The Last of the Garden Goodies

The garden has been winding down for the season although I'm still getting some okra and a few green beans.  My mom grew some popcorn for me this year and I picked it up while I was visiting. It is called Strawberry popcorn, for obvious reasons, and the seeds look almost like pomegranates once they are shelled.

 

Not only is it beautiful, it is also delicious!  Next year I hope to have room to grow more popcorn in my garden.

 

My mom also gave me some of her extra tomatoes and here they are with the last of the tomatoes from my garden.   All of these buckets turned into 92 cups of tomato juice!  And I turned that juice into six more batches of spaghetti sauce for the freezer, yum!

 

And finally, here is a flower that I rescued from a rental house called a spider lily.  It blooms every fall and is one of my favorites!

Horse Trailer Work

We were supposed to go camping in our new trailer this weekend but the iffy weather made us move our trip to next weekend.  In preparation for camping we have been madly tweaking and customizing the horse area as well as the camper area.  Last weekend we put up the backsplash on the kitchenette.  It was a true test of our measuring skills to get all of the outlet and cupboard cutouts the exact size and in the correct place!

 

Luckily, it all worked out.  We had to remove two of the top cupboards in order to put the backsplash up but that allowed us to reinstall the cupboards correctly.

 

After we reinstalled the cupboards we added a shelf for the microwave, an LED light strip under the shelf, and a kickplate on the bottom cupboards.  We also installed a piece of plywood as a temporary countertop until we can get exact measurements for the real one.  It's starting to look pretty fancy!  We will be adding one more upper cupboard on the right and then the counter top will match up with the other side of the fridge.

 

In the goose area, I made new curtains (they are horse fabric, hard to see in this pic) and new valences. Some day I plan to make a quilt bedspread out of my show ribbons but who knows when I'll get around to that. We will also be closing in the "nose" of the goose (the far end) in order to make a cabinet to store clothes.

 

We spent this weekend working on the horse area.  We removed all of the rubber floor mats, finished sanding down the metal floor, and then painted it with some protective epoxy.  Having a corrosion engineer around sure comes in handy!  Here Matthew paints on the primer.

 

And then the top coat: a nice plain gray color.  The paint was very odorous and slightly toxic so Matthew used his respirator for both coats and I stayed out of the way.

 

After the paint dried we replaced the mats and put everything back together.  Previously we added an extra set of hooks to the tack area and Matthew's coworkers did some welding work on the saddle rack for me.  Today I added a piece of pipe insulation under the wall to keep hay and other debris from sliding under the panels.

Tennessee Trip



I spent the last two weeks at my parents' place in Tennessee along with two of my horses.  We spent the time riding (over 100 miles!) and working on projects.  My mom and I volunteered to help with the local endurance ride by marking trails with ribbons on clothes pins.  Different races used different colors of ribbons to navigate their way through the park.  Here Mow and I mark the orange trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also marked a trail that the 100-mile riders used in the dark.  To help them see the markings we attached glow sticks to the ribbons.  We actually did this in the evening after I had already ridden my 30 mile competition on Mow--I slept really well that night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all of the competitions were over, we also volunteered to remove ribbons from some of the trails.  The clothes pins sure make marking and unmarking very easy.  Here is my mom on Santana with her volunteer t-shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We picked up lots of ribbons!  So many, in fact, that we hadn't brought big enough bags and ended up hanging them on the horses.  Here Rabi and I are standing by the river (we did not cross it again though).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of our rides later in the week included a beautiful waterfall.    What a great spot for a lunch time break!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I even brought some lunch for Mow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the overlooks along the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One other purpose of this trip was to deliver a new cat to my Mom and Dad.  Here they are with Casper, one of our foster kitties whom they adopted.  He seems to fit right in and they are enjoying playing with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the last day of my trip we gave the horses a rest and we finally got around to going for a hike.  My parents have adopted one of the trails at the park and they hike it four times a year.  They photograph and collect GPS coordinates for any down trees or other hazards on the trail.  We also picked up trash along the way and removed some of the smaller limbs and branches.  Here my dad is cutting up a small tree that was wedged across the path.

 

 

 

BSF Ride

During my fall visit to see my parents I rode Mow in a nearby Endurance Ride.  The last two rides we were unable to complete so I tried some new things this time and they worked!  Here we are checking in the night before.

 

We started the 30 mile ride at 8:00 am with nine other riders.

 

The route for this ride took us across the Big South Fork River.  In the 15 years I've been visiting the park, we have never been able to cross the river. Needless to say, this was the highlight of my day!  The professional photographer snapped this photo as we crossed.  Our return trip across the river was a little more exciting because Mow slipped on a rock and we almost went for a swim.  Luckily, he stayed mostly upright and we made it to the other side with just a few scratches and one missing hoof boot.

 

After crossing the river we had another vet check and a 50 minute hold to rest and eat.  It was a little cool out so Mow needed a blanket to keep him from getting chilled.

 

All rested up and ready for the second half.  I rode most of the ride with Jane (in red) and we had a wonderful time.

 

Finished!  We came in fourth place and cut an hour off of our time from last year.

 

The final vet check - all A's!  Next up, another try at a 50 mile ride in November.

Cabinets, Kittens, and Volleyball

Once again, here is a compilation post of what we've been up to for the last couple of weeks.  Last weekend we installed new floor cabinets in the horse trailer.  We had to replace them due to water damage but, luckily, they were purchased at Lowe's so we were able to match the upper cabinets quite easily.  The left bottom cabinet had to have a few holes in the back to accommodate the electrical box and (future) plumbing.

 

We did a better job of lining these cabinets up (it's amazing what you can do when you actually read the directions!) and plan to re-hang the upper cabinets when we put the back splash up.

 

Now it is almost back to what we bought.  The fake drawer on the sink cabinet had a huge, ugly knot in it so we are going to see if we can get a replacement.  I would also like to add a hideaway drawer behind it.  Next up: backsplash and countertop.  Eventually we will also add another top cabinet on the right, above the fridge.  You can never have too much storage!

 

In other news, we continue to foster cats/kittens for a local rescue group.  I have also become one of the adoption coordinators and adopted out my first kitten a couple of weeks ago (it happened to be one of the kittens we fostered too, which made it even more special to meet her new family!).  Sometimes we get sick or special needs cats and this was the case with our newest foster.  Licorice came to us missing lots of fur, full of fleas and worms, and underweight for her age.

 

But after about two weeks with us, you can see that she has blossomed into a beautiful girl! Hopefully she'll find her forever home soon.

 

And lastly, we attended Dersty Holiday this weekend as our Labor Day weekend tradition.  We did not bring the miniature horses with us since one is not feeling well, but Matthew did participate in the usual volleyball game.  Although we didn't stay too long this year due to an afternoon thunderstorm we still had a good time and the weather was lovely.