Midnight Calico Tree

There is an old tree in our pasture.
It’s rotten in some places, limbs have fallen down in wind storms.
Every year, leaf buds come and even the fallen limbs grow.

I love this tree.
It’s a survivor.
It’s not just my imagination, the beauty of this tree.

We don’t have many trees here.
We’re surrounded by grain fields, and a little scrub brush in our pasture.

This tree though…

This tree has been the backdrop for photo shoots.
This tree has been a prop in photo shoots.
This tree has been climbed by cats.
This tree has a hollow that one cat gave birth in.
This tree is the one Cookie hid behind when she saw something weird on the side road…it was me, walking Daphne.
This tree is where I go to sit in the pasture when I miss that Cookie.

It’s where I took her picture for her last birthday photo shoot…

It’s where I wanted to mount a 4’x6′ mirror for her next birthday photo shoot.

Instead, it’s where I hung her halter for the tribute photo shoot…

This tree is one of my favorite places to be…

💞💞💞

Sharing with McGuffy’s Reader for Sparks:21, Aww Mondays at Comedy Plus, and Imag-in-ing.

Well Now…

Yesterday I had planned on doing a photo shoot that I’ve had in mind for quite some time now. I figured while Hubby went off to work (booooo for Saturday working, but yay for o/t $$$), I’d prep what would be needed…
Unfortunately the 70km/h wind gusts put a kibosh on that.
*sigh*
When the wind gusts start out like that at 4:30 in the morning, you just know plans have gone awry.

So, I made the coffee, had the shower, and went to log into the Facebook…only to discover a 72 hour ban for posting something against community standards.
Well, okay then.
Normally when that happens, whatever the post was just gets removed.
Musta really upset some folks…
Thought I’d check and see if messenger was still available to me.
There I learned that I had apparently deactivated my account, but could still use the app. without reactivating my account.
Huh.
Well, since I had been offline since the night before, I’m pretty sure I hadn’t deactivated anything.
So, I’ve sent an email to the Facebook to see what, actually, is going on.
Knowing them and how slowly they respond to emails, 72 hours will have come and gone before I hear anything.
In 72 hours (or more) I’ll know if I actually had a ban in place or if I was hacked. 😛
Which is why the Farm Page feed is missing on the side bar…because when my account got locked up, the Farm Page got unpublished.

Meh. Whatever.
FB is a cesspool right now anyways.
Even if I can’t recover my account, it won’t be a huge loss.
Anyone who wants to can follow me here at the blog, or I can just start a new page. We’ll see how interested I am in 72 hours.
Though, one of the things I will miss are the Ag groups.
There’s a lot of good info, a whole lotta laughs, and some great people who really understand the inappropriate sense of humour that is needed to live Farm life. If’n I lose my account, I’ll definitely miss those bitches. 😉
And the Farm Page.
I’ve done a lot of networking and followed some other great small farming/homesteading pages.
I’ll miss reading those adventures.

In the meantime, I have work to concentrate on here.
Taking the time suck that FB is out of my day oughta make for some super extra work getting done. LOL!
It’s already given me more time for photo editing, and that’s a good thing for y’all. That means I have more images to share here…which leads me to my storage here. I’m at 80% usage for images. I’m getting to the point where I have to think about either starting a new, free blog and linking to this one, or going paid.
If I go with a paid account, I just keep on going here.
But, I have to decide if it’s worth the $60 a year to do so.

Decisions, decisions!

I’ll think about it, and in the meantime, y’all can look at Ruby in all her unicorn glory, having a nap in the sunshine. With her 2 trusty side kicks, Astrid and CoalCat. 🙂

Stupid Wind

Yesterday, before I wheeled a whole bunch of straw over to the poultry yard for the poultry to enjoy sifting through, I dug out a whole bunch of paths through the (no lie) 5 foot snow drifts.

Today, the south wind is happily working to fill in those paths that I so nicely dug out yesterday.
I’m grumpy about it.
Stupid wind.

Next week though, we’re looking at some above zero temperatures.
That will help the grumpiness.
I’m thinking I may start my tomatoes seeds here too. Just because our growing season can be rather short, so the bigger and stronger my tomatoes are before going out to the garden, the better.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to give it a shot. I mean, if it doesn’t work out, I’m no worse off than if I forgot to water my seedlings and they all died…because that’s never happened here. Ever. *rolls eyes*

It that a rare snowy mountain cat?? Nah, just my lovely Ghost out for a wander in the pasture. 😉

I wish spring would hurry up and get here…

A Little Farm Yard Excitement

It is a lovely day today.
-8*c, no wind, sunshine and blue skies for miles.

The ducks and chickens were overjoyed to come out of the coop today.
I pulled their feed pan and waterer outside too.
Then, I tossed a couple of huge flakes of straw into the coop…after I gave them some straw to play in on top of the snow drifts.
This, my friends, is very exciting for poultry.
Little things make little minds happy. 😉

Heading back towards the house, I saw Sable in the trough…
Well, of course she was. Where else would the most accident prone horse on this Farm stand to eat??

As I went to give her trouble for it (and help her out) I saw someone black and white sitting atop a straw bale.
In my excitement to see him, I got a little over-zealous with my greeting, and he hopped down and ran off a bit…
That’s when I realized it wasn’t Felix.
Because Felix always came to the sound of my voice.
Always. ❤
Hoping it was him was just wishful thinking…

❤ Felix ❤

I went back to the house, grabbed the camera and headed down to the pasture to see if I knew this black and white ball of fur.
Turns out, after I captured his picture, that I do know him:

Well hello there, Mr. TobyCat!

He showed up here 2(?) summers ago.
When we lost so much of the clowder to the stinking coyote, I thought he was gone too.
Nope.
He must have gone back over to the closest neighbour’s place for a while. And now, he’s back with us for a bit.

Looking down from the rafters in the horse shelter.

So, another feline mouth to feed, and, if I can catch him, he’ll go for the Long Ride to the vet for the check up/neutering work.
7 is a good number for barn cats, right?
We’ll see if Trouble, Ghost and Max will let him stick around long enough for me to catch him.
The boys may be fixed but they’re still territorial.
They ain’t sharing the food (or The Food Lady’s lap) if they don’t have to!

Finally, just so y’all understand what I mean by “Sable was in the trough…”

“Whuts yer problem, Food Lady?”
~Sable

Some people’s horses, I tell ya!!

Constant

If there is only one constant in Farm life it is that there is always work to do.

Doesn’t matter the season.
Work on the Farm never ends.
Today, I working on a few different things…

1. Working on getting the library sorted out so I can get the seed starting stand brought upstairs.
See, my problem with it being in the basement is I forget about the seedlings. So they don’t get watered nearly enough, and they all too often die. Last year, I started seeds 3 times…LOL!!
This year, I hope to only start them once. 😉
The library is a big job though…

2. I’m starting my pepper seeds.
If I wait until the library is done, it will be too late to start peppers. They take a long time to germinate, and they grow slower than tomatoes.
So, it’s time.
I have a hanging lamp over one of the shorter bookcases in the library where the tray will sit until the work is done. Then the tray can sit on top the plant stand, while the tomatoes get going under the lights on the shelves.

3. Editing pictures.
Because thousands of pictures on the hard drives/flash drives.
And, because I’ve been out taking more images lately.
It’s taken some time (14 weeks, yesterday) for me to come close to feeling normal enough to not fall apart grabbing the camera and going out into the pasture.
Now, when the smallest urge tickles me, I’m trying to go with it. Encouraging myself to let the camera take me where it wants to go, encouraging the healing process.

This is what drew me out to the pasture yesterday:

Napping in the sunshine…

“I know you’re there, Food Lady.
I also know you don’t have cookies, so I ain’t movin'”
~ Ruby

Lol!
Fine by me. I didn’t want her to move. 😉

And then there’s this one…because yesterday my Kid turned 17.
*sigh*
Things that make a woman feel old…
Grey in her own hair, greying muzzles on beloved animals, and Kids growing up.

Kid and her Sable ❤

Sharing with Comedy Plus for Aww Mondays.

Compromise

In the cold sunrise, I said to Ruby “I would like to take a picture of you with your winter mascara. Could you give me one of those Noble Horse Poses™?”

Ruby said “Listen Food Lady, without a horse cookie, I ain’t doing nothin’.”

I said “I don’t have any horse cookies, and I’m just going to take your picture anyways…”

Ruby said “Huh. Rude human.”

So, we compromised.
I took her picture.
Ruby stuck her tongue out at me.
And she did get her cookie. I just had to go up to the house to get her one. 🙂

Sharing with McGuffy’s Reader for Sparks:20

💞 Sweet 💞

Friendship
is always a
sweet responsibility,
never an opportunity.
~ Khalil Gibran

I love this quote and how it relates to my mares.
I know horses don’t recognize “friendship” like us humans do, but they do form bonds with each other in their herds.
And they have a structure within the herd where the higher ranked mares will feel a responsibility to the lower ranked ones.
I find herd structure a fascinating subject, truthfully.
I can watch my Girls for hours on end, studying the structure of their little herd. Especially on nice days and if there’s wine. 😉

Yes, more from this series.
I love this angle, and still have so many of the images from this shoot to edit.
So, today you’re getting a few of them. 🙂

Dang, but I love a horse tongue out image!

And, an over-the-shoulder Mare Stare…just because.

Black as the devil,
hot as hell,
pure as an angel,
sweet as love.
~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Snowflakes

We have had some wild winds this week.
Cold, windy…makes a girl want to hibernate.
Oh, but yesterday, the winds died down for while, and we had a little bit of snowfall.
In fact, winds were quiet enough that we fired up the bbq for the first time in near onto 2 weeks.
That, for us, is a loooong time to not be grilling something. Even in winter!

While I left the Hubby to tend the food, I grabbed my camera (it’s happening more and more ❤ ) and headed off to see the Girls.
See, in a lot of the photography groups, macro shots of snowflakes is all the rage. I’ve done it before:

Snowflakes on Astrid (from 2016)

Snowflakes on Cookie(from 2016)

Last night my best shot was on Sable…who kept turning around to see why I was getting so close to her belly without scratching all the spots that need the scratching.

Snowflake on Sable

The important thing in last night’s image though, isn’t the snowflake.
It’s lovely, but look deeper…beyond that long winter coat, you can see hints of gold in there.
That, my friends, means our Palomino Princess is starting her summertime coat.
Spring is coming!
🙂

I Had a Plan…

But, Mother Nature thwarted me once again.
😂

Y’see, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and, even though we humans don’t recognize the “forced to prove how much you love your mate with cash and gifts” day, it can make for fun photo shoots with the horses.
Y’all remember the one with Cookie and the heart on her forehead?

My pretty Valentine.

❤ My Love ❤

Today I had planned on heading out and attempting something similar…
But Mother Nature.
Holy, she’s been a bit of a bitch this year!
While it’s only -9*c, the wind is gusting to 74km/h.
Which means ain’t none of my Girls can manage a decent thought in their heads. Too busy with wind blowing things right out. 😉

So, instead, I offer you these shots…

TroubleCat

The look mister gives me when I don’t make with the food fast enough.
LOL!!
He’s so cuddly. 🙂

Peek-a-boo!!
I see you through the willows!

Darn wind blew that poor horse right over.
Again.
😂

Edited to add:
Shared with Awww Mondays at Comedy Plus and Sparks:19 at McGuffy’s Reader.

Insist

Destiny
has a lot
to do with it,
but so do you.
You have to
persevere,
you have to
insist.
~ Andrea Bocelli

💞 💞 💞