, and no one knew her name or if she was registered.  She appeared to be full Quarter Horse and was around three years old.  As far as we knew she wasn't broke to ride but was halter broke.  We looked at the other horses and met Sultan, a young stud colt with a super sweet disposition.  We liked them both but decided to talk about it first and to not commit to anything that evening.

We probably weren't back to the main road yet before we decided that we wanted them both.  We called the next morning, and a week later brought our new friends home.  Sultan (Sully, as we call him) had been born at the rescue and was already named.  We decided to name the mare Sachi, a name the Internet told me meant "Joy" in Japanese.

Sully, who we were told was a Quarter Horse/Arabian mix, was not quite two years old at the time.  We knew he needed to be gelded ("fixed") soon, but the rescue owner told us she wouldn't do it until fall when the fly population was down.  He didn't look full grown so we didn't expect any problems right away...  Around two weeks after we brought them home Sachi went into heat and Sully was there to answer the call.  We made an appointment with the vet the next day, but it was already too late.  Baby Dash was born the following Memorial Day!

We had plans to send both horses to a trainer, but Sachi was too far along by that time so Sully went alone.  The trainer, Kelli, did a great job with him.  Her opinion is that he's part Quarter Horse, part Welsh Pony.  He hasn't grown much in the nearly two years we've had him and is quite small for a horse (part of the reason we were deceived into thinking there was no need to geld him yet -- just one of the lessons we've learned along the way!)

Sachi was an excellent mother, and Dash is a real joy.  We certainly didn't need another horse, but it has been so much fun watching her grow and learn.  Our pumpkin patch visitors really enjoyed her too, and their attention has been good for all the horses.  When the season was over it was time for Dash to be weaned.  At the same time an opportunity came up for us to take Sachi to a horse trainer (the infamous trainer mentioned in my last post) and we saw it as good timing. 

As I mentioned last time, it was not a good experience and we wish we could go back and do it over again.  Sachi has been home for five days now and seems happy to be back with her friends.  She will come up to me in the pen but avoids Terry like the plague.  She always did favor me (and seems to dislike men overall) and her experience with the male trainer seems to have reinforced that feeling.  Its hard to know what happened in her past to cause this.  Maybe nothing.  That's one of the risks you face whether you buy a horse or adopt one.  We aren't sure what our next step will be, but we'll probably wait until spring to start working with her again.  We can decide at that time whether we'll pay hundreds more dollars to send her to the trainer we should have taken her to in the first place, or if she'll just be an expensive pet.

I don't mean these posts to scare anyone off adopting or buying a horse.  They are a big responsibility but bring so much joy to our lives.  Now, more than ever, there are many horses in need of good homes!

Can you see why I fell in love??

Making friends at Pumpkin Patch time

Interacting with horses creates more happiness and/or more anxiety for me than anything else I do.I’ll admit I’m a bit of a novice so probably take these ups and downs more personally than a more experienced horsewoman would.When I’m working with them and something goes well – like a great ride, or the first time I got skittish 2-month old Dash to let me pet her – I’m on Cloud 9.When something goes bad – like a bad ride or a health concern – I’m miserable.

There were some ups and downs in my horse life this weekend.Saturday was a beautiful day and we enjoyed some quality time watching the horses frolic in the warm sun.Then, on Sunday, we finally went to get our mare Sachi from the horse “trainer” (I use this term very loosely).It had taken him eleven weeks (that’s 77 days) to complete his promised 30 days of working with her—not a good sign.This fella had been recommended to us by a friend, and was less expensive and much closer to home than the great gal we took Sully to for his training.So, we took the gamble.Long story short, when we picked her up she was no better trained than before and in a worse state of mind.We had wasted our money (we paid up front, of course!) and had an unpleasant “discussion” with the guy, who was resentful of US for expecting him to call us back when we called to check on her status after two months. (Weren’t cell phones invented so busy “cowboys” could stay in touch with the rest of the world?)All that aside, we’re thankful to have her home with her family and we’re all trying to put this whole thing behind us.There was some good news when we got home and discovered that she and our other mare, Abbie, could cohabitate fairly peacefully.Both are used to being the “boss lady” and we had been worried about how they would get along together.

The really good news in my Horse World is this:I write a weekly newsletter for our community website (http://www.avocanebraska.com), and a couple weeks ago ran some information about a local family looking for a good home for their horse.“Freedom” had a joint problem and could no longer be ridden strenuously or by anyone heavier than a child.She needed occasional medical care, and the family was hoping someone would adopt her as a pasture pal and allow her to live the second half of her life on Easy Street.I learned this morning that she has indeed found a new family, and that news did wonders to dispel my bad feelings about our bad trainer experience.There are good people out there who love and care about horses as much as I do, and I thank heaven for that!

I call these unseasonably warm days we've been having "Freebies".  It's winter, it's supposed to be cold....but suddenly, for one or two glorious days, we get a glimpse of spring.  Its warm enough to go for a walk outside without a coat.  We can sit on the porch in the sun, enjoying the heat without humidity, bugs, or worry of a sunburn.  And the best part is, since its only for a few days, there's no time to get any real work done outdoors--so we can just relax!  If we do decide to work on a project its a pleasure, and we find ourselves saying over and over, "Wow, this weather is great!" or "Can't believe how nice it is out here!"

We had a Freebie yesterday, and are looking for more today and tomorrow.  Then I'm sure we'll be back to winter for awhile, but it never seems as bad after that.  There is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel!

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the day we finally moved here to the farm.  We packed up our 1960s ranch house in Elmwood, NE and together with our families trucked our posessions to our new home.

We'd spent six long months renovating the old farmhouse, taking it down to the studs.  It had been a good, long time since any major projects had been done on the late 1800s house with 1950s addition.  The house needed a new roof, new windows, new electrical, new furnace, central air...  We were able to restore the original pine floors and salvaged the original light fixtures and doors with glass doorknobs.  Those glass doorknobs were a MUST for me -- when I was a child they seemed "magical" somehow, and that is something I will always remember about visiting Grandma when she lived here.

In some ways it seems like we've been here much longer than six years.  We've done so much work outside the house since then--cleaning up the old farmstead, removing countless loads of scrap metal, brush and debris,  tearing out ruined fences, landscaping, building a garage, restoring the barn, starting our pumpkin patch business...  How did we get all that done in six years?  We must be crazy! 

In other ways it seems as though we couldn't possibly have been here that long.  What I know for sure is that its been the best six years of my life, and this is where I was meant to be!

Before -- July 2002

After -- Spring 2007

Making a gourmet lunch during renovation, summer 2002