Spice

Today we said goodbye to our sweet little mini, Spice.  He will be dearly missed.

Christmas

My parents came to visit this year for Christmas.  Mom and I got in a lot of riding while Matthew and Dad did some golfing.

 

 

Mom and I dressed up in holiday hats and decorations for a ride and drive around the neighborhood.

 

The stockings hung by the chimney with care, complete with my parents' cat Casper.

 

The decorated tree and gifts.

 

A special gift, one of our foster kittens!  Stormy and Gale were adopted shortly after Christmas.

 

Mom and I distributing gifts.

 

Family photo, this time with our foster Gale.

Fancy Dancing

We finally busted out Matthew's birthday present and got all dressed up for some fancy ballroom dances the last two weekends.  First, we went to Hilton Head Island for a Plantation Dance.

 

Last weekend we got all dressed up again for a dance at the Elk's Lodge near our old house.  This time I wore red in true holiday spirit!

Making Soap

After about a year of planning on making my own soap, I finally did!  It wasn't as hard as I thought once I came up with a recipe using some online help.  First, all of the ingredients were measured by weight.  Then I combined the lye with the water and heated the oils to match the temperature of the lye water.

 

I used an immersion blender to blend the oils with the lye water and lined a loaf pan with butcher paper as a mold.

 

Mixed and poured! (notice the gloves and glasses for safety)

 

After 24 hours I unmolded the soap and sliced it into bars.

 

I've made three successful batches of soap so far: one unscented, one lemongrass, and one laundry bar.  I can't wait to use them! (Soap has to cure for 4-6 weeks)

Bridge Run

This past weekend we participated in the Savannah Bridge Run for the third year in a row.  We had to leave the house early and were able to watch the sunrise on the way to the start.

 

Before the run.  I wore my Tabby Tales Rescue shirt to support the new cat rescue.

Ranch Work

Lazy G Ranch has been living up to its name for a while but we finally got a little work done the last two weekends.  We installed some hooks on the garden shed to help tidy my fencing pieces that are used as trellises in the vegetable garden.

 

 

And we set LOTS of posts.  Here I am digging holes for a gate.

 

The gate. This allows us to drive through the minis pen into the horse pasture.

 

The last gate was also for the mini pen.  It will also open up to allow us to drive into the horse pasture but for right now we are using it to split the mini pen in half.  My older mini, Spice, hasn't been doing well so he needs to be on a special diet and remain separate from Peanut.

 

The rest of the fence posts were set for another section of horse pasture fence.

 

Once all of the posts were set we rolled out the fence and used our fence stretcher to pull it tight.

 

 

Standing up the fence.

 

Finished fence!  Now 3/4ths of the pasture is permanent fencing.  We hope to finish the last quarter this winter.

 

In other news, we recently had to purchase a new garden tractor because our other one had a serious engine failure.  We wanted a john deere and the one we found on craigslist even came with some spiffy flames.  I'll be mowing the grass on a hot rod now!

 

Finally, we had a fox move into the den that a gopher tortoise dug a couple of years ago.  The tortoise had been gone awhile and I had filled in the hole, but the fox decided that he wanted to live there I guess.

Rabbits

To round out my posts about our animals, here's an update on our rabbit production.  We recently lost two rabbits, including our breeding buck, to suspected venomous snake bites.  Each rabbit was in an end cage and died of neurological complications with no visible wounds or problems.  We decided to cover all of the rabbit cages with 1/2" x 1/2" hardware cloth in order to prevent any future visitors from reaching the rabbits.  This was much easier said than done - each cage had to be removed, wrapped in cloth, and then re-hung.  But, we'd rather do some extra work than lose more rabbits!

 

Wrapping the cages.

 

Re-hanging them.  It is a tight squeeze behind the cages!

 

 

The finished product.  That should keep snakes out!

 

 

I also had a to find a new buck for our herd.  I lucked out and found one just down the road from us.  He's not only a big boy but also quite handsome!

 

We haven't had any babies since spring, despite a few breedings with our old buck, so I went ahead and bred all of our does.  It's usually feast or famine around here and, true to form, all three does are building nests.  Here's Plum gathering hay.

 

This morning I went out to find six new babies from one of the other does!

Horses and Camping

Two weeks ago Matthew and I went camping at another endurance ride about 70 miles away.  Many of my endurance friends were also there and the weather was perfect for camping.  Unfortunately, Mow got a leg cramp after 37 miles (out of 50) so we were not able to finish our race. We had fun anyways and I can't wait for the next ride!

 

While talking to one of the vets about Mow's leg cramp (and getting him a chiropractic adjustment) we decided that it might be beneficial to x ray his front feet in order to make sure that the angles of his hooves are correct.  I took Mow to the vet the following week and here is one of the x rays.  He is standing on some blocks of wood (you can see the screw) and the white circle is a penny that is used to tell left vs right.  Luckily, his angles look good so he's all set!

 

 

As some of you have heard, our older mini, Spice, hasn't been doing well for about the last year.  He hasn't been able to drive for a couple of years now but Peanut still needs some exercise so I finally got him out to drive him by himself.  We have been taking him jogging with us whenever we go but driving him is so much easier!  He didn't really like going out by himself but I'm sure he'll get used to it.

Kittens & Cats

One of our tenants found some orphaned kittens after the hurricane.  She wasn't able to care for them so the rescue group that we foster for, Tabby Tales, took them in and I bottle fed them.  They were about 12 days old when we brought them home and now they are almost ready to find their forever home.  These were my first successful bottle babies and, although it is very rewarding, it is quite tiring as well!

 

Stormy, the boy, about three weeks old.

 

Gale, the girl, also about three weeks old.

 

Gale now, about 8 weeks old.

 

Stormy at 8 weeks.  This guy is super snuggly and loving.

 

And a few photos of our cats, lest you forget what they look like ;)

 

Zia enjoying a morning pet and drooling on my pants.

 

Bagheera supervising our work and not looking too pleased.

 

 

Louie stopping to smell the flowers.