Neighbors

When I shut my eyes at night to go to sleep, I see blackberry brambles. That's cuz I spent a few more days cutting them back this week, and there's one spot that I cannot make a dent in. I may not win this particular spot - they go right up into the trees 20 feet above my head, and when I try to drill through at ground level, I find the ancient woody spears from this very old stand of brambles. I might just have to let that go, that part. The horse will never find the barbed wire buried in there, if 4 hours of cutting didn't reveal it.

As I was leaving the field, exhausted and not exactly triumphant, a lady was making her way down the fenceline to me. Oh no, what have I done...

She introduced herself and I said my name. One word, my last name. At this, she stopped short and said, in ENGLISH, "What language do you speak?"

Apparently I cannot say my name correctly. But since she offered to speak english, I never turn that opportunity down. I told her we just bought the field, and I'm busy trying to build a horse fence. First, find the barbed wire to remove it under all the blackberries. She said her mother owns the treed lot that stands between our home and our field. The source of all blackberry evil, where most of the vines originate, reaching their nasty arms over the fence, and re-rooting in the grass on our side. I didn't mention this. I asked her if she'd like to sell, seeing as how her land is in the middle of ours. She said no, she'd like to do some gardening someday. I inwardly thought, "Good luck with that - your entire lot is covered in blackberries." Don't worry, I was nice to her.

She seemed nice, in comparison to the actual neighbor who lives next door to us, who I met earlier this week, cutting blackberries along a fenceline we share with him. He was very distant. No smile, just a cautious appraisal of who his new neighbor would be. I wasn't chatty with him, I just told him I'd be building a horse fence. He spoke with such dialect I didn't really get a lot of what he said. He mentioned some sort of water rat that lives in our trout ponds (he has 8 trout ponds, we have 3), that he had to kill with a shovel. I'm not sure what animals he's talking about. He offered his opinion on a few things, and I think he's worried about living next to "city folk." Hopefully we'll pleasantly surprise him with our lack of cars in the yard, and no abandoned children's toys, and absolutely no untended manure.

Today a wonderous thing happened, my easyboot arrived in the mail. No, not the one I got scammed on ebay with, rather a nice lady I met on a barefoothorsecare forum, who had some extra easyboot bares laying around. Best of all, it fits. It even seems to fit both front feet, even though Baasha's front feet are very differently shaped and sized. I took a quick ride with it on one foot, and I'll try the other foot soon. This is very exciting, and she also sent me a huge tube of neosporin for fighting thrush. The biggest tube I've ever seen. Something like 25 grams. Amazing!