Went to a Garden Party

This weekend 9News garden expert Rob Proctor opened up his home and garden as a benefit for the Dumb Friends League.  Tour a garden for my favorite cause?  You bet!

The house was built in 1905.  The front of the house has a "wild" garden.  The interior is utterly charming, in the style of A Brit in Tennessee (click here).

In the back, beauty abounds.

There are flower beds,

garden structures,

lots of cozy seating
 

and pots.
Lots and lots of pots.

Our host served refreshments and answered gardening questions.
The main question?
How many pots in your garden, Mr. Proctor?

700!

Sorry about the fuzzy photos.  My little point-and-shoot camera is having trouble focusing.

Moving Right Along

We miss our boarders Boomer and Ben.  Boomer was with us from our first day on the ranch 5 years ago.  But we are moving right along, doing a major clean-up in the barn.  David is well ahead of me.

 David has power washed both Ben and Boomer's stalls.

 Now he's working on the runs.

 I'm slowly working on treating the wood in Ben's stall.

I'm slower than Dave because I've been playing hooky.  Paj and I have been enjoying pasture walks.  With Paj's bum hoof, I don't want to work him in the sand of the arena.  I worry he might pull that shoe.  So we're having fun in the pasture.

 Away we go.

 Paj threw in a little Spanish walk, completely unasked for.

Geez.

I'll leave you with our special visitor.  We hear this guy at night, but to have him outside our bedroom window in daylight is a rare treat.

Great Horned Owl, seen through the window screen

Time To Say Goodbye

The Clydesdales have gone to their new home with their owners, Bob and Diana.

I spent the days leading up to the move making sure Ben felt comfortable

loading himself onto our trailer,

standing quietly

 and backing off slowly, one step at a time.

Boomer, the world traveler, didn't need any reminders.  

But Ben is sensitive, and he worries.

Yesterday was move day.

After one last turnout,

 Boomer, Dave, Ben

 it was time to say goodbye.

How we'll miss this face -

Ben

and this one.

Boomer

The Weekend - Dog Agility and Weaving Workshop

Saturday

I watched my friend Lottie compete with Dusty in agility.

They have such a strong bond.  Dusty is a nine year old Belgian Malinois.  In another year or so, Dusty will retire from agility and pass the torch to his best buddy Sambuca.

Buca is a 1 year old Springer Spaniel.  Lottie is waiting to compete with him until he's 2 to protect his young joints.  He came to the show to soak up the atmosphere.

And the treats, of course.

Mickey and I tried agility some time ago, but it was not popular.  No no no.  Mickey pretty much hated it, and that's fine with me. 

Sunday

The weaving workshop went well.  With only 4 students, Judy had plenty of time to keep us on track.  We were all at about the same level (whew), so that helped a lot.  Judy would present a technique, then turn us loose.  We would do our own weaving and then check out what everyone had done.  It was really interesting to see different ideas using the same technique.  

I'll spare you a blow-by-blow of the entire warp, but here's a snippet of two I'm looking forward to using.

The top one is called Mexican Leno, and the bottom is Leno.  You could use one of these techniques to add a little embellishment to the edge of a napkin, etc.  Of course you would want to do much finer work than we did in class.  It was fun, and I learned a lot.

Hoof Update and Workshop Prep

Well, we almost made it without a mishap, but a few days before our regularly scheduled shoeing appointment, Paj lost the shoe off the hoof with the chunk out.  This was not unexpected, but it was unfortunate.  The good news is that he didn't pull any more of the hoof off in the process.  To protect the hoof, every day we wrapped it in Vetwrap, covered that with Elastikon, and stuck the hoof in a Old Mac boot.  Overnight, we took the boot off to help prevent chaffing on those tender heel bulbs.  This worked well and we were able to avoid further damage.

Yesterday our farrier re-shod Paj.  He still has a small acrylic patch on the outside of the hoof, but you can see that the sole is intact.

I hesitated to publish this photo. There's a lot of hoof fanatics in cyberspace, and they aren't shy about sharing their opinion of your horse's hoof.  It looks like he has thrush, the hoof looks asymmetrical, the frog looks too small, the sole looks too dry, the heels look contracted, etc etc.  Oops, it's just a bad photo of a dirty hoof.  I was trying to hold it up and take a picture while poor Paj was trying to eat his dinner.  I included it so that we could show our concerned friends that the sole looks pretty darn good.  One more shoeing cycle and with luck we'll be back to normal.

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Weaving Workshop Prep

Tomorrow I'm off to a "Weaver Controlled Weaves" workshop on "finger-manipulated weaves (leno, Spanish lace, Brooks Bouquet, and more)".  I'll know a lot more about what the heck that means after tomorrow!  Yay.  I'm ready for a break.  Thank you, David, for handling all things ranch.  

I'm a bit nervous about keeping up throughout 8 hours of weaving when my natural weaving pace is , er, leisurely.  Regardless, I'm all packed and ready to go.

Tools assembled?

 

 Check.

Little Wolf Pup loom warped?

 Check.

Loom folded and loaded?

 Check.

All ready for early morning takeoff?

Check, check, check.

A Crackling Good Show

While I was admiring a hole in the sunset last night,

 the sky turned black

 and we were treated to a lightning show.

 

As it moved closer,

I moved inside.

It was a good show, and no harm done.

My kind of storm.

America the Beautiful

My brother Tom, sister-in-law Pat and I 

visited the Garden of the Gods. 

Pat and Tom

 me and my brother Tom
                                    photo by Pat

What a perfect place to appreciate the beauty of our country
on this American holiday.

There was so much beauty,

I came home with a stiff neck

from doing a whole lot of

this -

                         photo by Tom

I'm wishing you all a great 4h of July.