Fall colors at the lake

Today The Boy and I went up to the lake to take out the dock and boat lift. I just don't want to do it by myself anymore. Too hard. With The Boy there it seemed so easy.  Much quicker. Still work but easier on the Old Man. Took these pics cause the colors are at peak right now. They certainly do not do the colors justice. They seem dull and washed out in the pics, but are very vivid in reality. Oh well, need a better camera I guess.

We fished for awhile but didn't get much, so we packed it all up and came home. Maybe next year.

Squash and Pumpkins II

Anyone need some butternut squash or mini-pumpkins?

We got frost the other night and it was hard enough to kill the leaves on the squash and pumpkin vines. They turned black the next day, so yesterday we picked all the S&P.

As you can see there was quite a few.

There was also quite a few that didn't mature, so the boys will get those. Next year we will have to run a tighter garden-ship so we don't get so overwhelmed. All these grown in clay and composted horse manure. One time when I was in the barber shop and old guy said that horse manure was no good for growing things. I think maybe he just didn't like horses or something. Our garden in Ham Lake was planted on top of the old manure pile and our tomato plants got taller than me. Now, on a chicken note, we have been getting three and four eggs a day lately and on Sunday we got five! That's pretty good considering the Welsummers are only supposed to lay every other day. Simone is laying every day and her eggs are getting a little bigger. I'm puttting another addition on the coop and making new nest boxes, so we'll see how much "Chicken Trauma" that causes and whether it stops the egg laying. Critters are so much fun.

Field Day and Bucks

Saturday Gramma and went to a "Draft Horse Field Day". We met the FD there and watched as people plowed, disked, dragged, cultivated, cut hay, raked hay, picked potatoes, and threshed grain with draft horses. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately Gramma and I forgot to bring a camera. What????? Yes, totally lame, but we're old. The FD took lots of pics, so if she puts them on her computer she said she would send them to me and then I could post some. Hopefully this won't take too long.(Hint, hint) Yesterday evening we saw two young bucks and a doe in the West field and the two bucks started to fight.

Best pics I could get with my camera.

They didn't fight too hard,just practicing for when they get bigger.

Oops, they see me.

This morning the same two bucks were in the backyard. One went in the woods just as I got the camera, but this guy hung around for awhile. He's actually an eight pointer, so with this many points at such a young age he has the potential to be a trophy. Cool. The other one was a six pointer as far as I could tell. Hope nobody shoots them. Been seeing some nice big does lately, so maybe we can put some venison in the freezer again ths year.

Ingrid

Yesterday we had the farrier out. The vet said we needed to have Ingrid's hoofs cut as short as possible in the front. He called it squaring them off. This allows her foot to turn over quicker with less pressure on the toe and therefore less pain. So we waited to give her the pain meds until an hour and a half before Fred came. Even before we gave her the meds she was walking without limping. Yay. She didn't care for the wet hay, so we have been trying to get it somewhat dried out. That helps some I think, but also I think she realizes that she isn't getting anything else and has been cleaning it all up. Anyway she seems to be getting better. We are going to have to keep Aksel off the grass also and feed him the same way or it could happen to him also. Now I need to find some marginal hay and I think we might get a couple of cows so the pasture and good hay don't go to waste. We'll see.

FDIL

OK. Just so you know. FDIL= Favorite Daughter-In-Law. Okey Dokey.

Horse Trauma

Our chubby mare Ingrid has Equine Metabolic Syndrome. (Look it up so you understand) This is very painful, but if we follow the vet's advice she should be ok. It's going to take awhile and it's going to be more work, but we're going to get her well. This affects her feet and can lead to other problems. So she has to lose weight and can no longer graze on pasture or eat hay freely. The vet said it is like diabetes and she needs to get off the plant sugar. This affects overweight horses and those like Fjiords who are easy keepers. Our pastures and hay are too rich and they don't get enough exercise. You work hard rotating, mowing and dragging pastures to make them nice and then find out they're too nice. So she has to be in the barn for awhile and get pain meds. She can only have 1% of her body weight in hay a day and it has to be soaked in water for a half hour to leach out the sugar. So no more bale feeder for her, she will have to get fed twice daily and it has to be weighed. When her feet are better she will have to be exercised regularly. I'm going to try and find someone who puts up meadow hay or other marginal hay so we don't have to always soak it. Aksel is not happy. Guess we should have got some Quarter Horses with big butts. NOT!

Squash and pumpkins and potatoes

Yesterday we picked a couple of squash. These are Butternut Squash.

As you can see they are not miniature like the pumpkins. Yikes.

They are much bigger than the ones Gramma buys in the store and there are lots of them. So  the FD and the FDIL will have squash to eat too. I read that these squash make better tasting pumpkin pie than pumpkins do, so we might have to try that.

Here is the squash and potatoes from our garden roasted along side Gramma's yummy chicken. Oh Yeah.