A Not Day

I think after I do the morning chores, and go to town for groceries, I will be coming home and I will NOT do any other physical labor.

Well, that is my good intentions, to take a day off and relax. The vegetable  garden needs a good hoeing and the flower gardens need weeding. I may get a the little squishy pad out and sit next to the flower garden and pick and poke at weeds and listen to music in the afternoon. That is relaxing.

Yesterday I walked to the meadow and fired up my Weed Eater and tore through a large patch of Canada Thistle. I know the cattle will eat the wilted thistle so last night I let them out into the meadow. My hope is that they eat it, if not that is okay. When I chopped down another patch by hand, the mules ate the chopped thistle and then stripped the remaining stalks.

My neighbor and her kids came for an afternoon jaunt down the new ridge road to the creek yesterday. We walked through the meadow and my neighbor noticed the Ox Eye daisy invasion and mentioned that her goats absolutely loved those pesky daisies.

Let's pause briefly for
Creek fun:

Back to the goats. Hmm. The Mules are natural browsers and so are the Dexters. I used to raise goats but never had them in the woods. It has been ages. I may have to see about 'borrowing' the neighbors' goats for some cleaning and gleaning. I know they eat multiflora rose bushes and those pesky berry briers along with burdock.

So last night my mind was whirring away, here I was trying to figure out a rotation to include a goat or two and wondering if I could pasture them with my Dexters. Mules are not generally happy with goats, however in the past two years the neighbor goats have been constant companions on the other side of the fence...and occasionally a wayward goat finds its way into the mule pasture.
I was sure that my red headed mules would hurt the goats.

So far that hasn't happened.

And then I wonder what I'd do with goats in the winter. Sigh. I do actually have the room to keep at least two.

Decisions, decisions.

However I've decided to NOT work on fences or thistles, or much of anything today. The yard needs mowing. Maybe I'll just trim a bit.
See? There I go again.
But I see rain in the forecast again starting tomorrow for the next two days.

Enough already!
And then I think.
Perhaps Sunday should be a NOT day.

And then there is that new fence line I thought I'd put up...and our pony who was wandering around this morning loose. He's broken his tie out...
and going to visit MIL...and...

Oh heck. Can I just have one day of doing nothing please???

Waiting for paint to dry

This is the chair that I started some work on this past week. This is a photo I took of it after cleaning it and doing a bit of sanding.

Here it is with some bright yellow paint and aqua blue on the legs. My Grandson Dennis thought silver would be cool for the back and so the back is now silver.

I did most of this with spray paint, it is easy and very fast. I think the seat may end up white and I may put hand painted designs all over it. I may glue stuff to it too. I guess I never really plan it out but just go with what comes to mind.

Some chairs I don't bother doing anything with. I found an old cracked chair that had been refinished so many times that I couldn't do much with it. I decided to keep it and make it my Christmas chair:

It sure is fun and different.

Anyway. Charlie and I did some work on moving stock tanks and cleaning them, then I checked on the silver paint. Not quite dry.
So I tied Charlie up to the bench on the porch and he observed as I messed around with some flowers.

I picked peonies and some Japanese irises and took the old daisies from the house and set them on a piece of wood on top of my 'spool' table.

I came up with these photos.

The paint dried and I realized that I wasn't sure what my next step was for colors or design.
I put the chair aside and enjoyed some quiet time reading a book while Charlie napped.

Tai Chi with Lil' Richard

While I was working with Lil' Richard I thought I'd try out some Tai Chi breathing techniques that I'd learned with hubby last week.
One of the exercises is called the "Horse Stance", it is a way of being in the 'now' and present and controlling your breathing and becoming totally tension free.

So Lil' Richard was doing very well, but I wondered if I couldn't make him relax and come to me easier.

Well, it couldn't hurt could it?  Besides, I needed to practice my Tai Chi before we had another session.

So I had Lil' Richard standing facing me after a 'whoa'.  I took the Horse Stance, and then began letting the tension out of my shoulders, and letting my whole body relax into my breathing.

I concentrated on watching Lil' Richards knees.  Pretty soon he began to drop his head lower and lower.  He began to lick his lips and look totally relaxed.

I took my baby finger and lifted slightly on the rope.  Lil' Richard quietly walked into me and took a deep breath.  He was totally relaxed.

I couldn't believe it.  Well really, I could, because I am well aware that a tense wired up person near a horse will make that horse -- or any animal -- tense themselves.  I've always practiced relaxed body riding.  So this made perfect sense.

I wanted to make sure that this was not a fluke so I worked him a bit more and tried a more aggressive stance.  Lil' Richard ignored my commands and picked up the pace.

I returned to the relaxed breathing and body stance.  Lil' Richard progressed rapidly and willingly.

He is a an older pony, somewhere between 17 and 19.  I figured this would be an impossible job.  But I think he is enjoying the work.

Later I brought Siera in the round pen so that the sand could dry out her feet and I could check on her frogs.  She thought that she'd just nag at the gate to get back out with her friends. After asking her to work whenever she misbehaved, she settled in.

Siera then heeled me for the next 30 minutes, while I cleaned the roundpen.

I stood in front of her and did my relaxation technique.  Siera watched me and soon dropped her head and stood quietly as if she had not a care in the world.

I'd like to call it magic.  But it isn't.  It is just body language and it shows how quickly and animal can pick up on it.

Hopefully today will be the day that Lil' Richard gets to try a bridle and we get to our first ride by the weekend.

Afternoon Delight

I felt a bit tired.
Probably from getting up early.  I like to get up early.

I'd done chores, then hopped into the car and ran my town errands.  By 9am I was back home.

I worked in the garden for a few hours until the sun burned through the foggy and overcast skies.

I picked green beans, yellow summer squash, cukes, picked up tomatoes that had fallen off the plants, and picked some carrots also.

I prepped all the veggies along with a zucchini for our veggie part of the supper.
Bacon, tomatoes. and all the vegetables I'd picked were going to be a part of a stir fry with crisp bacon topping it and melted cheese.
Sounds odd, but it would be an experiment.

I'd taken a hike to check on fences and dropped into the valley off the point.  I was able to find my winter snow shoe trail rather easily and it wouldn't take much trimming to make it ready for fall and winter hiking.

When I got back from that, I felt tired.
But I didn't want to really go in the house.

So I got a pillow and blanket and tossed them under  the shady trees between the hickory and the pines.

I laid down on my back and gazed up for a bit into the leaves and sky.
The slight breeze made a sighing sound in the leaves and pine needles.

Next thing I know I was sound asleep.  I can't recall sleeping so peacefully in such a long time.

So I wonder what my husband would think if I took a pillow and blanket and slept out under the trees at night?