Renoir's Class Results

Renoir’s class was this morning (Arabian Breeding/Halter 6 & 7 yr old Stallions) with our trainer Jerry Schall. It was a tough class and Renoir came in third behind two US National Champions (MPA Giovanni and Major Jamaal). He was awarded two Scottsdale Top Tens (the first with Ian), which is nothing to sneeze at. Scottsdale is an excellent indicator of how a horse will be able to compete nationally. Both Jerry and his brother Jeff said for us to keep in mind that this show is especially political – with back scratching and other conflict of interests sometimes adding to the competition. Regardless, we are pleased with the outcomes from both Renoir’s showings. Ian and I are very proud of our boy!

I’m hoping his 2008 show debut gets more people interested in breeding to him, which is where the money is really made in owning a stallion. Of course, his first foals begin arriving in April and it will be fun to see what he sires.

We met some nice horse people here, including the couple who bred Renoir. They were very pleased with his development and how we are bringing him along on the show circuit. That’s quite a compliment for us – we’ve only been doing this for two years and with Renoir, only since last summer.

We’re packing up the trailer to get it itched to the truck and will begin heading home this afternoon. It is bright sunshine, blue skies and 70+ degrees. We plan to drive as far as Albuquerque and then we’ll stop for the night. Ian expects – weather permitting – we’ll get home late Sunday/early Monday morning.

E-I-E-I-O

Ian & Renoir

Yesterday was a LONG day waiting for Ian and Renoir to show. Ian was dressed in his suit and ready to show by 1 p.m. but because of the large classes that ran before, the pouring rain, unseasonable cold and eventual venue change, he didn't show until 5 p.m. We made ourselves comfortable at the Shada Arabian stalls, where we waited in its living room area. Finally, just after 4 p.m. classes were moved from the outdoor Wendell Arena to covered Arena 5a, and this patient duo showed in a class of nine. The two moved beautifully together and Ian always had him under control -- no small feat with a stallion. I was proud of both and so was our trainer Jerry. In fact, Jerry was SO sure Ian had nailed the first place that when the second place horse was named he said, "Come on, Janet, let's go and get his [Renoir's] ribbons so Ian can take him back in a show him in the Championship class." BUT as we walked to the arena gate another horse was named in first place. Renoir DID get a Scottsdale Top 10 ribbon and plaque - which is a great honor too.

Today, we will be able to review the judging cards and learn where each of the three judges placed Renoir in the final class standings.

All of the supportive, good wishes were really appreciated.

Now, Renoir shows with Jerry in a tough open stallion class on Saturday morning the 23rd! They will show before a different judging panel.

Sure, it would have great for Ian to win with Renoir in the AOTH class, but neither of us are disappointed with our efforts. Ian had FUN and that's a big part of why we are doing this.

E-I-E-I-O

Happy Valentine's Day from Scottsdale

This morning on the radio, NPR's Morning Edition did a segment with one of my favorite chefs, Nigella Lawson! To listen to her talk with the host about chocolate was a treat in itself.

Listening to chefs inspires me, so for breakfast, I baked blueberry/cornbread muffins and made cheesy scrambled eggs using black pepper-laced cream cheese. We bought cards for one another – Ian’ a very good card-picker-outer. He also reminded me that our first Valentine's Day together (2002) was spent amongst boxes in our rooftop apartment on Padilla in Barcelona - we had moved in days earlier. This afternoon he brought me three delicious chocolate truffles, which I shared, and a bottle of Spanish cava, which is chilling for a Valentine's dinner toast.

Here in Scottsdale it’s a day of waiting. All of the barns and vendors have finished putting their storefronts together and are ready for tomorrow’s show opening. We’ve listened to saws, hammers and staple guns for several days as things come together in the stall areas. Now all the draped fronts with farm logos are up – kind of like booths at a trade show – and we’re ready to begin. We joined in by putting up a 48-inch high, twinkling lighted horse at the front of our living quarter’s trailer.

Lady, Ian and I have walked the West World grounds watching horses being exercised. We noted how many riders multitask talking to clients or staffs back at home while either atop steeds or standing point as a horse lunges around them.

Tomorrow the vendor areas will open! There are hundreds of square feet of everything equine related that you can imagine. I rarely buy, but it is fun to shop. These tents are also dog friendly, so Lady comes along on her leash.

I trimmed Ian’s hair and beard, so like Renoir, he’s “show clipped” and ready to perform. He’s decided to wear a charcoal grey suit with a pale pink shirt and a two-tone purple tie. His class is number 50 in Wendell Arena tomorrow afternoon. The afternoon sessions begin at noon, and since his is the tenth in it could be around 2 p.m. MT. If he and Renoir place first or second in class 50, they return immediately and compete for the championship in class 51, which is composed of first and second place winners from classes 50 (Arabian Breeding /Halter 5 year & older Stallions Amateur Owner To Handle) and 49, (Arabian Breeding /Halter 3 & 4 year old Stallions Amateur Owner To Handle). The winner of class 51 will be named Scottsdale Senior Champion Stallion AOTH (amateur owner to handle).

If you’re into watching some classes live, you can do this online at Arab Horse.

Legacys Renoir will also show in class number 386 on Saturday morning, February 26. The classes begin at 8 a.m. (Arizona is in Mountain Time) in Wendell Arena and Renoir shows with Jerry Schall in the second class of the morning. We will be packed and ready to head home soon after that class runs. It’s a long way home and I am scheduled to work Tuesday morning.

E-I-E-I-O

Scottsdale Roadtrip

Here’s the first installment from Scottsdale. We are here attending the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. Ian will be showing our six-year-old purebred Arabian breeding stallion, Legacys Renoir, in a halter class for amateur owners this Friday and Renoir will also show with our trainer Jerry Schall in the open stallion class on Saturday, February 23. We bought Renoir in December 2006, and have spent the last year getting him ready for this campaign of national-level shows. He will show here, in Las Vegas in April, at Canadian Nationals in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in August and, finally, in Tulsa, Oklahoma at US Nationals in October. As a yearling, Renoir blew everyone away here at Scottsdale when he unexpectedly won. Horse shows, like many other things in life, have their political aspects so an unknown horse and handler winning is really big and says a lot of the quality of the horse.

Now that you know why we’re here, let me tell you about our road trip from Minnesota to Arizona. We left as planned on Saturday morning, February 9, just after 10 when my shift ended at the post office. Ian and Lady picked me up in our one-ton Chevrolet dually pulling our living quarters trailer. (We have an RV spot reserved in Scottsdale on the West World exhibition lot.) It was snowing as we headed south. We decided to try an alternate route around the Cities and learned that highway 65 to highway 100 to 494 to 35W is NOT the way to go. It looks shorter, but it has its various forms of delays. Next time, we’ll just go 95 east to 35 and go south.

The weather turned a bit scary south of Lakeville when the sun that shone in the Cities was blocked by fog and blowing snow. The drifts in the ditches were high and allowed the accumulated wind blown snow to snake across 35’s blacktop. We drove slowly, following the center line, as the roadway edges were blurred. Why people do not understand that this is a time to slow their speed and put more space between vehicles is beyond me. I knew sooner or later we’d see cars in the ditch and sure enough the numbers began to mount near Owatonna. In fact, we sat stopped just past there and waited for 30 minutes as a bad accident was cleared. A one-ton truck hauling a six-horse trailer was nearly involved in that pile up, but rather than hit a car, this driver had made the good sense move toward the snow-filled ditch rather than hit his brakes, possibly jackknifing or tipping the load. The truck and trailer were buried in snow midway up the door, but all were safe an unharmed. We saw the driver patiently reading the paper waiting for his turn to be pulled out. The going was slow from there pretty much to the Iowa border where the weather improved.

That first day we drove the 700+ miles to Wichita, Kansas, arriving at 1 a.m., where we spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Ian fired up the generator, turned on the furnace and the bed’s electric blanket so we were quite cozy.

We were up just before 6, and after a McDonald’s breakfast, were on the road by 6:30. Here we left I-35 and took US 54, heading southwest. We saw green grass beginning to grow and saw the occasional oil derricks with their rocking hammerheads kissing the ground. Ian tells me that in the UK they’re called nodding donkeys. There was not a lot of snow, which left the palette mostly shades of brown, yellow and dirt white. The prairie stretched out before us and it was rare to see a mailbox, let alone a town. Here, I think route inspection must be done with crop duster using binoculars to spot mailboxes rather than by car!

At 8:30, we passed through Greensburg, Kansas, which was leveled by a killer tornado in May of this year. The devastation was almost complete, with its post office, and maybe two other businesses, looking untouched or maybe they were rebuilt already. What had been mature trees were nothing more than twisted, dead and dying trunks. It was very sad – a true testament to the power of such storms.

We crossed onto the Oklahoma panhandle at 10:30, where the air coated everything with a layer of frost, and a red clay color was added to the winter weary landscape. When we did pass through small towns I saw food chains I thought were long dead, like Long John Silver’s. The stretches of road were so long between towns and houses that a sign reading, “USPS rural carrier roadside stop,” just past Hooker, Oklahoma, seemed very appropriate. Surely, one must need a break from all that driving.

For many miles our road ran adjacent to a busy train track. All were running opposite us, headed northeast, all filled, often with more than two engines, but none with a caboose. I can’t remember the last time I saw train with a caboose.

At 11:30, we entered what is surely the most uninteresting part of the great State of Texas. That said, just outside of Dalheart Ian and I saw what must have been nearly 100 acres of penned beef cattle. There must have been thousands in large lots on both sides of the road. It was feeding time and grain was being delivered using a 12-ton dump truck, the same type used to haul gravel! Each pen had jet sprayers mounted at the corners and I think they’re to either cool the cattle or keep the bugs at bay – maybe both?

At 1:15, on Sunday, we crossed into New Mexico and lost an hour as we went to Mountain Time. From here it was 52 miles to Tucumcari, where we would join I-40 west. The weather was warmer and we stopped at a wide spot in the road called Nasa Visa, which is about the same size as Stanchfield, where we stood in the sunshine and ate cold, baked Cornish game hens we’d packed, while Lady sniffed and stretched her legs. The nicest building in this otherwise ghost town was its brick-red post office.

The warmer sun found us as we headed west along I-40. The prairie gave way to red rock outcropping and billboards touting jewelry, pottery and other goods made by Ute and Navajo. It was still on the coolish side and some snow was still evident at the higher elevations. We climbed to Albuquerque and stopped for dinner at the Route 66 Casino, just as the sun set. After dinner I dozed in the front seat and Ian woke me as we crossed into Arizona at 10 p.m. (CT). I took heart thinking our trip was near its end – HA! It was another six hours until we arrived in Scottsdale.

We left I-40 at Holbrook and took what amounts to the back roads. The decent from 6000 feet went well, but it was tiring as we slowed to 30 mph every time we came to a steep grade that lasted for several miles at a time. Last year, we’d gone to Flagstaff before descending into the Phoenix Valley, and that was harrowing with cars zipping around us at breakneck speeds while our truck and trailer with a combined (empty) weight of 26,000 pounds needed to be kept under some degree of control.

When the mountain road emptied into a sleeping Scottsdale, Ian pointed us across the city and found West World and our designated RV parking spot easily. Not wishing to wake our neighbors, we whispered directions to one another as the trailer was parked and we settled in for what was left of the night.

Yesterday, after a few hours needed sleep, we arose later to sunshine and temperatures that climbed into the 70s. A nice remedy for the weary.

The truck and trailer were both caked in salt and other winter road dirt. We found a Laundromat for our own wash, which was conveniently located next to a coin-operated car wash. I pumped quarters into a slot while Ian manned the high pressure spray gun and soap wand that eventually revealed the truck’s true color.

We ran other errands around the city with our windows down and we dressed short sleeved shirts and packed our winter wear in the trailer for return trip use.

Also on Monday we rendezvoused with Jerry Schall and Ian had a lesson with Renoir. Renoir has been here in Scottsdale since the end of January and seems to really enjoy his sun-filled stall and the warmer temps. Ian and Renoir looked very good together and we’re looking for a very good result on Friday. Wish us luck.

E-I-E-I-O

Happy February!

Tomorrow, in the United States and Canada, it’s Groundhog Day. In weather lore, if a groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, marmot or ground squirrel, emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow, it will return into its burrow, and the winter will continue for six more weeks. Well, it’s cloudy today in Minnesota, but regardless of what the furry rodent sees or doesn’t see, there will be another six weeks of winter here! Maybe even another 10!

The weather in January was really deep freeze cold with actual temperatures at 10 and 20 below zero and with wind chills that dipped and stayed at -30. The corn stove did the best it could, but there were days it was just miserable and even being indoors was best spent bundled in layers, which sometimes included ski pants, gloves and winter hat. Today, we are at 10 degrees Fahrenheit and with no wind it feels quite nice when doing chores outside.

Ian fixed three burst pipes in the crawlspace area of the basement. These old copper pipes were not insulated and of course the basement itself is not heated. Ian replaced the lengths of pipe with a plastic pipe product called Pex. He’s also placed an electric space heater facing into the crawlspace and this has done the trick to keep our water from freezing. Ian also built a hutch around the water pump in the basement because its switches, which are mounted on an outside, un-insulated wall, kept freezing open and stopping the flow of water into the tank, which meant we didn’t have water then either – in the house or the barn. This hutch is also warmed with a small heater, and we have had no problems in recent days. I can’t imagine what a plumber’s bill would have been!

For the last two full weeks in January, I worked at the post office for
Helen while she was in Mexico on vacation. It was fun and I learned a
lot. Now I am back to my usual Saturday and Monday morning shift. I am called in once in a while when Helen has an appointment or just wants a day off. She’s been working with the postal service for decades – four, I think – so she’s got plenty of vacation time she can use.

The horses we have here at the farm did very well during the cold
weather. They are quite fuzzy and well nourished. They have places to
get in out of the wind and they have access to 800 pound round bales of
hay and warmed 100-gallon tanks of water. With their shelter, food and
water needs being met, they’re quite hearty creatures.

Our stallion Legacys Renoir is in the southwestern United States in Scottsdale, Arizona acclimatizing to the warmer, drier weather that he will show in on the 15 and 23 of this month. Ian will show Renoir on the 15th in an amateur-owner-to-handle class (AOTH) and one week later our trainer Jerry Schall will show Renoir in the senior stallions open class. Ian, Lady and I are leaving for Scottsdale on Saturday, February 9. It’s 30+ hours of driving and we’ll stay on the show grounds in our trailer. Tina will take care of the horses, barn cats and chickens while we’re away. We will board our housecat Tiger at a local kennel. We plan to begin heading back to Minnesota on Sunday morning.

We’re starting to hear percolations of interest from real estate agents
in Spain regarding chalet number 11. For the English version, click on "English" in the top right-hand corner of the page, then click on the second hand listings and scrolled through to page 9 to Chalet Riofaro. We continue to pray this gets sold soon at its asking price.

I’d love to be going to Europe soon! We’ll see what the future holds!

E-I-E-I-O

Happy 2008!

I guess it’s time to catch up, since I’ve not posted since the beginning of December. Ian and I had a nice Christmas get together at my Mom’s place in Minneapolis on Saturday, December 22. My son Richard, his 10-year-old brother Trysten, and my younger brother Matthew joined Mom for a lovely turkey meal. We exchanged presents and had a nice visit. This year we had a much snowier December than in 2006. I really love the White Christmas we had this year, last year’s brown Christmas was quite dreary. This season, we got a new snowplow guy that lives nearby and he’s done a good job with the two snowfalls to date. I prefer snow to the subzero temps were “enjoying” today. It is nice being back in the house but our only source of heat, our beloved corn stove, is acting up. It puts itself out, doesn’t burn as hot as last year (which was like a blast furnace). Ian’s on the phone with the company’s tech guy in Alberta, Canada; at least he’s talking to someone who knows about cold! I’m confident it will get resolved and we’ll be warm again soon.

The horses are fine in this weather. They have shelter, free access to hay and warmed water. As long as they are not wet, their thick, fuzzy winter coat keeps them dry and quite toasty. In fact, they often take baths by rolling in the snow over and over, standing up and giving themselves a good shake. There are four adult horses (two of our three pregnant mares) and the three 2007 foals that come into the barn every night. They benefit from the routine almost more than the shelter. Some horses are like that.

I put up the tree and it’s very pretty. The cats just love it – think it’s the best cat toy ever! Thankfully, most of the bulbs are not breakable and they’ve not taken to climbing it. I plan to take the tree down and pack it away just after Epiphany.

We’ve been attending a local Lutheran church that is about four miles from the farm. It’s nice to meet and worship with our neighbors. Ian says the Lutheran church liturgy and hymns remind him very much of the Church of England. The children’s Christmas pageant on Sunday the 16th was so precious. Of course, they told the familiar Christmas story with angels, shepherds, sheep, the Holy Family and wise men. Some children who were cast as sheep had woolly hats complete with pink ears on their heads that tied under their chins. When it came time for the shepherds and their flocks to visit Bethlehem, the sheep children crawled on all fours down the center aisle of the church making sheep noises as parents, grandparents, and proud Sunday school teachers snapped photos and wiped tears … we all wiped tears, they were so committed and sweet. We also attended Christmas Eve candlelight service and sang carols on the evening of the 24th.

On Christmas Day, Ian called both sisters for a chat. He spoke to his Mum, who was visiting Anne and Steve in Essex, but we did not catch up with Ken and Margaret in Scotland. Other than that, we just worked on the farm – in fact, the babies had knocked down their pasture fence and Ian erected a new area for them by disassembling the round pen (which we don’t use in winter anyway) and making an outdoor paddock for the three mischief makers. I baked Cornish game hens for our dinner and we enjoyed a nice bottle of French wine.

Tina still comes like clockwork three days a week to clean stalls and do other barn managing duties. What a gem she is! Tina lives to the northeast of the farm and her job is just west of us, so things work out nicely for all. Ian and I feel very confident that she’ll have everything under control while we’re in Scottsdale, Arizona next month. Weather permitting, we’ll begin driving the 32-hour trip on the 8th and begin the return trip on the 25th.

I’m still working part-time at the local post office. I will be filling in for Helen the postmaster when she leaves for 2 weeks Mexico vacation on January 12. I’ve been nursing a sore lower back since New Year’s Eve morning. I picked up a tub of letters wrong and – zing – I felt a pinch. I thought it was just a twinge, but by the time I was finished doing the morning sort, I was stiffening up. Not a recommended way to ring in the New Year, but rest and some over-the-counter analgesics are doing the trick. I’ll be fit as a fiddle for Saturday’s shift.

The corn stove is burning away and Ian’s just gone to get some wood pellets. The corn stove company technician thinks we’ve got a bent klinker box (where the corn pellets fall into and burn) and that is the cause of our problems. Alberta is sending a new klinker box overnight and the techie recommended we burn wood pellets in this dual-purpose stove until it arrives, something to do with airflow and whatnot. Hey, in subzero temps, whatever keeps it burning works for me!

The seed catalogs are beginning to arrive and I’ve got my eye on some beautiful flowering plants. Of course, I’m looking forward to the tulips and crocus I planted in the fall, but I really want some lilies and some plants that will attract hummingbirds. I also enjoy bringing fresh cut flowers into the house.

The hatchery catalog has also come and I’m contemplating buying a few chicks and some goslings. I really love watching our 10 chickens travel around the property, scratching, pecking and clucking. I’d like to get just a few more. I also miss my geese and would like to get about six babies. They are the best watchdogs – as nothing or no one comes in our yard without them sounding the alarm. They provide reliable notice when we’re out working in the pasture or are glued to our computers working on a project. I won’t slaughter this bunch, as geese are hearty enough to weather Minnesota winters with the barn providing enough shelter.

Ian’s been having lessons at Shada with our stallion Legacys Renoir. Our trainer Jerry says the two look good together. Ian will show Renoir in Scottsdale on Friday, February 15,in an amateur owner to handle (AOTH) class for senior stallions six years and older. Renoir is six this year. Jerry will show Renoir in the very competitive Open senior stallions class the following Saturday, February 23. You’ll recall Ian debuted as an amateur handler at last year’s Scottsdale show and won a Top 10 ribbon showing our pinto Half Arabian AMF Xtreme Kiss. (See blog entry: Top 10 Again for Kiss, 02/21/07) Showing a breeding stallion is not for the faint of heart, but Ian and Renoir should do very well.

We're not big New Year's Eve revelers, so we stayed home and went to bed early. Besides, that's when the temperatures began to dip subzero. On New Year's Day, we were invited to my maternal aunt and uncle's farm near Pine City, MN for lunch. We feasted on mayo-laden ham salad sandwiches, hot chocolate with whipped cream, frosted Christmas cookies and dense, tasty pumpkin pie. I think that covers all the food groups, right?

The stove is burning the suggested wood pellets and the house is warming up again. Tomorrow begins a warming trend that should get us into the 20s and 30s Fahrenheit. That’s the local warming trend … I’ll be glad to see 70s or warmer in Arizona!

E-I-E-I-O

Back in the house

Happy December! We relocated the trailer just after the Fourth of July weekend so that major renovation work could be done in the house. We moved back into the house Sunday. Almost six months! Mind you, the trailer has many creature comforts, and we function well in close quarters, but it is really nice to be back in our house. The corn stove is blazing away chasing the chill from the house. It’s 60 degrees and slowly climbing. The house is far from airtight, in fact depending on where you stand, it has its drafts, but we’re addressing these. Some things won’t get better until they’re replaced, like the windows and doors.

For the moment, the corn stove, which burns dried corn kernels called “pellets”, is our only source of heat. It costs is $6/day to heat the house and we buy our pellets from a local farmer. If we used propane, it would cost between $18 and $20/day. Later in the winter, we will supplement with propane, but the idea is to use corn for 90% of our winter heat needs. The Minnesota heating season runs from October through May, with December to March being the coldest of those months.

The new living room/dining room sub-floor is installed (including the in-floor heating system – although it’s not operational yet) and it’s very sturdy and level. In coming weeks, we’ll install a new staircase to upstairs, put cement board over the new sub-floor and then lay ceramic tile. Knowing that work still needs to be done, we’re only occupying the dining-room half of the house. Finishing the kitchen – tiling, installing appliances and drawers – is also on the To Do list. Ian does all this work himself!

The next time we expect to spend significant time in the trailer is when we go to Scottsdale, Arizona in February for the big Arabian horse show.

On Saturday afternoon, the first snow of the season fell, about five inches. For some reason, the snowplow guy we had for the last two seasons did not come and plow us out this year. Frustrating, because we didn’t have any prior warning. Thankfully, we have 4-wheel drive trucks and can get in and out of our driveway with relative ease. We do have a snow blade attachment for our brush mover and Ian plans to move the accumulated snow with that sometime soon. Three to five inches of snow is predicted for later today. We’ll find another plow person, as it’s important to keep our driveway and area outside the barn clear.

Now, the only stored boxes that are priority to get from the garage are the Christmas tree and its ornaments. We also bought a lighted horse yard ornament that will need to be set out soon too.

The animals are all well. It was fun to turn the weanlings out to the fresh snow – their first! They snorted suspiciously, stepped gingerly, then pranced, kicked, bucked and ran the length of their pasture – really pretty! The chicken stick to the barn area, the hens are still laying and the two roosters cock-a-doodle-do and square off once in a while, with the larger, more majestic brother winning most bouts. Tiger is the sole house cat now, with Tonic and Zeus living in the barn again. These two “auditioned” all summer to be house cats, crawling into the house through the open floorboards. Lady is happy – but what Lab-mix dog isn’t happy more often than not?

E-I-E-I-O

Hay ...

… is for horses! I’d say we are really close to being ready for winter this year, at least when it comes to having enough hay on hand. Seven horses come into the barn to eat flakes of hay bales morning and night, supplemented with grain that is suited to their age, weight and what they need nutritionally. The hay we feed inside is square bales, which weigh 45 lbs each. These are a mixture of high fiber timothy-grass, brome (described as a companion grass to timothy that is slightly higher in protein), and a smattering of alfalfa. I like to think of alfalfa as jet fuel for horses – unadulterated protein.

We bought about 500 square bales and then went looking for a round bale supplier. Summer 2007 was so dry and the fall so wet that hay is scarce. Luckily, we found a neighbor that has good, tightly-baled 1100-pound round bales that are a mix of timothy, brome and canary grass; the latter isn’t especially nutritious but it serves as the necessary forage horses guts need. We place these two at a time in the pasture so the horses have free access to feed as they choose, keeping themselves fed and warm during the winter weather. Our neighbor will deliver 50 round bales in total, six bales per trip (no extra charge), which should feed the horses through the end of April, when we can turn them out to pasture again. On average, they eat two round bales a week.

Once the hay bales are all here and we've moved back into the house, I'll be singing: "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."

That hay input represents a lot of manure output – think ahead to your spring garden planting! It’s green gold and you can have all you can haul at no cost!

E-I-E-I-O

Hakuna Matata!

Last night Ian took me out on a 'date' for my birthday, which was Nov 5, but the theater dates didn't coincide. We went to dinner in downtown Minneapolis at McCormick & Schmick’s on the corner of 9th & Nicollet and then to the Orpheum for The Lion King. I had NO IDEA and it was fun! Some years back, we'd tried to see The Lion King in London but there was a six month wait for tickets - so we went to see My Fair Lady at The Royal Theatre on Drury Lane.

Before dinner, we visited my mother at her apartment where she gifted me with two companion books, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and its journal. I look forward to enjoying these thoughtful gifts.

Last night, we had a great waiter - ordered a bottle of FRENCH wine from Haute Medoc in Bordeaux, since this country CANNOT seem to bottle a palatable red wine. I had deep-fried coconut shrimp as a starter with a spicy seafood jambalaya as the main course. Ian started with mahi-mahi cakes drizzled with Thai peanut sauce and his main course was catfish encrusted in pecans with jalapeno chutney. We shared a dessert sampling of apple pie a la mode, crème brulee, bread pudding served in ramekins. I finished with a dram of tawny port! I hadn't had port in years ... not something you want to get buzzed on though, WICKED headache! Ian had a glass of 10-year-old single all-malt whiskey, Laphroaig. To me, it smells like peat. I guess that’s because its barley is dried over a peat fire.

The Lion King was wonderful. We had aisle seats mid-house on the main floor. The music was familiar and, of course, we knew the story and its characters from the 1994 Disney movie. The singing, costumes, dancing, stage sets and changes were all superb. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. The entire Minneapolis evening was a great birthday gift and certainly worth the wait!

E-I-E-I-O

November's Thanksgiving

Ian and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on November 5th, which was my 52nd birthday. I worked that morning at the post office and then later that evening we went to see the George Clooney movie Michael Clayton. Ian is taking me for a birthday surprise date next week in downtown Minneapolis. Ian’s quite a romantic and I am certainly thankful for him! I'm also grateful for all the cards, calls and email greetings that came from so many different places.

It was cold enough overnight to freeze the hose that supplies water to our trailer. Because the trailer is warm, the water in its holding tanks is still liquid. We’ll have to look into insulating that hose until we can move back into the house. The barn hose is also frozen, but none of the horse stall buckets or 100-gallon tanks is frozen yet. We’ve got tank or bucket warmers, but when those get plugged in our electric bill really jumps. It will be nice to have an in-ground water system installed for year-round outdoor watering needs and an indoor heated watering system for the barn. Maybe we’ll be able to afford it before next winter. Meanwhile, Ian's working, working, working on getting the house ready for us to reinhabit.

Yesterday, Tina and I gave paste dewormer to every horse, but one – Whisper was not interested in whatever was going on in the barn and he became quite illusive by trotting off into the pasture darkness whenever he was approached. I’ll catch him later today – in fact, this morning he came over to the fence for a scratch behind the ears before I left for work. We measured each horse’s height, weight, what blanket size they wear and whether they need to see the farrier or not (most do, so I’ll be calling Dale soon).

I thought I’d explain about my Postmaster Relief (PMR) job at our local post office. The Stanchfield Post Office is a small place. We have four mail carrier routes that deliver mail to more than 1000 mailboxes six days a week. I work in the office helping to sort mail that’s delivered in the wee hours in big, wheeled cages that hold trays and tubs of all types of mail; magazines, newspapers, letters, parcels, packages and the junk mail that we all love. Of course, the post office makes plenty of money from the latter. I also work the service desk greeting customers, selling postage, handling certified and registered mail, fulfilling hold mail requests, changes of address, plus the daily administrative bookkeeping that must be communicated daily to the main office via its United States Postal Service (USPS) intranet. I like it and am considering training for a rural carrier route so that I can act as back up carrier when one of the four women takes vacation, has a routine medical/dental appointment or is sick. What I really would like to do is find a permanent position and become what the USPS classifies as a “career” employee (PMR is part-time/no benefits). I look at the postings on the intranet and talk with the postmaster Helen, who has worked for the USPS for 40 years and at this office as postmaster since 1999. Helen plans to retire in Spring 2008. I could apply for her position but I don’t know about the reality of hiring a non-career employee into a sought-after postmaster position. Of course, that won’t stop me applying.

Being November, we’re smack in the middle of deer hunting season. Whitetail Deer are plentiful in this area and live in records numbers around the state. The woods are filled with people – men and women – dressed in florescent orange hunting outfits so they don’t shoot one another. This is a popular family pastime in the US, especially here in Minnesota and in our neighboring states. We live in an area where the deer flourish so the limits for each hunter are quite high – as many as five deer per licensed hunter. There are many family-run meat processing plants that specialize in processing deer meat (venison) into steaks, roasts or salami. Of course we don’t hunt, but someone usually gives us large sticks of salami that we enjoy with cheese, crackers and wine.

The dirt road in front of our house has been widen and improved because a new neighbor to the west is building a new home on their wooded 30-acre lot. There has been a lot of noise and heavy machinery running up and down the road for the last week or so, but when it’s all done it will be really nice.

We celebrate my favorite American holiday, Thanksgiving, the last Thursday of November. We will join friends in Minneapolis for lunch at their home. There's usually quite a mix of people from varying backgrounds and everyone brings something to eat or drink and we enjoy each other’s company. Turkey is the traditional meat of the day. I’m making Red Thai curried mashed sweet potatoes drizzled with maple syrup as a side dish. I found the recipe in Martha Stewart’s magazine, Living. Would Martha steer me wrong?

E-I-E-I-O

Hunter's moon

We’ve been very industrious lately. On Wednesday, we weaned two foals – Clifford and Kisses. Clifford and Mona recently arrived from South Dakota. Cliffy is a Half Arabian, as his sire is a palomino-colored American Saddlebred [Mona is a purebred Arabian] and because of this Cliffy should get quite tall. Kisses and Cliffy were both born in May; her at the beginning of the month, him, Memorial Day weekend. Usually, weaning is done at four months of age; some even do it as early as three months. We’re a wee bit behind, but I wanted Kisses to have a pal to keep her company. Happily, she and Cliffy have bonded nicely.

Ian has been working on the main floor. He’s got almost the entire 14 x 23 foot area framed with 2 x 10s lag bolted to the oak beams. He will install joist hangers and new joists soon. All of the old joists are now out. He and I removed that last four on Friday afternoon using a saws-all. That cuts through most anything like butter. Once the new joist grid is in place, Ian will put in a vapor barrier and some insulation between the basement, crawl space dirt and the new floor. There’s also an in-floor heating system to install. Then the sub-flooring gets screwed down and the cement board follows, making it ready for the ceramic tile. We expect to move back into the house as soon as the grout seal dries.

Donna burns wood in her fireplace and came with her chainsaw to whittle away at the huge ash tree we had dropped some 18 months ago. Its down to the main trunk now and I’m sure what she took will burn very well. She and I consulted together on how the two apple trees should be cut back and then she got to work. Branches from other trees were trimmed too. On Saturday morning, she and her father came and dropped three trees in the row of conifers that line our eastern border. Donna took wood from two and left the dead pine for me to cut up, using our new, yet-to-be-used electric chainsaw. I’m going to buy chain oil today so I can give it a go.

On Tuesday, the dirt road that passes in front of our house, running east to west, will be widened to double its size to allow for construction machines to get back to the property to our west where new neighbors are building a house in the woods. The new neighbors bought an easement from Donna, which she’s still grumbling about because it will change things that she’s accustomed to doing … like extending her pasture area by running electric fence across the road allowing the horses to feed on the long ditch grass. Ah, well, ‘change goin come.’ We’ll lose a stand of trees that shade our mailboxes and supposedly act as a snow break for our driveway, but there’s nothing we can do about it, as that stand is not ours. We’ll battle whatever snow drifts in by getting it plowed.

Yesterday, we hooked up the trailer and went to a friend’s home in Wisconsin to pick up an Arabian mare we’re leasing from her. Sometimes I feel turtle-like as we travel down the road, house on our back. I work at the post office Saturday mornings, so by the time we reached Kathy’s two hours later we were happy for her offer of lunch [yummy homemade chow mein, brown rice, chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies plus lemon meringue pie]. After a lovely visit, we loaded 12-year-old VG Antazia and headed home. Taza was well received into the herd. She will cross nicely with Legacys Renoir.

This last moon cycle has been extraordinary. It has been so large as it rises through the trees, lighting the fields of yet-to-be harvested corn, rising soft amber yellow at the horizon to a pearly white overhead. This is the first year I’ve heard the term ‘hunter’s moon.’ I’d always described these fat risings as harvest moons, but learned those come earlier in September. Indeed, it is the hunting season now – grouse, pheasant, deer – through November. Last night, Ian and I burned piles of limbs and stood together watching the fire and the moonrise.

E-I-E-I-O

Horse and house update

Yesterday, Ian and I went to southeastern South Dakota and picked up a mare and foal; MAF Last Dance (Mona) and “Clifford.” Mona is a 10-year-old purebred Arabian broodmare. Clifford is her 2007 Half Arabian foal born Memorial Day weekend. Both mama and baby are chestnut. His sire is palomino American Saddlebred stallion Goldmount Royal Design. Mona is bred back to “Roy” for a 2008 foal too. Clifford’s registered name will be Royals Red Ferrari. We bought these two from Bill & Tammy of Whispering Pines Arabians. Mona’s bloodlines are exceptional and she will cross well with Renoir.

Three-year-old geldings Whisper and Cairo are back from the trainer and are ready to ride. They are young and still need some kinks to be worked out but the more ride time they get the more comfortable they will be on the trail with a rider. Both are advertised for sale and I have someone who is interested in Whisper.

Ian is working in the living room and dining room floor. The area that is being replaced is 14 feet wide and 23 feet long. The floor in the northwest corner has settled a good three inches, so the floor replacement will bring that level. Right now it’s a combination dirt pit and chasm, but so was the kitchen when w replaced that floor Christmas 2005.

In the meantime we continue to live in our living quarters horse trailer. It’s cozy, with its own propane furnace. We’re parked next to the house and hook up to its electricity, water, Internet, satellite TV and phone and use the laundry, bathroom, etc. as needed. Sometimes I forget what is in which refrigerator, but after doing this for several months now those things don’t happen too often anymore.

This coming weekend cousin Brenda is coming up to help me plant two different kinds of tulip bulbs and some crocuses. She did this with me last fall using bulbs I’d brought back from Holland the previous fall – none of them came up, so I ordered fresh ones so we can have some color right away in the spring. I just love bulb plants.

Ian and I will be married for five years on November 5! Sometimes it seems like no time at all and other times it feels like we’ve been married for years and years – and I mean that in the kindest sense.

Tomorrow, I am going to begin three days of training to become a U.S. Post Office employee. Our Stanchfield Postmaster Helen asked me if I would be interested in being her relief person. So, after completely an application that was as thick as a small phonebook, I underwent a background check and drug test and after completing my training I will learn how the local post office works and will work at the counter on Saturday mornings and be Helen’s backup if she’s sick, has medical appointments or vacation. There are no benefits, it is part-time, but it’s a way to meet more of our neighbors and it should be fun. I suppose I will also be able to apply for other internally posted jobs should something strike my fancy. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

E-I-E-I-O

Happy October

Last night Ian came home from a 10-day business trip to Cupertino, California. It was good to see his smiling face and to kiss his lips! After nine days of meetings, on Thursday evening Ian met our dear friends Ronda & Claudio for dinner at Joe's Italian Diner in Gilroy, the garlic capitol of the world. Ian had already been shopping in Gilroy and brought home three jars of green olives stuffed with different goodies; haberno, jalapeno, whole garlic cloves.

On the way home last night – it’s an hour drive to the farm from the airport – we had dinner at Famous Dave’s BBQ. I had a shredded Georgia Pork sandwich with a side of coleslaw and Ian had ribs. All good! The best BBQ pork sandwiches Ian and I have ever enjoyed was on the Outer Banks of North Carolina at Pigman’s. That said, Famous Dave’s runs a close second.

While Ian was gone, Richard and I did various jobs around the farm. We tidied up different piles of this and that – everything from railroad ties to telephone poles – and tossed lots of junk into the rented 30-yard roll-off container. Richard sledgehammered concrete pavement that needed to be removed and took apart old cold-air return vents in the house. After removing 12 foot 2 x 10 inch floor joists, he and I both dug out and leveled the dirt floor that is the basement’s crawlspace. Now Ian can mark the spot for what will be the living room floor and mark it level and begin installing the new joist grid. He did this with the kitchen floor, which was so wavy it took a drunken sailor to navigate it correctly. This morning when Ian saw what Richard and I had accomplished he was mightily impressed.

Of course, it wasn’t all work, work and more work. Richard and I went to the Minnesota Arabian Horse Breeder’s Fall Fest show too. Legacys Renoir was there for four days and participated in the stallion parade. It was nice to see him in a show setting and also to hear appreciative comments from other horse owners and enthusiasts.

Our three-year-old geldings Whisper, Cairo and Trouble are now all in under saddle training. I try not to say “being broken to ride” because it’s not about breaking their spirit, as much as it is about teaching them a new skill. Whisper and Cairo started earlier this summer with a local woman, Heidi. She’s done a fine job with them. My Arabian show gelding Lookin For Trouble went to P & H Horse and Cattle Company in Almena, Wisconsin and is being trained by Hoyt & Pam Rose. I look forward to showing Trouble under saddle sometime in the 2008 show season.

On Thursday, I had the two barn cats, Tonic and Zeus, scheduled to be neutered and vaccinated. Tonic was easy to find on Thursday morning, but Zeus was nowhere to be found. I crated Tonic and took him to the vet. When I came home, who was sunning himself on the front step? Zeus! I called the vet and she said to bring him in. It took me two tries to get him in the crate, but I finally did and now they’re both ‘gentlemen’ rather than roaming, breeding tomcats.

Later this afternoon we’ve been invited to our neighbor’s to the south to attend their cattle auction. Chad and Cameo raise Charolais cattle and host an annual auction the first weekend in October. This is the first year we have been home to attend. It should be interesting. We’re not buying any – I draw the line at cloven-hoofed animals.

It’s unseasonably warm today, but there have been very fall-like days and nights – enough to turn the trees beautiful shades of reds and yellows. I heard a news report last night that explained it’s not really that the leaves turn as much as it is the green chlorophyll receding for the winter, which reveals the leaves other colors.

A family of blue jays has been quite busy picking up acorns and flying off to store them for winter. I watch them from the trailer window – such hard workers. And I thought the squirrel was the only one to harvest acorns.

Ian goes to Scottsdale, Arizona on business for two days next week (9 & 10). It will be nice when we’re both here and not traveling so that we can focus on getting the house ready for us to move back in. Of course if we get a call that we have a buyer for chalet 11 we'd happily travel to Spain for that! My hope is that we can cook Thanksgiving dinner (last Thursday in November) in our new kitchen and eat it at our own dining room table, with the corn stove and in floor heating keeping us warm!

E-I-E-I-O

Spain trip highlights

We’re back from our 10-day trip to Spain (September 7-17). I thought you’d like to read some of the trip highlights!

Sunday, September 9
The flights on Friday, September 7, were fine - no delays from Minneapolis or Newark, New Jersey. I did not sleep in the plane from Newark to Madrid, but I was busy reading “The Collectors” by David Baldacci and I watched the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie twice. We arrived in the Spanish capitol at 10 a.m. and it was sunny and warm. There was a momentary snag with a credit card not reading properly when getting our rental car, but it all worked out.

After that long flight, Ian drove the five hours from Madrid to Riumar, which is on the Mediterranean coast. We stopped for potty and leg-stretching breaks. I dozed off now and again, but the 2-door Volvo was not really car-nap comfy. It was nice to get to Riumar and our chalets. We bought groceries, made a light dinner, drank some Spanish wine and watched the BBC on the TV. By 8 p.m. local time we were SO tired we went to bed. We slept soundly until midnight, then got up, got dressed and went for a walk around the village. You'd be surprised how many of its small, family-run restaurants were still buzzing with people at that late hour. We came back after about 45 minutes, had another glass of wine and went back to bed. I slept until 8 a.m. local time (Spain is 7 hours ahead of U.S. Central time) and Ian got up when I brought him coffee at 9.

This morning we're moving personal items from chalet 10 (the one that will be sold tomorrow) to next door at number 11. After waiting for three Irish ladies to leave (they've been our guests for nine days) Ian and I went over to ask what time they would be leaving. We spoke to one of them, who said they had a marvelous time. We like to hear that. They will be our last rental guests. We are hoping the remaining chalet (11) sells soon. Regardless, I don't think we'll rent it next season either. It's tough to do it long distance and if someone wants to buy most often (even if they're buying it as a rental property) they don't want it already rented.

We'll spend today taking stuff from one chalet to the other and then at 3:30 we'll meet my son Michael and his wife Natalia at the train station. They’re coming from Barcelona, which is 2 hours away and they'll spend the evening with us and go to the sale with us in the morning. I want Natalia along because I don't comprehend all the Spanish legalese that she does and if there are questions I want her there as a translator that we can trust to ensure all goes well. Besides, it will be nice to see them both. We saw them in MN last August when they visited for 10 days. We've not been together in Spain for 2 years. Ian and I came to their wedding in September 2005. It's wonderful to see them doing to well; personally and professionally.

I will be SO happy when the sale is done. It will be a tremendous relief and an answer to many prayers.

Thursday, September 13
The sale of chalet number 10 went through on Monday. I wish I could say it went without a hitch, HA, it was a nightmare. Thank goodness Michael and Natalia came along to the signing. Our agent, Chris the drama queen, was in true form; completely disorganized and did nothing to engender confidence. In the end it all went OK, but it was enough of a bad experience that we cannot imagine doing any business with Chris again!

After the sale, Michael and Natalia returned to Barcelona by train Monday and we came up by car on Tuesday. We stayed at a hotel that was supposed to have wireless Internet connection in every room, but our room did not have a signal and the front desk could not get it sorted out. We decided we would just stay one night and then come back to Riumar and stay in number 11.

September 11 is independence day in the province of Catalonia so the banks were closed. We visited with Michael and Natalia at their home and went out for both lunch and dinner together.

Earlier Tuesday morning before traveling to Barcelona, while we were still on the delta, we got into a small car accident. We were PARKED on a side street in the neighboring village of La Cava, sitting in our rented car, when a local guy driving a dump truck came by us and snapped off the driver's side mirror. Ian beeped the horn and screamed at the guy as he jumped out. The man stopped, got out and began explaining in rapid-fire Catalan, with big arm gestures that we were wrong to be parked where we were, blah, blah, blah. I called Natalia and asked her to send the local police. The guy had had a bit to drink - not sloppy, but certainly foggy. He was walking around the side street and out to the main street and we worried about him leaving the scene. Ian went to his truck and took the keys from the ignition. The police arrived and listened to his version and informed him quite quickly he was in the wrong. This guy's entire demeanor changed and he became even more contrite as the accident report was completed. The officer explained that because the accident was not serious and no one was hurt, he would not test the other driver for alcohol (how novel), but the officer did shake his finger at him and told him to go straight home. Ian was able to reassemble the mirror pieces so we do have a driver's side mirror, albeit a cracked one. The accident report with the other guy's insurance info and that we were not at fault should be plenty enough for Avis.

On Wednesday morning, after we deposited the sale check our Spanish bank account we visited our friends Caroline (a Canadian married to a Catalan) and Christine (German), who both live just outside Barcelona in Sant Cugat. Oh, it was SO good to see them. We met through the Barcelona Women's Network (BWN) when we were all members of this English-speaking women’s group. There were some emotional moments and tears as I remembered just how precious they are to me. I also spoke by telephone to Doreen and Patricia; more great BWN friends, but ones we would not get to see this trip.

We have been running errands since we returned to Riumar. This morning we met Martina, a German realtor who works for an agency that is just up the coast from Riumar. We had corresponded by email and it was nice to meet her face-to-face. Already she is miles ahead of Chris. Another bonus is that she is a horse person! She has Quarter horses and Arabians plus she is in the process of getting a license for her own horse riding stable. As you can imagine, she loved photos of our Arabian stallion Legacys Renoir.

We also have the chalet listed with the Inmodelta agency right here in Riumar. Between the Catalan/Spanish agency and Martina's German agency number 11 should sell! We also bought BIG signs that read "Se Vende" (For Sale) and I've put Natalia's cell phone number on these signs. Naturally, if we can sell the chalet without paying a 5% commission to an agency, all the better.

Today, we had lunch with British transplants Janette and Brian. Janette has been handling summer rental changeovers for number 11. We met her through Chris (one good thing she'd done), but this was my first time meeting them face-to-face. Ian met them when he was here a few weeks ago. They too have unbelievably nutty Chris stories. Unbeknownst to us, Chris has quite an unsavory reputation and has many debt judgments against her. Lovely! Anyway, Janette and Brian are wonderful people and ones we plan to stay in touch with.

Tomorrow (Friday), our last full day on the delta, there will be more running around and Ian will fix a leaky toilet hose and replace small, cracked tiles on the bathroom countertop.

Yes, we want to sell number 11 and focus on the Auld Macdonald Farm, but this trip has also reinforced that we want to return too. I just love it here and surely we could find a suitable place for us here that would allow us to have horses either with us or nearby. There's no rush, we're happy on the farm, but Spain or France are certainly in our future plans.

Saturday, September 15
Today we closed up the chalet and said goodbye to Riumar and I wept as we left and for a good way down the highway. For me, it’s a challenge because I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’m also torn because I do love it on our farm in Minnesota with our horses and other animals.

The drive to Madrid took five hours and we are spending the weekend with Cynthia and Claude, our dear Canadian friends who we've not seen since their wedding in Montreal. On Monday, we fly Madrid-Newark-Minneapolis.

We returned the Volvo to Avis at the Madrid airport. There was some discussion about the police accident form we presented, but it was quickly resolved at the returns desk. At least, I hope that is the end of it! I’m always nervous when a company has a Visa card number!

Cynthia and Claude have lived in Spain for 10 years. Claude collected us at the arrival area and we made a short drive to their home. I don’t know what section of Madrid they live in, but it is gorgeous and very safe. Apparently, it is fortress safe as a famous Spanish footballer (soccer star) had lived in one of the townhouse-type apartments and extra measures were put in place to keep his adoring fans at bay.

There are people in this world who are born as gracious hosts and Cynthia and Claude are certainly that. We just love to come to visit them, wherever they are. After we settle in our room, we four sat on their patio veranda and ate grilled shrimp and barbequed white fish with fresh oven-baked veggies and other local lovelies; delicious olives, course bread, bottles of well-researched Rioja! The conversation, as always, was stimulating and wide-ranging.

Sunday, September 16
We woke up to a sunny and comfortably warm day and we four went to the Hipodromo La Zarzuela (the horse racetrack) in Madrid. What a GREAT time. Before each of the races we viewed the horses in the paddocks, then places our bets and went to the stands to watch! We did pretty well for being somewhat unscientific. Really, we bet just to add some interest, not to retire!

Afterwards, we ate at a nice restaurant and had Spanish rise dishes, named paella and arroz negro and drank chilled rose.

Later, back at the house, we fought the siesta urge, and watched a movie and chatted.

Monday, September 17
This morning, Claude left for a business meeting in Poland a few hours before Cynthia took us to the airport for our flight home. Since I’d devoured a Baldacci novel earlier in the trip, Cynthia gave me a Jonathan Kellerman novel, “Rage”, which introduced me to protagonist Alex Delaware. With less than 100 pages left to read, I’m hooked and have reserved the Alex Delaware series to buy in publication-date order on my Amazon wish list.

Ian and I arrived home on the farm Monday night at 8:45 p.m. Minnesota time, which is 3:45 a.m. Spain time. As you can imagine, we were a bit tired, as we gotten up in Spain at 8 a.m. Our flight from Madrid went well and there was only a slight delay leaving Newark. We’d parked our truck at the airport.

When we arrived home, I went to the barn and patted all the indoor horses. Naturally, our barn helper Tina took such good care of all the animals! Tiger the cat greeted us and spent the night here in the trailer purring and loving us up. I picked up our dog Lady from the local kennel Tuesday morning and she was thrilled to see me.

Basically, we’re good. Sometimes the jet lag gets us, but that will be over in a few days.

Next week Tuesday, Ian is traveling on business to Cupertino in Northern California for 10 days. I’m staying home and going to a big horse show at the state fairgrounds. Renoir will be there and will be shown Saturday afternoon in the stallion parade before the futurity auction that happens in the evening.

My son Richard is going to come up and work on renovation projects and keep me company. It will be nice to have him here while Ian’s gone. He’s learning more and more about horses, which I think is good for a city kid!

Our next big push is to get things done in the house so we can move back in – winter’s a coming!

E-I-E-I-O

Spain – buen viaje

Tomorrow, September 7, Ian and I are traveling to Spain. We have been waiting for the sale of chalet number 10, which has dragged on in fits and starts since Easter. Finally, we have a green light and an appointment to sign papers at a notary office on Monday, the tenth. A young Spanish couple is buying the chalet as their primary residence.

We will be in Spain until the 17th. We will visit friends and family in Barcelona and Madrid. Our flights are in/out of Madrid and we will drive to/from Riumar, which is a five-hour drive. It will be nice to see the Mediterranean again and all the changes since I last visited, which I think was two years ago this month when my son Michael married Natalia. Ian has been twice this year; at Christmastime for his visa and a business trip two weeks ago.

Tina is taking care of the farm and all of its animals, except for Lady, who will be boarded for the 10 days we’re gone.

We are listing the remaining chalet, number 11, with two additional local real estate agents in hopes it sells soon. We have enjoyed owning our Spanish properties, but its time to consolidate here in the U.S.

The money from the sale will allow us to restart renovation projects that have languished in recent months. We look forward to moving back into the house and enjoying our living quarters trailer on trips to horse shows.

Our stallion, Legacys Renoir, will be in a stallion parade Friday evening, September 28, in the Coliseum at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds during the Fall Fest Arabian horse show. After he struts his stuff, hopefully booking breedings for the 2008 season, Renoir will have a long break before he shows again – which will be in Scottsdale, Arizona in mid-February. We hope to be there with him from the 9th to the 25th.

E-I-E-I-O

August tale and travel

It continues to be warm, humid and with little or no rain. The lawn grass crunches when we walk on it. The pasture is dry too and nothing but weeds are growing so we’ve been feeding hay to the outdoor horses for the last month. The corn and beans planted in area fields are looking quite thirsty.

In my last post I wrote about two kitties I found to at roadside. I tried to nurse them using kitten milk replacement, but sadly they both died. Bless their little kitten hearts.

We have two apple trees on the property; both are laden with ripening apples. I’m going to collect some and will begin making applesauce, apple pie filling and maybe even some apple jelly in the next few days.

Ian is on his was to Barcelona. He left Minnesota yesterday but because the plane left so late the connection was missed in Newark, New Jersey. So, he’s booked on a flight today to arrive on Sunday morning in Barcelona. He’ll return on the 22nd.

We’re on a roller coaster when it comes to selling the properties in Spain. First, one is sold, then not, then there’s interest in the other and then nothing. I THINK we’re about to actually sell one, but until the papers are signed and money changes hands it’s all conversation.

E-I-E-I-O

Kitty, kitty

Saturday during our morning walk, Lady and I found 2 itsy-bitsy kittens meowing and dirty on the side of the dirt road. One is black and white, the other is all grey, and both are females. The black and white one has her eyes open and the other does not yet – so they are very young. I don’t know if someone dropped them off or if they were abandoned by the mother, but they are here now.

I researched what to do on the Internet and then bought an electric heating pad, a small feeding bottle with nipple and some kitten milk replacement formula. They’re to be fed every 2-3 hours around the clock. They do not have enough suck power to get milk from the bottle, so I am feeding them with a syringe. Frankly, they’re not too impressed with having their mouths pried open but they’re getting the hang of it.

Our housecat Tiger has not taken too kindly to them. I’m sure instinct tells him that if their mother is not around to protect them, they should be killed. I put the kitties, along with their towel and heating pad in the bathtub and closed the bathroom door.

In a week or so they can go longer stretches between feedings and before I know it they’ll be eating solid food and using a litter box. A girlfriend mentioned she would be cat shopping as soon as she moved into her new place. I called her yesterday and she was in the process of moving then. If she decides not to take them, they can always stay here. A farm can almost always use another (neutered) cat.

E-I-E-I-O

Depths of summer

Hello! It’s been WEEKS since I’ve written an update; so let me give you some highlights.

Our stallion Legacy’s Renoir went to his first horse show in two years and wowed the judges and the crowd. He showed in a stallion halter class in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, June 13, and won a blue ribbon, which qualified him to compete in the Region 10 Championship show the next evening. We did not know it at the time, but in winning that blue ribbon Renoir beat out the Brazilian National Champion! On the 14th, Renoir was awarded a Top 5 Ribbon and then was judged Reserve Champion for all of Region 10 (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula of Michigan) in the stallion class for ages two years and over. Of course, we’re thrilled. It was fun to see him do so well and Region 10 is one of the toughest regions in North America. His regional win qualifies him to show at U.S. and Canadian Nationals this year and next year.

Renoir’s next show will be in Des Moines, Iowa over Labor Day weekend (August 30-September 3). Then later in September (27-30) he will in St. Paul again at a big show we call “Fall Fest.” Each time he shows Renoir’s handlers will be professionals; either Jeff Schall or brother Jerry. We’re not doing amateur owner to handle (AOTH) this season. After Fall Fest, Renoir will probably have a long break and not show until February in Scottsdale, Arizona. Of course, he can be called upon to begin breeding mares in February 2008 too.

Renoir had two photo sessions with different professional equine photographers in late June. He also was videotaped and we’re watching to see the final DVD version. These are used in promoting the stallion. Renoir will have a full-page ad in the Arabian Horse Times in the August and September issues; both ads are related to the above-mentioned shows.

In mid-June we went to South Dakota, very near the Minnesota border, to see Mona (see “Spring Update” entry). She is a beauty and we fell in love with the chestnut colt at her side and he will come with her to the Auld Macdonald Farm this fall. We have dubbed him Clifford. He is a large, fiery red chestnut Half Arabian with three white socks and a white star and snip that travels down his forehead. When I picture any big, red animal the children’s storybook “Clifford the big red dog” comes to mind. I’m not sure what we’ll officially name him. His sire is the palomino American Saddlebred stallion Goldmount Royal Design. During our South Dakota daytrip, we met Royal along with another stunning stallion, purebred Arabian, Bey Shahzon.

Sax Fifth Avenue, the Arabian mare I mentioned in “Happy June” is back with us. She is confirmed bred to Sirius Trouble for an auction foal in 2008. Windy (Arabian) is bred to pinto American Saddlebred stallion Famous Echo SCA for an auction foal in 2008. Auction foals can compete in special purse-winning classes at specific shows. We also bred Khatalina Bey (Arabian) and Yukon Miss (Thoroughbred) to Renoir for foals in 2008. On Tuesday we will have these three mares confirmed in foal. The mare we’re leasing in Wisconsin, VG Elambra (see AMF Spring Update), is also in foal to Renoir, so that will be it for our breeding season. There’s only so much money in the world.

Our three-year-old geldings Cairo and Whisper will be going to nearby Rush City to be started under saddle (see “Happy June”). Our other gelding Jay is enjoying his time in Buffalo, Minnesota with his teenaged 4-H handler Darrah.

Ian set up a 60-foot round pen and we use it to work on our horses’ ground manners. Lately, it’s been blessed hot with high humidity and not a sniff of rain, so we’ve given the horses a training break. We do take the hose into the pasture to rinse them off – some like it, some are not really impressed, but it makes me feel better knowing they’ve been given a break from the heat.

Windy’s filly is growing up nicely (see “It’s a girl”). She’s got a nice personality and a lovely Arabian head and neck with a tail that stands flag straight. Kisses seems to have the finest attributes of both dam and sire. We’ll be working with her more and more and, if we have not sold her, we’ll look at showing her in the spring of 2008.

We’re (still) waiting to learn about the sale of one of our two chalets in Spain. Number 10 has been off the market since the end of May. You can imagine how frustrating it is to wait at this distance. I should know something definite next week.

Meanwhile, at least Ian will be going to Barcelona. HP has asked him to travel there and to Grenoble, France related to this latest consulting project. He’s to meet in Barcelona beginning Monday, August 13, and running through Thursday or Friday of that week.

I’ve seen the latest Harry Potter movie and this morning I finished the final book. I really enjoyed the series and I hope that J. K. Rowling doesn’t just sit back and spend her billions, but that she writes another adventure to share.

My son Richard came to visit earlier in the week. We tore off siding as high as we could reach without a ladder. Of course we did it on the two hottest days of the summer. A lot of water was drunk those days! Before residing and installing new windows and doors, we will put a house wrap on all exterior walls. The siding we’ve chosen resembles cedar shake, so with the doorways and windows trimmed in white it should look quite gingerbread-ish! LOL

We’ve also begun tearing out the living room/dining room floor. Why people want us to take up the boards carefully and try to re-use them is beyond me. They are old, dried up, warped and should go exactly where we took them – to the fire pit for a great bonfire. Once the floor is replaced, we will lay down the same ceramic tile we have on the kitchen floor. Ian’s also installing radiant heating, so with that, the house wrap and the corn stove we’ll be cozy this winter.

Meanwhile, we’ve moved into our living-quarters horse trailer. It has all the creature comforts and when we need to haul a horse, we just unplug the electricity and disconnect the water, load a horse or two, hook it up to the one-ton pick up truck and we’re off!

Yesterday, I took Mom to Pine City, Minnesota to visit her brother Bob and his wife Carol. They live just outside this small city on a 200-acre farm they’ve owned since just after WWII. Aunt Carol is a great cook and we had a simple, tasty lunch. The farm has been both a working dairy farm and a show horse business, but now its only animals are outdoor cats.

We’ve had friends and family come to visit and we are expecting more visitors in a few days.

Those are just some of the things going on since I last posted.

E-I-E-I-O

Summer rhythms

Summer officially begins on the 21st, but I feel that we’re already into a summertime rhythm. This time last year we hadn’t been to our first horse show yet. This year, we’re showing less as handlers and we’re focusing almost solely on Legacy’s Renoir and all the marketing needs of a breeding stallion. I like horse shows and could go to one every weekend, but this big picture/long term view has its appeal as well. The energy that comes from bouncing our ideas off others – renowned trainers/handlers, breeding specialists, and other stallion owners — is refreshing. There are measured steps to take in successful stallion marketing; conditioning, training, showing and doing well, which create what our trainer calls [marketing] “hot buttons”, the breeding, settling mares, which is horse industry speak for “impregnating”, the resulting foals, advertising at the right junctures; all take time.

Another added bonus to being Renoir’s owners is that when he was a yearling he created quite a stir at the Scottsdale show by winning when he was supposed to be “just another pretty horse in the ring” with a handler who was young, Latin American and had never shown in the U.S. Renoir and Gil won first place and reserve champion ribbons at that show in 2003 and people are still talking about it. Many are also excited to see Renoir in the show ring again.

So, being less frantic about going to shows, we have time to settle into the pace of farm life. Oh, a friend who is in agri-business explained that while this is Auld Macdonald Farm we are not “farmers” but ranchers. I suppose I can agree with that, as we don’t plant/harvest anything. When I think of “ranch” I think of wide expanses and words like hacienda and the “the back 40” come to mind.

Before our housecat Tiger came to live with us, he was an indoor/outdoor cat in the city. Now he likes to sleep all day and go out at night during the warm weather months. Who doesn’t? The sky takes on the right cat-about-town tint at 9 p.m. and he begins to display departure behavior. I open the door and he pads out. Providing there’s no inclement weather Tiger’s night out ends at 5 a.m. when he meows at the dining room window, which is adjacent to our bed. He and I have fallen into this wee hours dance that coincides with me going potty. He meows, I get up and let him in, make a pit stop and we all curl up in bed with sleeping Ian, who remains dreamily oblivious.

We have 11 hens that lay between six and eight eggs daily. I did find the rooster John Wayne dead in a hidden corner of the coop. Sad, because he did not look poorly – well, other than the fact he was stiff as a board! We have not had the sickness on the farm this year that we suffered last, when we had days when as many as three chickens died in a single day. With that behind us, having these chickens that have been with us through the winter is really special. They are quite friendly, although not the jump-up-in-your-lap kind of friendly. They do come when I call them and I scatter seeds, peelings, and fruit cores daily. The weather has been so nice lately that we often leave the back door open and we’ve had curious feathered guests – sometimes leaving their calling cards.

Ian is between contracts right now [a new one begins late June] and he’s grooving with the kitchen project. The drywall is all up and taped, the countertop bases are built and very soon he’ll be able to install the ceramic tile. Once that’s done, the kitchen drawers, dishwasher and sink are next on the list!

Tomorrow, we leave Tina in charge while we take Lady, truck and trailer to the fairgrounds to watch Renoir show Wednesday morning and Thursday evening. Then late Thursday we will head to South Dakota and plan to return to the farm late Friday or early Saturday.

E-I-E-I-O

Happy June

Kisses is one month old today. She enjoys running in large loops in the grassy pasture under her mother’s watchful eye. Windy is actually a rather laid back mommy. Ian and I get to handle Kisses quite a bit, as does Tina when she does barn chores.

Today, I noticed that the rooster John Wayne is no longer with us. I thought I’d missed him yesterday, but made a concerted effort to locate him today. No rooster. We’ve got 11 hens and that’s it. I began collecting eggs daily again. The hens have done me the favor of laying eggs in one nest in the coop, so I don’t have to hunt for other nests. My Mom and younger brother Matthew came to visit on Friday. I sent Mom home with two dozen. Friend Marcia is bringing me several dozen cartons from her dad’s place in South Dakota. I’m always running out of cartons.

Yesterday, Ian and I hauled 15-year-old mare, Sax Fifth Avenue, to a farm in Buffalo for her to be bred this month to Sirius Trouble for a purebred Arabian foal in May 2008. Sax belongs to a friend and we are leasing her for the purpose of the 2008 foal. We like Sax very much. In fact, we own her three-year-old son Jay, who is making a 14-year-old girl very happy this summer as her 4-H project horse.

I’ve found a local woman who starts horses under saddle and have scheduled both Cairo and Whisper to go and work with her in August. She has no slots before that time – a good sign. These two are not slated for the show ring, but we do want them for trail riding. Sooner or later we would like to sell them to good homes and to do that it’s important that they be broke to ride.
I am hoping that sometime this summer we will set up a round pen and begin working on developing better working relationships with the horses we have here. Ian and I still want to go to classes in California at Monty Robert’s Flag Is Up Farm, www.montyroberts.com but getting into the horse business has taken us on a bit of a detour. We’re also taking about hiring our own horse trainer in 2008 or 2009; someone who will train our horses here on the farm for show and come with a Rolodex of contacts that will help us to be successful in selling horses too.

The weather has been delightful here. There has been a nice balance of sunshine and rain. The lawn, gardens, pasture and fields are green and growing very well. Farmers are ready to cut their first hay crop. Knowing that we’d rather not run for hay as much as we did this past winter, we will be buying hay earlier and in more numbers (of bales) soon. Tina is cleaning out the hayloft so that we can use it for its intended purpose.

Our stallion Legacy’s Renoir will be showing at two shows held at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul in mid-June. First, Renoir will show in an open halter class with a professional handler. If he does well in that class he will qualify to show at the regional championship show that follows the first show. The two shows run almost seamlessly. This is the first time Renoir has been shown since 2005, and we are curious to see how he does. We believe he will do very well.

There is other good news related to Renoir too. There are two mares that are in foal to him, due in April 2008. One of the mares, VG Elambra, we are leasing from her owner so the resulting purebred Arabian foal will be ours. We are planning to breed both of our Thoroughbred mares (Bentley and Missy) and a purebred Arabian mare Khatalina Bey to him in June for foals in May 2008.

E-I-E-I-O