Horse time

This is Indee, she is this gorgeous painted horse that I met a few months ago and have been lucky enough to ride most weeks. The first time I saw her I was immediately drawn to her and there was something about her that I loved. This isn't a great picture of her here, with her ears back but she is very sweet and gentle and willing to please. The trick is for me, a new rider (I used to ride as a kid) and her being a bit green (this means she hasn't got alot of experience or training in having a rider and the signals that tell her what I want her to do) is to get our signals right and both of us knowing what to do with the information I'm sending her with my legs and hands. I tend to give crossed signals since they are different than the signals that I was taught as a kids when I rode english.
Indee is a trail horse and is happiest on the trail and carrying her big western saddle. I tried riding her tonight with a much smaller english saddle. The western saddle is great for trail riding and very comfy and helps with balancing but when it comes to riding in a ring and using your legs to give signals and doing a rising trot the western saddle gives alot of blisters! Indee and I had our best ride tonight with me giving the right signals and her understanding me better and willing to go along with my directions.

Indee is actually for sale and I am in love with her but don't really know that much about keeping a horse and certainly can't afford the cost and the upkeep but everytime I ride Indee I can't help but dream and wish. If we had more land, a bigger barn, steady income... the list goes on. I even told Tim I would sell my motorcycle in a second if I could own Indee. I have wanted a horse since I was a very little girl and was always horse crazy and read every horse fiction book I could get my hands on.

Indee will be at the stables where Leah and I ride for the rest of June and then she is heading back home since she didn't sell. I keep thinking that maybe I could make a deal with the owner to pay for her board for a year and then get to ride her whenever I want, so at least it would feel like I own her.

I love my cat Baxter and have a strong attachment to him, but our dog Belle I never connected with the same way. I had a dog from a puppy when I was 13 and I had an incredibly strong connection with him and was devastated when he passed at 16 yrs old. Now I seem to have made this connection with a horse from the moment I saw her and she seems to feel the same. She comes to me when I call her and when Leah tried riding her she couldn't get her to follow her directions and Indee wouldn't do anything but try to follow me into the stables. I've even had dreams about her. It's a bit ridiculous I know, I feel all the same obsession I had when I was a child and just wanted to be with the horses all the time.

At least I have a few more rides to enjoy with Indee and maybe in the future I'll find a way to actually own her. You never know and if it is meant to be everything will fall into place.

Mother's Day

Here it is Mother's Day tomorrow and I'm working, as usual. Good thing I love being out in the shop visiting with all the people that wander in!

I was a good girl and invited my mom for dinner and she is contemplating coming but hates the drive. It's only 45 mins of country driving but she always seems to stress about the distance. It's not that far! It's not like there is a highway or too much traffic. It's really pretty and you get to look at all the trees, cows, sheep and occasional horse as you drive, not to mention the good music you can listen to on the radio. I like driving, especially alone, as in no children chattering in the back seat. I play the music I like, flip through the stations as I want, sing at the top of my lungs if I feel like it, even occasionally do some seated dance moves and drumming on the steering wheel.
It's funny when I lived in the downtown core of Toronto she seemed to stress less about that drive from Belleville. Of course when she came to Toronto she always stayed a few days and we would usually run around the city on the subway and visit our favourite spots for lunch and a bit of shopping.

It's all about your mind set, if you keep stressing over something you dislike but still have to do, you will end up really stressed and hating it even more. My mom always says to me "Don't you just hate putting out all that stuff (as in our garden items for the Galloping Goat) everyday and bringing it back in every night?" I don't really think about it actually is what I usually say, if I did I would make myself nuts! In actual fact, yes I find it a pain in the butt dragging all the stuff in and out of the barn everyday! But I sure as heck don't want to hash it over and whine about it when I still need to do it. I intentionally don't think about it, I stay in the house until the last possible minute doing the usual morning stuff and then dash out to start the process. So far after all this time I've managed to do pretty good with doing this annoying chore and not thinking about it before hand. I guess it helps playing around with setting it up a bit differently just to distract myself mostly!

The tricky part happens when it rains,like it did today, what a downpour! Luckily I left it all out and then the rain went away and the wind picked up and dried out all of the flags and tags just in time to put it all away again!

Happy Mother's Day tomorrow to all the Mom's out there and hope you all get flowers and breakfast in bed!

Hording Cat

Continuing with the theme of a very odd little cat, our dear Smudge, this is a shot of some of the things that Smudge has absconded with from various parts of the house and left the kids wondering what happened to that thing!

Since Smudge is deaf he doesn't realize the racket he makes when he starts whacking these objects around. It always seems to happen around 5 am or so and it's always me chasing him through the house trying to grab the item he is knocking around and banging off of everything so we can go back to sleep. I swear since Smudge has come into our home I haven't managed to get a full night sleep more than 1 or 2 nights in a row! It's like when the kids were babies again!

All these items somehow seem to migrate together and end up under our kitchen stove which is gas, I might mention, so the sight of a lighter wedged under it bothers me a fair amount!

Smudge loves those small rubber bouncing balls the best and loves to rip around after them and leap in the air when you bounce them. I had no idea we even owned that many! Along with half of an easter egg and a gold foil chocolate, a t-lite a tiny toy penguin and the most odd a small plastic grey cat that looks an awful lot like Smudge, weird! Lip gloss tube, a door jam, a few clickits, a piece of quartz stone, a medival shield from playmobil soldiers, a pistashio, half of a plastic holder from a kinder surprise egg and 9 rubber balls. After picking up all of this stuff I gave a ball back to Smudge, 10 mins later it's missing so Tim give him another and as I write this it's gone under the stove!! I can't reach it without a coat hanger so Smudge is now lying by my feet starring at the stove hoping it will spit his ball back out. I think I'll leave it until morning so I can go to bed without interuption of my sleep. Who am I kidding, he will just find something else to knock around and make lots of noise with! Arrgh!

Smudge, aka Hockey Cat on Ice!

Smudge is definitely the oddest cat I've ever lived with and there have been a few over the years. We had the perfect conditions on the river for skating and a bit of hockey. It had rained buckets and then flash froze on top of the already thick ice on the river so no snow removal and no flooding, just perfect skating ice as far as you could see.

So we run out there one evening before dinner and start hitting the tennis ball around and skating back and forth and the dog comes out but won't go near the ice since it is super slippery. Our older cat Baxter checks us out from the shore and then wanders off. Not Smudge, he is out on the ice and following us around and then starts chasing across the ice everytime someone shoots the ball! It's a good thing he has claws because he went skidding a few times but managed to recover fairly quickly. It must have been so crazy cold on his paws! His tail was puffed up to twice it's size so I imagine he was pretty chilly but he would not leave the ice until we did. Crazy cat!

Awesome New Technology

So it all started when the dryer didn't turn off and it ended up running all evening and all night until I happened to wander downstairs the next morning and heard it going. I seriously can't imagine what that is going to cost me in electricity! The clothes were boiling hot and I feel pretty lucky it didn't start a fire.

After that we started setting timers so it would remind us to go down and turn it off when we used it but we also noticed that the heat on the one session wasn't really hot. It was taking close to 2 hours to dry things. We bought a drying rack which then only took 1 day or 2 to dry everything. We also started checking out dryers and costs and going online to see which dryers had more problems than others. I noticed that of course if you bought the washer with the dryer you could save a bit more money.

The washer we were currently using was an old coin operated, top loading machine. You actually didn't need any quarters but you did have to slide the coin slot in to turn the machine on. There were only 2 settings, warm or cold wash, both were basically cold. There was no spin cycle or rinse cycle, just on or off if the lid was up. In doing my research I found out that this ancient machine was using approx. 40 gallons of water per load! We are on a well and we have water shortages in the dry months, August to November. When I checked out water usage on front loading machines and they only use 12 gallons I started working on Tim that we needed to replace both machines. He balked at the cash outlay for both machines but while I was working on him the washing machine started acting up and wouldn't turn on. I swear I didn't do anything to it! I think I must have hurt it's feelings when I was talking about sending it the way of the scrap heap.

When Tim started to agree with me about getting the new machines, that was it for the washing machine, it refused to start. Laundry began to pile up rapidly while I frantically did more research into which machines people had found to be disasters and which were fabulous. Then of course there was the price checking all over town for the best deal.

I ended up at Future Shop and picked up the brand LG and got the stacking set with free delivery, which of course wouldn't deliver for another week! There was laundry everywhere in our house. The kids were not happy since they actually were stuck wearing all those clothes that had been previously buried at the bottom of their drawers that weren't quite cool enough to be seen in.

Finally the machines showed up all shiny and new, which is a first for me, I've never bought brand new machines before! Tim and I managed to stack them after Tim hooked everything up and then spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get a normal cycle out of the machines according to the manual. They really make these things very complicated, seriously how many people out there actually use more than 2 different cycles when they do their wash?

The machines have digital displays and pretty sounding bells and chimes for when they are finished. They so far haven't shaken themselves across the floor or anything. The clothes have turned out nice and clean and we leave the door of the washer open when not in use so it doesn't get smelly. The dryer has truly amazed us though, it actually drys clothes completely in 41 minutes!! It might have something to do with the washing machines ability to spin the clothes almost completely dry but still 41 minutes! Wahoo! I should have bought these machines 2 yrs ago when we moved in and saved us a bundle in water and energy! Tim and I, as of now, are still trying to race each other to get to the machines first to put the laundry in because of the novelty of the machines. I'm letting him win mostly since I know it won't last but it's fun for now making him think he is winning. Hee hee

Children and Their Funny Food Issues

My daughter, Leah is now 11 yrs old and is getting really fussy with eating meat. Of course giving it up means headaches for me and trying to get protein in other ways. There is no way she will eat tufu and she can't stand beans or legumes so other than cheese and dairy not alot of choices. She will eat fish happily but finding good fresh fish is a bit of a challenge not to mention the cost of it. I personally love fish and seafood but we just can't afford to have it more than once a week and the frozen stuff is just kind of lousy!

Leah loves sushi along with Tim and I, Quinn of course hates it! It's always the restaurant of choice with Quinn complaining the whole time. He usually manages to eat plain rice and miso soup and occasionally they'll have those deep fried chicken wings so he does survive.

Food is always such an issue in our house and a fight most times. Quinn will spend hours, yes, seriously hours! at the dinner table nibbling like a mouse only slower! At least a mouse has enough sense to eat quickly before getting stomped on! Unless the meal is completely highly processed and of the fast food variety with no veggies or fruit in sight, Quinn will fight us to the bitter end to avoid eating anything healthy. This pic at the sushi restaurant just so completely sums up Quinn at all dinner tables. Fists up ready to fight it out with us and a mask on so a fork couldn't possibly enter his mouth with the poison that I feed my family. What a monkey!

Leah on the other hand eats more like a 30 yr old with lots of veggies, though there are few fruits she will eat. She hates processed foods, exactly the opposite of Quinn of course. She actually hates all donuts and even the timbits at Tim Hortons, seriously, isn't that nuts?

My kids don't even like bananas, they actually agree on that amazingly. What kid doesn't like bananas?? Peanut and butter and banana sandwiches rock! Oh how I miss loaves of soft white bread with that delicious crispy outside crust. The smell just about brings me to my knees. Being gluten-free is tough. I love going into bakeries and just standing there and breathing in that glorious smell! Luckily I'm not celiac so on occasion I do indulge and not always, but sometimes I pay for it later with all those nasty reactions that remind me to stay away!

Can't you just smell that bread when you close your eyes! Can you tell it's lunch time while I'm writing this?!!

Winter Projects

Isn't it funny how after christmas is done all that sparkly, snowy wonderland becomes annoying and a big cold pain in the butt!!! It's snowing, again, the driveway is filling with snow, again. I need to haul wood from the barn to the house, again! I need to drag the 1969 snowblower out of the barn and spend an hour blowing out the driveway, again!

Tim had surgery a week ago on his leg and is now hobbling around only slightly better than he was 3 days ago. The doctor wasn't kidding that he would need 2 weeks off! So that means I get to shovel, snowblow, haul wood, drag the garbage and manage the lighting of the woodstove all by myself. This is fine when he is away, I can handle all of this without any great issue but it's the overseeing of my darling husband while doing these chores I could do without! He has been a wee bit cranky from the pain and bored so being under this much scrutiny is a bit trying at times.

I have been cutting and laying ceramic tiles around our woodstove in the livingroom. I left a border of 6" around the 13" tiles to play with mosiacing that area. I've been collecting up bits of floor tiles at our Habitat for Humanity store in Belleville (The Restore) for months. I spent a day in my studio smashing them all to small bits so I could puzzle piece them back together in a random way for my fancy border. I spent 2 days messing around and coming up with a look I liked and then started gluing down the bits. After 2 full days I only had a small section done, about 3 feet, Tim didn't like it. Thought the pattern wasn't very good and the spaces too large and ... blah, blah, blah. Then he told me I needed to leave more space between the wood floor edge and the tiles. So I said nothing just picked up a hammer and scrapper and removed the 3 feet of glued down mosiacs. I was not too happy. I had asked how much space to leave ages ago and he had said a 1/4" but now he thinks he'll need 1", grr.
So my livingroom is a mess, of containers of broken tiles for mosaics and drop clothes under them and buckets of glue. Now the fun has been taken out of the project and I don't want to do it... sigh. I think I'll just wait until he is now longer living on the couch in the livingroom recooperating. That way I can play in peace without all the "help" and "suggestions" I wish it was not so cold out so I could go for a walk and revel in the tranquility of the great outdoors. It's even a bit too cold for this Canadian girl. I mean when you are already wearing your longjohns under your jeans and then ski pants over that and your thighs and butt are still going numb it means you need to stay near the woodstove! I hope that groundhog has good news in a week and a half!

Yule - The Darkest Night

Since Mother Winter decided to show off on Sunday with another huge dumping of snow and lots of wind our Winter Solstice gathering was postponed until Monday, which was yesterday.

Thanks to Valery and Charlene with the planning and writing that was needed for the ritual it went really well and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We cast our circle with candles and poured the melted wax into a bowl of water to see the shapes that would appear to give us insight into the coming year.
There was a mediation, with a minor incident of my cat Smudge lighting his tail on fire with a candle! Luckily the cat didn't even feel it and the candle was blown out for safety. His tail has a section of fur that is a bit shorter now. The smell of burned fur is definitely less than pleasant!

We sang some traditional caroles with words that are more appropriate to the honouring of the Goddess and the returning of the light at this time. It was a good laugh trying to remember the new words without falling into the habit of singing the christian version.

We had an exchange of crystals as gifts and as always we all seemed to receive what we needed most. We even did a craft! We wrote a message to ourselves on a square of paper that will not be opened until Imbolc (Feb 1st) and then folded it into an orgami star for safe keeping.

Then of course there was the feasting after of all the yummy things everyone brought. A fun afternoon with a wonderful group and everyone left with a warm and connected feeling to each other and to our mother earth.
Bright Blessings to all at this Yule time. May the darkness nurture you in it's comforting embrace and may you find it energizes you with it's quiet stillness in readiness for the coming of spring.