hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[frustratedearthmother]

So sorry about the loss of your grandmother. She is at rest now and as hard as it is on those remaining - she knew it was her time and she went her way.

 

[Britesea]

Reading what you had to say about your grandfather reminded me of this beautiful song- written by a man about a month after his wife of 75 years passed on.

 

[sumi]

 

[hqueen13]

Thank you, @baymule you are very right.
My mom said they were at the house the other night, and a hummingbird flew up to the window, and hovered, flying back and forth for a few minutes before it flew off. When she told my grandfather, he said they'd never put a humming bird feeder out there. They both agreed it was her coming back for a visit. I agree with them.

This weekend was busy but good. Friday I cleaned up, vacuumed the whole house, did a little dusting, and got ready for JS to be here. I picked her up from the airport about 8. Saturday we headed out to work on a couple horses, and the BF ran up to the dump to take the trash/recycles and pick up a load of mulch. When we got home he had already started working on getting the weeds pulled and fixing up the bed. There are Hostas coming up, along with what I THINK are hydrangeas, and some other odd shrub/plant that has buds on it, so I don't think it's a weed. And that's in addition to the TON of daffodils everywhere! The weather was GORGEOUS and so I joined the BF when I got home and we kept working while JS worked on people in the house. We opened the windows and everything.

She worked on me that evening, and it was SO good to have her untangle me again. I was really crunched up pretty bad. She was working on my neck and I heard things click as she moved my head, which was creepy! But it sure felt better afterwards! I was exhausted and a little sore from having her release so much stuff that was STUCK.

Sunday morning we got up and I took her over to the farm with me while I turned everybody out. She got to say hi to Storm, and said he looked pretty good. I finished kicking everybody out into their respective fields, and then dropped her off at my friend's barn before I headed back to finish the chores. I was almost done when the BF arrived with the load of hay. We were unstrapping the bales (21 bales come banded together in a "brick"), and found that a cat had picked the top of the pile to pee on, and it had soaked through 3 bales. I was really irritated, but I don't think that my hay guy is going to have a problem taking care of me. I think I can still use the half of the bale that wasn't peed on, in typical cat fashion, they picked the same place to go every time.

Finally finished chores and headed back to my other friend's place to pick up JS and we went and got some lunch. It was COLD and WINDY so we were pretty miserable. We headed to another friend's farm to do the 2 horses there, and then finally headed back up to the house again. The BF had gone over to his parent's house to grab some more things, including the tiller so we could more easily finish the garden beds instead of hand weeding. He brought home the grill, too!! So I jumped in and helped him keep working, and we got the rest of the bed weeded, and then set the edging, and filled it in with the load of mulch. We put it down pretty thick, which will help keep the weeds down (and make it easier to pull them when we have to), and the edging was about 3' short of what we needed. It all looks fine, and it will be fine for a little while. Then we managed to cram all the rest of the stuff into the shed that he brought back, and cleaned up for the evening.

The cherry tree is blooming now that the japanese magnolia is fading, and the dogwoods are getting ready to open. One is pink, and the other is white, so they'll be pretty, too. We looked at the other bed, an I'm not sure how we're going to handle it because there are exposed roots from the nearby maple tree, so the edging won't work without cutting the roots, which are pretty thick. The bed also needs some top soil because it looks like the gutter over flowed for a while and washed a lot of the good dirt away. I have an unlimited supply of composted manure, so we'll get some of that, and a little dirt, and make the bed on that side a little different by building it up a little more.

So things are moving along, and we have our travel set for the end of the week. I'm glad that I had to do so much cleaning for this weekend, it will be easy to wrap things up on Wednesday when I have my day off. Thursday will be pretty full as will Friday, so I hope to have most of it done on Wednesday.

So that's about all that's happening in these parts. It's been good, though busy. But I guess yall know that's the norm anyway.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Lol - glad you got unstuck! Sounds like Spring has sprung with all the blooming going on!

Hope your hay guy makes it right for ya - nothing nastier than cat pee....eek!

 

[hqueen13]

Oh, I'll have to listen to this when I'm not in the office cheating, @Britesea Thank you!!

 

[hqueen13]

Yes, it has, FEM, and I'm trying to make sure I manage my allergies so that I don't hate spring!! It's beautiful, though our weather keeps going up and down like crazy. I think it's supposed to level out a bit, just in time for us to head south where it's warmer already!

 

[baymule]

Thank you, @baymule you are very right.
My mom said they were at the house the other night, and a hummingbird flew up to the window, and hovered, flying back and forth for a few minutes before it flew off. When she told my grandfather, he said they'd never put a humming bird feeder out there. They both agreed it was her coming back for a visit. I agree with them.

My older sister and brother were close in age and were very close in their relationship with each other. When he died, my sister went home and a road runner came up in her back yard. It walked around her pool, looked everything in her yard over, then disappeared. She said it was Scott coming to tell her that he was ok. Later she found a road runner made of railroad crosstie spikes and other metal, and bought it. She kept it on the railing of her deck. Hurricane Harvey put 8 feet of water in her house, rolled the refrigerator across 3 acres to the pond, rolled their box delivery truck out to the woods and practically destroyed everything. Strangely enough, the railroad spike roadrunner was in the flowerbed right under where it perched on her deck railing.

She was telling the contractor about her brother and the roadrunner and how happy she was to find it. He took the railroad spike roadrunner and screwed it down firmly to the deck railing, then told her, "He will not leave you again."

 

[hqueen13]

WOW! @baymule what a cool story! I love stories like that. I really believe the divine whispers to us all the time, it's just up to us to listen.

Not a whole lot on my mind today. Just trying to get things organized and ready to go. There isn't much to do, really, since we did so much over the weekend. I have to decide what kind of clothes to wear since everything is warmer down there. Tomorrow I'll do the cleaning and that will really be pretty much it. I mostly just need to vacuum the floors, and mop the kitchen, and that's about all. I'll clean out the fridge one more time, and of course we'll take the trash out, but that's about all. I'm glad we've gotten so much done ahead of time.

My farrier was kind enough to swap my appointment from next week to today so that I wouldn't have to deal with that just after coming home because I need to be in the office next week. She texted me as I was on the way down to take care of Cowboy and Coyote that she was going to be 40 minutes early. For real. My plan WAS to get him out (because I knew that more than likely he'd still be in his stall when I got there at 9:30), and let him eat hay while I groomed for a few minutes, and then to work him for a while before she arrived. That plan got scrapped. Especially when I rolled in at 9:30 and sure enough, he was still in his stall. I knew that he would be upset if we tried to trim him in the barn while the other horses were out and he was hungry (plus he'd either have to be in his very dirty stall or in the way in the barn aisle). So I grabbed him and just tossed him out, and gave him hay. My farrier arrived as we were walking out the door. I explained to her what happened and suggested that we trim outside to avoid the chaos of the barn. She agreed and so we let him eat for a little while before we got started. I hadn't gotten to trim him as much as I wanted in the past few weeks, and so she did all the work today. We also did the big spring trim and really cut back his frog and sole and gave him a really good roll on the toe to make sure that he is balanced correctly when (if?) the spring rains come. It's growing season, anyway, so even if it doesn't get muddy it sets him up good to be able to maintain better into the summer. She told me to trim him weekly to make sure that the cracks that he's got don't get bigger, and so I have my homework cut out for me. I really want to be able to keep up with it so that she doesn't charge me full price again! I could use the discount when I do the work! Thankfully he really behaved himself even while we were outside in the pasture. I think he was mostly just interested in hay, so since he got to eat while we worked he was fine. That will be my plan when I do him in his stall, too. They'll be switching to days inside soon, so I'll have to figure out a new system, but I'm sure it won't be too difficult. I really should get him used to walking out to the arena since it won't be good to take him to the pasture when he's been in his stall. He'll think he's going to get to go out!

So that's pretty much everything in a nut shell. I hope tomorrow to be able to spend a little time outside if my allergies allow. The weather is beautiful right now, which is really nice! I'm beginning to struggle, my eyes itch mostly, but it's survivable right now. We'll see what happens when I head south!

 

[baymule]

I hope you get to ride soon!