Aussie Oklahoma

Last post....

2008-10-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

This is my last post on Blogger. . . . . . I'm moving my blog to Wordpress. For me, while I will dearly miss my colors on here, Wordpress is easier to use.

I'll have it up and running in time to do a Wordless Wednesday :D Here's the new url: http://aussieoklahoma.wordpress.com/

See you there!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-10-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

First frost and an award

2008-10-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

We got our first frost this morning... A couple days ago, we actually had a tiny bit of frost, just on a few clover leaves, but today was a real frost.
The sky looked so wierd this morning with the sun kind of hiding behind the trees and making a halo.

I'm glad that the ice on the bucket is only a thin film, and not a quarter, or half inch thick like it gets in the winter.

The grass out in front the Horse Barn.
One good thing about the frost, all the frosty barbed wire pictures!
Trace is up in the Ten Acre field watching Melvin run at mach 5 to the house. He got shocked on Nick's electric fence. Melvin had to run to house so he could shiver and hide under the table for a few hours.

The other day, Shirely over at Ride A Good Horse gave me this award. First of all, thank you, Shirely!

The text that goes with the award: “To translate the gift from Portuguese to English, it means: “This blog invests and believes, the proximity” (meaning, that blogging makes us ‘close’ - being close through proxy)

“They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”
I'm passing this award onto Threecollie, and Paula

**On another note, I'm goin to set aside some time tomorrow and go through and answer all the comments that I'm behind on.**

Wild Gelding of the Columbia Gorge

2008-10-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

This is Wednesday, and I usually do a Wordless Wednesday post. You ask, why not this week? Well, today is a special day. Three years ago on October 8th, I bought my first horse, so I'm doing a "birthday" post, even though Nick celebrates his birthday on the first of January like race horses do, because we don't know his official birthay.

This is one of my favorites of Nick because it's hard to get him to look directly at the camera when I'm standing within ten feet of him.

Being silly

Going to water

Has there been a mistake, and I actually bought a half horse, half giraffe?

Maybe this is why he has so much energy, he's drinking electra perk! Note that this is a three pound can, not 38 oz like the plastic ones are now.

Doing a leg yeild around the bend in the driveway

Half silhouette, watching Mom milk the cow, his best friend

This picture was taken just a few days after we brought him home. As you can see, he's brilliant orange.

I just took this picture in April of this year to show what he looks like now, almost three years later. It's amazing how dark his coat is now that he's on better grass and gets all the minerals he can eat. He gets a little orange during the winter, but nowhere near as orange as when I bought him.

Another hard to get shot, but I managed to make hold still long enough. I'm not sure why the camera scares him, but it does.

"I want my dinner, are we done yet?"

It all began years ago; I’ve always wanted a horse. I began saving my money and within about three or four years, through my weekly allowance, and later selling plant starts I had $2,000. I had to save at least that much before I could by a horse. After our thirty something year old Belgian draft horse died, I was even more horse crazy.

In the early summer and into fall of 2005, we started seriously looking. Everyday when the paper would come, I’d get out the ad section and pore over at the ads.

Finally, in the last or second to last week of September, I think, I saw a promising ad. It was twenty-one year old appaloosa gelding, quiet, good beginner. My mom called and the owner said that we had just missed it; the horse just got sold a few hours ago.

A few days later, I spotted another appaloosa gelding; this one was eighteen, dead broke, etc. Mom called, and the woman said that someone was there looking at him right now, and she’d call us back. She never called back, so we assumed that the horse got sold.

A couple weeks passed, and another ad came along. “Quarter horse $900.00. Dead broke, great for beginners and intermediate. Has done it all, 16 hands, twenty-one years young. Must sell due to divorce.”

Mom called immediately. After talking on the phone for a few minutes, it was settled, we would go look at him on Saturday, the eight. We also learned that he was a buckskin/dun. My mom and I were so excited, he sounded like a good horse and he just happened to be a buckskin too! We love buckskins.

The lady said she would meet us at her house. When we got there, there were no cars in the driveway. We waited ten or fifteen minutes before my mom got out and went and knocked on the door. One of six or seven kids answered the door. The kid said that his mom was at the boarding stable a few miles away, riding some of the kinks out of “Nick.” My mom used their phone because we didn’t have a cell phone at the time - still don’t - and Kathy, I think her name was, sent her soon to be ex husband down to show us how to get to the boarding stable. He pulled up in his navy blue one ton Dodge pickup with a KUPL sticker on the back window, and led the through a maze of complicated, and twisted roads.

After ten or so minutes of winding our way up the mountain, we arrived at the stable. The stable was cut out of the bank on the right side, with a plenty of stable, paddock, arena room. On the left side was a large barb wire fenced field with grass as short as a carpet and twenty five or thirty horses in it and a couple trees out in the middle. Those were horses that were boarded at the stable.

We parked on the side of the road at the bottom of the driveway, and piled out. The husband had already disappeared up the gravel drive.

After walking up the driveway, there was a barn to the right and an arena to the left. The husband was leaning against the railing and watching a pretty blonde woman ride a lathered up bay quarter horse.

“So, where is the horse?” My mom asked.

“Oh, that’s him right there.” The husband replied. What? We were expecting a buckskin, not a brown bay.

Kathy noticed us and rode Nick over and dismounted. On closer inspection, Nick was thin and carrot orange - he shouldn’t have been thin and his coat should have been brown, not orange, coming off summer grass, and there was bite marks on his neck and hind quarters.

After the introductions were made, we stood by the arena - Kathy and Nick inside, us and the husband leaning on the fence - and Mom started asking questions about him. Is he good with his feet/horse shoer, etc.

Meanwhile, Nick was all worked up about being away from his herd and was dancing around on the end of reins and tossing his head, and pawing the ground in impatience. He was severely herd-bound, and we would later learn that that was a hard habit to break. After about five or six minutes of this, Kathy turned around and viciously yanked the reins. My parents and I flinched, astounded. That was one way to make a hard-mouthed horse that wouldn’t respond to light pressure on the reins. I couldn’t imagine how much that must have hurt his bars. That wouldn’t have even crossed my mind to do that. First, I would have raised my voice a little and said in a stern voice, “Quit it!” If that didn’t work, I would whop him lightly on the nose with the reins and tell him to stop, but never jerk his mouth.

He stopped dancing and tossing his head, and quieted a little. They both kept reassuring us that Nick wasn’t usually like this. Which he isn’t, unless he’s excited, stirred up, or mad. But still, you can imagine what it would be like, seeing this horse for the first time and having the owners assure you that he’s not like that.

After much hemming and hawing, my parents decided to take him on a two week trial. The money was shelled out, and Kathy began unsaddling Nick. As we were walking down the driveway, it started to lightly rain.

At the trailer, Nick hesitated and didn’t want to step up in it (I don’t blame him, I mean who would want to go in a dark box?). Finally she got him in and left him loose with his bridle. Kathy was barely out of the trailer when Nick whipped around faster than greased lightning, and was now facing backwards. Kathy kind of stared at him for a moment and we decided to take him out and reload him, only this time tie him up.

Kathy was hesitant to take him out, likely afraid that he would get back in the trailer. Mom thought that she probably gotten in a wreck or something with him. She led him back in the trailer and started to tie him with his bridle. That was even more astounding to us than jerking the bit. If Nick lost his footing or slipped, he’d be using his tender mouth to hold him up.

Mom jumped in and said lets use a halter to tie him with, and the husband ran back and got his halter. It fit, but it was too small in the nose. Next, the clueless husband got in with Nick and tried to figure out how to a halter goes on a horse, until Dad showed him that the nose goes through the circle, and the strap behind the ears. The husband tied Nick to the “D” ring in front of the trailer and jumped out the side door.

The rest of Nick’s tack was back at Kathy’s house, so we piled into cab and wound our way back down the mountain. The rain started to fall a little harder.

On the long drive home, we stopped to gas up and eat an early dinner of junk food. Nick seemed to be doing good, just a little nervous and upset.

When we got home the rain hadn’t slackened off at, and it was starting to get dark. I readied one of the empty old draft horse tie stalls and made it as comfortable as I could for him. While Mom was backing him out of the trailer, Nick threw up his head and hit it on the roof. After that, we ushered him into his stall and tied him up.

A couple days later, we had Dianna, a friend and local horse expert, come look at him to see whether Nick was good buy or not. She said that he wasn’t full Quarter horse, but a Morgan - Quarter cross, which would account for some of his high strung behavior. She also said that the was a good horse, but sometime during his life, he had been beaten up by somebody, most likely a man, because he’s scared of/doesn’t like men. It’s funny how he avoids them. If he’s out in the pasture and he sees a man approaching, he pretends that see saw some better grass “over there” and just walks off like he meant to, and isn’t trying to get away from somebody. With women, he’s fine; he just keeps grazing, or will maybe come over and investigate. We also had some work ahead of us, but overall, he was good horse. We had our vet come out the next day and do a vet check. He was fine no heath problems, except that Nick was more about twenty-five, not twenty. When the vet tried to lift his tail, Nick clamped it down and raised his foot threateningly, but he didn’t kick. The only guy he’s comfortable with is his farrier. I was surprised, but glad, because it helps if your horse likes the farrier.

For the first week or so when he was turned out in his paddock by the barn, he’d run back and forth along the fence whinnying and looking to the southwest, where his herd mates were. On the south side, it’s healed up some, but you can still that trail that he wore. It’s so nice that he hardly paces anymore.

Nick was good for a couple days after that, then one night when it was time to put him in is stall at night, I couldn’t catch him. For the next hour, we tried to catch him, but failed. Finally, we gave up and said “Fine, you can just spend the night outside!” Well, that was exactly what he wanted. We figured out that the tie stall was uncomfortable for him, so we took a couple panels and built him a stall in the cow shed, on the other side of the barn.
Dianna showed me how to run him in a circle when he didn’t want to be caught and that way I wouldn’t letting him win and learn that if he avoided me long enough, I would give up. It worked. He hardly does it anymore, maybe twice a year.

Mom tried to call Kathy a couple of times with a question about Nick, but she wouldn’t answer the phone or her messages. I guess she thought if we didn’t hear back, we’d just keep the horse. By the end of the two weeks, we decided to keep him

The western saddle that came with him was several sizes too small, so we hunted around and Dianna brought over an old western saddle that had been in her tack room for a while, that she thought might fit him. It actually did.

I started taking riding lessons from her. When the weather was dry, I rode Nick and learned on him, and when it was rainy, I rode her school horse, Ally, at her stable. With Nick, it was a lot of un-training, and going back to square one and starting over with him.

For a while, he was real sensitive to legs brushing his barrel and he’d speed up if your leg so much as touched a hair on his barrel, if you were riding him. It took a few months and a lot of bareback riding to break him of that. Ally, the school horse, when he gets tired, you really have to keep on him to keep up the trot; give him a firm bop, but if I did that to Nick, he’d either break into a gallop, or be in the next county. Two completely different horses.

Nick is a get on and hurry off, or go for trail ride kind of horse. He hates being ridden in a circle, or a square, he would rather amble along in a straight line than be ridden in a circle.
If you’re doing a circle or something like that, he tenses up and goes into almost bone jarring half trot that is hard to ride. Similar to how dressage horses trot in place, that’s what Nick does, when he could just walk and use less energy, since I most likely being that exercise at a walk, not a trot. As soon as you get away from the circle, and start “ambling,” he settles right down and relaxes his neck. He’s almost like two different horses in the same body.

Then Nick stopped standing still while I mounted, and tried to walk away just as soon as I set him up. He’d wait until I was just about to put my foot in the stirrup, and he’d then move. So, back to square one. With coaching from Dianna, I’d get him out and brush him, but not tack him up. The next time I’d put his tack on, then take it back off and put back out in the pasture. Then set up where I mount, and just stand there scratching his neck and talking to him, then put one foot in the stirrup for a few seconds, then take it back out and go back to standing. If he moves, just put him back in position and go from there. Each day, trying to lengthen the time with my foot in the stirrup. Then maybe get on and sit for a few seconds, then get off, and put him away so that he wouldn’t anticipate that every time I tack him up, I’m going to get on and ride.
Most of the time, he’d puff up so I couldn’t tighten the girth all the way.

Another tip from Dianna: outsmart him; he can only hold his breath so long, so just check the stirrups, adjust the throatlatch, scratch his neck, and when he lets out his breath, tighten the girth up. So with all these tips, he’s turning out to be a pretty good horse.

This year I noticed he calmed down more. When the cows are out of sight, he doesn’t get upset like he used to, he just continues to graze.

So ends the story of how I got my first horse. No, he’s not the ideal perfect first horse; calm and quiet, despite his quirks, he’s pretty bomb proof and doesn’t shy at a lot of things
but he is still a horse and I love him.

This is probably my all time favorite picture. I just love the look on his face.

Command Central

2008-10-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

Command central, the office on the eighteenth floor of the vast blogging complex that makes reading this blog and Throwback at Trapper Creek possible.

Okay, there is no eighteenth floor or vast office complex, just a computer and a semi "organized" mess on the desk.

The best $50 I ever made

2008-10-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

This is actually yesterday's sunrise, not sunset!

The sky when from the picture above to the this picture in less than thirty minutes and started to rain a little bit while I was on scaffolding, taking some pictures of the new roofing.

It's kind of rare around here to see a sunrise that looks like it could be a sunset.

Here's a picture that my mom took of the potatoes I was digging Tuesday and Wednesday, before it started raining on Thursday morning.

These are Purple Vikings. This was one of the hills with some large potatoes in them. Most of the hills had a nice mix of medium and large ones, and some hills were one huge one, and ten the size of marbles.
I dug most of the five rows, and got paid $50, $10 a row. That should be about three bags of horse food...

Anyway, I finished them in early evening, and then it was hurry, take a shower, fix dinner, and then go to guitar class, so Mom and I didn't get them picked up that night. On Thursday morning before breakfast, we got the two "food" wheelbarrows and hurriedly picked up all the spuds before the rain came. We just got the last wheel borrow in the barn when it started to rain lightly.

This is one of the huge potatoes. Some of the larger have hollow heart, but not all of them, and I'm hoping these big ones don't.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-10-01T06:55:00.001-07:00

The Lyon, the Spectrum, and the Teacher

2008-09-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

Last night was our (Dad and I) first guitar class of the fall term. We'd taken the class last fall, but then got too busy to take the next terms until this September.

Anyway, I was glad that we'd been practicing, and didn't have to struggle with trying to relearn the the chords and strumming patterns. Luckily, from all the practicing, our fingers had the beginnings of tiny callouses on the tips of our fingers. They will get thicker from playing longer, but it's nice to have that little pad to keep your fingers from getting those huge dents in your fingertips that hurt so bad.

Over all, it was good, and I had fun. Can't wait for next wednesday!

Left: my guitar, a Spectrum, Right: Dad's guitar, a Lyon by Washburn

Trace is curious to see why I was staring at an odd shaped wooden box, through the camera.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-09-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling squirrelly...

2008-09-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

Found this cute little guy in the walnut tree on the south side of the driveway. When I'm sitting at the computer, I can see him making trips back and forth about six or eight times a day.

He was very tame, he let me get within five or six feet of him and he just kept nibbling on his walnut, and sorta keeping one eye on me. He didn't care if I moved around, either.

Had to stop and scratch on his way back to wherever he goes.

This is his route. (click on the picture to see full size)

Wordless Wednesday

2008-09-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

Site meter...

2008-09-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

Threecollie at Northview Diary, wrote a post about the new changes to Site Meter. I couldn't have said it better.

My mom and I are both Site Meter users and we have a love/hate relationship with it. The passwords are so annoying. It would be easier for everybody if they let you pick your own password, than trying to remember some letter combination that has to be all capitals. I don't know if Blogger has it's own web stats or not. If it does, I haven't found it yet. I think I would definitely switch if there was.

Last week Site Meter sent out an email to all of its users, saying that the site was going to be down on the weekend of September 12th - 14th, so my mom and and I stayed out of it. But as you can read in Threecollie's post, they made some major changes: all graphs and microscopic print. They must have gotten so many emails to change it back, that now it's back to what it used to be. Luckily, I missed all of this!

It drives me up a wall when someone changes where all the buttons are when they were just fine the way they were. Seems like they just let you get used to where everything is, and then it's time to change everything again.

**Comments will be answered tomorrow**

A year ago today...

2008-09-14T07:17:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: keithurbanfans.com

Do you recognize this face? If you are a country music fan, or happen to live with a country aficionado, then you probably know that this is Keith Urban. Keith has played guitar and sang his way into the hearts of millions, not just nation wide, but world wide.

Last year, on September 14, my parents took me to see him when he came to Portland, as a reward for all my work over the summer.

He put on an amazing show; I had a blast. I even converted my dad into a fan after seeing his mind-blowing guitar skills. I only wish that we had the digital camera then. Oh well, there's always next time...

The Wreckers opened. Their acoustics were so bad that you could hardly hear them singing. Luckily Keith had much better sound, and you could actually hear him talking. Gotta love a Australian accent!

Oh, did I mention that he had a 50' x 20' plasma LCD screen behind him? That he did. Which was great, because our seats were up in the back and he was about a foot tall on the stage.

In 2005, Keith won the CMA Entertainer of the Year award. After seeing him in concert, I can see why. Keith's a true entertainer; he puts on great show, and he genuinely loves his fans and very interactive with them at a concert.

Here's a video of him singing the song that got me listening to his music, "Better Life." This was in Sydney, Australia, 2005.

D.L.B. award

2008-09-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

I received this award from Notshy over at Just Another Day on the Prairie. Thanks Notshy! Trace was so excited when I told him that you bestowed the award to him.

I would like to pass this award on to Kiera at Author Mom With Dogs. She is a very beautiful dog!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-09-10T07:37:00.001-07:00

A gathering of days

2008-09-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite summer or hot weather snack. This would also be good as a desert, too. All you need is some yogurt, and thawed raspberries. If you do use fresh ones, crush them a little, so that you will get some juice without having to put sugar on them. Then mix it together, find a good book and curl up in your favorite spot!

As you know, we spent Saturday cleaning out the shed on the Horse Barn, that the milk cow's yearling calf will live in during the winter and early spring.

It was deep - up past my knee! I'd say that it was two and a half to almost three feet deep in some places. Despite that we finished just after quarter to six in the evening. It's amazing how tightly packed it gets in the corners. For the last three or hours of the cleaning, I took a pitchfork and dug out the corners and then forked it into the bucket.

Afterwards, my hands were so sore from the seven or eight water blisters that I got from not wearing gloves (I caught heck about that), that I could hardly type.

Then after that was done, Dad hauled a few bucket loads of sawdust and spread it in the shed for the first layer of bedding.

Yesterday afternoon, Dad started baling the "wet" hay. Despite being lighter than the previous bales, we got less by about twenty. I forgot until I heard it, how much I like the sound of the baler and how much I had missed it, though I am glad to be almost done with the hay. The picture above was not loaded last night, it's the last load we hauled from that field until now, we just never unloaded it.

When I was reviewing last night, the pictures I took yesterday, I was looking at that field and thinking how long ago that we cut it and how nicely the grass was coming back. We were done with it by the twenty-fourth of July. That seems so long ago, but it's really only a month a half or so.

Cleaning the barn...

2008-09-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well, today we're, actually Dad is, cleaning out the Horse Barn today. Finally! We were going to clean it last week, but we got that big downpour, soaking the ground again, so we had to postpone it until today.

Paula and to everybody else who commented on my last post; I promise that I'll answer your comments tomorrow, 'cause I don't have time to answer them today, please be patient. Have a great weekend! :D

Colors of Fall

2008-09-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: M.O.H

"These are the days we will remember, These are the times that won't come again, The highest of flames become an ember, And you gotta live 'em while you can, These are the days we will remember." - These Are The Days, Keith Urban

It seems like fall is already already upon us, even thought it doesn't officially start until the twenty something of October. It's barely the fourth of September, and already the temperatures are dropping and the night air is turning sharp. The last four nights, we have had to light a fire in the furnace, using up some of the precious fire wood, just to stave off the chill.

You know it's getting cold when you can build a fire at six or so o'clock in the evening and the house doesn't get too hot. When I was writing this post down in a note pad because the computer was busy, I was sitting out on the steps in the sun, wearing my sweat shirt over a medium thin tee shirt and I didn't get too hot.

Every year, it's agonizing waiting for the raspberries, the blueberries, blackberries and the apples to be ready. In March or April, it always seems like the above mentioned gets ripe in late July, early August, when really, it's late August on.

This year because of the spring rains, everything is later. Our Transparent apples, they are the earliest in the orchard, are two or three weeks late. We just got them picked a couple days ago, so the others are going to be a few weeks behind them.

This morning I was looking at the chestnut trees and noticing how small their prickly burrs - that we cuss when we try to sit down under the tree - are, and how far they have to go before being ready. The blue jays are in a flurry of activity, with the filberts (hazel nuts) and the walnuts being ready.

Oh, I don't know if Mom mentioned this already, but on the twenty-eight or ninth of August, she saw a flock of geese flying south. They were really high, but still, the idea of them leaving so soon. At least the leaves aren't turning yet!

I'm not ready for summer to be over! Or for it to be pitch black when I get up, or when you constantly have to wear at least two shirts. Soon we will be in frenzy to get all the apples and pears picked up, the squash in to cure, the beans put in the green house to dry.

** Hay Update **

Finally got that troublesome hay raked today! If this spell of good weather that we have right now holds like the weathermen are predicting, we should be able to get it baled and in the barn before the next rain. *crosses fingers*

Wordless Wednesday/ snail mail can be so annoying sometimes

2008-09-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

??

2008-09-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that you are wondering what our dog is doing, carrying around a huge broccoli head.

Well, here's the story. Yesterday morning, I took the harvesting basket out to the garden to cut the broccoli heads - mine and my mom's row.

Most of the heads were just right, but some of them had been left too long, and now they were enormous, and starting to bloom. I was told that if I came to any of those, just to cut them off and set them in a nice, neat pile and they would be taken to the pigs the next time she (mom) walked by garden that day.

Okay, that would work. Naturally, the dogs went with me to help, and keep a weather eye on things. I found five or six of the above mentioned blooming heads, and set them in a pile.

I finished, whistled for the dogs, and carried the nearly heaping full basket back to the house with the dogs trotting ahead. A couple hours later, my mom and I happened to look out the kitchen window and see Trace carrying around his prize.

Logically, I grabbed the camera, ran outside and snapped pictures of Trace and huge broccoli head that he had stolen out of pile for the pigs, when we weren't looking.

Oh, and I picked the first cauliflower yesterday! This variety is called Cheddar, I've had amazing results with it. The seeds are very strong and always comes up, it grows really well here in the Pacific Northwest, and the color doesn't bleach out when you steam or blanch it. I like Cheddar waaaaaaay more than Graffiti, another one that I grew for a few years, but quit growing this year. The seeds were so weak that maybe you would get two starts out of a six pack. Once they were in the ground they did okay. When steamed, the head bleached out and turned this kind of unappetizing blueish color. With seed so expensive, it just wasn't worth it.

We had this head for dinner, steamed, slathered with butter, along with our fettuccine. Delicious!! I wish I had thought to take a picture of it steamed.

Dial-up users beware

2008-08-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

**Dial-up users beware, this is kind of a big post**

This is our new cat that we got yesterday. . .No, Wednesday. She's very sweet and friendly and loves to sit in your lap and knead your legs.

Yesterday, after Mom picked the basil, I made pesto out of it. I got sixteen half pints last night, and it looks like I only used a third of the basil. I'm going to make more pesto out of it today, and some that basil will go for roasting the tomatoes that are going roasted in the next couple of days.

Pesto - basil or cilantro

4 cups basil, tightly packed. Depending on how strong you want it, you can pack it looser or tighter.
3/4 c. toasted pine nuts
2 -3 small or medium sized cloves of garlic, peeled.
2/3 c. Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste.
2/3 - 3/4 c. olive oil.

In your food processor, put in your basil, pine nuts, and the garlic, and grind until everything is finely chopped. You may need to scrape down the sides so that you get all the pine nuts. Then, put in the Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste, and pulse a couple times until the cheese is mixed into the basil. Start you processor and pour the olive oil in, in a stream and and then stop the processor when the oil is thoroughly mixed. Four cups of basil will make 2 half pints.

Spoon it into jars and put a lid and stick it in the freezer before you eat it all.

Here's the basil, pine nuts and the garlic.

As you can see, I just added the cheese. I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but notice how small the basil is chopped. If it's much bigger than that, you will have too big of pieces if you put in on pasta or something like that.

Mmm, this looks so delicious! I could eat the whole thing!

That's one batch done.

Our reusable lids...

You can't see it here, but there are sixteen half pints.

My helper, who got to lick everything when I was done.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

My First Award

2008-08-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, my first award! What a funny coincidence, my Mom and I both got nominated for awards on the same day!

First, I want to thank Shirley over at Ride A Good Horse for honoring me with this award. Thanks Shirley! Your blog is wonderful. I love your blog because you raise and show Quarter Horses, and you take great pictures of your horses and colt, Choctaw Peppy. He's a beauty!

The rules state that I have to pick at least seven blogs, but I don't think I read enough, but we'll see... Now, in no particular order:

1. Linda at Just Another Day On the Prairie, I love your blog! I love all your cattle and horse pictures, and you have a good eye for good camera shots, and a great sense of humor. Your lifestyle; I wish ours was more like that.

2. Ree over at Confessions Of A Pioneer Woman, what can I say? Your blog is amazing. You're an amazing photographer, and you give great tutorials on how to edit pictures, and everyday I can't wait to see what you've taken a picture of, or what funny/crazy story that you will post.

3. Threecollie at Northview Diary, it's nice to read about a dairy farm and see your funny pictures of the frogs and "marine" life that live in your Rubbermaid stock tank.

4. Jen at Copenhagen Kisses, love your pictures!

5. Nita at Throwback At Trapper Creek or should I say Creak? Eventhough you ask me to check your visits every five minutes, it's still fun to take pictures for the blog and help you edit it...

6. Kdwhorses, at Blackjack Land & Cattle Company, Lovely pictures, and I like to see what's going on down in Texas.

7. Paula at It's All Gouda, your food always looks so good that I'm always drooling and hungry after looking at your blog!

8. Nuzzling Muzzles, I'm a horse lover, so I love your blog. Beautiful pictures, too!

Rules for passing on the award:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.

2. Link the person you received your award from.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.

5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you have nominated.

Well I was going to call this "raining on sunday", but it's not rainy or Sunday, sooo, I need to think something better...

2008-08-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

This is what it was doing yesterday morning, but now it's bright and sunny with a few clouds lurking. Yay! The hay will finally get a chance to dry! It's so nice to walk outside and wear a tee shirt without getting wet, or too cold!

Look at all of those swallows!! When it's a dry day, that is their morning perch from about 8:30 to 10:00, or so. You can't really tell from the picture, but the peak of the shop roof is about eighty feet long. I bet that there is at least one hundred twenty swallows sitting up there.

Trace: "ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Melvin: "Is he done yet!?"

Trace: "Oooh, is that a Siamese cat over there??"

Me: "Uh, no, there's nothing over there. Come on, Trace, lets go this way, before you yank my arm off!" Contrary to what I was telling Trace, there actually was a Siamese cat hiding out in the hay field, but I managed to convince him nothing was there and just barely avoided getting my arm ripped out of its socket...

October?

2008-08-20T20:59:00.000-07:00

Did we skip a month and it's really October, and nobody told me? Okay, maybe we didn't, but it sure feels that way.
It's dark and cloudy all day, and raining, too.

As you can see from this picture, that we have about four hundred 18" x 36" x 14" sponges out there soaking up all of that rain. We did get two loads hauled before the rain hit us, but there is still four or five more out there.

On a brighter note, we did get three boxes of miscellaneous flooring scraps, and a bundle of stickers from the flooring mill down in Portland yesterday.

These boxes are about 4' x 4' and three or three a half feet tall. One down, two more to go!

Our helper. . . I didn't even notice that Trace was sitting in the cab of the truck until I reached for the camera, which was on the dashboard. What's funny is that he can jump right in the pickup when he really wants to get in, but otherwise you have to lift his back end up, and help him get in.

Wheeeee! I just love the look on Trace's face - priceless! He always gets this funny look on his face right before he starts running his circles and figure eights, like most aussies do.

I'm sorry, but I can't take credit for this one - my mom took it. It's a blue Lacecap Hydrangea.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

Too Busy For Words Sunday

2008-08-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

Misc of the last couple days...

2008-08-14T20:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we finished hauling the last of the "fourteen acre field", which is the second to the last field, and then we are done.

This is a nice short load of sixty bales, so I didn't have to go five high, I could do four stacks of fifteen instead of two and a half stacks of twenty-five, which would then need to be tied on.

Because it would be too much trouble, and it would just waste gas to make another trip, we towed the "Donald" back to the house with the hay truck.

This is the of the last field, partially cut. It's going to be a devil because there are so many obstacles to go around, putting big wows in the rounds.

While I was putting the horse out this morning, I heard some cutters start felling trees to the north, and twenty minutes earlier, I had seen a logger's pickup go up the mountain.

It'll be nice to have log trucks going by again. After they finished their job and moved out in late spring, we missed hearing the tower(it was a canyon that was being logged), and the loader, and the trucks going by.

My Mom and I were are so good at recognizing engines, that we made a game of guessing which truck was coming by, just by the engine and the driver's driving habits.

With it being so hot and the humility in the mid twenties, when you step outside, you don't even have to take a deep breath and you can smell the woods/trees. Everything is a dry as a tinder box. When the woods are like that, the loggers are on one o'clock shut down, and then someone has to stay for a couple hours on fire watch. I have already smelled a couple fires so far.

When I got up this morning, it was already 60* Fahrenheit. In preparation of the heatwave, Melvin got his pants trimmed, so that he will be a little cooler and won't overheat, hopefully.

In other news, I ate the first blackberry of the year this morning. It was a little sour, but delicious!

This was a luck shot, of the swallows sitting in the big, dead cherry tree. They usually sit on the top of the shop roof. I counted fifteen in this picture and about ten more on another branch.

The high for today was 102* Fahrenheit, and as of now - 8:20pm - the temptature has went down to 83*. The weather man is forcasting even hotter for tomorrow.

Found this spider on the way up to the greenhouse this morning. I can't tell what it has caught...maybe a crane fly or something like that.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

First broccoli and a summer treat

2008-08-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

We picked our our first broccoli of the season this morning, woo hoo! As soon as the first heads are ready, it seems like we're flooded with broccoli, but then it doesn't amout to much after we've gotten it ready for the freezer. This morning, before it got too hot, I went out in the garden and cut the heads that were ready and of course, there was a dog lurking in the shade, patiently waiting for me to finish.

I cut the heads into smaller, bite sized pieces and then Mom will blanch it and then we'll put it in jars, and into the freezer.

The three quarters filled basket made almost two bowls worth of smaller pieces.

After I did the broccoli, I got the idea of making breaded and fried, stuffed squash/zucchini flowers. I got the idea from a Chefs Afield episode that I had seen a couple weeks ago. All you need is squash blossoms, some grated cheese, breading, and olive oil.

Pick as many flowers as you would like - the already pollinated ones work the best. Gently open the top of the flower, it's very delicate, and fill it almost full with water, and swish it around in a circle, still holding it upright, to rinse it. Dump the water out and run water over the flower and then shake it to get off the excess water. Stick them in the fridge if you aren't going to use them right away.

Breading:
3/4 c. flour (more if you're making more than six or seven).
Salt to taste.
Pepper to taste.

Mix together with a fork, or your fingers and set the bowl aside. Heat your pan to medium high, and put in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, or butter if you don't want to use olive oil.

Then, take some of the cheese that you grated, and stuff it into the flower, carefully, roll them in olive oil, and then in the breading. Do them all then put six or seven in your heated pan, depending on the size of the pan. Let them cook about forty-five seconds each side. Then lift them out - I find that tongs work the best - and place them on a platter and if you are worried about grease, put down a paper towel.

Cut the blossom ends off - they are terribly bitter - leave the blossom end on until right before you serve it, because if you take it off before you fry them, they will just fall apart.

This makes a great summer treat that is tasty, easy to make, and takes hardly an time at all!

My faithful companion who dutifully followed me to the garden and waited while I picked the broccoli and then watched, drooling, while cooked the squash blossoms. Thanks, Shan!

Ghosts in the fog

2008-08-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up to low clouds and drizzle. Not good weather for having hay down, which we just so happen to have, but luckily it's not a big piece.

On the way over to take a couple pictures of the new barbed wire gate, the fog was so thick that you could hardly see the trees around the house and the orchard across the road, which was no more than one hundred twenty yards ahead of us. The trees reminded me of ghosts in fog.

This is my favorite of the fog pictures I took the this morning.

Milk cow lurking in the fog.

And there was plenty of spiderwebs covered in dew or mist drops all over the tall grass in the barnyard and the wooden fence and the metal gates, too.

In other exciting news, I got kicked in the hip by the brown/caramel colored Gelbvieh "Keith", who was part of the load that we were taking to the butcher in Canby. Luckily there was nothing broken and no bruise either. :D

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

Record heat?

2008-08-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well the heat has finally come. Yesterday it was 92* Fahrenheit, the weatherman is forecasting 99* for today, and then cooling down tomorrow to a nicer 93*. Hopefully we won't get over a hundred...but this is good haying/hay drying weather. A couple years ago...2006?... The temperatures hovered right at 104* and 105* for three or four days. Everybody and everything was wilted!

Fixing some barbed wire fencing around the corral orchard is on the agenda before it gets too hot to be working. Luckily, there's some shade from the apple trees.

Took this on Saturday, when Dad and I were rebuilding a couple bared wire gates(another post).

Red-tailed hawks, bees, and barn ornaments

2008-08-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning when I was in the house, putting away the laundry, and Mom was going over to water the cows with the pickup, she backed back into the driveway and whistled for me. I went out to see what was the matter, and she told me to grab the camera, there was a Red-tail hawk out in the Four Acre field. I got a couple pictures of him before he flew off to one of his favorite dead cherry trees on the other side the field, right next to were we're going to start cutting hay in a day or two. I got a picture of him in the tree before he noticed me and flew away. Out in the field, he had been eating a rabbit, or maybe a Graydigger (I think they may also be called Columbian Ground Squirrels), but I looked right around were he had been standing and I couldn't find a trace of anything, even though I had seen him eating.

After I took the pictures of the Red-tail, I was walking back into the driveway, and noticed that that the two huge chestnut trees framing the end of the drive way were literally abuzz with bees going about their business. This is my failed attempt at videoing the sound. The bees seemed loud to me, but the camera didn't pick it up, unfortunately. But it did pick up the sound of the baby Red-tail screeching in the background...

The front of the Horse Barn is covered with a solar system, stars, two or three suns, and a moon or two, and swallow house that the swallows don't use anymore.

The swallows used their house for a year or two, but then they quit because they prefer to build their nests of hay and feathers on the sill plates of the barn. I think that the yellow jackets are using the swallow house as of now.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-07-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

Busy Monday

2008-07-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Hardly any time for words today because it's supposed to rain tonight at midnight, so we're in a mad rush to get everything weeded and harvested that shouldn't get wet, before rain comes.

Gotta jet!

It's Raining Dogs!

2008-07-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to our wonderful aussies Mel and Trace.

"Did you call my name?"

Melvin ejoying the sun in his 'hole'

"What are you doing?"

Trace keeping a watchful eye on the fence that attacked and viciously bit him awhile ago.

"Don't I look cute?"

Mel and Trace 'helping' us haul a load of hay to the horse barn in March.

Looking regal. Melvin doesn't like the camera and looks away if you stand close to him and try and get a picture. To get these rare pictures of him looking directly at you, I have to stand at least ten feet away and use that wonderful zoom our camera has.

Sleeping beauty. I came back to the house to get a fresh battery and found Trace conked out on his chain.

Having fun in the chaff.

"Now I told you a million times, quit sticking your tounge out at me!!!"

"Much better, good dog!"

"I love gardening!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to step on your carrots...."

"I'm going to pace around the bed of the hay truck and squeak until you show me how to get down."

"I love you Mom!"

"This is MY wool, go get your own!"

"Hey, that's mine!" "No, it's mine!"

"Can we share it?"

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and this post; I had alot of fun putting it together. The dogs wanted to help, but their paws where too big to make the keyboard work, and they thought the mouse was a field mouse because it had such a long tail.

P.S, don't ask your dog to fetch the paper for you....

2008-07-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

When we stepped outside this morning, we found that Trace had 'read' the paper last night and left it scattered all over the yard. This is the remnants of last night's paper reading with the guilty party looking on. (he didn't put it in a nice little pile like it is now).

Unwelcome Guests....

2008-07-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

I found these brown buggers when I was picking the the blue berries last night. There are only three in this picture, but there was about twenty-five or thirty of them all around on the ground and some on the branches.

These are Cedar Waxwings. They've left by now, but they were eating the green blue berries and raspberries.

random shots

2008-07-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

I never get tired of this shot....

Are you talking to me?

Baling hay

I wanna come with you guys!

Four Turkey Vultures(buzzards) you can't see it in this shot, but a huge airliner just flew above them.

Hey, you there! Dim your brights before they blind somebody!

I love a good sunset!

Busy, Busy

2008-07-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

Right now is the busiest part of the the summer. The garden is going great guns, the organic cherries have arrived and are in need of processing right this minute before they go bad, the hay has to be put up, pesto has to be made, the garden weeded, garlic pulled, etc. Out of the twelve boxs of cherries that we started with, there are only four left!

The bale(idiot cube) tally as of now, is 926 or 18 tons. That's off of three fields, and there are two medium sized fields left. The next on the list is a fourteen acre field right next to the one that we just did, and the one after that, the last one is about eight acres.

We got 423 bales off of this four acre field. The pasture behind the little grove of hawthorn trees is the next in line.

Yesterday, while it's still cloudy, and before the horse shoer came, me and mom hauled seven or eight wheelbarrow loads of sawdust and dumped it into the turkey brooder before they come this morning.

While we were hauling wheelbarrow loads of sawdust for the turkey poults, I caught Jetta doing this:

And mom found these when she was weeding the tomato jungle in the greenhouse... .

First Post!

2008-07-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

I've thought about starting a blog and my mom has prodded and prodded me to start one and my friend Linda said I should start one, so I finally decided to finally start a blog...

Here's a picture I took of a baby pilliated woodpecker.

Aussie Oklahoma

Last post....

Wordless Wednesday

First frost and an award

Wild Gelding of the Columbia Gorge

Command Central

The best $50 I ever made

Wordless Wednesday

The Lyon, the Spectrum, and the Teacher

Wordless Wednesday

I'm feeling squirrelly...

Wordless Wednesday

Site meter...

A year ago today...

D.L.B. award

Wordless Wednesday

A gathering of days

Cleaning the barn...

Colors of Fall

Wordless Wednesday/ snail mail can be so annoying sometimes

??

** Dial-up users beware**

Wordless Wednesday

My First Award

Well I was going to call this "raining on sunday", but it's not rainy or Sunday, sooo, I need to think something better...

October?

Wordless Wednesday

Too Busy For Words Sunday

Misc of the last couple days...

Wordless Wednesday

First broccoli and a summer treat

Ghosts in the fog

Wordless Wednesday

Record heat?

Red-tailed hawks, bees, and barn ornaments

Wordless Wednesday

Busy Monday

It's Raining Dogs!

P.S, don't ask your dog to fetch the paper for you....

Unwelcome Guests....

random shots

Busy, Busy

First Post!

Dial-up users beware