Working Hay & 2009 Ky 4-H State Horse Show

Since I haven't posted for a few days this will be a little long, not in words, but in pictures. Norm, Douglas, Neil and another neighbor Patrick raked and bailed hay, finally finished!

Yes, Doug can work and keep up with the big boys! Now there is no excuse Douglas! He worked hard for two days and felt really good about it. Last year he couldn't even pick up a bail.

One of the several wagons of bails. The first cutting made about 800 bails and 2 or 3 big round bails

Of course something had to break, a few times the twine broke one the bails

Here he is Papaw! You should be proud! Looks like we already have most of the bails sold if not all. Last year we sold all of it to a man who runs a horse farm in Lexington Ky, and we have a call into him to see if he wants it this year as well. He said last year to call him the following year and he'll truck them into his farm. If not then my friend Tina's brother needs a lot to feed his herd. If any are left over we will probably list them for sale. We are hoping they will be sold soon though.

Levi had fun taking a road trip across the farm. He went with me driving around. my Sunday Stills Challenge is Wildflowers this week, so we went searching. It ended up being a challenge since all the wildflowers have pretty much bloomed and faded. But I got creative and ended up with a few pics that I thought were pretty different. I have a picture here below. If you would like to see some really great photography you can go HERE to the challenge site and view them! If you would like to join, just take your pictures, post them on your site and leave a comment under that weeks challenge and your good to go!

Okay this is a small preview of what I took, I cropped the picture so its just a hint of what I'm posting.

Here is just a view of the farm. When Levi and I went out, I had forgotten the fields need to be cut and we found several holes that we went into and almost got stuck in. We also got chased by the cows for quite a way, they thought we were going to salt them..they thought wrong. They are in need of it, but bailing the hay comes first. We did find a cow dead, looks like she was struck by lightning in the last storm a few days ago. You can tell because the buzzards and animals wont eat an animal struck by lightning. It does something to the blood that they wont touch...something I didn't know until the other day. Pretty interesting I thought.

Here is the garden. Please ignore the weeds, I've been working on it the past two days pretty hard but after several days of rain and ground too wet to do anything they really popped up. I watered them the night before last and these were the pics before I did. I went out this afternoon when my mom came to get some squash and cucumbers and everything had grown and there were more veggies on each of the plants than the 24 hours before when I worked on the garden. I was really surprised at how fast it all happened!

This next picture is the tallest tomato plant this is at eye level, I'm 5'1" ( I know short I've heard all the jokes already) :-) We are just now getting tomato's, all but one are green, and the one that was kinda orange is almost red and will be ready for picking tomorrow probably. Cool, now I can make some good BLT's.

This next picture is of the carrots, I had forgotten I planted them and took me forever to figure out what they were! I knew it was some seed I'd sown since they were all in a neat row. (yeah, A DUH moment)

Here is the squash, the plants are huge! Twice the size of last year, of course last year was a drought and the garden was planted too far from a water hose so I couldn't do anything with it to help them out, in fact the watermelons only made a few and they were too small to do anything with. I was really disappointed, but this year will be different.

Even my Bell Peppers are coming along, they need a lot of water so as the watermelons, they were a bust.

Even the other peppers are getting big. I went out today after I watered and found that each plant was huge and all had several little peppers growing! Great! Now Leah and I can make salsa when she gets home next week! I can't wait!

Again Levi got into the act of helping me pick some veggies. (he is always in the middle of EVERYTHING to the point of annoyance.) He liked it pretty well and picked it himself, so I'm wondering how many he has eaten so far....darn dog!

Here is cowboy and Indian (I haven't taken a pic of them in awhile and it was a little dark in the barn)

Last night we attended the Ky State 4-H Horse Show, Leah participated and I was really proud of the girls! They came in 9th out of 11 teams, but in their defense they only really practiced hard the last month, the other teams all practiced since last August. I hope that over the next year the girls can all practice much more. They are running into the problem of not having an indoor arena. I think though that Leah told me they found one..I'm not sure about that thought I could be wrong. Leah's team did a 70's theme...they were so cute!!!!!!! Here are some pics of the night, of course not that great due to lighting and a camera without a zoom, but you can get the drift.

Now I hate to say this, but besides my daughters team, I really liked the county that had a team of all walking horses, the only one in the state, and the music was upbeat and matched the gait of the horses, and they were all under control, and was if the horses did all the work. They looked good and used the flags which I think made a difference. They are the ones that probably took first place. This team and Leah's were the most entertaining of the night. They automatically took off 10 points on Leah's team since they went over the allotted time, the paperwork they received stated a time for them which was wrong...oh well great practice and was really well done. I was really proud of them and their attitudes...they were kinda bummed but still happy they could participate! This was the walking horse team again. All in All all the teams, I can say, there were some really nice horses, all tight and great spacing, and there were a lot of horses that weren't so good that the kids had to really work at keeping them in their formations and just some plain crazy horses those little girls shouldn't have been on! Leah's team really were under control compared to most of them, so I really was surprised they didn't place better.

So that was my week. This week I've been filling soap orders and as usual, the house has been left last. Tomorrow I'll be mowing, which isnt just a small yard, I got quite a bit of work which will take me all day and probably still wont be done. Norm's mom has a huge yard, then there are two other houses to do...I'm looking forward to it, getting some sun and driving the tractor. I good time to think.
Luanne has given me an award, but Luanne, I'm gonna have to post it tomorrow, I'm just too beat and since I have those 10 things to list, I have had to give it some thought, so tomorrow come take a look and please visit her blog!!!
Saturday - We drive to Grayson County (only about 10 minutes away really) and pick up Babe and drop off Bella. I am not riding until I get a helmet. I know she is safe but I dont like riding without one, you never know, even the safest horse can spook at anytime even if never having done so before. You don't know what might scare them and since she is new here on the farm never being here, I am not taking that chance. Too many friends here have had accidents that I am trying my best to avoid. It is a valuable lesson I've learned, I do wish I hadn't learned through others mishaps, but it has made me more aware of what I'm doing and I dont want to be reckless. I'm not a kid anymore who can take a fall! Leah said she wants to be the first on her anyway and I've promised her that. She too bonded strongly with Babe and she is as happy as I am to get her back. Its been a long 2 1/2 years without my horse! Yeah I know I talk about her too much, but the excitement also comes from the fact that I'm not in any fear of riding her. I've ridden her before many times and I know her and how she rides. Doug is really happy too cause he wants to learn to ride. Its been hard on him to be around the horses since he got hurt pretty bad and learned his lesson with them. So I'm happy he's ready to face his fears and Babe is perfect to do that on, like King, she knows when she has a little one on her or walking her, she is careful to watch her steps so she doesnt step on anyone, being respectful of our space, and walks so slow with those scared or who are little or never ridden before.
Well thats a look around the farm this week. I get a lot of visitors who visit my blog searching for information about cattle, or farm activities, so if your a visitor and have a question leave me a comment and we'll be glad to answer if we can. Norm has been farming since he was 10, starting out helping his Pap and dad, and pretty much knows the ends and out's of farming.
If your just a visitor who happened upon my blog, leave me a comment too! We'd love to hear from you!
Thats it...sorry this is so long with so many pictures!
nite all!
~*~Rae~*~

Productive Day on The Farm!

(Amy - My favorite cow! a.k.a Miss Friendly)
After several days of some really hot and humid weather in the upper 90'sf, today was so AWESOME! No humidity, and a high of 85 f, with a great breeze all day! This week will be the same all week so its a great time to do outdoor work and activities!
The barn was in a major need of organizing and cleaning. So today was spent organizing the tack room, and cleaning up the barn runway. I only got half done with the runway, after mucking stalls and cleaning it up (empty feed sacks were piled up - no garbage can in there, something to remedy) that's about all the energy I had! I only have about 1/3 of the runway to clean up now. I had straw laid when our mare was foaling, she only stayed in there a couple nights and its not dirty just heavy with straw. Norm has to move the hay wagon out and fill it up and get the cow chute pulled out and out of the way. I was also able to get the cages all cleaned and fixed neatly in the barn, the rabbit, the dove, and the small coop for Pepper. She isn't really happy about going in at night and lets me know all about it, but she is free rang all day and only put up at dark and let out in the morning so she can squawk all she wants! After the first day the kittens have left her alone and I'm sure she is happy to have the company of them now. Hopefully she will also keep the bugs down. I had gotten a disposable fly trap (stinks to high heavens) but worked VERY well. It was also nice to get all the feed organized, feeding was much easier today, I filled up each bucket with the separate feed and carried them around to the miniature zoo of farm animals. I've been meaning to do this for a long long time, but time seems to be lacking lately!
I've been planning in my head how to build a larger coop and a MUCH better one than I had (the poor thing got destroyed in the ice storm). Amy at Twelve Acres and Callie at Chickens on the Porch have given me some great advice and some cool links to some other chicken coops you can view them here and here. Now if I had the money this is the coop I'd build. You must take a look! Stained glass windows...yeah its awesome. The others are a really great design for a coop made from dog pens, and the other is an adorable outhouse designed coop...both are great.
Tomorrow is the garden....I dread that! Today Norm tilled up the section not planted yet for it was overtaken by weeds, so the rest of the weeding and tilling will be tomorrow! We already have some huge squash!!! And probably some cucumbers...hmm hoping the green tomato's have ripened as well...the lettuce is wonderful so I'm hoping some fresh BLT's are in order for lunch and dinner! YUM!
Farm Report:
Saturday - Soy Beans replanted in the fields that got flooded
Sunday - the rest of the silage corn has been drilled and the alfalfa has been mowed.
Monday- Wheat has been thrashed and straw bailed. Barn cleaned and Doug mowed (most of the yard).
Tomorrow - Alfalfa will be bailed (should take the whole day). Garden work. Salt and Mineral the cattle.
Wednesday - Will have to see how tomorrow goes, in the afternoon we are driving to Louisville to watch Leah in the 2009 Kentucky State 4-H Horse Show. She has been doing drill team and I'm really anxious to watch her!!!!! The 3 of us along with my mom are driving up! I can't wait.

The cattle are all doing well and fat and happy on all the nice grass they have had all spring and into the summer!
On another note...I've lost 8 pounds!!!! I've changed some meds and one of which I've been taken off of made me gain about 30 pounds, so since I've been off of it for almost 2 weeks I've lost 8.....I've really been working at watching what I eat and portion sizes. Working outside has helped bunches, and I still need to start walking either outside or on the tread mill. But I'm on the way! YEA ME!
I'm gonna close with a poem that I got from C-ingspots. I just love this to pieces!

"Old Cowgirl"

I shall wear diamonds
and a wide-brimmed straw hat
with silver and leather on it,
and I shall spend my social security
on white wine and carrots
and sit in the alley of my barn
and listen to my horses breathe.

I will sneak out
in the middle of a summer's night
and ride the chestnut mare
across the moonstruck meadow,
if my old bones will allow.

When people came to call I will smile and nod
as I walk them past the gardens to the barn
and show, instead, the beauty growing there
in stalls fresh-lined with straw.

I will shovel and sweat and
wear hay in my hair as if it were a jewel.
And I will be an embarrassment to all
who look down on me.

They've not yet found the peace in being free,
to love a horse as a friend,
a friend who waits at midnight hour
with nuzzle and nicker and patient eyes
for the kind of woman I will be,
when I am old....