June behind us

It was hard for me to blog this month. I didn't even have a folder called "June 2010" in my photo directory until today. I just didn't want to see anything painful.

But time is healing us.

A nice couple came by last night to check out our property. They brought bread for Baasha, how nice! and Baasha offered his "hand" for them. Sadly they admitted their pony is simply too old to navigate our land. I was impressed, because they seemed to know their pony's limits and were not tempted to try to get a free deal at his expense.

Through our living room windows I've been enjoying "Horse TV" as my man puts it, because the neighbor horses are now feasting on the field closest to our house. That means every morning they scuffle to show me their heirarchy (which I've got down now, from #1 to #6). These two young pintos are just awesome - they are the newest horses here and the youngest. One is a spotty Arab who has taken over as Alpha horse, and the other, being only 2 years old, is #6. But what a feisty thing he is! He gets the herd running as often as possible.

Nordic, the beautiful mean Arabian is still there, apparently #2 now, hehee. The ginormous paint is #3, and he makes such a pretty sillouette at night as I gaze out there.

I've taken Baasha up to meet them all, and the Paintabian/Arabaint (Alpha) always wants to have exclusive access. Baasha can't be bothered with that meanie, he just wants to trim their field edges.

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Mercer is a contented housecat. She never asks to go outside. She is still as shy as ever, and the other day a spider sent her running. She loves her toys, but is terrified of bugs, I guess. That makes two of us.

She spends a lot of time cleaning herself.

I feed her from a ball because I think she's pretty inactive inside, and she should work a little for a meal. Twice a day I fill her ball with 25 grams of food and she has to roll it around to get it out. It is not as convenient for me, but it will hopefully be healthier for her.

Yesterday the bag of catfood ran out so I gave it to her, with a few pieces still inside. My aunt used to do this with her dog. Well, Mercer is too incompetent to get food out of a bag, that is, she's too nervous to go in. I remember she was pretty clumsy whenever she was outdoors. I look forward to the day when she's more comfortable with herself and with us.

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Baasha had a nice bath (what he would never call nice). His eyes are OK - some days last week he had a yellow discharge but I did warm compresses, cleaning, and saline rinses. I know which vet to call now if he starts squinting again. Baasha wears a mask every day. I hate it but I think it might help him. (If you're curious what his eyes looked like last year, here are some gory pics.)

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HAY! Our field got converted into bales. Our neighborhood is scented with the sweet fresh smell of hay.

I saw something odd at our fenceline and walked clear out there and saw three bright red marks on three Tposts in a row, and one Tpost at the corner was bent up: ( Agh, our pretty fence!

So the next day when the tractor returned, my man and I ran out there to inspect it for missing paint, which Carsten pointed to, and said, "My dad did it - he's getting old to be mowing hay."

Well that evening Carsten came back to flip hay again, and I heard this crash and then the tractor's engine went quiet for a while. I wondered, hmmmmm.....but I didn't run over there.

Later we saw it - Carsten had hit the fence too! He completely messed up another outside corner. Agh, my pretty fence! Later I discovered he'd ripped some O-rings out of the posts at the other end. Baasha was out there at the time and I'm so glad he didn't take the opportunity to get out.

Before he hit it...

After. See the pretty rows? I am still fascinated with the haymaking process.

My man saying "Look how strong I am!"

He offered to pay for the damage but we have extra Tposts so we said no worries.

Now it's all gone and our field is growing back a lovely bright green.

Since we've had nothing but sunshine since April, it's growing very slowly. How is possible to go from 3 months of snow directly to blazing summer? I'm worried about what Summer has planned for us.

A few days have been too hot to even do anything outside. Although this has helped our MPG on the car, a little rain would be nice. Sorry Seattleites, but can we trade for a few days? I'll take a week of your rain and you can take our sunbathing weather.