However, school starts this week, and that means summer, basically, is over. No more lazy days at home...no more going out on a whim and doing something fun, no more late nights enjoying the nighttime sounds...reality has hit. Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a fan of winter. In fact, the complete opposite. I despise winter! I've spent all summer watching things grow, mowing my lawn (which I love to do)...to eventually watch it die and be covered in this white stuff. Ugh. Eventually we will be bracing ourselves for another long, cold winter, filled with tank heaters, horse blankets and high heating costs....
But, before winter hits, we do have one of the prettiest times of year, I do love fall for its colors. I have a hard time enjoying fall because of what comes after it, but I love the changing leaves, and especially the smell of fall. And, I am a big fan of Halloween! I have a lot of fond Halloween memories....one in par
ticular involved a friend of mine and I, being asked to "spook" a neighbor's daughter who was having a Halloween sleepover in their old barn. So, at midnight, with us dressed up in ghoulish costumes, we mounted our horses and set off across the fields in the dark to try to scare the wits out of these girls who were telling ghost stories in this old barn. It worked! Now, nearly every year, Halloween is limited to taking my son trick-or-treating...but I've learned to make more fun out of it, both for me and for all the neighborhood kids who see us, and I take Magic, our little black miniature horse. The first year he pulled his cart. He wore a cape and devil horns for the occasion....and did the following year as well. Last year, we went all out, and he wore his little saddle, and carried The Headless Horseman. It was AWESOME! So much so, that we're doing it again this year. It needs some modifications, some of the frame for the horseman came apart under the movement of the horse, so we'll beef it up this year. This headless horseman was complete, carrying a lit up pumpkin! We even used one of my son's little squishy balls where the neck was, that flashed red....it was perfect! I have photos...I'll share here. So, watch out for Magic as "Gunpowder," the Headless Horseman's horse, again for Halloween this year! It will keep me sane the next couple of months.....but after Halloween, I will be sulking until April! =)
ticular involved a friend of mine and I, being asked to "spook" a neighbor's daughter who was having a Halloween sleepover in their old barn. So, at midnight, with us dressed up in ghoulish costumes, we mounted our horses and set off across the fields in the dark to try to scare the wits out of these girls who were telling ghost stories in this old barn. It worked! Now, nearly every year, Halloween is limited to taking my son trick-or-treating...but I've learned to make more fun out of it, both for me and for all the neighborhood kids who see us, and I take Magic, our little black miniature horse. The first year he pulled his cart. He wore a cape and devil horns for the occasion....and did the following year as well. Last year, we went all out, and he wore his little saddle, and carried The Headless Horseman. It was AWESOME! So much so, that we're doing it again this year. It needs some modifications, some of the frame for the horseman came apart under the movement of the horse, so we'll beef it up this year. This headless horseman was complete, carrying a lit up pumpkin! We even used one of my son's little squishy balls where the neck was, that flashed red....it was perfect! I have photos...I'll share here. So, watch out for Magic as "Gunpowder," the Headless Horseman's horse, again for Halloween this year! It will keep me sane the next couple of months.....but after Halloween, I will be sulking until April! =)
a trees! I bought me a couple of small, fast growing banana trees...and after an acclimation process, they've really taken off! I do have to water them daily, and fertilize them weekly, but it's paying off....my musa basjoos are producing pups (baby banana trees, suckers, if you will). My larger, fuller of the two has four pups (as of today, one just popped up today!), and the other one has one. I'm going to leave them on the mother corm till spring....my plan is, since the mother plants themselves are young yet, to dig them up and bring them inside for this winter... but after this winter, they'll winter outside with some care. I plan to plant them around my deck next year...if separation of the pups goes ok. I have an ensete maurelii out there now, my third banana purchase this year. Ensete maurelii is thicker, beefier than the basjoo, the leaves stay more upright typically, and the leaves are red, with some dark green in there. It's a beautiful tree...mine's quite young yet, so not AS red as it will be, but it's certainly red enough to be pretty, but it's quite small yet. So...I've got a taste for things that aren't supposed to grow here....I have cannas (digging them up and bringing the tubers inside for winter), coleus, persian shield and my bananas for now.....I think I've shared some pics on here...I may have. Anyway.....I'll get a pic of one of the basjoos here to post. The maurelii is pretty small right now, about two feet tall, but it's spitting out new leaves constantly, as you can see in the pic, there's one ready to unroll.
Every year we have a nesting pair of blue herons that spend their summers here. It's quite a treat. Why they choose our pond, I don't know, but I'm thankful, and every year, I watch for their return. Just last weekend, a friend of mine, who had spent the night here so we could catch up on our lives, and I were sitting out on the deck with coffee on Sunday morning and watched them flying around, they flew up to the closest tall tree to us, and one of them perched up there, as if to let us see the beauty of that beautiful large bird. He only stayed a moment, but long enough for us to catch a glimse before he was gone. They are very shy birds. I can only get a photo from inside the house. Whenever I try to get a closer look outside, they fly away. But I have seen a young heron flying about, so I know they have their babies here. Anyway, I snapped a picture of one yesterday, and thought I'd share it here. While I was looking through my photos, I thought I'd put a picture on here of a huge flock of canadian geese that walked purposely through the yard this summer too. I'm glad I happened to look out when I did...I have no idea where they came from or what they were doing, they were walking with a purpose, and I counted, there were 24 of them. Adults, and young ones of various ages. Some obviously not old enough to fly, which is why they were all walking I'm sure. Amazing to see TWENTY FOUR of these birds all walking together, in the same direction, in a line like they were!
Well, Natage is coming back. He is a super sweet, 27 year old Arab gelding. His farm is for sale, and he's going to need to find a place to live. He's owned by a friend of mine, he's a pasture pet only, she doesn't ride, but pampered, and one of the sweetest gentlemen I know. He came here last year, but because of the owner's constrictions, and Natage's eye surgery, it was late, and winter came in like a bear during that time. I tried him with Blue, but it simply didn't work out. I was skeptical, with his age, the fact that he's been alone so long, and having only very recently lost an eye last year before he came here, I was afraid he'd feel too vulnerable being with a younger, bigger horse, in new surroundings, etc, and coming into winter. It was right after his eye removal, and coming into winter, and the timing was bad, but it ended the way I kind of figured it would. 
