Random

First cutting happened last week. It was fascinating to me, as usual. Not our field, but several of the neighbors' got turned to Silage. We have horsey neighbors again! Out of their winter paddocks and onto the fields. I enjoy watching them. There are a couple of pintos that are new this year, one is obviously one of those "Pinto Arabians" but when we went to visit, he kept trying to touch Baasha's mane and Baasha kept carefully out of reach, grazing. The big huge Pinto draft horse who is friendly did the same, trying his best to touch Baasha over the fence, and Baasha said, "Back off Mister, I'm eating here." But the young Pintos love running, they do it at every chance.

Lately it has been raining (finally) and those horses just stand there, butts to the wind, taking it. I feel kind of bad for them, cuz they have no shelter, but I know that Baasha is an extreme weather case and will stand in his stall all day if a few drops fall. One would think he had a bad rain experience in his past *lol*.

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We are now very actively trying to find a companion pony for Baasha. That is, I've put flyers up at the feed store, tack store, and grocery stores. Although I am very specific about what we're seeking, I keep getting people wanting to bring their warmblood here, or as in today, a 4 year old stallion.

I guess I should mention that this would be much easier if we were looking to buy a pony, but we cannot afford a second horse until I get a job (and I'm still working on that Sonja).

So the opening is for a free care situation, where we provide feed, but the owner would pay vet bills.

A few weeks ago someone wanted us to take a Standardbred, and for some odd reason I went to look at him. I know, it's not a pony, but I just wanted to see. Oh, how I wish I hadn't. That poor old horse was so broken down, sick looking, and living in a dark hole of a barn, I wanted him that very moment. But then we found out the poor horse is too weak to make a move (and certainly wouldn't be able to navigate our steep property with those legs). I realized that horse would probably be ill and infect Baasha, but I wanted to try anyway. After that man demonstrated how rough he treats the horses, whacking them and yelling at them, it was obvious the horse was afraid of him, but not mean, for he put his face against my chest and said "Take me." So sad. It was my first time ever purposefully washing my hands after touching a horse. It was not meant to be.

I keep telling Baasha, "We're working on it." He's taken to nibbling my flannel again, like he did when he was 3. But he does all sorts of tricks whenever my man comes to the stall, and my man comes to the stall several times a day with carrots.

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Just in time before the rain, I got this entire place mowed into shape. I even mowed one of Baasha's grazing strips for the first time. I got tired of the weeds sticking up. Now it's as pretty as our front lawn (and closed off to recover a bit!)

I was out pruning a hydrangea that suffered greatly this winter, and suddenly I turned around and on the lawn behind me I had not one, but TWO cats playing. Jumping over each other, hunting each other, being adorable. Mercer is getting pretty brave to be in the front yard!

Lander is the most well adjusted cat I've ever met (like I said, he purred and rubbed on me the day we brought him home). Yesterday the neighbor's Boxer barked at the fenceline at him, and Lander did not jump in the open window to escape, he stood his ground, tail huge, and growled at the dog like "Really? You want to see who will win?"

Thankfully that dog stays behind that flimsy fence. What a good dog that Boxer is! (His name is Spanky - isn't that awful?)

Lander loves nothing better than to help out with yardwork and run back and forth in the pasture as I search for manure. However, the last two days we found two ticks on him - huge - almost the size of peas. It's completely disgusting and Frontline is due to arrive tomorrow. I fanatically check Baasha all over and he has none. (Wish I had a pic of the kitties outside, but they always seem to surprise me when I have no camera.)

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It was my birthday Thursday and I made a key lime pie. I tried my very best to follow the instructions but for some reason did not see the last step, "Allow to cool before opening springform."

It's edible, but not pretty: )

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It's SAT time in Germany (they call it "Abitur") and my poor husband has been locked up in his office all weekend. He worked 10 hours straight yesterday grading tests, and he's in his 9th hour today. Teachers have it really bad this time of year. They have to prepare lessons and grade homework as normal, and then they have this huge stack of SATs to score. Each SAT is graded by several different teachers separately, to be fair. This means my man is on the phone a lot, asking the other teachers what their reasoning was by giving the kid a certain score on a task.

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Have you heard of Eurovision? Me neither, til coming here. It's Europe's big yearly band contest, one song per nation. For the first time in 20 years, Germany won last night. It's a big deal here. Now we're watching the news - amazing, the crowds at the Hannover airport greeting her return. And the government people greeting her too. Lena will be famous a while, I think.