hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

Hay IS like money in the bank, FEM!!! LOL

I forgot to mention! While JS and I were over at JC's barn working on horses, she happened to mention that her parents bought a property down next to GH (Cowboy and Coyote) for a cool 2.3 MILLION. The property where she runs her barn is pretty much one big steep hill, or the bog at the bottom, really not suitable for farming much at all. And because it's so challenging, her parents (who own some sort of company) just decided to drop a few coins on this other property, which is drop dead gorgeous, and historic. I just hope she doesn't trash the place.
But the fun news is that she's decided to get rid of her manure spreader. And she's agreed to trade me the hay spike we had that we can't use anymore for partial payment AND is only charging me $200 for the rest of it!!! SCORE!!!!!!!! So now I can fling poop!
I shouldn't be this ridiculously excited about this, but here we are. It's a VERY nice ground driven manure spreader, which will be perfect for what I need it to do. It's probably still a little bit big, but I'll have the BF take a look at it, and then see what he thinks. It's possible that we could do some minor repair work, sell it for WAY more than we bought it for, and buy something that will suite our needs better.
So now I need to figure out if it's going to be better to compost manure and then spread it, or if it will make more sense to just bring what we get from GH's back and spread it fresh and get it aerated in. Probably need to call the guy at the Mill and ask him...

Anyway... happy poop flinging dance!

 

[Britesea]

 

[frustratedearthmother]

yes, i'm a guy, yes, i'm straight, i have always found looms and similar technologies interesting... it is after all like programming/patterns/etc...

That made me smile because:
I just sold some goats. Two macho men came out to buy them and kept asking my husband questions about price and what's for sale and so on.... He finally told them "She's the farmer - not me!"

Today I was outside working in the garden and tearing down and repurposing some old pens while he was inside cleaning. He's a retired nurse and a much better organizer than I am from years of working the ER. You have to be organized in the ER! We each love our roles and have totally embraced them.

He has health issues and does better inside in a climate controlled situation - I love being outside. It works for us!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

but if I move to turn off the light it wakes him up and he doesn't want me to turn off the light yet....

Why do I know how that feels? I can turn off the tv when he's asleep and the "dark and quiet" will wake him up....sigh.

 

[hqueen13]

Yes, I'm SO grateful that he was able to take care of that. I still need to call an electrician to see about getting some quotes for upgrading the panel, but I've been resisting doing that for some reason. I'll get to it eventually...

So Storm's move is lining up for Wednesday next week. And of COURSE there's rain in the forecast. If all pray to any gods that control weather, please tell them to move that rain off of Wednesday!!! My friend JO is going to let me use her trailer, and NP is going to use her truck, so between the two of them, we'll make this happen. IH is coming up to lend an extra hand, for which I am REALLY grateful. We already know how to get Storm into JO's trailer, so hopefully it won't take as long as it did the first time, and hopefully he'll be really willing to go in. I've been thinking about it and letting him know what's going on, which is what worked last time (and has worked for every other horse I have been involved in moving). So fingers crossed.
IH is coming up on Tuesday morning to help me with chores, and then she's going to do her rehearsal stuff, and then come stay with me that night. Wednesday morning we'll get up and head over to the barn and get things cleaned and organized, and probably run my tack and junk over to the new farm and get that put away, then grab some lunch along the way, and go back to the barn and I'll work Storm (weather permitting I guess) and maybe ride (that would require tack... mental note...) before JO and NP get there with the trailer in the afternoon. We'll see how it all plays out but hopefully it comes together easily. I let TM know, and I'll let B know today to expect us, so that's good. I have to go over a couple things in the boarding agreement with B to clarify what it means. I think she pulled the agreement off the web somewhere, it's fairly basic (only 4 pages instead of the 8 that mine was! ) but it has some odd clauses (including that I need to have my own liability insurance personally....?!) that I want to clarify.
Still working on getting my business stuff running, I've been doing lots of work on that, and I so hopefully things will start to come together soon. It's been almost 3 months since I started working with my business coach and really ramping things up, which is about the time stuff starts to happen. Now I just have to stick with it long enough that BIG stuff can happen!

 

[hqueen13]

Dang, I guess I should update a bit more often....
Storm has settled in beautifully at the new farm. I am SO happy with how he is behaving. IH and I arrived to the farm last week, and I didn't realize it but BG had left them in overnight. We were late on top of everything, and so it was almost 10:30 when we got there. We opened the doors, and all 4 of them were just as calm as could be. And even while we were mixing up their breakfast, they still stayed chill. And after we made their breakfast, they were still chill. THAT makes me SO happy. BG runs the place very similar to the way I used to, she just leaves them in a lot more often, but also in an unpredictable pattern so that they never really know when they are going to be in or out, and are happy no matter what. I haven't had many more chances to work with him since it's gotten so gross, which stinks, but it is what it is. Lately I've been pretty busy so I haven't felt like I've had the time, anyway.

Christmas was pretty nice, all in all. Packages are finally arriving after being delayed, but that's just made the holiday last longer. The BF's parents gave $500 to each of the 3 couples to put towards the Hawaii wedding trip in the fall. AND they still bought presents. She spent way too much money, but she loves to have gifts to open, so she has to buy things, too. We were there for breakfast since W makes breakfast for the family on Christmas morning, and we decided that was too early for us to do our christmas, so we just left the house and headed down there. We didn't get home until the afternoon, and then finally opened our presents after my family zoom call. The BF went way overboard on me (he learned from his mother, of course), but everything he got me is really lovely. He bought me a new body pillow because my old one was wearing out. He also bought me a ring light and a mic to use for my online business stuff. That was a total surprise and a really overwhelming gift. I did NOT expect that at all. After we finished opening gifts, we went and messed around in the office and got it all hooked up. The room was messy, and that only added to the chaos, but we got it working, and I'm impressed with the quality.

Saturday morning we got up and headed over to Lowe's to get a new shower head. I bought a shower water filter (to try to help my poor damaged hair), and so we decided it wasn't worth putting the old nasty crappy shower head back up again. We bought the fancy new one that we knew we really wanted, and so the BF got it installed on Saturday. Of course our crappy water pressure doesn't make it work quite as well as I'd like, but it's way better than the old one, so that's a win.

Sunday the BF was going over to his dad's house again to help him and our neighbor get a new heat pump installed because theirs crapped out right before Christmas. He expected to be there for a few hours, and I was supposed to go over and help them load up firewood since we are really low and we never did come get the split wood after we worked over there a while ago. Long story short, he didn't get home until 7:30, and I stayed at home and enjoyed myself all day. I was able to get a bunch of cleaning up and decluttering done. I got the office totally organized so that it's functional again, which makes me feel SO much better. I was able to mostly figure out how to keep the mic and the ring light on the desk so that I have access to them, but can work on my desk when I want to. I also wrapped up the November financial tracking, which hadn't been done yet, either. I did some reading, ran a load of laundry, folded 2 loads of laundry, and in general got some things picked up. It was a really good day to just take care of loose ends, and that felt good.

This week should hopefully be sort of slow. TW goes out of town, I think tomorrow, so that will be a farm to take care of for a while. The only good news is that it's going to be a good chunk of change for me so that will help boost my business a little. I'll at least be able to pay most of the bills for January at least. December has not been pretty.

So that's the scoop from this corner of the world. We did get a bit of snow, but mostly a snowy/icy/wet mess out of the storm before Christmas. Then rain for Christmas, and now it looks like rain just about once a week for the next couple weeks. I'm not very happy about that... it would be different if it was just snow, but it's not. It's gross stuff. And more mud. Onward and upward from here.

 

[baymule]

I’m glad Storm is happy and you are happy. He’s 18, he has a lot of good years left. I have a TWH mare, 34 years old, she’s been retired for several years. But I bet I could saddle her up and she’d still be the spirited, snorty, booger hunting, spooky thing she has always been. Maybe not for long, before she pooped out tired, though.

 

[sumi]

No butter or cheese for 30 days? Life just ain't fair, I tell ya! Not fair at all....

But, let me know how you feel 30 days from now!

You'd better feel amazing… Those are some serious sacrifices!

 

[hqueen13]

LOL! Well, NH that makes two of us. I'm not fond of clams either.
And I agree, Buff, that's pretty dang unsouthern!! LOL

Whew. Busy several days! I don't even know when I was on here last...
The office was BUSY last week. That always happens when my coworker goes away. Of course it does.
The heat finally broke with a storm on Friday afternoon late. Happily it rolled over while I was still in the office and I didn't have to drive in it. BUT things were wet in the house when I got home. Apparently it was a windy storm! I had water in windows on 3 sides of the house, which isn't a good sign, but thankfully nothing worse happened. And nothing very important got damaged, either, so it was all good.

I had to walk the fly predators out since the Gator was at the bottom of the hill on Friday evening. It was a beautiful night, there was lightening on the horizon, and it was blessedly cool compared to what it had been. It was a nice walk. It was just a long way to zig zag your way through the pasture dropping little tiny bugs everywhere every 150 feet or so. I would have loved to walk with the BF but he drove down the hill to meet me and bring the bucket so we could collect eggs and lock up the chickens.

Saturday, I can't really remember what happened on Saturday. Oh, I know. I went to 3 different places buying food. I don't enjoy grocery shopping, and having to make that many stops was annoying, especially shopping on a Saturday morning. I did go to Aldi, which is cheap. I got a LOT of stuff for $18.00. Then I came home and put things away, and organized some stuff, and then we ate lunch and the BF and I went to a really awesome butcher where I spent ENTIRELY too much money on half a leg of lamb (diced, without the bone, thankfully), some ground pork, and two sausages for the BF. Then it was back to the regular grocery store for a few more things before we headed home. And then of course in cooking I discover that I have run out of olive oil. Now I need to go BACK to the store.

Saturday I managed to divide the lamb that we bought into 3 packs, and froze 2 (NOT going to waste $54.00 of lamb by not putting it in the freezer!!), and then I bagged up 11 avocado muffin cups and food saver sealed them, and put them back in the freezer. I'm hoping since they are sealed that they won't turn brown as they thaw. I also made ranch dressing that is complaint with the whole30 plan (which turned out funny, I ran out of olive oil, I had 1/2cup and I needed 2/3 cup... so I used some Tuscan Herb infused olive oil that I have... it is SUPER ranchy ranch!!!! LOL), and I made some other stuff that I can't even remember. I've been cooking so dang much I can't remember what I've done. It is fairly annoying to be spending this much time in the kitchen to be honest with you. I feel like I did nothing but shop and then work in the kitchen on Saturday.

OH, hey, I remembered what we did on Saturday. We did roasted potatoes and chicken thighs. I found a recipe that used lemon and rosemary, and it turned out good. And then I was quick enough to have a recipe for apples and peaches ready to go in the oven. It was supposed to be an apple and peach compote, but it didn't end up quite like I thought it would. It didn't say cover it in the oven, but I think I will next time. The apples were good, but the peaches were really tart and not very ripe (that's what I get for buying out of season). I was planning on using it for breakfasts here and there, and probably will tomorrow. I also wanted something sort of sweet to use for desserts, too, because I've been craving having something sweet. Not really craving as much as I just want something because I can't have it.

Yesterday, I spent at home. Everything I needed to cook didn't need OO, so I wasn't about to go to the store just for that. I made beef veggie soup (which is what my friend CM and I had planned to do LAST weekend, and all the ingredients sat in my house for a week!) and I can say I sure do like being able to dump all the diced veggies right into the pot! All I had to do was chop an onion! The recipe originally called for browning the beef in a sauce pan, and then transferring cooking the veggies in a dutch oven with the juices, and then putting the beef in the dutch oven. I was like, um, no. That's too much work. So into the pot went the beef, cooked, then the veggies, cooked, and then the broth and tomatoes. And it turned out just fine, thank you very much.

Finished that and decided for some bizarre reason to organize all of the printed recipes that I have. The irony that I hoard printed recipes but don't like to cook does not escape me. I went from 2 1" binders and a 1/2" binder up to 2 1-1/2" binders, 2 1" binders, and a 1/2" binder. I think the 1/2" will end up being a 1" (that's dessert and drinks! I never made it through those to sort them into categories and such), and then I'll have a preserving binder as well. So yeah, now I have 6 binders on my shelf... And I have to rearrange some stuff! I need to go through a couple of the other smaller cookbooks and see if I like anything in them, and if not, ditch them. I also found some other recipes to work with for the whole30 plan, and I went through a paleo gluten free crockpot book and found some things that will work. So I've got some more options.

Then I helped the BF cut some boards for the coop he's working on. I wish I had taken before pictures, cause it's gonna be the fanciest coop ever. It was a little 4' x 8' shed, and he's now adding a roof overhang on the door side to make it easier to stay out of the rain while refilling stuff. He's gotten the new roof on, and then just needs to put in windows, and the coop door, and then set up the inside. This dang coop keeps getting fancier and fancier... now he's looking at putting the shower wall material on the walls so that we can hose everything out. That's $20/sheet, but then again, that's the same cost as plywood, and HOPEFULLY It will be more durable and more appropriate for chickens than plywood. So we're up to about $500 for this dang coop, and we haven't even bought the lumber to make a run yet! But at least the coop itself will be completed soon. He had to get the roof completely on yesterday before the rain came in today.

So yeah, it's raining again, which is good. It's a gentle rain, and when I left this morning we had 1/4" again. It's good to catch up. And it's keeping the pollen down, which I am grateful! I'll swing by the grocery store (AGAIN.) this afternoon for more olive oil, and probably a few other things, who knows.

So here's to the start of day 8 of this crazy diet thing. One week down. The next milestone is at 10 days when I switch the supplements up that I'm taking. I'm fairly pleased that I've stuck with it this well so far! The lamb stew is going to have a little cheat tonight (there is corn and limas in the mixed veggies that I used), but other than that and a little honey here and there, and two salads with premade dressing with a little sugar in them, I've done really really well. Very pleased with that. Don't feel any different, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not!

 

[sumi]

I found sometimes in life you get forced to make a change, leave a place, because there is something better in store for you elsewhere. I hope things will work out well for you