Sheltering in Place

Farmers and gardeners are the luckiest people on the earth. We always have our work with us no matter what's going on in the world. "Sheltering in place" is what we do, pandemic or no pandemic. Here is a photo collage from my farm isolation, which has consisted, so far, of cleaning kidding pens, hiking through the woods and putting dog hair on wild flowers to deter deer, transplanting tomatoes from flats in the greenhouse/jungle room into pots, and more. No photos of all my digging out invasive Lesser Celandine, which I do every spring, or deadheading daffodils, or all Johnny's work cutting up downed trees for firewood and hauling them out of the woods (or off the driveway) or sifting a huge load of compost for me. In other words, life hasn't changed much for us.

Skunk Cabbage seen from the barn

 Horse wagon of flowers between house and barn...

 In the woods, there are now eleven of these tiger lilies coming up. Rarely do they get to bloom but I'm hoping the smelly dog hair will keep deer and slugs away this year.

Sessile Trillium in bud. They bloom later than the Western Trillium

Western Trillium

Wild Ginger with flower. I had this in an earlier post (A Virtual Walk Around the Farm) but I seldom see Wild Ginger flowers so here it is again...

Johnny spotted this Brown Creeper creeping up a moss covered tree trunk, as Brown Creepers like to do. I seldom see them although I know they are here and I can no longer hear their high-pitched calls so very thankful to have this photo.

This Chocolate Lily has never had a bud before... always eaten off long before. Hopefully the dog hair will let it bloom this year!

 On one of my rambles, I stopped in the horse field to take a photo of our farm with Spirit Mountain behind.

From there, I crossed this foot bridge to wander through a lowland area we planted with redwoods and cedars long ago. The horses can drink from the stream on their field side, but that white phony-electric tape draped across the other side keeps them from crossing.

I love skunk cabbage.

That lowland area loses a lot of alders to the creek, which catch other logs floating downstream, hopefully creating good habitat for wee fish to hide and grow in.

East of our lowland area is the south field, where the mountains beyond still have snow.

This day, the kestrel box we erected in the south field had a Kestrel on it! Just hunting, but I'm hopeful he'll find a mate and bring her back to nest. If not this year, maybe next.

In the far southeast corner of our property is an Ash Swamp. This time of year one end of it is covered in lush looking Veratrum viride, Indian Hellebore or Corn Lily (or probably other names, too.) It looks like it should have gorgeous tropical-looking flowers... but it doesn't. They're inconspicuous and die and turn brown quickly. Quite disappointing. The plant itself is "one of the most violently poisonous plants on the Northwest Coast, a fact recognized by all indigenous groups. ...even to eat a small portion of it would result in loss of consciousness, followed by death." (From Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and MacKinnon, an excellent field guide.)

Back in front of the barn, I feed the wild birds.

White-crowned sparrows are just back from their winter vacation to the south.

Oregon Juncos are here year round. Here one shares seeds with a WCSP

Fox Sparrows are winter visitors, still here before heading north to their breeding territory

Golden-crowned Sparrows are also winter visitors, soon to leave us.

When it rains, I work in the greenhouse (rather than house-clean, which I should do), I recently potted from flats five kinds of tomatoes into that wonderful compost Johnny strained for me. I think every seed came up this year in the flats.

I also planted butternut squash seeds I'd saved from a squash I grew in 2017.  I hope they produce butternut squash and not some weird hybrid. Who knows what other cucurbit I planted that year that they may have crossed with.

The only flower of note in the greenhouse right now is a poinsettia from our friends the Woodhouses who left their flowering plants with me when they moved to Minnesota over a year ago. It was blooming when they gave it to me and still is!

Goats are due to kid soon so maybe there will be baby goat photos to share in the near future. Never a dull moment on the farm, pandemic or not.

My Life With Horses

Daughter-in-law Jessica started a 7 day challenge on facebook for people she nominated (including me) to post a photo a day of a horse that influenced them in their life. That spurred me into going through old scrapbooks and a poster my dad made for me on my 50th birthday of photos from my early life. I found most of the horses in my life except the one I took my first riding lessons on, Rocky. All I have of him is a piece of artwork, I don't even know what to call it, that my riding instructor, Rocky's owner, gave me. I loved Rocky. She even put me in a show on him. This was when we lived in New York and I was in junior high. I came in 6th out of 6. I couldn't get him to canter.

(Rocky was gray, not bronze)

My love affair with horses started way before junior high. One of the photos in Dad's collage shows me on a rocking horse.

And then on a pony ride.

In grade school, I went to a summer camp with all sorts of activities, including horseback riding. I spent all my time at the horseback riding part, begging for rides.

Also in grade school I had a friend who was horse crazy. We had little toy hard rubber horses that we played with constantly. A neighbor had a real horse he kept a mile or two away from our subdivision. He said anyone who could get there could have a ride. So I walked and got to ride his horse, which turned out to be a stallion. I was thrilled to be allowed to ride. Someone was on a mare in front of me and when she went out of sight over a rise, the stallion reared and I came off but didn't let go of the reins. The stud ran circles around me until the owner came to the rescue. I was just thrilled to have ridden a horse. My brother showed up soon after to fetch me home as Mom figured that's where I'd gone. Our crazy neighbor talked my brother into riding the stallion, which ran away with him. I don't think Bob ever forgave me. And I don't think he ever got on another horse.

After New York, Dad was transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. I begged and begged for a horse. Dad, being a bit horse crazy himself, bought me a quarter horse type mare, Lady. She loved to run and I loved to race her, even entered a local barrel race once. I don't think we placed but I don't really know as I was so embarrassed I just rode her the mile home without staying to find out.

Mom, giving in to the horse people in her family, bought Dad a horse. My friends rode Rusty more than my dad ever had time to. Here's a really bad photo of Dad and Rusty movin' on!

A friend introduced me to a Morgan Horse breeder in the area where she hung out, gentling and playing with the foals. Mr. Dzengolewski let me ride a mare he wanted worked so he could sell her. He liked the way I rode, amazingly enough, as I was not and have never been a good rider, just an enthusiastic one. When the woman who had been showing his stallion in shows for him quit, he asked me to ride. Duke of Lebanon was a beautiful, talented horse. Mr. D drove him and always won in those classes. I rode him in what was then called 3 gaited classes, basically English Pleasure. Here I am on the Duke in Mr. D's front yard.

And here at a show. 

 We were usually in the top 3 but only once first.

I carried a flag on Duke at the beginning of a Morgan show... and almost dropped it. The audience gasped. But I got it back up before it hit the ground. That was the last time I was asked to carry a flag.

I quit riding for Mr. D after my junior year, mostly because I had bred my mare Lady to the Duke and got a foal, Impetuous, the love of my life.

 My first year in college was very hard as Imp stayed home. But when my Dad was transferred to Alaska at the beginning of my Sophomore year, I brought Imp to the fairgrounds in Champaign-Urbana, where the Univ. of Illinois was located. I had a great time at the fairgrounds with Imp, even getting to pony a race horse with him.

Also in my Sophomore year I met Johnny, and when he graduated a year before I did and moved to Wyoming to go to work for the Forest Service, I soon followed... with Imp. I was one semester away from graduating in Zoology. Johnny came to get us and, since it was winter, we took the southern route and stopped at Four Corners where Imp and I could stand in four states at once. I understand that is all developed now for tourists. It was desert then and nobody was there but us..

 I spent the winter semester at Utah State Univ, in Wildlife Biology, coming home to Cokeville and Johnny and Imp on weekends. During the week, Johnny made Imp carry his own hay.

The Vietnam War was going on and Johnny, a conscientious objector, joined an approved alternative organization, International Voluntary Services. So did I. Together, we spent a year in Laos while Imp stayed in Wyoming with Johnny's boss until my dad, who retired from 30 years in the Air Force while we were in Laos, came and brought Imp to Oregon and the ranch they had bought some years earlier.

When back from Laos, I entered Washington State Univ. to get the last courses I needed for graduation. Imp stayed with my parents in Oregon. Johnny and I (as a college graduate at last), came back to Oregon and Imp, buying a 9 acre property where we started our homesteading lifestyle. Our two kids learned to ride on Imp, but never caught the horse bug. In 1977, we bought a larger acreage where we could be even more self sufficient and brought Imp and the family donkey, Charlie, with us.

Charlie deserves a whole post on his own. He was a wonderful soul, gentle with those who were gentle with him but he put up with no nonsense from would-be "cowboys". Here he is decorated with flowers in a parade during one of our summer parties, Jessica's sister Sarah leading him. Charlie joined all our parties, often eating from the table if no one was paying attention, or sometimes even if they were.

There were a few other horses in my life during Imp's lifetime but none "stuck" and were sold. Imp was my soul mate and when he died, I was devastated and thought I'd never have another horse.

Kevin and his girlfriend (now wife) came to visit during this horse-less stretch and Jessica, knowing I loved Morgans, insisted we go look at Morgans nearby. I fell in love with a weanling and bought him on my 50th birthday. I named him Mr. Smith because his registered name was supposedly Rogue Hill's Senator. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was a favorite movie of mine so I named him after that senator. However, when his papers came back, he was Rogue Hill's Skybird. He loves to jump so that was an appropriate moniker. However, he was already Mr. Smith and has been ever since.

True to his Morgan breed, Mr. Smith does everything. Gives rides to the grandchildren...

Jumps...

Pulls anything you hitch him to...

And makes a fine house pet to the delight of city relatives...

Polly, an older registered Morgan mare came to us from friends to be company for Mr. Smith. Polly was much more than Mr. Smith's companion. She took care of whoever was on her back, no matter their level of experience.

 


And she gave us Jessie Anne, my first palomino. That was in 1999, before I started this blog. Someday I'll tell the story of my coming off Mr. Smith and landing in the hospital for a week with a partially collapsed lung... missing Jessie Anne's birth. (Not Mr. Smith's fault... rather my own recklessness.)

 Here is a whole blog post on Renwood Pollianne on her 32nd birthday:https://lindafink.blogspot.com/2011/05/happy-birthday-polly.html. And another in memorium, one year later after she died suddenly and quickly of colic.

https://lindafink.blogspot.com/2012/07/polly-561979-762012.html

Polly's daughter Jessie Anne is a sweet, gentle soul, and anxious to please whether you're riding her or on the ground.

Her daughter, however, has a different personality. She loves people, so long as they are petting her and admiring her, but she has not yet decided that the person on her back is in charge of where she should go or how fast. Nightingale, I think, was allowed to get away with murder by her sweet mother, Jessie Anne. She lets me know by her singing neigh if I'm five minutes late with her meal. Or if she wants out of the paddock *now* to graze.

But she is a beauty...

In this post, Polly, Mr. Smith, and Jessie Anne give summer visitors rides:

https://lindafink.blogspot.com/2010/07/summers-on-farm-always-bring-city.html

 Perhaps in the future I'll start riding more again or driving and write a sequel to this post. But as of 2020, this has been my life with horses. Whether I ride them or not, horses have always been and always will be a part of my life. Those of us born with the horse addiction are incurable.