See Jayne Go

See Jayne. See Jayne and Frank. Jayne and Frank have had a crazy summer. Jayne and Frank need a vacation. See Jayne and Frank get on an airplane and go to San Diego. Jayne and Frank will be eating lots of real mexican food and seeing animals at the zoo. Jayne and Frank will have five lovely days together in the southern California sun! Bye!

All that silliness aside, I just wanted to do a quick update to the blog because I won't be posting now for at least a week. Everything is fine here. The little chicks have integrated well into the big girl's coop and one is even trying to crow already. I got the running boards installed on my truck, but while they were doing it they dented the door a little. Of course they'll fix it, but not until I get back and get an appointment with the body shop. Frank and I are BOTH busy gearing up for our on-line teaching jobs; Frank with math and I in English (American Literature).

While we are gone a good friend is staying in the house and taking good care of everybody, and our regular animal sitter will be helping out as well, so people will be in and out here more than when it's only us here at home. It is very comforting to know we've got such good help taking care of all our precious animals here at home. See you in a week or so!

Truck's First Bath by Guest Blogger Frank

For years Jayne has wanted a new truck, and last month, she found the PERFECT truck, a 2009 GMC Sierra that had EVERY option that she was looking for, including being a two wheel drive, which is important because with me at 51, and Jayne at well, I really shouldn't share her age - suffice it to say that right now I am four years older than her and on November 7th I will be three - are a tad bit long in the tooth to go mudding, so a two wheel drive is perfect for us. "Why don't we buy it," I queried. And Jayne, having found the truck of her dreams gave me a totally logical answer as to why we shouldn't buy it: because it's white. Of course. Pass on the truck of your dreams because it's white. That, of course, made little sense to me, and so we purchased Truck and he is indeed a most excellent addition to our family.


So, we actually used Truck as a working truck yesterday and hauled some hay. Jayne, having fallen deeply in love with Truck suggested that I bathe him. And look how dirty he is! I can tell you with absolute certainty that everything I own, including my own body, has been 10 times dirtier than Truck is in this picture and I still didn't wash it. Oh, well, if Jayne wants me to wash Truck, wash Truck I will do.


Actually, here is a close up of the HUGE mess that Truck got into. Bad, bad Truck; no wonder you need a complete and total detail job both inside and out!


So, of course, we can't just wash Truck with any old swill that is out there, so we laid out for some fancy materials to make sure that the old boy was completely comfortable while being bathed. I especially like the micro fiber mitt that is so soft it could be used to pat your baby's bottom.


This is the old swill that we have used on every vehicle we have ever owned. And as for the Dawn, biologists used it to get the oil off of birds that have stumbled into a spill. It's obviously very good stuff, but not good enough for Truck!


So, we're driving home yesterday and Jayne noticed three specks of dust on the dashboard. "When you clean Truck tomorrow, will you please wipe down the dashboard with something besides water?" "Like Armor All?" I ask helpfully. "Absolutely not! That stuff destroys the vinyl, eventually. We'll never use that stuff on Truck!" And so imagine my surprise when Jayne shows up with Armor All. "Hey, Jayne, didn't you say..." "I was talking about the spray, not the wipes. The wipes will be fine." Now, I'm not a chemist, but I kinda think that the liquid on the wipes is the same as the liquid that you spray on, so if one will destroy your dash, then there is a real good possibility that other will too. Oh, well, I'll see my friend Deanna Vaughan - who IS a chemist - in about three weeks and ask her all about this.


And here is Truck, all nice and clean! Please compare this to the second picture in this blog to see what a difference a nice bath makes.


More evidence that Truck did indeed get a bath.


So, here's the deal with Truck and the lessons he can teach us. Jayne, who really is the love of my life and completes me in all ways despite the fact that I have had a whole lot of fun teasing her in this blog, has always wanted a truck; she's also always wanted horses. She's waited, well 51 minus 4 years for this to happen, but it finally did happen. Moral of the story? Don't give up on your dreams. Ever. I love Truck because my wife loves Truck, but also love him because he will remind me for a good long time that I should never give up on a dream, no matter how out of reach it seems. You shouldn't either.

Fun on the farm!

Boy, has it been a whirl-wind summer! Seems like Frank and I are always coming or going! We just ended a lovely visit with Frank's brother Jim and his bride Mary. We got to spend some quality time with them (I had never met Mary before), part of which was during a short trip to Victoria, which was beautiful and enchanting as always. Back here on the farm, we introduced those city folks to the joys of rural living. This included giving the watermelon rinds to the horses and donkeys. They love to see us coming with that green plate full of sweet treats for them!


A big milestone on the farm today was that the little white chicks ventured outside for the first time at the ripe age of 5 weeks old. I had been letting them out to roam the barn the last few days, but frankly, I was getting tired of them leaving little chick poopies all over the place, so I'm ready for them to move out of the barn. Here they are being fascinated by food that actually moves (a bug!). They figured out quite quickly that moving food is tasty!


I could not have asked for a better momma hen. She has been so good at teaching them all they need to know and they are surprisingly obedient when she calls or warns them. Here she became alert to something in the yard and one of the chicks made sure to look too.


The chicks kind of crept out of the barn in little groups today, so I wanted to show you that there are indeed still 5 chicks. I THINK there are two roosters and three pullets, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that outcome. One of the little roosters sounded like he was choking this morning so I looked at him to see if he was OK, and he was actually trying to crow! What a funny little guy! So far our resident rooster, Colonel Sanders, has made contact with the chicks and he has not shown any signs of aggression at all. Let's hope it stays that way for a while and until I decide what to do with these two unnecessary boys.


Two of my neighbor kids came over today (the girl is also my excellent farm sitter) to just hang out, so we got to work shredding some of the excess zucchini from my garden. My friend Ange told me that if I froze them in three cup bags, that once they thawed and the water is poured out, that would leave me with the two cups of shredded zucchini that most recipes call for. So that's what we did. We got 6 packages to freeze and with the two cups left over we quick whipped up a chocolate zucchini cake that we took to a cookout at their house the same evening. They had fun getting their friends and neighbors to try the chocolate cake they made but didn't tell them it had zucchini in it. It's a good cake and I managed to save one piece for Frank when he gets home from Boise this evening.


I'm having so much fun with my new truck! It actually sent me an email the other day telling me I had only 32 pounds of pressure in one tire when it should be 35. Too funny! It also has a voice activated phone in there: I just say DIAL and then the number and it takes care of it! Talk about hand's free. So now I can still say I don't have a cell phone, but I do have a cell truck!

We have one more get-away (to San Diego) this summer before we hunker down and get to work at our respective jobs. The same on-line high school that Frank works for hired me to teach two classes of English. (This should eliminate the need for me to substitute teach for anyone except my favorites.) Gotta love a job you can do in your jammies! Needless to say, there won't be any pictures of that!

Visitors and Anniversary!!

We are having a wonderful time with our visitors from Illinios...Frank's brother and sister in law, Jim and Mary. One of the things our guests wanted to see was some mountains up close, and since Frank and I hadn't yet been up to Mount Baker, we drove up there yesterday. Wow, was that a beautiful drive and the scenery was breathtaking!! The Mount Baker Highway actually takes you around to the east side of Mount Baker, which is an approach we had not ever seen as our views of the mountain had always been from the south or west.


There were other snowy peaks around this area, as well as many green meadows and majestic pines below the tree line. We think we even spotted a small herd of mountain goats in the distance. It was a beautiful day and it was even a little warm after doing some hiking around Artists Point.


On a side note, this coming Saturday is our 17th Anniversary and Frank bought me a really big present. We drove it up to Mount Baker as we weren't sure our old van would be up to the task. It performed great and we enjoyed playing with all the toys in there. Thanks, Honey, for 17 wonderful years and for my new truck!

Today we're sticking fairly close to home with a tour through Frank's school and a drive to a cute nearby town followed by lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Tomorrow is a Seattle day, and then we're off to Victoria for a few days. We're having a great time but it seems like time is going by way too fast. I'll update again this weekend.

Lovely Iowa

I returned late Tuesday night from a wonderful trip to Iowa and found the temperature to be 93 degrees at 9pm!! Who ever heard of that here?! So while I'm glad to be home, it certainly would have been far more comfortable to stay in Iowa!


One of the first things my kind hosts took me to see was a produce auction. Produce grown by the Amish was brought to the facility by horse and buggy or wagon. Sometimes it was just a mom and kids, like shown here, but there were also a few bigger rigs pulled by draft horses. It was so hard to decide which pictures to show!


There was a nice loading dock under cover where the horses/buggies could stop to unload. The produce was put on rolling carts and lined up for the auction. We saw a lot of green beans, onions, tomatoes, summer squash and a little bit of several other items. When I went back the following Monday, there was far more tomatoes that just 3 days before. I don't know if you can see the corn on the back of the buggy shown above, but we bought 10 dozen of those ears and after giving a bunch away to friends and family, we had a feast of fresh sweet corn. YUM.


The auctioneer would stand by each cart and people would gather around and bid. They did usually make the bidders buy the whole cart full of stuff, but if you didn't want the whole amount, you could turn around and sell what you didn't need/want to others. For example, Ange wanted a few hardy hibiscus plants but the lot was for 6 of them. The bidding went higher than she wanted to pay, especially for six of them, but the winning bidder turned around and sold three of them to Ange. I saw that happening a lot.


There were a few baskets for sale that had been put together in such a beautiful way that I had to take a picture. If I had been home, certainly I would have bid on this lovely collection of lots of good things to eat: potatoes, onions, peppers, beans, tomatoes and an eggplant.


My hosts, Ange and Jerry, have friends with a wonderful, well-broke team and they were willing to let us come over and maybe even let me hold the lines for a little while. These mares were being driven nearly every day in anticipation of the up-coming Iowa State Fair, so we took them out and I DID get to drive them. That was a wonderful experience! I really thank Ange and Jerry and new friends Randy and Peggy for giving me this opportunity. It was a blast.


Back at the home of Cottonwood Percherons there was plenty of good times and relaxation. I had such a good time playing with the barn kittens. I really would have brought my favorite little gray boy with the white mittens back with me if I didn't have such a cranky old mouser at home. I must have 30 pictures of these guys playing all around Ange's lovely garden. She also had a wonderful swing in which I spent much time reading and watching thunderstorms roll by and lightening bugs come out at dusk. It was truly enchanting.


Here is Jerry with his two blue roan percheron mares. These are such wonderful horses. Anyone would be proud to look out and see them in their field, that's for sure. This was taken in the morning after they came in for their grain and fly spray before heading back to pasture.


The days I was in Iowa were not too hot (maybe the highest was mid-80's) so the girls enjoyed standing up by the fence and watching the world go by. I like how they've set themselves up here, with the gray in the middle and arranged in a line like that. The clover must have been coming on good as each time I went out to say HI I got a shirt full of slobber. They are sweet, friendly girls and I enjoyed getting to know them.


On the last day we had to take the pony to the farrier for a trim, and this Amish family also kept goats for milking....160 of them!! We spent quite a bit of time in the milking parlor with their two older teenage children who were in charge of the goats and the milking. They use a machine for milking, but they did let me try to milk one by hand, which needless to say didn't go too well! But we had a great time. I love the look on the face of the white goat in the middle of this picture. Too funny!


Back home again, I spent plenty of time with my new buddy Kona, their mastiff. He was so well behaved and sweet, anyone would be proud to have a dog like him. Whenever I went in and out he was on my heels, so I felt I needed to have a picture taken with him to capture our time together. What a sweetheart!

One thing I haven't talked about and didn't get any pictures of was all the good food that they made sure I had. I tried catfish for the first time, had some authentic mexican food, and Ange made a roast and veggies in the crock pot one night and Iowa pork chops the following night. Those home meals were accompanied by lots of fresh summer veggies and iced tea. It just doesn't get any better than that.

So huge thanks to my hosts for letting me come and experience what it's like to live in Iowa. I had an amazing time and look forward to going back again. Maybe they'll come visit our fine state of Washington some time soon. I sure hope so.

Frank had taken wonderful care of everyone on our little farm in spite of the terrible heat and humidity which is so rare for this area. The little chicks are over three weeks old now and growing like weeds! This heat has claimed the life of one of our old hens and we hope that's the last of that. I had my stall bedding and beetpulp delivered just today, so I am prepared for whatever the winter might throw at us. I'll update with farm pictures again soon!

Off to Iowa!

I just wanted to put up a quick note to let you know I'll be gone for a week to visit my dear friend Ange and family in Iowa. Frank is dropping me off at the airport at 5am, so we'll be up and out quite early!

Frank will be holding down the fort here while I am gone. I am thankful that he is so good with all the animals. He'll have an even harder time of it as the forecast is for record heat so he'll have to be watching to make sure everyone is doing OK. I'll have it cooler and rainier in Iowa!

I hope to have some neat pictures when I get back. In the meantime, I sure hope I don't take a wrong turn down this road:



Oh, just a couple of little chicken updates: the baby chicks are just over two weeks old and growing like weeds. They are a little crazy too and cover every inch of that 12x12 stall, driving their momma hen nuts. Also, our new little hen Sylvia is doing well trying to integrate into her new flock here. She still hasn't figured out quite where to roost at night, but she is good about coming back to the coop after free-ranging every day. Good girl!

A little chicken story...

A couple of weeks ago I was looking through the Farm and Garden section on Craig's List and saw an ad for a Silver Sebright hen for sale. So I clicked on it, and what I saw was quite sad: A beloved little pet hen had begun to crow and while they loved her, they lived in the city and her noisiness would not make her a good neighbor any longer. Well, I wrote to these nice people, only to commiserate, in that my own little Sebright hen crowed as well. I gave them a link to this blog so they could see our Sophie and the rest of our little farm.


I got an email back from the mom and her 7 year old daughter saying that they needed to find a home for their beloved Sylvia and that if they could not find a good situation for her, could she come live here at Red Pony Ranch? I replied that they were welcome to come visit and if they felt this was a good place for her then she was welcome to stay.


Well, these pictures are testimony that Sylvia did, in fact, come to live at Red Pony Ranch and she is getting along quite well! No one appears to even notice she's here (maybe they can't count and think she's Sophie?) and, in spite of the mom's worries, dominant little Sylvia doesn't appear to be trying to assert herself with the big hens, at least not yet!


I was a little nervous of letting Sylvia out of the run on her first day here (that's her to the left of center in the picture), but I felt that she would stick around her own kind and so far that seems to be the case. She is happily rooting around for bugs and tender shoots, and already has learned that when I call "chick, chick, chick" that means that a treat of scratch is coming if they come running! So welcome Syliva to our little flock!


Of course I had to take them around to visit everyone else on the farm and of course Daisy was a big hit as usual. Here is the daughter and Daisy mugging for the camera. I had such a good time with our visitors and I think they had a good time too. I know Daisy was sad to see them go!


I just wanted to put one last picture of what's been happening in the nursery...these little chicks get more precocious every day and their latest antic is to play "King of the Mom!" Seems that there are always one or two chicks vying for space on top of mom. The winner gets to nap up there. Too funny!