The Weekend

Our weekend was extended by a day because DH's work made him take a day of his comp time because there wasn't enough work. Luckily he is back at work today, but it was a very hectic weekend for us. We just had a lot to get done and even with the extra day, not enough time.

Friday DH came home to pick up me and the girls after work then we went to his parents for dinner. We left early enough to go get fence posts enroute and put up a fence around their main vegetable, herb, and flower garden to keep the girls out of it. DH had set a couple rows of leeks for them (he will do most of the care but it enables them to harvest when they want them without having to call us a few days ahead to arrange for a dropoff) and we didn't want the girls running through it while they play in the fenced yard. We got that done then had a nice dinner and headed back out to do some more yard stuff. We pulled some plants out of their front bed that there were too many of and some weeds. Then DH trimmed several bushes and trees for them. We put what we could onto the trailer, but left a load behind. I hope to get the video of the girls playing with the branches up on their blog one of these days.

Saturday we planted the lilac seedlings we brought home from their place. Then DH took the car up to the neighbors and walked home. You see, we needed to lead Queenie and Hopi up to the summer pasture at his place and there was NO WAY I could walk that far twice. I led Queenie, who kindly let me lean on her shoulders to rest my hip some of the time. DH took Hopi, who is much better at being led thanks to my work and the time she went with a short stiff lead rope in her halter. She wasn't easy though. He had to drag her, quite literally, across the road. We were lucky to get a small break in the heavy weekend vacation traffic, but it wasn't big enough to dilly dally and try to teach her anything. So while she put her legs forward to try to stop, he dragged her across the road. After that things settled down and she was able to nibble some clover once she realized her mother was cool with it all. The train tracks were another problem, but it helped that she'd already seen Queenie cross.

So now our little herd of shetland ponies is reunited and they sure are happy about it! Idiot me didn't realize I was supposed to take Hopi's halter off when I released her (she is growing and it can quickly become too tight), so we had to go back up yesterday morning to do it.

We went in to visit a bit with the neighbor, who is enjoying having enough time for his garden and whitewashing now that he doesn't have cows to milk twice a day. We also needed to pay him for the hay we got from him all winter.

Then when we got home, I crashed for a while in exhaustion. Once I recovered a little, it was back to work with laundry and other chores. We dug up some of our own potatoes for the first time for dinner (we didn't have enough left). They were bigger than DH expected but not huge and VERY good. So we have now eaten the first of the harvest of our own garden.

Sunday we started as early as DH could get me out of bed (it was NOT early). It took me a while to get functional. Then he decided it was time to sand and refinish the coffee table, so we took that outside and got it started. While he scrubbed it down, I got out his farrier equipment and got it set up.

Then we fetched Quintas and spent several hours trimming her hooves. She was not particularly cooperative (we think she might have had a bad experience as a foal... it wouldn't be a surprise if she had considering how neglected and undernourished she was when DH got her). It took a long time, but he did a GREAT job on her. She had problems with some of the hoof having broken off, so it was not easy for him to clean up all those rough edges and get a decent result.

After that, I got another rest and he sanded the table. At some point, I made some homemade salad dressing with sour cream, fresh parsley and chives, and salt and pepper to have with dinner (pork tenderloin medallions, readymade potato wedges we seasoned, and salad) and prepared the salad.

While the sanding equipment was out, we got out of one of the panels of the folding wooden screen we retrieved from the trash place a while ago. It must have been a very gorgeous oriental screen once with inlaid stone. But when we got it, some of the stone had come off. So we removed all of it then but it has been standing in the workshop waiting for more attention since. So we got the one panel out and I was able to sand both sides. We need to get something to fill in the holes from the stones before we can paint it and we're still discussing decoration options. But I found an online pattern for a huge horse stencil and we're thinking of spray painting that on. I also have some other smaller stencil patterns in western motives that we could use. They are smaller than we want probably, so I may need to try to copy them up larger (copy machine can't do that, so I would have to do ti manually with the grid method).

I was really beat from everything we did, so I ended up lying outside on a blanket working on the book I am editing for Edith (she wrote it in Englihs, which is not her native language, but it is quite good and a joy to edit). DH worked on repairing the stucco on the house while I did that. I have pics of the house before and will have to take some after pictures to show what we've been up to with it. It has taken a LOT of hours already and many more to go before it looks decent again.

Then we had dinner. While he was taking the potatoes out of the oven, DH's back suddenly went really bad, probably caused by having fought with Quintas in the morning. So he spent the rest of the evening in misery trying to relax. I did manage to fold some laundry, but other than that, we were donebeing productive.

Monday he had fun getting me out of bed again becase I was hurting really bad. I also had to take more pain killers than usual. But then we started running lots of errands. We got the halter off Hopi, went to the pet store for dog food, two grocery stores, and several other places. By the time we got home, both my brain and my body had shut down from the pain. So I spent most of the rest of the day resting. DH went to a local blacksmith to get a hoof jack made similar to the one he borrowed from a friend.

In the evening, we worked together to pull and trim rhubarb for his mother. He packed his lunch and played with the girls (while I continued to rest) then we went to bed.

Today he brought me a pain killer at 5am before he left for work. Then I stayed in bed 5 more hours until a friend dropped by to see how I was and got me out of bed. I was on my way up anyway. So I talked to her for a while then got the girls out and got myself dressed.

I have two main projects today beyond recovering: bathing Shawnee (she smells like a dog, which isn't normal for our girls) and doing the dishes. I already got a zinc tub out and filled it part way with water in the sun for bathing her. I want the water to warm up. I also put the hose where the sun will be on it so at least some of my rinse water is warm. And the towels are out on the picnic table to warm up too. I need to do that soon but it has been a little cloudy and the water is not as warm as I hoped yet, but the chill is off it. I also did some rinsing and sorting of the dishes, so they won't be too bad to wash.

Now I am going to rest soem more before I get to work. Hope everyone else is ahving a good week.

What a Week, Part Two

For Wednesday, we had planned a trip into the forest. They walked and I rode Ria. We had packed lunches , so we could stop and have a picnic.

DH got Ria out of the pasture for me and I groomed her. Then he saddled her up.



Before we headed out on our trip, Edith and Antje wanted to try riding. Because DH was busy with his concrete, I led them a little bit back and forth in the lawn. Then I got on myself and we headed out.

Despite the pressures of keeping up with the horse, I think they really enjoyed themselves. We talked and laughed and enjoyed the scenery.



When we got to the picnic tables for lunch, I had a lot of trouble keeping Ria from eating everything at the table. Everything included my ham and cheese sandwich. Apparently she forgot she's a vegetarian. I ended up eating my sandwich while holding onto her a good bit away from the table.

Then she kindly posed for pictures with the Fluff Club. Yes, that is Fluffy on her head.

I used a picnic table as a mounting block and we headed on home. Ria started getting a little bit frustrated about being held back and did some silly dances, while others took pictures of the scenery and the fluffs.



Once we got onto a path where I was sure they couldn't get lost, we decided to part ways so that Ria wouldn't have to wait anymore. Right as we were about to split off, we saw a huge herd of deer in one meadow. I'm not sure that I've ever seen that many together in this country before. The Germans managed to get several pictures before they ran. Ria and I headed home.

Shortly after we crossed the railroad tracks, Ria went totally berserk. She was backing up and threatening to go up her back legs. I couldn't see anything but I'm sure she must have. She was eager to get home and we were it within sight of the house but she would not go forward. I quickly got my cell phone out of my pocket and try to call DH. No answer. I yelled loudly hoping he was outside. No response. Without other options, I dismounted. It occurred to me that Ria probably had seen a snake. We have a species of poison snake here and the horses have encountered at least one in the pasture before. I looked carefully and cautiously led her through the problem area. It went fine. But I couldn't get back up so had to lead her the last 10 m home.

DH was outside but he hadn't heard us yell. He helped me get her tack off. Because of the heat of the day and the exercise, she was very sweaty. I had to take the hose and give her a shower.

By the time I was done and she was back in her pasture, I was aching and exhausted. She had, of course, immediately rolled in the dirt as soon as I let her in the pasture.

Because we planned to go out to eat that evening, I knew I had rest so I did. Then DH and I both showered and got ready to go.

We planned to go to a Chinese place a friend recommended, but when we got there we found they had nothing vegetarian on the menu and very limited fish options! We headed abck to the cars to go to a pizza and pasta place, but ended up going to Empire, the American diner-like place that DH and I often choose for nights out. The vegetarians were very happy because they had really good veggie burgers. The rest of us had steaks, which were not up to Empire's usual quality.

After dinner, we came home and DH made Irish coffee. This is coffee with whiskey and whipped cream for anyone who doesn't know. He even insisted on putting whiskey in my tea! It was a very pleasant evening.

What a Week, Part One

Last week was a very busy and hectic week. Between the quantity of material to report and my health state, it is probably going to take me several entries to cover everything.

Edith and friends arrived Monday afternoon. Edith was my original boss when I worked for a company in Germany. She wasn't exactly my boss because I had my own company and worked as a contractor, but she was the closest I had. We ended up really close friends. The other two of our guests were former coworkers. Only one of them still work for the company where we all met.

They rented rooms with the neighbor across the road who has cows. I had baked bread Monday, so they got bread with them for their breakfasts. DH also had a loaf. Monday night I made American pancakes for breakfast. We spent the evening talking and catching up.

The weather forecast for Tuesday was not as promising, although it did end up quite nice. They headed for the aquarium and some museums. DH worked on pouring concrete outside. I spent the day making Bexican style burritos a little at a time. With two vegetarians coming for dinner, I needed to make both a vegetarian and a meat variant. I say, I spent the day doing it, because I did things a little bit at a time. Otherwise I would have been entirely destroyed before they got here for dinner .

DH also got the message that our car was finished on Tuesday. In case I didn't mention the problem earlier, he had gone in the week before for inspection, expecting the brakes to need to be changed. The mechanic crawled under the car to work on the brakes and put his hand through a metal panel that was rusted through. So we had to face the expensive prospect of replacing lots of that stuff. But fortunately the mechanic is letting us pay in installments and this past Tuesday we got it back, newly inspected.

The burritos went over very well. We shared a couple of bottles of red wine with dinner. Then we headed to the beach. Because I couldn't walk very much, DH drove me and the girls down the gravel road towards the beach. That way, I only had to walk a short way. We were a bit too early for sunset, but the clouds weren't really right for a nice sunset anyway.

We enjoyed ourselves in any case.

Today

There isn't anything very exciting going on today. The sun is shining. The weather actually looks really nice out. I wish I could ride, but it's too dangerous when it's windy like it is today---at least for when DH is not home. The girls are out in their fence right now to enjoy the sun. I also opened the windows in the bedroom to air out.

My friend from down the road came by for tea today. It was a nice visit. She is in between jobs at the moment, but at least can keep busy with her mother who just got moved into a different retirement home.

My hands are aching a lot. I have used them too much lately, probably mostly with trying to type in Danish. Dragon NaturallySpeaking can only do English of my languages. But at least I will be getting to keep it. I got the official final paperwork from the government today. They are definitely paying for it and letting me keep it.

The only news other than that is that I'm making pancakes for dinner and I'm working on doing the dishes.

Two old friends from work are hopefully coming to visit at the end of April. I am getting excited and impatient to see them already.