Starlight Lane Farm

I expect this will be the last blog update for some time, and I'm going to make it count!  Starlight Lane Farm has doubled in size.  This spring, Dave and I made a last-minute decision to purchase an additional three lots. Real estate in our area has been absolutely INSANE since the pandemic. This area has never seen a boom quite like this. It's alarming and exciting and I will be interested to see how things pan out in the coming years. We certainly do not have the infrastructure to support a population boom, but I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get better internet at a minimum because these city people hate the lack of connection and love to raise hell about it... I digress.  At any rate, the decision to purchase these lots changed a lot of things for the horses and myself. The biggest of which is that they no longer need to be dry lotted the majority of the time with carefully scheduled pasture rotations. Now, they get to return to a lifestyle of 24/7 turnout. They've got around 6½ acres of pasture to enjoy whenever they want now, and I have a one acre pasture now dedicated as riding space.  Prepping the land and getting the fence built in for the new property went smoother than the first go around due to my simply knowing more, but the process was every bit as delayed and hiccupy as it was in 2019. Big plus of this go-round is that I did learn to independently operate quite a bit of equipment! Three different tractors, a mower, a brush hog, and a hydraulic post driver. I could have learned a skid steer + auger but opted out of that one because I'd had enough by that point! Due to our closing date getting pushed 4-5 weeks later than we originally planned, my car accident, and Dave's ER visit, the majority of fence building ended up happening the weekend of July 4 and the following week.  I could wax and wane poetically about the whole thing, but I think I'll opt to use photos to tell the story - per my usual. Brush hogging the new acreage. This was the most stress relieving day. The tractor was waiting on me when I got back from the hospital with Dave. I pretty much came home, changed clothes, and went straight out to hog. It was everything I needed and more after such a stressful 3 days. It was an incredibly hot day. I had all the sun protection on, plus my cooling towel that helped me survive the OD 100.  After a few hours, Dave came out with a pitcher of ice water for me and told me he'd take a turn while I cooled off and hydrated. He helped me get the single shrub out of the pasture. Bye bye autumn olive! After removing the autumn olive, I got back on the tractor for another hour. Dave came out to relieve me once more and finished the job while I took a quick shower and then sat on the porch sipping a beverage watching while he finished. It was SO RELAXING. And so well deserved after the number of days that preceded it.  The ponies even came over to keep me company while I sipped on my drink and watched Dave finish prepping the new pasture. Pretty much everything you see in the distance is their new pasture. The house (barely visible in top left) is along one property line and the pasture otherwise follows the tree line.  Ta da! All mowed and prepped and ready for line posts to be installed. (You can see the corner posts and braces already installed if you look closely.) Tractor sitting and beer sipping after a long day. I can't wait to have my own tractor one day.  Originally, the plan was to drive the posts with a hydraulic post driver on the back of a tractor.  Kate came over and we tried our best to get after it. But the driver was sticking and so persnickety. We couldn't get it to drive a post more than about 8 inches. I know without a doubt there were no rocks bigger than a baseball so it wasn't an issue with the ground. (The topsoil up here is disgustingly beautiful. Hot damn.) Well. Then Kate and I noticed this. Uh. Yeah. There's the problem! And there's no way what we did (the very little we did) caused this. SIGH. And so the decision was made that I would hand dig holes. Not ideal, but possible. There were only 24 line posts to install, so it wasn't too terrifying a prospect.  I ended up digging six by myself this evening and then my back and body demanded a break. Austen, Mark, and Jenny were due to arrive the next day for the weekend and it was decided that we'd tackle it as a team. If I could dig six 22" deep holes on my own in 2 hours, we could probably make great progress as a small team.   The first step to digging posts is to enjoy a proper dog pile. My brother demonstrates. The second step is to have your brother help your farmer friend butcher some animals and then coax him into bringing his auger and skid steer back up to my mountain top to auger line posts and expedite the day's process. (But not with that auger. That's for trees. We'd use a smaller one.) Will ready to check the hole depth on the first hole of the day. And so, with our small army of dogs and people, we set out to get the posts in the ground. We even took my 6 back out (ugh, that was a little painful to watch my hard work be exchanged for machinery lol) and redid them with the auger.  I walked the perimeter of the pasture with the skid steer following, marked where I wanted the holes to be for each post, and then moved on. The team of dogs and people came behind and plumbed each post, refilled the hole, and tamped it.  So many humans for this job. It was a riot. We had fillers and tampers and plumb-keepers and beer holders.  Dave offering white claw as Austen keeps the post plumb while others tamp. In all, there ended up being 13 people and 10 dogs on site. We had a crew of 7 doing the posts and a crew of 6 spectating and heckling. It truly takes a village sometimes! I am so beyond grateful for this community.  Looking out to the far corner of the pasture.  Where we all ended up standing around after tamping the final post! Also worth noting how bundled up most folks are. On the 4th of July weekend it was quite chilly here. We had nights in the 40s and days in the upper 60s, low 70s. It was everything a Canaan Valley summer day should be and I loved it. Once the weekend was over and guests had returned home, I spent several very early mornings (pre-sunrise and a little bit after sunrise) and evenings around sunset/dusk running lines for the fence. (This is sunrise.) Fortunately, one fenceline (of three) is pre-existing and just needed a line of hot wire run across the top to discourage the horses (and my neighbors) from doing silly things.  It was a beautiful way to start and end my days. (This is sunset.) Once I opened the pasture up (of which I did take video but my horses are very unexciting about things like this and merely walked in, cantered four or five strides, then dropped their heads and got to grazing), I closed off the pasture closest to the house to become a permanent riding area. It's hard to see in this image, but I measured out a small dressage court and marked it.  I eventually plan to setup my jump standards out here, but first opted to set trot and canter poles. Best to build back slowly to our jumping habits! I also left a sizeable bridle path around the pasture for riding. I'm really pleased with this decision. Additionally, you can see along this line how crappy the vegetation is. It was really thick golden rod through here and will take some time and seeding to bring it back as grass. With a little patience and work though, it'll be looking great in no time! Another rising sun over the new pasture as seen from my upstairs loft window. Where the previous fenceline appears to be is now absent of wire so the horses can pass through as they choose. The posts remain so that I can opt to temp fence/tape it off if need in future and because they'd be more work than I care to exert to remove. A mowed dressage court ripe and ready for riding! And one more shot of the mowed dressage court at sunset last week.  When I purchased my two lots and built the barn in 2019, having this additional acreage wasn't on my radar. In fact, I never foresaw it even being an option. I'm honestly still a bit shocked by how everything has worked out. This mountain top is my personal paradise. The horses are so happy, I'm so happy, and my hermit of a husband is so happy to be able to keep people and homes from blocking the views he loves so much. It seems like quite the fortunate stroke of serendipity to be where we are. My gratitude for this farm knows no bounds - and likely never will. I send my thanks to the Universe multiple times a day for this piece of paradise. As I mentioned at the start of my June Highlights reel, I'm going to (likely) be taking a break from this blog. Temporarily, permanently, I don't know. Once again, if you'd like to follow along a little more real-time with my adventures, please follow me on Instagram @estout18... [Read more]

Despite my hopes and best efforts, keeping the blog up to date with current happenings has proven very difficult this summer. I have omitted several sections from this post because they just seem silly in light of so much that has been going on; additionally, I simply don't have the time, bandwidth, or interest to sort through my copious photos to choose ones to include for this month.  I have one more huge update about the farm to share in a future post, but beyond that, I will likely be absent from this space in the future. I am not committing to "ending" the blog at this point, but with so much going on of late (and my dedication to not over-commit myself anymore, thus allowing myself space and time to relax), I do not anticipate that I will update much in the future. If you enjoy my adventures and scenery, I encourage you to follow along with my Instagram @estout18 for more "regular" updates. Cheers, y'all. A Total Loss As alluded to in my introductory text for my [very] late May highlights reel, life at the end of May was a bit turbulent for me. It took 32 years, but I finally hit a deer with a vehicle. And not only did I hit a deer, but I destroyed said deer. It jumped off a bank into the road directly in front of my car in a section of road we don't often see them (there are much more popular crossing points on either side of where the accident occurred). I had no time to react at all. I was going 50-55 mph. The road is posted at 55. One second I was driving, and in the next I slammed into the deer's broadside. With an explosion of simultaneous sound, I struck the doe and all of my airbags deployed. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and flung myself out of the vehicle to stumble to the side of the road where I sat in a tripod position trying to come to grips with the sudden onset of events. Ultimately, I would drive my vehicle home (3 miles away) and go into shock for 90 minutes. It was a bad night.  Fortunately for me, Subaru makes a very safe vehicle. Unfortunately for me, in making vehicles safe, they also make them more expendable. Hitting the deer totaled my sweet little car.  I'd just like to pause and take this moment to ask each of you: Did you know there were shin-height air bags? Because I sure didn't. And 95% of the folks who I've talked to since my accident did not know this either. It makes sense and I totally support having them, but I'm just impressed with how few people seem aware that they exist - myself included! Were it not for the shin bags, I would have been completely unscathed from the incident. The steering wheel airbag didn't even touch me. My touching it only occurred as I batted it away from me so I could see the road and pull over. I didn't even register the shin airbag until I'd gotten home. And I didn't register that the airbag had caused trauma to my lower legs until later that evening. And even then, I was only aware of the significant swelling to my right leg. In fact, the swelling was so significant that I wondered if I had broken the leg and was only moving okay on it due to shock and adrenaline. In all my years as a first responder (over a decade) I've never seen a shin swell like mine did that evening without their also being a fracture.  After all was said and done, I was grateful to be okay without a need to go to the hospital. I loathe car shopping, but am fortunate to have close friends who enjoy it. So while I still hated the process, it wasn't as bad as it could have been and by the third weekend of June I brought another new-to-me Subaru home. Same model, three years younger than my last.  I am so happy to put this in the rearview mirror and move forward. It was exceptionally stressful for me, and while I'm grateful to have grown from the experience, I'm ready to enjoy some [hopefully] easier days for awhile. Further Tack Room Upgrades Fed up with the spacing of my saddles (which I chose based on the availability/distance of studs), I decided I needed to come up with a new solution. No matter how burly my dry wall anchors were, they failed. Patching my wall is something I'm capable of, but not a chore I enjoy doing so often. Meh. So all of the saddles came off the wall and were stacked on the couch while I came up with a solution. Yes, that is a plush unicorn head in the window. Yes, I have plans for it. One day... Austen recommended doing some sort of wood wall where the saddles were. This way the boards could be drilled into the studs and then the saddle racks could go anywhere on the boards and have support! I loved it and knew I had lots of scrap wood to make the project happen for pennies on the dollar. In fact, Dave even found some more 100+ year old spruce boards for me to use (the darkest boards) and some really old cedar from a project he did years back. The mismatched scrap wood pairs beautifully with the rest of the barn.  One day I'll get black pipe insulators in place of the blue pool noodles, but for now, this setup works beautifully! I love being able to have my racks spaced more comfortably for the saddles.  It's a small change with big benefits.  Overall I'm really happy with this space and how it has fallen together. I'd like to add a few more minor storage/organization things, but beyond that - I think we're close to "complete" finally. I also adopted a mini fridge from a friend who was getting rid of it. I LOVE having it for my meds and for water and alcohol. Barn beers are an important part of barn chores, after all! Lyme and Meningitis  (If you like odd medical stories, this is for you - keep reading! If not, skip this section.)  During the final 10 days of June, Dave came down with a sickness. Its initial onset presented as strong body aches that would evolve into a fever hours later. The fever and body aches continued for three straight days where Dave could hardly leave the couch. No other symptoms except he occasionally complained of his head hurting. The fever went from over 101°F to somewhere in the low 99°F range by Friday evening and he was able to rally and spend some time with friends. He was now complaining of a headache/migraine, but was otherwise "okay".  Until 4am Sunday when he woke me up in the worst pain of his life.  We immediately headed north to Oakland, Maryland where we went into the ER. They found several incidental findings not related to his pain on an abdominal CT scan, nothing to report from two head/neck CT scans, and elevated liver enzymes in his bloodwork. They delivered toradol, morphine, and Ativan to his system while we were there, but nothing resolved his pain in the slightest. We were discharged with two scripts to fill for musculoskeletal pain "causing the headaches" and headed home.  Once home, we each napped for about 3 hours (we were each operating on less than 3 hours of sleep to this point). Upon waking, I checked on Dave and he was no better. Worse even. His body was on fire. He was barely lucid. I'd been texting with 6 medical professional friends since 5:30am and was aware that this was No Good. Meningitis was looking very likely. So I packed bags for us very quickly and we headed to the nearest higher care facility in Morgantown, two hours north.  My medical knowledge and savvy coupled with my vast network of medical professional friends and family helped us to get through the intake process at the Emergency Department quite quickly. Knowing buzz words to trigger triage of stuff like this is very beneficial. From the time we arrived until we were in a private room in the ED was less than 30 minutes. Through this entire process, Dave could barely talk. He was in so much pain that I became the mouthpiece with the medical team. They ran another gamut of tests and a suite of bloodwork and found that his C-Reactive Protein test was very elevated (in the 200s). From here, the team started taking things much more seriously. They administered a gamut of pain drugs once more, but nothing helped. At 8:30pm, Dave consented to a lumbar puncture and I left the hospital to spend the night with a friend.  By the next morning, Dave was feeling much better - to the great relief of myself, friends, and family. They'd ruled out bacterial meningitis and were confident with a diagnosis of some kind of viral meningitis that wasn't caused by a herpes virus. Lyme was still on the table. As to the drugs responsible for helping him, we still didn't know. They administered 14 the night before in an attempt to get him comfortable. I spent all of Monday at the hospital with Dave hanging out waiting on updates as the medical team received test results. Dave felt great all day and the team felt it was very safe to discharge him that evening (though they were also happy to keep him if he felt he wanted to stay). Right before discharge, some additional bloodwork was returned that noted the presence of IgG and IgM antibodies for Lyme in his blood indicating an active Lyme infection. While the team didn't draw an immediate conclusion that evening (still awaiting further test results), it is entirely possibly that his meningitis was catalyzed by Lyme. And so, they scripted him doxycycline with his discharge.  As of this writing, we are home and Dave is holding stable, but is still a little uncomfortable. We're hanging low and hoping for steady improvement in coming days.  Update: I wrote the above immediately following the incident. Since that time, Dave's western blot test results have been returned and were negative. Thus, doctors told him he did not have Lyme and did not need to take doxy. He spent about 2½ weeks building back up to his normal routine and - other than putting his back out this past weekend - has been great and has returned to life as usual. What a scare though! We're really grateful to have it in the rearview mirror.... [Read more]

I had this post mostly composed and ready to go for the end of May, but then life got very life-y and I needed to sit and process for awhile. I hope to update more about all of the nonsense in my June highlights reel. For now, before more time passes, here are [most of] the high points from May.  Camping To kick off May, I joined my coworkers for what would be the first of many social gatherings sans masks this month. What an utter delight it has been to be around people again! Despite West Virginia's many backwoods ways, our vaccination campaign was well done. As of this month, everyone I know and interact with is fully vaccinated.  I took Q with me on this camping trip - because why not? She's a camping pro and I wanted to bring my pony!  She was absolutely stellar the whole weekend. Totally point-and-shoot on the [lack of] trails nearby, going wherever I asked - even when it was walking upstream in the river for about a quarter mile! (When the banks are too dense with vegetation to pass through, you make due.) Ultimately, the riding wasn't what I'd hoped it would be (my first time to this spot), so Q enjoyed a lot of grazing in camp. Heading to the first dead end of the day lol And then to the next dead end. And then back to camp. Where's Q? Can you find her? How about now? I didn't tie her the whole time. She just meandered and grazed. Such a good mare. You can see the leadline and extender (yellow webbing) here that I tied to her just in case she tried to book it lol The dogs also came and Kenai spent some quality time begging from his favorite chumps. Pity they both know better than to feed him scraps. Taiga was smarter about life and spent her time nomming deer bones that were near the area.  "Oh, I see you have a porkchop over there. I would also like a porkchop. Can I have your porkchop?" - Kenai, probably Q in her fake electric pen post dinner. Favorite Pieces of Spring so Far Spring is my favorite season. The return of the flora and fauna, bright, vibrant colors on the landscape, and turbulent skies make for such stunningly beautiful moments. I'm going to let the photos speak for my love of spring here... A successful morel hunt! My first time finding these delights in my county. This dogwood was STUNNING. Nice view of a bend in the Dry Fork I was stabbed countless times by four species of thorny vegetation to get these - TOTALLY WORTH IT. Red trillium. Spring deliciousness about to become dinner. Ramps and morels! Add some cheese. And then YUM. Kenai's hearing loss means I'm stared at a lot more intensely these days lol A low quality photo of a high quality bird. Scarlet tanager. So the hillside was SO slick due to rain that Grif slid down in a figure 11 for 15-20 foot stretches. He would slide, get a panicked look in his eyes, then stop and find something to snack on while he acted like, "Yeah. Meant to do that. Just like that." Spring ephemeral ride. White trillium. The various vibrant greens of spring are my absolute favorite. Love, love, love I'm not sure if more of these exist, but in an effort to do away with the pro-tobacco barns, this barn is advocating for anti-tobacco and supporting cancer survivors. It is always so pretty paired with spring colors. Makes for an even prettier photo on the years when the farmer has his sheep and lambs in this field. My sweet old man. He is the cutest. The newest flower bed right after planting! And my key for myself lol I was doing barn chores with no plans of riding on this evening. But then I looked up and saw the craziest, colorful light playing across the western horizon and I knew I had to go see it closer. And hot damn am I glad I did. The mist rolling past from latent rainstorms played the sunset light across the sky and landscape in a wholly new way. Just wow.  I will forever love taking photos of this old cabin at sunset. How is this even real life? Pink trillium. Lousewort. Columbine Columbine again From-scratch biscuits and gravy. Pork from my friend's farm.  Stanley Manley! And a Kate and Griffleby! And the Blackwater Canyon. Grif and his tree.  I killt it. 10 miles later and she was too tired to even lie down! Q and I about to head out on a ride with Chris and Ivan. The first outdoor dinner of the year with friends. AND THE MOST PRECIOUS PIGLETS EVER OMG I squealed an unreasonable amount. It scared the pigs. But then they came to investigate me anyway. Barb and Priscilla - the mommas. I loved the piglets so much that I went out the next day with the DSLR to take more photos. I wish they'd been as cooperative with the light as they had the night before, but c'est la vie. These pigs live THE BEST LIFE. They're out on more pasture than my horses are. It's a pretty sweet life. Born here, grow up here, and then will be butchered on site, too. As traveling is the most stressful part for most local farm animals, having the butcher shop setup on site is HUGE.  Can't wait to eat two of them later this summer at my friend's wedding lol They're cute, and I adore them, but I also adore eating them and feel no guilt about it because they live a truly kickass life. This is Ferdinand. He was born on the farm last year. Such a big boy now! And this is the new bull, Buster. Or, more affectionately, Bust-a-Nut. Use your imagination. He is a COMPLETE doll baby. He LOVES attention and scratches. This is Bessie, Ferdi's mom. She's a little more selective about who gives her affection, but she really loves her owner. Female downy woodpecker that hit our window. She needed a few hours to recoop, but was just fine in the end! So glad to be able to help her out. A male hit our house/window/something so hard a month ago that he broke his beak in half. I don't even want to know how much force that took! I was so relieved to have a better outcome from a window strike this go-around. Kate and her momma and I went on a ride together finally! Back porch pre-dinner drinks. Front yard dinner. Tons of various veggies and a perfectly cooked pork tenderloin. And finally, post dinner drinks, fire, and horse grazing. Pure happiness, if you ask me. An early morning rainbow! The sun was barely up when this sucker started lighting up. That second one gave it a go, but didn't become much. Just stunning. Beach Trip I haven't been on a beach trip that wasn't centered around something to do with birds and conservation work in...a really, really long time. I haven't swam in the ocean in... Gracious. Nearly two decades? I surprised myself on this trip by swimming in the ocean and lounging on the beach a fair bit. It helped that the temperatures were never above 75°F! Not ideal beach weather for many, but it suited me just fine! We met up with family and I spent a fair bit of my time documenting my cousins' growing families. I have zero desire for my own kids, but I enjoy others' children quite a bit. I was so happy to be able to document their time together.  Getting the boat put in. Unfortuantely, we were there during the gas shortage nonsense and didn't get to use it as much as we foresaw. Talking about fish already, I presume lol Helter skelter getting ready to head out. Dinner outside with a yummy drink. First time eating out together since a picnic last year sometime.  Talk about beach front....... This is low tide. Vivienne's first time in the ocean. Love this high five. My cousin had just gotten off the phone where he was offered a new job. Emotions were high and we were all so excited. Here he is high-fiving his wife after telling his parents about the good news. These cuties! Brother and cousin with cousin's daughter. She's her daddy's twin. Those big ol' eyes tho! <3 Doing beach things. This was the day that I may or may not have binge drinked as fast as I could following the worst meeting of my 10-year career.... beach loungin' Mommas and babies! Annalise isn't ready to smile on command yet, but her eye contact was spot on!  I guess being this weird skipped my parents generation. Oh well. They're stuck with us. Cedar smoke settling into a bourbon drink. If you see these, buy them. OMG amazing. Proof that I was on a beach! And further proof that Dave and I are total weirdos. This stunning momma. Identical twin boys on their way late summer! *melts* Our First Dressage Lessons! My big goal for this year is to hunker down and focus on dressage with Q and Griffin. I finally have the time and finances to pursue it, and I'm so excited! Some of the logic behind this decision revolves around the fact that none of us are getting younger. Anything we can do to build better strength and mobility with proper, functional movement will greatly benefit us. Recovering from my shoulder injury last year hit this fact home hard for me. I've also thoroughly enjoyed the PT I've pursued, and anything that builds on it is just gravy. Right now, I'm taking lessons with an assistant trainer at a GP trainer's barn in Virginia. Her lessons are more affordable and for the level of instruction I need at my n00b stage, the teaching is absolutely perfect. I've seen the GP give lessons in the past and really liked her teaching style. Her assistant trainer (AT) is quite similar and I absolutely loved the instruction she gave me with each horse. (I was going to create gifs of the lessons, but as we're a month out from them now and I still haven't done that I'm opting to just link the entire lessons below in playlists.) The first lesson was on Griffin. I warmed him up for her and introduced her to him and our background. Between observing our riding and hearing our story, the AT verbalized a VERY accurate picture of where we are and where want to go. Absolutely nailed it.  She had me work Griffin through all three gaits before we spent time at the trot practicing the classic spiraling in and spiraling out exercise. The AT's steady stream of feedback allowed me to get some really wonderful work out of Griffin. After implementing the spiraling in and out exercise at the trot and canter, we then moved onto the "clock" exercise: a 20m circle with 10m circles to the inside at each 12, 3, 6, and 9 if you visualize the 20m circle as a clock. Once again, thanks to AT's constant feedback, I was able to get some truly lovely work out of Grif. I also received what - to me - were a surprising number of compliments on my riding. All in all, the entire 45 minute lesson was very enjoyable and I felt like I had plenty of gas left in my tank to tackle my next lesson with Miss Q. Not surprisingly, Q's lesson was a much more difficult ride. Mares, opinions, blah blah blah. 😉 But, as with Grif, the AT put together a very quick and accurate picture of Q and quickly tailored our time to benefit us the most. (Q even graced AT with several examples of her expert teleporting skill due to a very terrifying ~3-inch sunspot in the arena footing.)  While the exercises Grif and I did will also benefit Q, due to Q's opinions and lack of care for my aids on the day of the lesson, we spent the entire lesson working on controlling her haunches. First we rode a box with halts at the corners and then asked her to move her haunches over before striking off in the next straight line. Q was having NONE OF IT at first. She would not stand still. Fortunately, I now find her strong opinions and resistance absolutely comical and pursued the AT's instruction with quite a bit of good humor. With time, patience, more evasions than you could shake a stick at, and eventually a stick (dressage whip) in hand, we had Q listening (begrudgingly) to my requests. (Oh the mare glares I received! LOL) Once we had Q a bit more onboard with the day's tasks (dressage whips are such beautiful aid enforcers!), we moved from halting in the corners to half halting and then transitions from walking the exercise to trotting it. Q still hated me/AT/life/everything and steadily pursued every possible evasion she could, but the hamsters in her brain really did hunker down and get to work. Her teleportation/spooking absolutely disappeared and she lowered her poll and neck more than she ever has during work. So while she may not have been completely agreeable to the days agenda, she ended up delivering some really wonderful work. It was really cool to get so many glimpses of what she's capable of when I can take her powers and use them for good.  Despite her opinions about having to truly "work", I very much believe Q enjoys this new pursuit. The predictable, stable environment of a dressage arena suits her personality much more than time on trail ever did. The hardest task going forward will lie with me as I do my best to stay ahead of Q's very quick, clever brain. If I can manage to do this, I think I'll have a very flashy little entry-level dressage pony on my hands! And, provided I can achieve this daunting task, I very much think I would enjoy showing Q one day. Until then, we focus on the journey!... [Read more]

Spring Snows & Spring Ephemerals Spring is my favorite time in Appalachia. But she never arrives lightly. Her weather is turbulent and unpredictable. Snow is to be expected. In fact, there is some old Appalachian adage about counting foggy mornings in the fall (between certain dates) to predict number of spring snows (occurring after a certain date). Whereby "spring snow" dictates enough snow to track a chicken in.  This "Fools Snow" on April 1 was the most significant of our spring snows It built up in a hurry on our road And caused near-white out conditions for some time. The wind came from just the right direction to blow steadily and consistently through the door cracks and into the barn. This was actually the worst the snow blew into the barn this entire snow season. The drift above my dry lot and barn reformed in < 24 hours. It was nuts! It also lasted for days and days and days. Aside from the return of our migratory birds and hibernating herps, I love seeing the spring ephemerals come into bloom. Each new species gives me joy. Dutchman's breeches. Squirrel corn Ramps and a mountain stream Spring beauties Trout lily and ramps behind The best lil rampin' pony standing amidst a field of ramps. Note the bags of ramps clipped to the saddle. Stan Turns 20! Oh sweet boy, I can't believe you're two decades old! Your attitude is so good and your health and fitness are admirable. I sincerely hope we have many more years of fun WV adventures ahead of us. "Lady. I don't care what my age is. Give me my damn dinner." -Stan, probably Not taken on his birthday because he was mid-shed and looking motheaten as all hell, but it does show off what great body condition he is! I took this photo a few days ago when Willa and I headed out for a ride. Those dapples are new! I'll be really interested to see if they persist. Farm Chores I needed to pick up one more round of hay to get me through until this year's harvest. So for the first time since bringing the horses home, I set off to my hay guy solo to get it, stack it on the trailer, truss it down tightly (didn't lose my load this time!...Yeah, that was a thing last round...whoops!), bring it home, and stack it. The guy I get it from helped with the loading/tying down, but the rest was just me on my own.  All I can say is OOF. That was a lot. Still, I got 'er done in good time. My only wish is that I didn't [have to] do it the day I received my second COVID-19 vaccine (it was the only time my schedule worked with the weather to get it done). I was racing the clock to get the hay up before my reaction kicked in 10 hours post-shot. But I was really grateful the hay was up and done when my reaction kicked in because it put me down for a solid 40 hours.  Ah, yes. I'm so smart lol A row at a time, I'd toss the bales off the trailer onto the ground. And then I'd bring them in one at a time and stack them.  Once I recovered from my vaccine reaction, I set about re-doing my ghetto-ass weather walls on the barn overhang. The tarps did their job through the winter so well that I knew I wanted to keep walls on the overhang permanently, but I hated the look of tarps and needed something nicer.  Enter porch covers from a job Dave worked late last year that the homeowner wanted him to take to the dump! One of the best parts about being married to a contractor who works in an area of second homes is all the nice stuff people deem "trash" for him to get rid of. True trash heads to the dump with all the other construction debris, but nice stuff usually ends up at our house or friends houses. Still need to resolve the overhang, but I LOVE the light this provides! Serious LOL to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum choosing to stand bums to the wind in a short hail storm while Grif did the smart thing and stood under the overhang eating.  The opposite side before. If your eyes are keen, you'll notice a wee dark splotch below the conduit piping where it comes out of the barn (top right) and runs along the beam to the corner of the overhang (top right). Remember that dark blotch for a few moments... The part-way through of the opposite side. I took the opening between the vertical post and the barn and put more metal sheeting up. Except that I had a little glitch when I went to start the second wall renovation. I honestly would never have noticed this fella if I hadn't needed to do work RIGHT WHERE HE WAS ROOSTING. That's right, for the second time in the years I've lived up here on this mountain I had a federally endangered Virginia big-eared bat (VBEB)(Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus) roosting on my property. It's like they know I've been designated the new national lead biologist for their species and just have to spend time with me. While they're incredibly cute, I really wish they wouldn't. This little one caused me to have to delay my work until it headed off to its next nightly roost. One ear is folded and tucked behind its wing. The other stands erect in all of its glory and demonstrates why this bat got its name! These bats are only known to five states on the east coast. Most of their numbers are in West Virginia. They're an incredibly stressy species, meaning that they're ridiculously sensitive to disturbance and handling. We have regulations in place in our state that these bats cannot be in hand for more than 10 minutes and cannot be held in captivity for more than 30 minutes. They'll become so stressed out that they die. I've seen it happen and it really sucks.  Interestingly enough, the disease that has absolutely obliterated so many North American bat species, White Nose Syndrome (WNS)(Pseudogymnoascus destructans) doesn't affect VBEBs. In fact, since WNS began affecting WV bat populations in 2007-2008, VBEB numbers have steadily increased each subsequent year! This is due in part to more caves being gated and protected from human disturbance, but also because so many other bats died and left habitat available for VBEB to move into. (Just a quick visual for you: when WNS hit my state (and the same is true for many others), our most prolific species, the little brown bat - which is known across the country - population was decimated. Absolutely decimated. Their population died back in our state by 98% (i.e., hundreds of thousands of bats). When biologists entered caves to do annual hibernation counts those first few winters WNS was present, the biologists had to literally climb over piles of dead bats. Absolutely tragic.) And while I'm on my bat soapbox, let me just remind you that bats are incredibly beneficial for us. They eat oodles of bugs every night and save us hundreds of thousands of dollars on pest control - especially farmers - by eating those bugs. Since WNS was brought to the US in 2006 causing massive die outs of bats across the country, pest control costs have increased. Anecdotally, cases of West Nile have also increased (at least in WV) during this time. I don't know if that is correlation or causation of the bat die off, but I find it fascinating nonetheless.  The next chore on my list was to re-do the path down to my barn. My brother did an amazing job with it last year, but he even mentioned then that the best thing to do would be to churn up the earth and replace the rocks so they'd be more stable. I borrowed my friend's tiller again to create a few more flower beds and took a few minutes to churn up the path, too. (Tillers make dirt work SO SIMPLE, omg.) During. After And finally, while not a "farm chore" per se, it directly contributes to horse fun - I scored a sweet high-top cap in great condition for my truck for next to nothing! While I'd one day like to get a bigger trailer, the way life currently stands I won't be getting one any time soon. Knowing and accepting this, I decided I really wanted to get a cap for the truck so that I could build out a bed in it to minimize the amount of gear I take horse camping.  Maryland Last but not least, I made a last-minute whirlwind trip to Maryland to visit Miss Austen this month. It's always so much fun - and such a nice change of pace! - to visit her and play horse over there.  Lyra. How do your bones let you do this? Look! Finally the perfect Taiga and Lyra comparison.  Two wee pocket huskies. So similar! Both good girls. And the husky pack is reunited again.  Bastion ears! These dorks. Exploring. Look at that old red man movin' out so happy. Austen is always working to orient me to the area. With each visit, I learn the trails better. It's so fun! Maryland horse country in the spring is so damn gorgeous. Like seriously though. And my favorite part about Austen's barn is that these pastures stay this amazing no matter the time of year. They do such an amazing job managing this land for the horses. SMILE! Such a gorgeous evening!... [Read more]

The Great Thaw Winter this year in Canaan Valley and the surrounding highlands was one of the best we've had in a decade (maybe more). The weather was cold, remained cold, and the snow that we received slowly built up and up and up. It was amazing to have such a solid base in the woods in areas that hadn't been skied in so long.  But then, it was as if someone flipped that proverbial season switch we all joke and wish we had. On February 28 the rain began, the temperatures warmed, and through the next three weeks, all of the snow melted. In fact, much of March was classic spring weather for these parts. Mild at times, but almost entirely seasonable in a way that never seems to happen. It's been like something out of a storybook with how perfectly slow and deliberate the landscape is waking up and coming back to life. Ah, look. There's ground under all that white! The dry lot thaw is both my favorite and least favorite thing. Favorite because it means easier times are on the way so far as mucking go. Least favorite because all of that "melted" manure is a bitch to clean up while the thaw is ongoing. Neighborhood pond starting to thaw. Still ample snow! And yes, some evenings I grab a beer and meander bareback around the neighborhood. The impressive drift around the barn began to recede.  Almost all melted in the dry lot! Drift was still hanging on though.  But not for long! I believe this is March 18. Slowly shrinking. And only this wee bit was left on March 20. Bye bye, friend. Kenai Turns 11 How did we get here? How?! Where did the time go?! I'm not sure I'm okay with my best fella being 11! Age aside though, Kenai is doing wonderfully. He's peppy, happy, and more vocal than he's ever been for whatever reason. I guess he finally got the memo at 11 that huskies are usually rather talkative. (Neither of mine are.) While Kenai may have some gnarly osteoarthritis in his stifles, it doesn't stop him. He's been the more rambunctious version of himself this month, putting any worries I may have had about his age to rest. He's come on more rides this month than I expected him to, and stuck with me through more of those rides instead of taking one of his many shortcuts back home when he's over it. (Which will never cease to make me chuckle.)  He still struggles with bouts of odd skin issues that result in temporary hair loss in spots around his body, but he isn't digging at himself, licking, or scratching incessantly, so I'm just letting it go. We're due for another round of bloodwork to double-check things, but I'm not too concerned as every vet that has ever run a blood panel on him has remarked how perfect it looks.  All in all, Kenai is doing fantastic for a senior fella with Alopecia X and a history of many CCL surgeries. Cheers to more happy years with my favorite guy.  Older photos from earlier in winter, but I just love him. Kenai and snow magic. Right after he'd had his head/face buried in snow.  I call Kenai's floofy feet his Grinch feet. Double stacked beds in the foreground, Big Barker 7" memory foam bed in background (which the old bastard won't use despite me getting it FOR HIM). He isn't spoiled at all... Giving me lip because he really wanted inside and I wasn't hustling enough to fulfill his desire. Big Spring Chores Around the Farm With the thaw came an onslaught of chores and upgrades around the farm. A lot of work? Yes. But I thoroughly enjoy all of it.  Up first? Evicting the fluffy mops from the tack room. They've got more than enough insulation to keep themselves warm sleeping in the hay. No more tack room for these kitties! They routinely roll and flop about in the shavings in the stall and hay. All of that nonsense sticks to their fluffy coats and is then brought into the tack room. UGH. And so, I toggled the cat door to only let them out if they sneak in while the human door is open; but they will otherwise be unable to enter the tack room. I built them an elevated shelf in the barn aisle for their food so that I don't have to worry about dogs or other critters indulging in it. Arya and Sansa were a bit confused at first, but adjusted to the new setup within about 48 hours.  Once the cats were evicted, the tack room got a deep clean and a few upgrades like a shelf for the TV finally! So fresh. So clean. So temporary lol Such a happy little space. Built the shelf, stained it, put it up, and turned on the TV and DVD player to find that Gilmore Girls S1E1 was queued up. This show is my comfort show. I haven't watched it in years for whatever reason, but it seemed so fitting that it was what was left in the DVD player from when I moved up here four years ago. Next up, I cleaned the trailer thoroughly with a broom and blower to get it ready for adventures. I still have plans to recaulk it (it's almost as old as I am and requires lots of little maintenance like this) and have the tires and such double-checked by a shop. Spic and span! And new shipping boots for the horses waiting for adventures. Still hope to add some more organization things to this little wall. The first labor intensive chore of the spring was getting 2½ tons of stonedust to help level out the area under the overhang where the horses spend most of their time.  All in all, the dry lot has held up  beautifully since the horses moved home in August 2019. They obviously spend a lot of time under the overhang though, as a result that area of stonedust became more compacted than other places. Not a surprise and not a big deal...until you take into account that heavy rain events can result in water sheeting over the saturated dry lot and flowing downhill...into the stalls and barn. Yikes! Fortunately, it was a simple enough half day of work to fix.  Step 1, back this giant ass trailer + truck into my dry lot through my odd catty-corner gate. My feelings on backing said trailer through said difficult area. But really, it wasn't too bad. I'm getting pretty damn good at backing trailers effectively with minimal issue. Time to dump 'er out! The 0.5 zoom contorts the image some, but you still get an idea of how big that trailer was. Say hi to Grif observing from his stall! So. Yeah. Picked up the stone the day before in some of the thickest fucking fog possible (aka moisture) and left it in the trailer overnight to fuss with first thing Saturday morning. Except it went below freezing over night and the moist stonedust adhered itself to the trailer in frozen rebellion against gravity.  So I got to enjoy a bit of extra manual labor as I used my ice scraper to beat the stonedust free. Freaking finally. Now for the hardest part, shoveling and spreading it under the overhang by hand. Phew, there we go. Spread and ready to compact! It wasn't too bad all things considered! And with my revamped body (improved posture and awareness of muscles and how to activate them thanks to PT and a PT-focused workout regime) I didn't even suffer an inkling of a sore back or anything.  Except the compacter was being a wee bitch. So my friend who loaned it to me came to my rescue. Fuel line was fine. Fuel was good. Turned out the spark plug just needed a bit of TLC. BOOM. Bangin' on all cylinders now. Whack-whack-whack. (Dunno about y'all, but in WV this machine is more commonly referred to as "the whacker" than a plate compactor. *cue giggles*) Badabing, badaboom! Beautiful! And done with time to still get in 2 hours of wonderful spring skiing. The last photo of it looking perfect before the horses went back out. As the landscape continued to thaw, the grass started to come back to life. Before it could get too far along, I wanted to drag the pastures to bust up manure that I hadn't mucked last fall. In true Liz fashion for all things horse/barn/farm related, I MacGyver'd a drag out of my old truck tires and retired climbing rope. It took a little less than an hour's time driving the truck around the pasture, but those tires busted up almost all of the manure and left the pastures looking a lot better than I had expected!  Silly, but effective. No more manure piles! The chunked up stuff you see here is just the earth being torn up from hooves when the boys play hard. ...which is every time I turn them out. Still rather impressed with how well those tires drug out the pasture. Like, seriously. I never imagined it would look this good with a MacGyvered tire drag. And the final chore of March was getting the XC jump area tidied up. This entailed weed whacking the spiky vegetation with a ninja blade, moving jumps around, dismantling/repairing other jumps, and finally *drumroll* digging new beds for perennial flowers that will also double as jump fill / ditch fill. Fortunately, I had a borrowed tiller to get most of this accomplished. Unfortunately, a critical belt in the tiller motor tore before I could finish, so I had to dig one bed completely by hand with a mattock and abandon the other two beds I was planning to do.  Two or three passes completed with the tiller here. I would do 2-3 initial passes, remove the roots and vegetation, then do another 4-6 passes to churn up that gorgeous topsoil.  And then I used all the extra treated lumber from fence building to create borders around the new beds. This little Y is very versatile for lots of exercises. The cavaletti can easily be removed and modified where they sit. This is the current setup though: two 18" cavaletti and one ditch.  BN trakehner. And yes, if your eagle eyes spy those screws sticking out don't worry, they're not there now. From this jump to the ditch on the Y complex, it is a perfect four strides.  The pile of posts on the left has since been laid out in an arc of trot poles. The whole complex sorta looks like a bastardized compass from above which was unintentional and kind of cool. The triangle structure in the foreground is the top of the chevron ramp jump I made last year. The legs on it were never done really well so I took them off and just lay the top here until I decide what to do with it.  Griffin isn't really impressed by my work lol! Cavaletti aren't worth putting forth much effort if you ask him. I've had him out there a handful of times since completing the beds though and he really seems to LOVE having a jumping routine again. I lunged him out there last week and dear god... He was really "up" that day and was a ridiculous jump-seeking missile. I hardly "asked" him to do anything; he basically lunged himself and jumped everything that was in line with his trajectory. I laughed and laughed at his enthusiasm. An Uptick in Riding With the thaw has come more riding. A lot more. And even a streak of 6 days in a row, something I hadn't done in what seems like ages.  After a well-deserved, unavoidable vacation for much of January and February, it was nice to get the beasties out moving again. We're building back fitness right now with our sights set on lessons and more fun travels in the near future. An uphill mountain march before the snow melted. First off-property ride of the year! Evening meander with McStaniel. Sharing with friends. This dork...  Thanks for the listening ear, bud. Spring on Flat Ridge: horseback rides to get ramps and fresh caught trout! (Peep my all those fish in my brother's hands on the porch.) We had ramp burgers and fresh fried trout this night. DELICIOUS. Y'all. Look at my lower back. It's so straight (for me). Freaking finally. All of this hard work to reconnect my brain with my body to improve my mobility, strength, and posture is paying off in dividends in all aspects of my life! Yes, this is just one screenshot from this ride, but other than being cherry picked for the point Grif was at in his stride, the majority of the 25 minute ride my posture was like this. I still have a lot of work to do to maintain and build this posture, but DAMN. I'm so psyched. A beautiful evening meander around the neighborhood with Stan to walk the dogs and send photos to my neighbors of their properties greening up.... [Read more]

A Very Snowy Month With the exception of yesterday evening when the 36 hour heavy rain event starting making a dent in the snow, I didn't see any grass or natural groundcover for the month of February. It was just snow, snow, snow, ice, snow, ice, snow, snow, ice, snow, rain.  And frankly, I'm not mad about it. I am a firm believer in finding a way to enjoy snow because you cannot control it. Especially if you're someone who lives in an area that regularly sees snowy winter weather. (TX folks, your recent situation does not apply. Complain away.) But for northerners, snow in winter isn't a surprise. You can't change it. If it's such a hard thing for you to deal with, live elsewhere. Being miserable about snow doesn't remove the snow. You have the same amount of snow + a poor attitude. Very little peeves me more than people who live in a routinely snowy area in the winter bitching constantly about snowy weather. /rant It's hard to tell from the photo, but Dave is climbing up out of the road grade by about 3.5 feet to get to the path we'd take for our skiventure. It was this high in part due to plowing, wind, and the sheer amount of snow we had. Also not easy to tell from photos, but this was not easy skiing. It was deep and the intermittent layers of ice between snow made breaking trail difficult. Still worth smiling over though! Last winter, I'd exit from the basement to go to the barn. This winter the snow and wind blocked the basement door. So I would head out this side door. The bowl of snow around the barn has been so impressive this year. View out the front of the house. Griffin, just clearing the drift to an area where the snow wasn't as deep. Pas de deux at liberty. Geldings being geldings.... Angry about getting "tagged" Going after Griffin... Reciprocating... And reacting. Zoomy Q The boys playing bitey face and Q coming in for a sneak attack on poor Grif. The mare really doesn't understand playtime. She will intermittently stand relaxed and then sprint balls to the wall toward Griffin from across the pasture with her teeth bared.  Prancey little miss My new favorite photo of Qdle being a witch. Coming in hot! Zooming after Griffin. Again. Warding off any biting attempts. Bitey Face. Prancey pants. Angry witch. The cutest almost-11 year old you ever did see! Sunset lighting on Canaan Mountain Barn at night.  Dave built a snowman. He lasted all through February. And wasn't a creep at all during the nighttime hours.... Kenai, Jasper, and Kate on a backcountry ski eve It's pretty sweet that I could ski out my front door to this adventure. Dave Dave. No, his skis aren't broken, it's just telemark bindings. Kate Dushka Dog Kate Sue and DD Lady rippers Kate's dad Moi as captured by Sue. I was the only one on alpine gear (locked heels) this evening. Me again. My car stuck in my driveway as viewed from my garage. We had so much snow in the driveway that we were getting stuck repeatedly this month. The dry lot also had a lot of snow build up. The horses were fine with this setup though. I will not miss snow mucking. The barn on a typical evening. The piles just grew and grew... And sometimes the horses were turned outside with hay piles. Only if the wind wasn't nuts though. Apparently writing people's names in the snow is a thing? I dunno. My middle school pen pal from Sri Lanka and I still keep up and he asked me to do this.  One of the more impressive drifts on our road. I was really impressed with it at least! The hangover was impressive. I'm a dork. What's new? Seriously though!! Beautiful evening light on the last day the barn roof held snow. Griffin doing Griffin things all by himself out in the pasture. I'm now joining Willa et al. on their monthly river dips. I opted to start on the hardest month, naturally. I was proud of myself though! Walked in calmly, then dunked.  And thus the dry lot thaw began... It's gorgeous. But I'm not going to miss the snow path up and down for chores. Turns out (after a whopping one trip down today lol) that it's a LOT easier to walk on solid non-snowy ground. I'm impressed with my body's adaptation to walk in so much snow, but dang. Uncovered solid ground is where it's at. Blister Swamp Ski-Venture This was one of - if not the - coolest things I did this winter. I'm going to let the photos do the talking, but I'll include the caption from my previous social media posts about it here:  This past weekend, a last minute plan resulted in a truly incredible winter adventure in the WV highlands. With the aid of a few snow machines, a small group of very passionate winter-loving friends headed into one of the most beautiful and remote areas of the state to enjoy a backcountry ski adventure akin to what one may find in the western half of the country. Perma-grins bedecked all of our faces as we hauled in, skinned up, and skied down cornices and drainage chutes where the snow was deepest. While the snow conditions weren't quite perfect, the day's adventure certainly was.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ For me - a born-and-raised WVian who is also a conservation biologist - the experience was made all the more special knowing that the very topography that made skiing so fun was also the birthplace of multiple eastern rivers (east fork of the Greenbrier River and Gandy Creek). Below the headwaters of these rivers lies Blister Swamp, a high elevation swamp that contains multiple species of globally rare plants. Why do these plants call this area home? Because this one of the last remaining balsam fir-red spruce circumneutral wetlands (neutral pH) in the unglaciated areas of eastern North America. In other words, this habitat is highly specialized and very rare.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ This stunning property has been owned and managed by my friend's family since 1867 when their ancestor, a Civil War veteran, John McClure bought it. He cleared the land of its native balsam fir woodland in 1905 to make the property more friendly for cattle grazing. McClure would go on to be known as the Cattle King of West Virginia for the quality of livestock he was able to raise on the property. ⁣⁣ Unsurprisingly, the timbering and livestock grazing took a toll on the unique habitat. So in the 1990s, the property owners consulted with botanists and sought out help from conservation agencies to protect the swamp. This partnership resulted in the protection of nearly 50 acres of swamp (still leaving ample terrain for livestock grazing) and the replanting of hundreds of balsam fir seedlings. In the first image, you can see McClure's great-great nephew overlooking Blister Swamp adorned in her winter glory. John and Blister Swamp Apollo and Isaac Dave and Bruce Lots of climbing in order to have fun!  Slow and steady. Dave. Miss Emma Scouting and catching up. Making plans on how to drop in. John making sure I'm ready And away he goes! What a deep stance! Emma taking a more conservative appoach. And Dave going for it. Dave. Dave grinning. Couldn't help but smile! John climbing. Trying to find the best snow. John and Emma Climbing up for more. Now, a bit of a backstory in photos. To get into Blister Swamp we had two snow machines pull us and all of our stuff about 4 miles each way. The logistics of a trip are a bit boggling. Especially when it's last minute. Fortunately, John and John are great with such things.  To be pulled in, make a loop and stick your ski poles through, then hold on! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. Big smiles all around. Transitioning from public to private property. When you can't open the gate because it's 3.5 feet deep in snow, you take it off the hinges and leave it until spring.  WV Highlands opening up. These photos still give me excited chills to look at.  Being up in this region makes my heart so  happy. A happy winter lover. Loved the outhouse with the clouds. Taking skins off to prepare for the descent. My skies and Blister Swamp in the background.  Blister Swamp again. The peak furthest back is Spruce Knob, the highest point in WV at 4,863' Light Riding With the snow buildup, riding wasn't at the forefront of my mind this month. The deep snow coupled with some variable ice/rain events made snow travel pretty tough for the horses. They'd sink down, find the "end" of the depth only to sink down more (and sometimes even more). I made it out on horseback a whopping 5 times this month due to this.  FRIENDS! Life in a rural area during the pandemic looks a bit different than it may in urban areas; living in the middle of nowhere does have its perks! Errands obviously look different and are more carefully thought out than they once were, but beyond that the biggest difference in my life over the past year has been being more thoughtful about who I interact with and how. Often, [almost always] we're outside. And when we opt to be inside with people, it's either with folks we've been quaran-teaming with this whole time or with folks who have very low-risk, socially distant lifestyles.  In February we had three small gatherings at my house that involved people from the above two groups. Early in the month, my brother treated Willa, Kate, Dave, and I to a WV-game dinner of mallard and Canada goose he harvested that week, plus some venison from this past hunting season. It was all delicious. We ate too much. We laughed even more. Dave and Will doing...I don't know.  Will and Willa. These two have kept me laughing more than just about anyone this pandemic.  The other two gatherings were to celebrate my birthday. On the day of my birthday, Kate + two of our other farmer friends in the Valley came over for a dinner celebration. On the menu was a hearty salad, salumi (charcuterie), and spaghetti two ways - with clam/garlic linguini and with Dave's homemade from scratch red sauce + meatballs. For dessert we had a Texas sheet cake my mom had made and passed off to me the day prior. Once again, we ate too much and laughed a ton. It was a different birthday celebration, but it was fantastic. Of course the butcher brings his own meat cutter with him. But you can't blame him when this is the outcome! Various cuts of pork that were raised, butchered, and cured by our friends here in Canaan.  My first serving of birthday dinner. I had red sauce and meatballs for my second go. Kate also made the bread from scratch. And put an entire head of garlic and an entire stick of  butter into this loaf to make garlic bread.  Finally, on the weekend immediately following my birthday, Austen and Jenny visited. There was XC skiing, snowshoeing, horseback riding, and sledding. Oh, and six huskies. With the exception of the sledding - we were able to enjoy all of the fun activities without leaving my mountain! I love having that option and am so grateful for it. For sledding, we headed a short drive away to one of the state parks to enjoy a 1,200' sled run with lift service to the top. It. Was. A. Blast. Oh my goodness. I was absolutely hoarse from laughing so much. We had entirely too much fun and I loved every second of it.  This drift line was INTENSE. Austen and Doodle getting after it. There was just so. much. snow! 5 of 6 huskies. I refuse to let Kenai out on these rides. Breaking through this snow was just too much. Up and up and up. Tired ponies and Jenny having a conversation with Spock. Austen getting after it with the snowshoes. And Jenny testing her gimpy knee on XC skis. Don't ask questions. It's easier that way. Dogs. So many dogs. Patient dogs. Very patient dogs. Into the wind... To claim a dramatic photo. How much effort does it take to get six huskies to look at the camera at once, you ask? A lot of effort. And a lot of luck. And a lot of yawns. A lot of yawns. Good enough lol Um yeah. This speaks volumes as to the amount of snow we had. Grif is 15hh SUNSHINE CLARITY! VIEWS! (It had been a bit since we'd seen the view due to weather.) Stan is such a professional at posing here. Happy huskies and a happy Austen. Grateful to get to share this beautiful place with friends.... [Read more]

Writing and sharing in a lengthy-formal(ish) format just hasn't been something I'm motivated to do for some time now. Instagram is much more up my alley these days. I'm afraid I've turned into quite the quiet little blog lurker and not so much of an actual blogger of late. That stated, I still do enjoy this space, and I still want to try to document life here. Just with less frequency. Which, honestly, feels appropriate because I have three mature horses who are not making new and exciting break throughs every time I work with them as they were when I started this blog over a decade ago. I am hoping that warmer months will find me writing a titch more often to recap fun adventures. But until such a day arrives, I'm going to work toward writing monthly "highlight" posts. I've no idea how the format of these will end up, but to begin, I'm going to do my best to succinctly cover multiple topics that were unique to the month in question. Let's dive right into January... A True West Virginia Highlands Winter For the first time in 10 years, Canaan Valley is having a true Canaan winter. As of this writing, we have had 74 inches, 67 skiable days, and 40 skiable days with ALL terrain open/skiable. In the next 48 hours or so, our hyper-local fearless forecaster is calling for another 12+ inches. For much of December, I didn't see the grass in my yard. We had a thaw around New Year's that showed off the grass for 48-72 hours, but then the snow returned and I haven't seen grass since. I'm not mad about it! (Though I'll admit to being tired of playing the game of Find-a-Shit in the dry lot when I do barn chores following all of these snow events...) Rime encrusted fence, trees, everything Rime encrusted branches Rime encrusted house Grffin and rime covered trees as viewed from my reading "nook" Gorgeous views from the front of the house as viewed from the window in my office. Bonus points for spotting Taiga in this shot. And stunning starry nights. I'm still impressed my cell phone took this photo. Bonus points for spotting Kenai.  We have been skiing our legs off and making the most of it so far! From cross country to downhill, it is a great time to be a skier in Canaan Valley. The new management at Timberline Mountain has done a truly stellar job revamping that mountain over the past 9 months. The mountain's terrain is skiing better than it has in decades thanks to a team who truly understands how to make snow (because we cannot have downhill alpine skiing here without supplemental man-made snow) and how to groom it for customers. That, coupled with a new high-speed detachable 6-pack lift that took the lift ride from 13-17 minutes to 5-7 minutes? Zero complaints from this chick! I'm also getting in plenty of XC skiing - 34 miles so far. And quite of few of those miles were on trails I haven't been able to enjoy in several years. Thanks to the supplemental exercises my PT gave me to focus on to improve my biomechanical weaknesses, I'm skiing stronger this year than I ever have before. It is such a fun feeling to scoot down the mountain with more control and finesse than I previously knew. Apparently, strengthening my gluteus medius was something I should have done ages ago... The happiest version of Kate. Except for when she's sailing. A bemused Justin and a completely-pissed-at-all-of-us Christopher whom I'm still cackling at for his utter disgust on this morning, which I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing in its full glory for well over a year. No one does cranky like Chris does cranky. He later thanked us for the ass kicking uphill pace, I swear! Down-Time for the Horses Following a year where I rode 600 miles, Q traveled 360 miles, Grif 357, and Stan 205, all of us have enjoyed time off this January. This is 100% facilitated by the fact that I couldn't get my trailer off this mountain right now if I wanted to. (Yes, if there was an emergency I have plans in place, but for recreational things trailer travel is a no-go.) The horses really don't seem to mind all that much. They're enjoying the down time and holding their weights beautifully. Grif and Stan play every day. In fact, I've never really seen Stan play the way he plays with Griffin. see, Stan is a bit aggressive with his play tactics, and this has scared off many a potential playmate in the past. Grif isn't too particular though. And starved of his playmate from the many years we spent at our last barn, Grif was desperate enough for a playmate to risk egging poor Staniel into playtime - even when Stan's "play" looked more like bite-your-face-off-with-force for a time. It took the two geldings a bit of adjustment to redefine what "play" was for each of them, but once they solidified the meaning, it was game-freaking-ON. And now it's all play, all the time, every day.  These first two photos are the most representative ones of their play; after these couple shots, they decided to play meekly without all of the rearing and kicking out at one another. I missed the sequence before these shots, but Grif snuck in a cheap shot bite on Stan's ass, so this is Stan telling him off for that. Below, Grif gets offended that Stan told him off and executes a swift roundhouse double-barrel kick in Stan's direction.  Poor Q, y'all. She just doesn't understand this "play" business. Sure, she'll run and buck and enjoy some airs above the ground (of which she's really improved during her time at home, poor thing is very earth-bound normally) if she's been cooped up or not ridden for a period of time. But for the most part, when the boys play Q stands somewhere out of their way and gazes off into the distance. I imagine she's contemplating how her life choices resulted in dealing with two hooligans who would rather do the above instead of, I dunno, mutually groom one another? Graze? Nap? Participate in horse yoga? (Q is the stretchiest damn horse I've ever witnessed. Just this morning she dropped into a downward dog that even I was jealous of. I also had no idea a horse could drop into such a deep down dog until I witnessed it with my own two eyes!) I've had the horses inside a lot more often recently than I've ever had them before both to keep them comfortable and to minimize the number of times I have to play Find-a-Shit in the dry lot after new snowfall. While Stan may be the only one among them who has a history of being stalled this frequently at some point in his life, all of them are taking it remarkably well. I'm so very impressed. Q seems to think it's the greatest thing on earth (girlfriend loves super predictable environments, and there isn't much that's more predictable than life inside my small barn for her). Grif has learned how to keep his stall neat and orderly just like Stan. In fact, both boys will forgo peeing in their stalls and wait for me to come let them out into the dry lot during their stalled stints. They trained me quite quickly to do this for them! I was an easy study though because anything to minimize cleaning horse piss out of a stall pleases me greatly.  All in all, the horses are doing just wonderfully. Games of Find-a-Shit aside, we're weathering this winter pretty contentedly. Skijoring The above section/statements aside, there have been some fun horsey adventures taking place up here on this mountain this winter. Give me the snow, I'll give you the skijoring. And I'll encourage you to bring friends to share it with because it is so. much. fun. In fact, instead of waxing on poetically about how much fun it is, have a bunch of photos instead because I was able to get my pro photographer friend Justin Harris to join for a few of our outings.  Tack Room Feng Shui I like having barn cats because they terrorize my mice and keep the presence of rodents at a minimum. This is super valuable to me as I've had several pieces of tack ruined by mice in the past. However, with barn cats come cat shenanigans. Which, fine, cats gonna cat. But I draw the line at climbing my saddles and scratching them up. NOPE. These new kittens had an absolute PARTY jumping/climbing my saddles near the end of 2020. In an effort to quell that behavior before the damage became worse (e.g., the kittens continued gaining weight as they grew, made saddle jungle gymming a new regular exercise routine), I rearranged the tack room to make climbing my saddles a much less attractive activity.  Sansa (formerly Brienne, but damnit, that is not her personality, so a change was in order) and Arya and all of the dirt their fluffy asses drag into my tack room.  And it worked! The cats actually seem to like this feng shui more, and so do I! It's much more conducive to doing things within that space - especially when Kate and I are both doing said things.  But of course, moving the couch was only the tip of the iceberg. With the couch in a new place, I decided I needed to rearrange some of my artwork, redo my gallery wall (with some of Justin's photos, of course!), and build a small shrine for Miss Norah as I've threatened to do since her disappearance in July. She was just the coolest cat, and I'm still so sad our time together wasn't longer.... [Read more]

Saw this on Raincoast Rider's blog and loved it. Thanks to Alberta Equest for putting the original together! What's the best thing that happened to you in 2020? Personal: Slowing the F down. I have wanted to reduce my chaos and just coast along without over-committing myself for several years now. Call it aging or whatever, but the pace I maintained in my daily life during my 20s is not something I really care to keep maintaining. I've had friends jokingly call me Hermione for years because I do so many things it's akin to Hermione and her timeturner in Prisoner of Azkaban. It was fun - and easy! - for awhile, but no longer. I now crave more "boring" in my day-to-day life. COVID granted me that in spades.  Horses: Having them HOME. Nothing beats this.  What's the worst thing that happened to you in 2020? Personal: Busting the F out of my left shoulder. That injury persisted much longer than I anticipated. I was released from PT in November and am doing much better, but it still plagues me during certain movements. A big goal of mine for 2021 is to regain and improve mobility throughout my body.  Horses: I didn't write about it on here, though I did take more than enough media to document it, but Q going through my fence 3 times on two occasions was definitely the worst. She's fortunately FINE beyond superficial cuts to every leg, her chest, and her face, but it was pretty terrifying to come down to the barn to find her outside the fence, the boys inside the fence, and her face bleeding all to hell.  To this day, I do not know what triggered her to panic in such an intense way. I set up trail cams, but captured nothing. My three hypotheses are: coyotes, a bear, or Stan being an unholy asshole. All are more than plausible. re: the animals, I don't think either predator was doing something outright threatening to the horses. I suspect it was just a youngster(s) being curious about all the smells and such around the barn and the presence freaked Q the hell out. Bears drive her into a blind panic. If coyotes did young, dumb coyote things, I could see the same happening. re: Stan. Well, he's a complete and total asshole about food. Perhaps he lunged after her pretty good and it sent her through the fence? I'll never know. All I can do is thank my lucky stars the fence did what it was supposed to in not butchering poor Q, and hope to goodness it doesn't happen again! What was your biggest purchase in 2020? Personal: The refinance of my barn/property loan. Or, perhaps because the closing costs for that were wrapped into future payments, I should say new truck tires. That needed to happen, but oi. It hurt a bit! Oh, and tying with the tires (remarkably enough thanks to a RIDICULOUS sale) I also scored the mattress I've been eyeing for literal years for next to nothing. I'm SO happy with that purchase and sleep so much deeper and fall asleep more easily now. Horses: A new(to me) Specialized Ultralight saddle.  What was your biggest accomplishment in 2020? Personal: Slowing down. Horses: Riding 600 miles in a year. I don't know that I'll set such a goal for myself in the future, but it was sweet to accomplish this year.  What do you feel COVID robbed you of in 2020? Personal: Jan's visit. The only direct contact I had with COVID-positive humans (who had both tested negative 48 hours before I was in contact with them but then tested positive 36 hours after I saw them) occurred right before Jan's visit, so I was stuck in a two week quarantine instead of getting to play horse with Jan. Not the worst thing in the world to have to cancel, but still such a bummer! Fortunately, neither Dave nor I contracted COVID. (Which leads me to wonder if my sickness in March was COVID? Sadly, I'll never know because there were no tests available at that time.) Horses: Off-farm events/competitions. Though, in some regards, I'm really not too mad about being robbed of these for a period of time.  Were you subject to any impulse buys in 2020? Personal: That mattress was definitely an impulse buy. But seeing it marked down ~$1000 due to double sales was too good to pass up!  Horses: The saddle was a bit of an impulse buy, but it was something I'd lusted after for literal YEARS. It fit me, it fit the horses, and I got a stupid good deal on it because my friend opted to not keep it after buying it new and riding in it only a few times.  Unexpected silver linings in 2020? Personal: All of the time at home to putter around my property doing chores was so very good for my mental and physical health.  Horses: Spending all of the time on trails without any push to do something else was just the slow down I needed. I feel pretty rejuvenated with horse things as I end the year, and am even more committed to going forth into the future to do whatever seems most FUN for the horses and I.... [Read more]

What is there to say about 2020? It certainly wasn't what a single one of us expected! Despite the total and complete shitshow that much of the year was,  I think most of us made the best of it. For me, making the best of it was luxuriating in my suddenly open, blank schedule. I direly needed to slow TF down from my normal go-go-go mentality/life. And with a clear schedule and minimal obligations, I slowed way down.  Slowing down allowed me to step back and find a ton of gratitude for my life. An empty schedule coupled with time to slow down and reflect lessened my typical stress and anxiety. It gave me space to sit with the multitude of stresses and anxieties that 2020 delivered us each passing day. I was also able to sit and hold space for both myself and those close to me as we all stumbled through the trials and tribulations of the COVID pandemic and the dying Trump presidency.  A screenshot of my farm from a drone video earlier this year. Little piece of paradise on high. Many of the goals I set for myself at the start of the year didn't come to fruition. But I don't see them as failures at all. They were all just put on "pause" due to the state of the world around us. And while they can't necessarily be counted as successes for this year, I've done my best to find and focus on the positives of each goal below whether it is accompanied by a ✔ or a ✘.  However, before I dive into the year-end status of my horse goals, I have to take a moment to say this: I am so insanely, beyond belief, ridiculously grateful that I was able to complete my barn project and move my horses home last year. Ohmygoodnessgracious. I was grateful last year, but my gratitude hit new heights this year as everything shut down. My gratitude continued climbing as real estate in Canaan sky rocketed from all of the DC people fleeing to West Virginia. The realization quickly dawned on me that if I hadn't bought my lots and done my project last year, the lots would have been purchased this year and would have homes built on them in the next 2-4 years. I have never been SO happy with the timing of a decision in my whole life. Universe, you have my eternal thanks for that bit of fortune. 🎔 Griffin ✔ Work off my seat and legs with more precision ✔ Hone dressage and school training and first level movements ✔ Establish a very solid "forward" button so I don't have to nag ✘ Take some lessons ✘ Cement "long and low" stretching ✘ School over novice height jumps, both stadium and XC (probably at home) ✘ Make it to a schooling show of some kind ✘ Cutting Photo by Justin Harris Well, it ain't much, but it's forward progress all the same! And honestly, several of those checkmarks above were obtained during the final quarter of the year when I opted to hunker down and finally focus on minutia. We still have a long ways to go on my quest to improve myself and this horse, but I feel great about how we're ending this year. There will be ample time to pursue the paused goals next year.  The majority of 2020 was spent trail riding and finding joy in being outside away from people and things. And I don't regret that one little bit! I spent more time riding Grif than Q or Stan this year because he can be a handful when he gets excited (and while I have friends that can handle his shenanigans, it simply isn't fair to them to ask them to when they could have a more carefree ride on Q or Stan.) As of this writing, Griffin has completed 345.75 trail miles and climbed 90,980 feet (17.23 miles) over the course of those trail miles. Definitely our biggest year yet and his fitness is absolutely amazing for all of the work he did out on the trails.  The thing I'm proudest of this little gelding for this year wasn't even something on my radar: camping. We did one overnight camping trip at the start of October. It was a gorgeous trip made all the better by the fact that Grif is finally adult enough to not scream every 10 minutes while in camp. It made me more happy than I imagined to find this out! 2021 may very well involve a lot more horse camping now that I can count on Grif to not annoy the living daylights out of everyone else in a ¼-mile radius. Q ✔ Work off my seat and legs with more precision ✔ Hone dressage and school training and first level movements ✘ Take some lessons ✘ Complete at least one endurance competition ✘ Ride 400 non-competition miles this year (but so close!!!!) ✘ Go to a dressage schooling show Q had a great year. She was more relaxed with herself and her environment than I've seen her since bringing her into my life May 2012. That wreck in June that botched my shoulder was quite a hit for her confidence though, and we're still doing what we can to dig our way out of that hole. Fortunately, even though it's taking time, it isn't nearly as rough going as the things we've already overcome in our time together.  Q tackled 356.4 miles on trail this year. She climbed 104,980 feet (19.88 miles) of elevation through those miles. While this didn't meet my arbitrary goal of 400 miles for the year, it came really damn close! And as I originally suspected that goal would be a bit of a stretch goal, I've got to say I'm really pleased with where we ended up. Especially considering that these miles were obtained purely for my own pleasure and not due to any endurance races. While I doubt I'll ever quit getting out and racking up trail miles with this little mare (it's my happy place), I don't know that I'll ever have a set mileage goal for her in the future. Because, well, she really seems to enjoy the controlled environment of dressage work so much more. (Can you hear Austen crowing with delight from wherever you are? I can.) The pressure placed on her for dressage work is pressure she's so much more interested in coping with and working through than the pressures she encounters in other environments (like the trail).  Q enjoys working in a controlled environment. While still stubborn (that Morgan side of her really shines through), she is so much more willing to work through the difficulties of what her rider is requesting during dressage work than basically anything else I've ever asked of her. During the series of dressage rides these past couple months, she is relaxed, happy, and dare I say interested in what we are doing. So um, I guess I'm going to have to take a greater interest in dressage in 2021. (Hush, Austen.) Stan ✔ Rack up some trail miles and have a ton of fun ✔ Ride 150 miles this year ✔ Improve his caudal hoof and make him happier barefoot Ah, finally, three for three, 100 percent goal completion! It doesn't hurt that I made Stan's goals more achievable than all of the goals here except Kenai's. #oldmanlife  Stan had a really wonderful year. He's got a live-in girlfriend. All the food he could want (but rationed so he hasn't looked pregnant with twins at all since moving home). And he doesn't have a hard job at all. In fact, he seems to rather enjoy being a professional trail horse for all of my friends.  And ohmygosh y'all, this horse has given the priceless gift of horseback adventures to some truly appreciative people this year. I love, love, love, love having a horse like Stan in my barn. I can trust him with basically anyone. It is a gift to have him and a gift to see the unadulterated joy he provides for others. From my neighbor who hadn't ridden in 43 years, to Willa who is just learning, to Lesley who mounted back up for the first time since a catastrophic accident on horseback years and years ago. Watching every person's face as they fall in love with Stan and the joy of riding has been one of my absolute most favorite things about this ridiculous year. These friends are the reason Stan was able to meet the mileage goal for the year (ending with 201.06 miles and 57,379 feet (10.87 mi) of climbing). Sometimes it takes a village! Kenai ✔ Maintain mobility through lots of steady exercise ✔ Keep happy! Kenai slowed down a lot this year. Fortunately, his mobility hasn't declined much at all. He's getting around just the same as the start of the year, but the frequency of his outings has lessened. And while I have certainly had to put my foot down and guide him into this new chapter of our lives, he has made a fair number of the decisions for himself. Classic husky.  What does this mean? It means that when we head out on adventures, he may or may not deign to join us. He is now an out-and-proud Porch Dog™. Leaving the porch for anything is questionable these days. Going on a walk? Okay. But only for part of the walk. Once he's gotten his fill, he turns his sassy, independent ass around and heads home to continue sitting on his porch and surveying his kingdom. Going on a horseback adventure? Doesn't matter how many times you ask him, he will. not. leave. the. porch. Dog knows what he wants and what he likes and that is that, y'all.  So, obviously, I bought him a new bed just for the porch. He loves it. And at this point in time, I anticipate that he'll be enjoying many, many years from his perch on the porch. I think that's pretty awesome. I think Kenai's favorite days all year were my trip with Q to Salt Fork. He absolutely loved having me all to himself for a weekend, getting to chill on my queen air mattress all day while I rode, and lounge around camp like the good boy he is the rest of the time. I hope to include him in similar future trips and may very well plan a few of those trips just for him. An unsurprising yet unexpected side effect of my working from home for the past 9 months is that Kenai has become an absolute Velcro dog if I'm in the house. If I'm working on a computer or reading in a chair, he's right beside me. If I move, he carefully watches where I go and if I stay within sight, he'll stay where he is. But if I go out of his sight, he'll follow. While endearing, it's also a bit troublesome because he has a horrible tendency of lying right behind my work chair. Which is on wheels. You can imagine how that ends. Despite the numerous run-ins and run-overs with my chair though, he still insists on maintaining his velcro behavior. I don't know what either of us will do when I finally return to the office.  ✔✘ Adventure often and continue socializing in many situations Photo by Justin Harris Taiga enjoyed plenty of adventures this year, just without the socializing. She's still the sweetest dog I've ever had the pleasure of sharing so much of my time with. And so fun to photograph! Sadly for Taiga, she didn't get out on quite as many off-property rides this year. For a suite of reasons  that are for both of our benefits, but I'm still sad she couldn't join me for more. She so loves to go-go-go. The biggest off-property ride she joined was for the Spruce Knob camping trip Chris and I took with the horses. We did a very remote 14.25 miles and Taiga stayed right with us the whole time. I was so impressed and thrilled with her. And was sad for her when we opted to return the next morning instead of pursuing day two of riding.  Overall though, Taiga had a pretty great year. Her humans were always home and available for cuddles. She continued to be the queen of her little kingdom (the one acre of yard within the invisible fence). And - bonus - she learned respect for cats. Her education about the world isn't advancing nearly as fast as Kenai's did by her age, but all in all, she's got it pretty good. ✔ Find balance through time management/scheduling ✔ Maintain good mental health and physical fitness ✔ Be financially cognizant and boost my savings ✔ Minimize my social media usage; become more purposeful when I do use it ✔ Organize and streamline my photography hustle ✘ Work towards being able to do a handstand ✘ Climb more ✘ Bike often At the start of 2020, I was most excited about kissing my work commute goodbye. Little did I know I'd be kissing that commute goodbye in an entirely different way! In fact, I have yet to fall into a new routine with my work commute because I've been at the new office building only a handful of times this year. 99% of my work time has been spent teleworking since the middle of March. And I don't hate it. I'm a social introvert who is very self-driven, so for me, working from home hasn't been too big of an issue. It's brought about its own challenges, certainly, but those have been workable. I'll honestly be a bit sad when I'm back in the office full time. (Not because I'll be forbidden from teleworking post-COVID, but because it would be kind of silly for me to telework when I live a whopping 7 minutes from the office.) Obviously, my hope of achieving better time management so that I could pursue my many passions looked a bit different this year. I definitely found the quiet and the balance I'd been hoping for. But I also didn't pursue two of my passions (climbing and biking) much at all due to my shoulder injury that persisted from late June through November. (And obviously didn't meet my goal of handstanding, either.) It was a huge bother to be limited, but I'm really grateful for the experience with my physical therapist. I learned so much about my body's strengths and weaknesses and have been working hard to strengthen the weak areas. With luck (aka continued work), I'll hopefully see fewer injuries in the coming year as I strive to keep my body strong in more functional ways. Just cantering along enjoying the view. I've got to be completely honest - in so many ways, the social isolation from the pandemic was so good for my mental health. I have slowed my previously manic pace down to a snail's pace. My weekends were free for the majority of the year. I spent a ton of my time at home, puttering around the house and farm. When I wasn't puttering about doing chores and the like, I was often settled in my papasan chair in the loft reading. My work days consisted of waking, working, spending my lunch break puttering, and then spending my evenings either puttering, riding, reading, or some combination thereof. My weekends were full of puttering, horses, and more reading. It's been beautiful. My stress and anxiety is at an all-time low in my adult life. Now, the trick will be maintaining this once the world settles into post-COVID norms in the coming years... Never forget the husky backpack! Since June, I have dramatically reduced my usage of social media. After a whirlwind of chaos and stress on Facebook in June, I opted to take a hiatus from the platform. That hiatus has continued to stretch into the present, and I honestly have no plans to end it. I lurk on Facebook about once a day for 2-5 minutes and use the marketplace. Beyond that? Fuck it. Do. Not. Miss. I'm still quite active on my Instagram though, and on my social pages for my photography. It's a beautiful and healthy balance for me. I spend most of my time on IG smiling and laughing and learning. That's what those platforms should be. While I didn't boost my savings this year as I hoped, I also didn't deplete them. I built more cognizance around my budget and finances, a process that is never-ending. I was also able to refinance the loan I took out for the barn project last year and cut my interest rate in half. This action alone will help the future of my budget so much. It will give me more budget flexibility in the coming years for both savings and fun (schooling competitions? Yes, please!). Laughing at Grif being a dork. Moreso now because Willa captured his forelock in such a fantastic state. 2020 was not the year I expected. But I took what it handed me and made the most of it. My gratitude for living in the middle of nowhere and having my horses at home was at an all time high all year. Not for one moment did I take for granted those good fortunes, and I did my very best to share them with others in as safe a way as possible throughout the year.... [Read more]

It's crazy to think that Starlight Lane Farm has been a part of my life for over a year now. I can say with absolutely zero hesitation that having the horses at home has been the greatest thing ever. Especially considering the current state of the world and the pandemic. (I'll never stop counting my lucky stars that I completed the project last year.) I knew when I announced the project's "completion" last year on the blog that I would still spend the better part of a year deciding on final organization for the space. And I have. And I will likely continue to improve and modify things as time goes on. I think that's just the nature of having horses at home though. There are always ways improve upon routines, whether they are improvements due to observations over time or simply a change in financial situations to allow for further investments (small or large).  My improvements since my last post about barn glow-ups have been a result of both observations and monetary commitments. Though I'll admit that much of what I've done is a result of my creative MacGyvering. Anything to save money on my expensive hobby! (Or rather, guarantee that my limited equine budget has liberties in critical areas like vet care and diet.) Originally, I thought I would post more frequently about my barn updates and hacks, but steady, consistent blogging simply isn't my reality these days. But maybe that's okay because one giant list is more satisfying to review - at least for me anyway. 😉 Rock "Patio" Around Water Spigot + Metal on Wall This was a simple improvement project that just "came to me" one day as I was rinsing buckets this summer. Water inevitably splashes all about during various tasks around the spigot. This isn't a surprise and is not a big deal in the summer, but for the other three seasons, it could be something that makes life a bit more complicated. Additionally, the wood wall getting wet isn't a great thing long-term. The project didn't take much more than 30 minutes! I gathered the stones, placed them, settled the stonedust back around them, and screwed the metal to the wall. Big gains for not much effort! All that alfalfa yuck on the stones is so much easier to clean than when it was on the stonedust! Saddle Rack by Cross Ties This project was another quick one precipitated by wanting to make things smoother/easier when other people joined me to ride - especially my friends who are new to horse things. It's so much easier to just set out the tack I want people to use before they arrive. I had already built this rudimentary saddle rack for the back of my truck in 2017 and basically just transferred it to the barn.  Very simple. Super basic.  Does the trick though. And is out of the way most of the time. Blanket Hangers I love my swing-out blanket racks on my stall doors, but with their size and location they aren't ideal for drying my winter blankets and turnout sheets. They're very, very useful for my saddle pads though! So I picked up several basic hooks to put in my rafters to hang my winter blankets and turnout sheets.  The stepping stool makes putting them up and taking them down easy peasy. Liming of Second Pasture In the spring, I limed the pasture closest to the house. This pasture had the most earth disturbance and was more "ready" to accept lime than the other pasture. So, I limed it first (with a buggy from Southern States) and opted to do the other later (by myself with a tiny spreader because the buggy proved to be too much trouble for a variety of reasons).  Later was supposed to be in the spring, but that turned into summer, which turned into fall. (Liming really is not one of my favorite farm activities I've learned lol.) But I did it! By hand! And will forever more only buy pelleted lime because powdered lime is a royal PITA to spread (something I had heard but really needed to experience to fully appreciate/understand).  It wasn't hard or miserable work to spread the lime, just tedious AF. Hay Feeders in Stalls As you're noticing, a lot of these improvements are things that will make my life (and the horses' lives) easier during the winter months. Last year, I moved the hay nets from their outdoor feeders into their stalls whenever the weather was inclement. Not the biggest deal in the world, but filling the nets can be a time consuming PITA made worse when they're frozen (my least favorite).  For our second winter in the barn, I wanted to have feeders both in the dry lot and in the horses' stalls. This way I can simply fill the inside nets and be done with it. I don't have the nets ordered or attached to these feeders yet, but I do have all of the stuff needed to complete the project once I get the nets.  The feeders are repurposed blue barrels I've hacked apart to my desire for various projects over the years. The nets will be attached to these feeders in similar fashion to the updates (below) to my outdoor feeders.  It's bolted into the wall, don't worry.  Bonus of the location is that when I do randomly bring them in during the summer with hay nets, all the scraps fall into the hay bin where they're much more likely to be eaten than if they were strewn about in the sawdust.  Grif's will hold the same amount, the dimensions are just a touch different. When one works with scraps, one makes the best of the materials at hand lol.  Improvements to Dry Lot Slow Feeders These improvements were a long time coming to these feeders. Previously, the hay nets lined the inside of the feeders and were cinched closed with a drawstring/toggle/daisy chain. Opening/closing the drawstring top and daisy-chaining, while not horrible, was never fun in wet conditions and nigh impossible in wet-turned-frozen conditions. So, no more of that!  I've upgraded to pex-tubing frames for the nets that are attached to the inside of the feeders. They hinge open and closed very easily. Now it's a simple clip-clip of two carabiners, open, dump hay, clip-clip closed. Cutting out the few minutes I used to deal with the drawstring closure has made my standard barn chores (mucking/feeding) drop to about 10 minutes per session on nice weather days. (Precip always slows things down a bit...moreso when its frozen.) Grif demonstrating what a full hay bin with net attached to the frame looks like.  Stan and Q's hay bins/frames are open here (and secured, don't worry). For whatever reason, Grif manages to eat the same way out of his net now as he did before while Stan and Q struggle. The difference for the latter two is that their previous hack of picking the whole "bag" of netted hay out and shaking it about (it was attached to the feeder so wouldn't go far at all) doesn't work now. They're definitely getting enough to meet daily requirements, but they manage to generate a lot of "chopped" hay that stays at the bottom of the feeder. After two or three feedings, it builds up to the point where I opt to just pin the frames up for an hour or so to let them enjoy chopped hay of their own creation.  A Second Stock Tank This one is pretty straight forward, and very needed once I split the horses up. In the summers, not a big deal because I have various buckets I can fill for Grif. But in the winter, things get trickier because I don't trust Grif with heated buckets. Last winter, I re-opened the dry lot with a baffle in the middle to help protect Griffin from bullying and prevent Stan from being a grade-A asshole about food/space all of the time. Everyone had access to non-frozen water, but Grif did get chased around more than needed despite the baffle. So this year, I knew I'd be buying him a smaller stock tank + heater for winter. It's arrived, in place, and ready for winter. End Walls on the Dry Lot Overhang Area And finally, the biggest update to the barn yet? Extending the barn "walls" into the overhang area to help cut back on windblown precipitation (frozen or otherwise). Originally, I'd planned to do a wooden frame and tarps only. But then I realized Dave had no plans for extra metal sheets from building the barn last year, so I built combined metal + tarp walls.  It's highly likely that [with time and finances] these walls will become permanent (and prettier). But for now, they definitely do the trick for providing a larger area out of the wind/precip for the horses. Ultimately, I want to see how the drifting snow is affected by the walls before committing to anything too ridiculous. Once I know more about how the walls will influence the snow, I've got plenty more metal sheeting and some additional burly clear plastic paneling Dave scrounged up to use toward my efforts. (I'd really like to have a solid wall that also allows some light through because I am already missing the extra light provided when that space was open.) While I had a rudimentary idea in mind going into this project, I 110% made it up as I went along. And I'm not gonna lie, it turned out way better than I expected for bullshitting my way through it lol Due to the angle of the overhang roof line, the tarps are not a perfect fit. But whatever. They're secured with lots of screws and washers at a lot of different points and will hopefully withstand a season of weather. I really don't love the tarp look, but it's functional for now. Definitely looks nicer the further away you are lol! But despite the less-than-pleasing aesthetics of tarps, they're already making a big difference on windy days.... [Read more]

With anxiety rampant for a time beginning today, I thought these photos might bring a small smile to you all.... [Read more]

I know many of you look forward to my autumn posts every year. This was one of the best color years I've ever experienced, and I was on a staycation for much of it. I know I say it often, but I am SO grateful to live where I live. Enjoy this years onslaught of autumn photos from peak color (predominantly at Blackwater Falls State Park).... [Read more]

A week after our Spruce Knob ride, I rendezvoused with Chris and Ivan again to enjoy one of the top three most gorgeous rides I've ever had the pleasure of doing. We headed up the center of Canaan Valley, climbed Cabin Mountain into the Sods, and then did a loop up there before returning the way we came. Q and Ivan were outstanding for the whole ride. The colors were beyond gorgeous. I feel SO lucky to call this place home! From the very start, the trees were amazing. Chris and I were absolutely beside ourselves with the gift of this day, the colors, and this place we call home. Just LOOK at all of the color on Cabin Mountain! That slope is northeast facing and so the colors were not quite as far along as the rest of the valley (which was mostly fiery tones by this point) making it damn near PERFECT in my opinion. I like a variety and diversity of autumn tones. You can see the golds/oranges of the trees on the valley floor more here.  Looking down into Canaan Valley as we crest above the treeline into Dolly Sods. Ivan with his happy ears on near the end of our climb. By this point we'd already crossed paths with 4 hikers and 2 dogs. A lot for a Friday morning.  We would go on to pass somewhere around 40 hikers. It was nuts. The overuse of the area is becoming a bigger issue by the day. I hope we can come up with some feasible solutions to protect and share this resource in coming years. Rocks become more prominent as we enter the Sods. Part of this is natural and normal for the change in topography, but a lot of the reason so many rocks are exposed like this in the Sods is due to long-burning fires that smoldered down into the humus until heavy snows snuffed them out. These fires were started from burning cinders from trains that carried the timber out of the area back when the state was heavily timbered in the early 1900s. And thus the rocky terrain really begins! Worth noting that for this 16.5 ride Q was totally barefoot! Her kickass hooves continue to kick ass!...and rocks. Looking into Canaan Valley. It was so orange and beautiful! Also, just left of center, dipping just below the horizon line is that wee little flat ridge that I and the horses live on top of! The Sods are ~4200' and my house/farm are ~3700'. Signage marking the wildlife refuge boundary. Looking into the Sods where it slopes down into the valley. Fire tones coating the valley floor. Absolutely in awe of where we live. Doodle mostly stayed in second position for this ride, letting Ivan grow and learn in the front position.  Beaver ponds and the headwaters of Red Creek.  We would head down into this general area as the next part of our ride. We even stopped and had lunch before continuing back up out of these lower areas. Climbing out of where the Red Creek headwaters accumulate, we went through an absolute tunnel of gold and orange beech trees. The flaming red along the ground is all blueberry/huckleberry. And lots of cottongrass blooms! Cottongrass is a wetland obligate species. When you're foraging for cranberries, looking for cottongrass is a great way to find the low lying water-loving cranberry plants. We have TONS of wild cranberries around here. Every other Christmas, I will pick cranberries and make a savory cranberry chutney for Christmas gifts. (On the years I don't do this, Dave makes Italian meat/cheese pies from scratch to share instead.) Flagged spruce (due to wind), mountain laurel, blueberries, cottongrass, and (hidden) cranberries! The only "staged" photos I did the whole ride. It was too damn gorgeous not to.  Chris and I can both "see" our houses/farms from here! Ivan was totally over our BS by this point lol.  Qdle, eyes closed, also completely over my BS by this point. A very epic Chris and Ivan.  This horse has such a wonderful brain. I love it. PINCH ME I CANNOT BELIEVE I GET TO CALL THIS  BEAUTIFUL PLACE HOME. I hope you've enjoyed your virtual tour of our beautiful ride!... [Read more]

I've really been making the most of autumn this year. To kick off October, I joined a local friend heading out for an overnight horse camping trip to Spruce Knob. He's got a new horse and wanted to get a bit of camping in before heading to Fort Valley later in the month.  We ended up only riding one day because Ivan was a little sore the morning after (due to a bite on his loin from a herdmate prior to the trip). Even with one day of riding, it was still a great trip. I was pleased to learn that Grif has matured to the point where he doesn't insist on screaming incessantly throughout the entire night! The only time he was really vocal was when Ivan would be out of eye sight (getting tacked up) and when trailers of cattle passed by camp (Grif, they're cows, not your friends).  From camp, we had to trek down the road 1-2 miles to get to trail heads that I preferred. There was a closer one, but that trail is in such a sorry state that I did not want the horses on it.  It was a nice way to warmup, though slightly frustrating with the amount of traffic due to the foliage.  This is where we wanted to cross originally, but the boys were not having it. So we went upstream another mile to begin our ride and crossed here at the end of the day.  Taiga was the happiest little adventure husky on this day and was SO GOOD. I'm so proud of this little dog for being as awesome as she is in the backcountry. A section of the Allegheny Trail. It didn't used to be as wet as it is now. Chris and I spent a fair bit of our time on this trail postulating as to why it has changed so much. The best hypothesis we could agree on is that the invasion of Microstegium (Japanese stiltgrass) along the trail (old road in this section) has affected the way the sheet flow water is absorbed. Microstegium roots aren't nearly as deep as native vegetation so water pools more. A dirty Griffleby after slipping unceremoniously sideways into a muddy section of creek where the footing was tricky. He was so hyper focused on his front feet that he forgot his hinds. It didn't hurt him and didn't hurt me, but was a great learning moment for Grif about how to navigate tricky footing! Also, I moved my sheepskin accoutrements from my Abetta to the Ultralight. Super cushy! Somewhere along Big Run trail, I believe. The colors were pretty, but not quite peaking yet. Would have been nice to catch the goldenrod in bloom... The start of our descent was a bit tricky and quite steep. As Ivan is only 6, Chris opted to lead him down the majority of it to help him out.  Grif was pretty content to follow. Once the terrain evened out, Chris found a log to remount and we continued onward. The foliage above us was poppin'! We went downhill for a solid mile or more. Skeptical ears as we paused to wait for Chris and Ivan. And back on the road to camp! We ended up tackling 14.25 miles over 5 hours climbing ~7500 feet. My tent and camp the next morning. The boys were hi-tied to the left of this image. And yeah, that's frost on the vegetation. My tent was absolutely shellacked in ice.  I loved the orange foliage that lit up behind these conifers.... [Read more]

It's been a busy few weeks. Autumn always seems to be that way when you're a photographer though! In an effort to continue documenting this ridiculous year, I'm going to work to bring the blog up to date over the next week or so. Buckle up for a lot of photo-heavy posts! Smoke from the western fires made its way east and gave us Apocalyptic Lite skies (in comparison to our western friends). Peep the sun on the left... I painted a random chevron design on the back of my trailer to help attempt to draw attention so people maybe (probably not) won't tailgate as badly.  I took Q (and Kenai) and headed a little west to Salt Fork Lake in Ohio for a solo weekend adventure. It was perfect. The haul was the most relaxing I've ever done, Kenai was psyched to be out, and I didn't have to stop outside of my home except one time to get gas. Very COVID-friendly venture! I also bought a new saddle - a Specialized Ultralight. I've been coveting a Specialized saddle for nearly 7 years. I got a stupid good deal on this one and am so very pleased! The single track trails at Salt Fork were pretty sweet!  Smiles for the first of three rides over my two day visit. Ample time spent along lake shores... This was our second ride, the first on Saturday. Q was not having it at this point. Forward, but skeptical. Happy little girl as the day trended onward. We rode two 11 mile loops on Saturday and a 7 mile loop on Friday eve after arriving. Gotta include a rider selfie. Their goldenrod was just getting started. Random pine forest at the start/end of our final 11-mile loop. My cushy car camping setup. Complete with a queen sized air mattress and down comforter inside. Kenai LOVED it. The cutest old man. Doodle with her buffet at the end of all our riding. She's still the quietest, easiest horse to camp with. Staring at Taiga in the yard. It made for nice photos even in the low light. She rarely poses for photos so I have to take what I can get. A year after moving in, Grif was the first horse to have shoes put on in the new barn! Dave even made a rare visit to say hey to Dan. Arya "rode" Griffin for the first time. One day, if I can get media, I'll need to share a post about Griffin and "his" cats. Arya especially. She'll weave and rub on all of his legs, sometimes getting excited and grabbing his leg with her front paws like she's going to climb. For a horse with a history of trying to stomp small animals, it's amazing how gentle he is with them. He is definitely a cat guy....which explains so much about his personality lol We went with the EasyShoe Versa - my an Dan's first experience with a composite shoe. So far, I'm LOVING them. I'll definitely be putting Q and Grif in these in the future for the times of year we're riding heavily. Stan...maybe. He doesn't hold shoes as well as the other two and these little moonboots are a bit expensive to put on a horse who's notorious for casually losing shoes on the reg. A crooked but relaxed Griffleby while Dan finishes. Miss Austen stopped through for a brief visit. We made a point of heading in to Dolly Sods for her first horseback venture. Doodle pausing to sniff some cotton grass blooms. Grif was a pretty good guy! He's getting a lot better at navigating rough trails. The color was starting to peak in the Sods at this time. Can you spy the three huskies? Two huskies hidden in this shot... Rocky Ridge - see the tiny flat knob rising from the center of the valley right of center? Starlight Lane Farm resides on the top of that landform! Riddle Diddle being a little creeper in the bottom of the photo. Where Canaan Valley and Dolly Sods meet. Of course I had to take what has quickly become a "classic Sods/Canaan" photo of Austen cantering Q along the edge of the valley. Get after it, Qdle! Simply the best. Q wasn't sure about playing this "game" again, but she acquiesced for Austen. Gotta get the arms out photo! Shot of the Versas. Taiga made another friend from the Itty Bitty Pittie Committee. Maisey isn't quite as small as Alli's Della, but she's pretty damn close! And then I ended the month spraining the ever-loving hell out of my ankle. I'm seriously surprised (and beyond grateful) that I didn't break it! This was about 36 hours after I tried to murder it. The swelling remained for about 3 weeks and the colors were impressive. There is usually a lot more definition where my leg meets my foot. In general, I've got pretty dainty little ankles. Not so much while this injury healed. Not a fantastic way to end my month. But a month after it occurred, I'm happy to say that the bruising and swelling are now gone. My physical therapist has given me a range of exercises to help get me back to 100%.... [Read more]

One of my favorite things lately is watching the horses graze as the sun sets. The varying light playing on their coats, the pasture, and the now-blooming goldenrod in the adjacent lot is just so gorgeous. Autumn weather has arrived in Canaan and it is so very welcome.... [Read more]

I always dreamed of having ponies in my front yard.  She is beauty. She is grace. She really loves fresh grass and could care less about your photos. Mid snort. Makes me giggle. Watching deer. One of his favorite pastimes.  He just has the cutest face - not that I'm biased or anything. See previous statements about loving fresh grass lol Q silhouetted. Ah. So. This was fun. Moments after all of the above photos were captured, Stan got a wild hair and trotted off to the back yard; the others followed. Okay. Fine. Whatever. But then when I walked back to grab them and take them back to the barn, Stan continued with his wild hair and took off trotting over into my neighbor's yard. The other two followed. UGH. FINE. Maybe his grass is better. Whatever. Well, I walked over to fetch them and Stan tossed his head around all sassy and excited and then took the fuck off through the field, heading toward the rest of the development. UGH. FINE. I'LL PLAY YOUR GAME. It's my own damn fault for trusting anyway. " And so, as my horses galloped and bucked and squealed away from me into the literal sunset, I trudged along, sipping my beverage that I was smart enough to bring with me. I gave a jingle to my neighbor Dan to let him know that yes, I knew my horses were out. He hadn't noticed them yet, but as I informed him that all was fine (they really couldn't go anywhere), he looked out his window and said, "Oh. Yeah. There they are. There they go. They look happy." *insert eye roll on my part* And so, I walked the half mile across the fields of the development to the far end where my three idiots were happily grazing amidst my very amused city neighbors who were up in their second homes for the weekend. When I reached them, I nabbed Stan by his halter (I had a beer, but I didn't have a lead rope lol), informed my impromptu audience that the other two would follow when they realized he wasn't coming back, and set off toward home with Staniel in tow. (The jerk.) It took Stan and I getting a good ¼-mile away before Q and Grif gave it up and came sprinting after him, tails flagged. Stan snorted and did his best Arabian impression for the rest of the walk home with Grif and Q flanking us. *eye roll* The whole ordeal was definitely on me for being a bit too trusting. But admittedly, I didn't expect that behavior from Stan! I figured Grif would be the wanderer to lead them astray if/when it happened. Going forward, yard grazing sessions will either be solo or Stan will remain on a lead while the others are free. Or I'll just wait for all the second homers to be not present so it isn't a big deal at all if the horses take a field trip (har har har, field trip). Kate's birthday brunch! Emma was on break from school and I took the day off. It was amazing! Garden veggie egg fritters, mimosas, the best freaking cupcakes ever. So moist. So delicious. And homemade raspberry cream cheese frosting to boot! Then we went paddleboarding. Kenai was NOT GOOD this time lol But we had fun! And it was a GORGEOUS day. A rare moment with both dogs on boards. This was near the end of the trip. Kenai is laying down partially in my lap out of the frame. Can you spot Taiga? She spent most of the trip bouncing around on the banks beside us. The public entrance to our new office looking pretty sharp. Pity no one can enjoy it yet! If I look exasperated, it isn't without reason lol. I don't remember when I captured this, but it was sometime during the political behind-the-scenes stunt with our new office building. Both of the WV state senators, the deputy director of the DOI, and the director of USFWS visited the new building. I was dubbed photographer for the day (helped minimize the number of people). It was long and busy and full of what I consider to be very silly pomp and circumstance for the media.  Sure. This looks comfortable. Spent an evening sitting on Stan while he grazed.  A very pretty evening at that. Oh. You know. Just lazy horse things. This is Stan watching Griffin who is watching deer. Because reasons. Q joined in on the fun, too. Doodle, you're just the cutest little thing. So, what do you think is in the skillet? Because I bet most of you have never heard of it or seen it before. Was your first thought meat? Because you'd be wrong. Did you then think some kinda vegetable? Because that's also incorrect. And no, it isn't tofu, tempeh, seitan, or any other kind of meat substitute. It's cauliflower mushroom (sparassis)! While I've seen them before, I hadn't eaten them. So I found a recipe online for a cabbage and cauliflower mushroom gratin. It was super yummy. And gave me a great way to use a garden cabbage from my neighbor. I'll never grow tired of looking out my [very dirty] window and seeing my horses grazing. Took a short hike one rainy afternoon up to Bearden Knob with Dave and the pups. It was cool to watch the rain all around us. We timed things perfectly so that we were in a rainless bubble. Just the happiest old man.  Rain in the Blackwater Canyon in the distance. And rain in the northern part of the valley. This area is protected and remains undisturbed by humans. Pre-development, the whole valley probably looked like this. Typical evening activity with the best mare Followed by cocktails on the front porch while watching the sun set. This is a watermelon + coconut water + mint + tequila combo. Kenai in his most favorite place in the yard at his most favorite time of day. Arya Fox. Also, holy growth spurt, Batman. She's at least 50% larger now than she was in this photo. A portion of the new trail I established among preexisting deer trails. This was right after two black bears loped by.   UGH I CANNOT BELIEVE I LIVE HERE. WHAT EVEN IS THIS? IT IS SO GORGEOUS. Kate, Grif, and Mount Porte Crayon. Willa and the Majestic Staniel. And on the other side of the ridge, we have this view.  And a little further down the ridge, a slightly different take on the previous view. Complete with weird rainstorm activity that made for utterly ridiculous lighting conditions. UGH. IT IS SO GORGEOUS. Actually, as we finished our second gallop up the field in this photo, Kate noticed the sky first. She then demanded that I turn around and turn around RIGHT NOW and look. I thought a strange animal was approaching or some other danger lol. Nope. Just a stupid freaking gorgeous view. Ta daaaah! Q was NOT having it for this photo lol. She wasn't downhill enough naturally, so she opted to stand on the slope in this manner. SIGH. Hi. I'm Liz and I'm a complete and total goofball. Always. Without fail. #sorrynotsorry We laughed and laughed and laughed at this screenshot capture of Willa galloping Stan - her first true gallops! She says she feels like she's a beautiful fairy/elf galloping gloriously through the woods. Photographic evidence confirms she is a warrior elf heading into battle. The video below is where the screenshot was captured; it also includes me making a multitude of ridiculous noises (see former statement about me being a total goof) that then excited Griffin and caused him to throw a very acrobatic kick in my/Q's direction that I then chastised him for. Ugh. So, my biggest issue with the barn/dry lot this year has been water seeping into the center stall (and one time into the aisle and out the front barn doors) when we have big storms. Because Stan prefers the center stall and Q insists on being super close to him (therefore standing right outside the door AT ALL TIMES instead of in the neighboring stall), the dry lot outside this stall door has become much more compacted than other areas. I expected compaction in the highest traffic areas, but didn't quite foresee the slope changing this much to allow water entry to the barn. You can see the small puddle in front of the center stall in this image. And you can also see how that whole area between those two posts is wetter than the areas on either side of it. The overhang area in front of the center stall should, in theory, be the driest as it's got the most protection. It obviously isn't. It also doesn't help that Q and Stan absolutely INSIST on peeing under the overhang instead of out in the rest of the dry lot. It's infuriating and despite my best efforts to treat it and dissuade them, they continue. Horses.  Wet area even more visible. I knew I needed to resolve this issue before rainy fall and winter weather settled in. I started by wondering about getting grids to help prevent the compaction. And I fully intended to go that route, but then hit a multitude of snags with obtaining said grids. #thanksCOVID But those snags have proven to be a blessing in disguise! After being thwarted in my efforts, I spent a lot of time sitting in the dry lot one rainy afternoon just looking at everything and breaking down the problem and possible solutions. Taking the time to do this helped me isolate the real problem: water is entering this area. Why is water entering it? Well, because the gutter is overflowing in that center section when we have a significant rain event. The gutter isn't blocked or clogged and neither is the singular outlet. So clearly the volume of water coming off the roof needs more of an outlet than just that singular one? Or maybe the gutter isn't big enough? Or maybe it isn't sloped enough?  I took my questions to Dave and noted that I HAD to resolve this issue sooner than later. Whatever it took, it needed to be fixed before autumn/winter. He told me to just reslope the gutter. It would be the quickest, easiest, cheapest fix. And if that didn't resolve it, then we'd look at adding a second outlet.  So I spent 15 minutes or so resloping the gutter and eagerly awaited the next rain event. And guess what? Resloping that gutter has taken care of 95% of the problem! YASSSSS. Big win for simple solutions. I still hope to get some sort of grid system to help minimize the compaction under the overhang (something I've been planning on doing since the project began, but knew it would be dependent upon finances), but my need to do it isn't nearly as dire as it was before.  Two down for rolls at once! They'll all drop and roll in sync a few times a week, but I never seem to have my phone on me to capture it when that happens. Hoof trimming day! He's the cutest. Back porch views. Kenai may have nasty arthritis slowing him down, but by and large he is just the happiest, bright-eyed old man. It makes me SO happy to see him this way after the suite of troubles he had earlier in life. I was cleaning/organizing/tinkering in the barn one day and felt like I was being watched. She stood here like this for about 30 minutes. Just watching like a total creeper. Just as pretty as a post card! My shadows hanging out while I edited photos on the back porch. I hope to have many more images from this evening to share eventually, but it's fun to have photographer friends to capture you. Though I'm sorry to the state of Ohio for stealing away your state parks photographer for a night lol. Photo by Justin Harris. So, so, so, so grateful for this life and this place I get to call home. Photo by Justin Harris.... [Read more]

Let's just rip this band aid right off shall we? I have decided to retire Q from competitive endurance. It's a decision I've been pondering for over a year. My downtime due to COVID-19 has only helped solidify it for me.  Repeated comments about Q's way of going have made ride vettings feel a lot more like Russian Roulette than a routine double-check of the horse's condition. Fortunately (and very gratefully!), I received an absolute wealth of information about how to help resolve Q's gait at last year's Biltmore 50. It was eye-opening and amazing to learn so much about how I can help my favorite little mare. I worked through much of what those wonderful vets recommended for me and had hoped to give things a go for No Frills this past April, but then - as we all damn well know - the pandemic struck, life changed, and endurance competitions were put on pause. While I was a bit bummed at first knowing any ride season I could have hoped to have had was not going to happen for 2020, I opted to make the most of it and just enjoy riding my horse. And you know what I've learned during this slow down and lack of endurance rides? I really don't miss the hustle and bustle of competition much at all.  Being put "on pause" this year has given me time to reflect on why I was attracted to endurance from the beginning. The answer? Camping with my horses, seeing beautiful terrain from horseback, and riding oodles of miles (at relative speed) across that terrain. Simply put, I wanna camp and ride fast through the wilderness.  And you know what? I absolutely do not need a competition aspect to do those things. I also don't have to ride a set number of miles in a set amount of time to enjoy those things. This seems like such a simple realization that I can't believe it took me the amount of time and thought it did to reach this point. But I'm here now, and it feels really damn good.  I'm already planning a series of 1-2 night adventures with Q this fall to make the most of the remaining months of warmer camping weather. I'm also carefully planning my camera setup for said trips, in a new effort to get some fun, high quality shots of Q and I riding in these beautiful places. Hopefully, I'll have a wealth of fun, new stories and trails to share in this space as the rest of the year unfolds.... [Read more]

A local buddy of mine runs a regional outdoors magazine and has been asking me for months to write a horseback piece for it. Writing about horses on this blog is one thing, but writing an article for a general audience of non-horse outdoors folks for a magazine is a completely different challenge. The magazine editor didn't love my meager ideas for a piece either. Ultimately, I passed along the creative writing torch to my friend Chelsey and opted instead to just provide photos for the article.  Most of the photos I provided were culled from past adventures I've shared on this blog. Riding around in gorgeous West Virginia makes it easy! However, I knew that I would need to have a few more high resolution DSLR photos to share (the other photos were all cell phone shots that can't be blown up too big). Prior to the due date for the photos (last week), Kate and I planned an evening ride to the edge of Dolly Sods to get what we hoped would be good sunset photos.  Other than forgetting my stirrups in the midst of packing, the rest of the evening was perfect. The weather was in the low-mid 70s, the amount cloud cover guaranteed that we'd have gorgeous photos no matter what happened, and the area I chose to setup and capture shots was completely vacant of other people. Getting my camera packed and schlepped out there wasn't as bad as I'd feared either - in fact, I'm hoping to plan more staged photoshoots in beautiful local places this fall.  The shooting began with me getting photos of Kate. I knew there was a chance of one of the photos making the cover of the magazine, so I figured I'd focus on getting some nice options of Kate for that. Yeah, kinda hard to believe we get to call this home.  Qdle and her happy ears makes me so happy. Once I had a suite of shots of Kate (far more than I'm sharing on here today), I popped on my two horses for some photos. I rarely get photos riding them - especially hi res ones - and had to take this opportunity. Even if my stirrups (set for Kate that I was too lazy to change) were a little long for me lol Q and I have no future endurance ride plans. In fact, I've retired her from it. We're gonna make our own rides and come up with some incredible ride photos. I really need to crop this closer, but honestly I hadn't noticed until I was pulling images in for this post, but my huge grin in this shot is kinda awesome. Grif was bounding through the grass and taking it so seriously despite being SO EXCITED. He makes me laugh. Hi. I'm Liz and I'm a complete goofball. Almost always. Especially when riding. Even when riding without stirrups and with a big backpack full of camera gear (obviously the latter is not pictured here). My most favorite part about horseback riding in remote places? Getting to enjoy the view while moving out over terrain. It beats looking at my feet all the time! All of the heart eyes for this grey hunk. So fun fact, I've never stood on a single one of my horses until this moment lol. I've only ever stood on one other horse (maybe two??) before and only opted to do that because she was a big draft cross with ZERO go and ALL whoa and it seemed like the safest time to try it. Grif was a little uncertain (note his ears lol), but he was such a good egg.  Grif taking a moment to enjoy the view. Q stared off into the distance for the longest time. I think she was hearing hikers heading out of the Sods. Quizzical ears and giggles So once we got one-on-one shots, Kate asked if there was any way to get us both in the shot running together. I popped the camera on the tripod, set up the shot, and set a timer with intervals. And it worked out super well. It helps that Grif is trained to go to the tripod and stand and wait will I mess with settings!  This shot was the favorite of the magazine editor and will be the cover shot for the fall edition of Highland Outdoors. Personally, this was my favorite of the two of us! Out at the turn around point for our shots. North Canaan Valley below us, Timberline housing development on the slope down to the Valley. And Dolly Sods extending back behind us and out of the shot to your right. Happy girls. Happy horses. Cantering off for the next round of interval shooting amidst plenty of giggles.... [Read more]

Each week, I think about writing. Each week, motivation to put together a coherent post slips to the wayside. But lo, I have been doing things. Lots of them. I just can't be bothered to get my brain to piece them together in an enjoyable way to read. Maybe one day I'll regain my mojo in that regard, but for now, I'm going to stick to my strengths and just overwhelm the blog with photos + captions.  Oh boy. Here's a throwback lol. This is from sometime in July when Kate was house sitting for our neighbors. She made us a kickass dinner of amazing Mexican recipes. We called it Christmas in July because of the Christmas tree, which we obviously turned on lol. Pandemic life in our small very rural community looks a lot different than it usually does, but the small little "safe" groups we spend time with are so amazing. While I miss the regular potlucks our local community had (40-100 people depending on the weekend), these small dinner parties of 5-7 we've had since this all began are really terrific, too.  Manic Mondays are more than a blog title. They've become a regular Monday evening ritual for Kate and Willa and I. Willa expressed a desire to get out riding more when she was helping my brother with some auditions while he was still here. I took her up on that and now we spend Monday evenings gallivanting on horseback. Kate is there, too.  And these totally magical and majestic geldings. Instagram. Reality And post Manic Monday ride, we sit on the front porch sipping beverages and eating charcuterie boards and laugh our asses off about RIDICULOUS topics. It's the best. I love these two ladies. Jump jump boi has been jump jumping It's about time for me to rearrange the jumps though. I'm impressed with my ability to hunker down. It looks like my head has been photoshopped lower lol The happiest jumping ears! SPROING! Oh Grif.  Most of y'all with gardens have an issue with far-too-plentiful zucchini. Well, I have volunteer spaghetti squash. And they're fecking EVERYWHERE. I'm going to be dropping them off on people's door steps pretty soon. These two haven't been as photographed this summer, but they're still here. Still happy. Still eager for adventures. I love them so much. The gladiolus have been AMAZING this year. So many fun colors! Now we have more purples and reds. FINALLY had the vet out for vaccines. This was the only photo I took.  Norah was predated (best guess) by something (owl, hawk, yote) at the beginning of July. I'm still sore about it. She was the COOLEST cat. Ever. Hands down. Hard stop. But I hate mice damage to my shit and mice are a part of barn life. SO, enter Brienne and Arya. They're from a local feral cat colony and now live in my tack room until they get bigger. This is my final attempt at having barn cats. I'm hoping a very slow introduction to the barn over a months-long period will help increase the likelihood of them being here long term. If something happens to them though, I'm done. I don't like raising bait.  Date night views during the pandemic. Our first night out since everything began! Everyone was distanced on their own blankets outside and all staff was masked. It was a really pleasant evening.  Griffin every morning. Goofy selfie for a socially distanced work team building day. Our new supervisor set up the MOST FUN scavenger hunts for us all around Canaan. We were able to work together in a socially distant way to build team cooperation. For a small office with a close knit staff who have missed seeing one another, this was AWESOME. Christopher got a new bike. He told me he wanted to break it in half. So we went out and gave that a try. Good news, no one broke anything! lol And we found oodles of chanterelles for dinner.  This overexposed husky came with us.  A small local wedding I shot a few weekends ago. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND SO MUCH FUN. Can small intimate weddings be a thing forever please? I'd happily photograph them forevermore. Part of Kate's birthday present from me. A shirt with her new logo (that I designed!) I also got her a trucker hat.  We put up more hay.  And laughed WAY too much. These guys are a riot whenever they're together.  Post hill gallop, we pose.  Almost back home and Willa goes, "Can I trot more?" And took the lead. I was so proud. Dan came over to geek out over feet with me. I love working with and learning from him.  Then we went on a ride. Dan rode Q for the first time ever! I cheered and laughed so hard when I saw this in the Valley. Baby chicken of the woods! One of my favorites. That feeling when you're just ready for grooming to be over so you can go trotting. Morning vibes. Old men enjoying time on the front porch.... [Read more]

Holy shit, y'all. This grey fella is ten years old!!! Just the prettiest boy. He's been a part of my life for 8½ of his years. It absolutely blows my mind. Talk about a blast from the past. Who remembers this little tyke?! For his 10th birthday, I motivated myself to get up and FINALLY repaint my jump standards. They have been in dire need of a fresh coat to help outlast our intense weather up here, and I've been putting it off with no real reason since March. But when the jump-jump pony turns 10, you've gotta do something special for him, right? And what could make the jump-jump pony happier than having his jumps setup again? Nothing. Nothing makes him happier than jumping. While we've had the cavaletti and XC jumps up for a few months, my shoulder injury set us back so far as any kind of regular jumping goes. As we both get back into the swing of things, I knew jumping colorful sticks that fall down would be much preferred to large solid objects.  Sunday morning, I got up and got at it pretty early. And my early start paid off. I had three coats of paint on those jumps and had them setup in the field before noon! It was a hot (for here) day, but not humid at all (for the first time in weeks), so I pulled Grif out for a short little birthday jumpy jump session. I think he was a little surprised at first to see the jumps out there! But he took to them quickly enough. It was as if we'd just jumped them yesterday. And not like...gosh, I'm not sure. I don't think I've had the standards setup at Starlight Lane yet.  Happy birthday, Grif. You're the best grey pony a girl could ever dream of having.... [Read more]

I'm jumping back to the beginning of July for this Monday's episode of manic. It's been a minute since I shared one of these posts. Our family camp hidden away in the WV Highlands Dad's flowers and the walkway at my parents. Been doing a lot of this  Simply gorgeous views from my friend's Air BnB...which has been pretty vacant this year for obvious reasons. Put up hay at the beginning of July! My shoulder was at its peak pain during this time so I wasn't much help I could drive behind the truck to keep an eye on the load though Six people helped put my hay up in the barn this year. It was incredible. We had 300+ bales put up in about 40 minutes. Full moon rising + front porch all lit up Summer sunsets reflected from these windows makes me happy Been spending a fair bit of time getting my new single track trail established this summer An elopement I shot in June. This moment cracked me up so much I had to share. Elbow bumps for COVID19 weddings! Also, peek farrier and friend Dan in the background. He officiated. Absolutely stunning sunset view form home Ugh. Why do I live here? Journaling during a pandemic got me like.... My brother spent another 2 weeks with me in July. It was really great to get the added time with him.  Another fun and beautiful spot in the Valley. Cheesin' for the Pivo before yet another failed attempt using it. It loses me SO MUCH. I am pretty sure it's just my phone - which is admittedly due for an upgrade. But I'm not wholly committed to that upgrade just yet... More money and whatsuch. Still, it's been frustrating to set the Pivo up for success and have it lose me the very vast majority of my rides. But the moments it does capture are great for screenshots. And seeing my hollow back and cursing myself for not working hard enough to get it GONE. At least Grif is a chonky cutie. Griff eyeing the camera wanting to go towards it because standing at the camera = break Yawning horse photos never cease to make me giggle. Also, those incisors are a bit uneven, Grif. Good thing you're getting your teeth done in a couple weeks! Post dinner Qdle. Scored some great fullseat Pikeur breeches for $19 secondhand.  Joined the bluelight glasses club for work.  Final dry needling + TENS unit session. You can't see them, but there are two needles about an inch deep in my shoulder. Kate and Qdle prepping for our 20 mile ride. It was a great day. Q and Grif did beautifully. And Kate, too, for her biggest ride ever! Excuse me, isn't it my dinner time? - Taiga, always Just the handsomest old man Subaru turned over 100k! My summer drink of choice this year. Only 90 calories, which is sadly something I need to keep an eye on when it comes to alcohol. Of all the things I enjoy, calories from alcohol add extra weight to my body like nothing else. Getting old is dumb. The milkweed is in full bloom right now and I LOVE IT. Dave randomly dropped down to the barn during a Barn:30 session to give Grif treats. Q wanted some, too. Funnily enough, while Dave doesn't spend any time in the barn (to my knowledge?! lol), he knows RIGHT where the horses treats are. Griffin is his favorite. But he's happy to push treats on any eager participant Bitey face boys and a bored Q Griffin, you so sassy Misty summer afternoon Classic Griffin At least my hollow back isn't so bad at the canter. Also, biggest issue with my Pivo troubles? The autozoom feature that everyone has had great luck with doesn't seem to operate. Hence the thing losing me more often. Hoping an app upgrade this week will resolve that possibly?  Stormy sunset He's adorable and I love him. Kenai wants to be with us ALWAYS, but then gets tired swimming. So we put him in the paddleboat.  But that wasn't good enough.  So then we helped encourage his pansy self to jump out of the boat into the water. It took awhile but he finally jumped! And came straight to me lol The Husky Aquatic is now a thing. This was right after I hauled Taiga back on after she nearly knocked us all off lol I'm definitely a little sore in the abs and quads from this. SUCH a great workout. And totally fun.... [Read more]

Okay, Megan. You asked for it, here it is. 😉 On my last post, Megan asked the following: Would love to read more about your pasture management plan/turnout schedule and the reasoning behind it. I've been casually looking at farms and it's going to have to be small acreage so inquiring minds want to know 😋 You know you've done a good job when you're not seeing any erosion! When I was planning to buy my property, I recognized that one of the biggest hurdles I would have to overcome and adapt to was to successfully use and management limited pasture. The lay of my land only leaves 2 acres available for turnout needs. This necessitates a dry lot and rotational grazing. Of course, this isn't ideal for three horses! But it's my reality and I was (and am!) determined to make it work in the best way.  Aerial view from last summer during construction. Step 1: Establish & Improve the Pastures The first step to began last year when I hired a local farmer to come up and brush hog my future pastures. The area had been unmowed and unmanaged for a series of years. However, based on the surrounding lawns in my neighborhood that are maintained simply by routine mowing every year, I knew that this first step was bound to make a big difference for my future pastures. It's pretty outstanding what simple routine mowing can do to encourage grasses to grow instead of other forbs and woody stems (i.e., milkweed, goldenrod, Rubus species, hawthorn, etc.). It also helps immensely that this entire neighborhood was once a working cattle farm; my topsoil - as proven during construction last year - is pretty primo, even if it is currently lacking in some regards. Brush hogging the golden rod. Look at all that gorgeous top soil! While mowing made a huge difference for my land, it was only the first step! Next, I took soil samples and send them to West Virginia University for free analysis. Yes, free. If you're interested in doing this for your own property, research the opportunities within your state. Many states offer the service free of charge for residents through Federal and State agencies and/or colleges and universities. If your state doesn't offer any of these services, you can always work with someone like Southern States who will both test your soils and then help you interpret the results and build a custom fertilizer mix for your needs. Soil testing is important to do to determine what treatments are going to be best for growth of pastures/crops. Not all soils are the same! Environmental factors and land use practices dramatically influence the type and quality of soils. If you want to improve or change the composition of vegetation on your land, you've got to start with the soil. Plants need nutrients to grow well. And different plants require different nutrients. (Are all those various grade school science class lessons coming back to anyone else right now?) Anyone who lives in a rural area with farming should be familiar with this concept; many farmers rotate crops to help/improve their soils so that they better support other plants later on. (Nitrogen fixation is a big one.) My soil results (above) told me that my soils were a bit acidic (pH of 4.6). The recommended treatment was to lime the pastures. I went a step further with my results, too, and emailed them to my local Southern States to get their opinion on what I should do. Through conversations with David at SS, I learned that liming was going to be my main focus for the next couple years. pH values don't change quickly. David said he'd like to see my pH value up closer to 6.  I did the first round of liming this spring, and I will likely lime again next spring, too. I plan to continue working closely with local experts and do my best to implement their recommendations. It will be a process, and it may change and evolve over time, but that's to be expected. I'm new to this and pretty fluid about everything (within financial reason). I anticipate that once the pH is at a more ideal level, I will look more into a custom fertilizer mix to improve the mineral composition of the soil. I will also likely perform disking/seeding to establish better forage over time.  Step 2: Prevent/Minimize Erosion/Sedimentation AKA No Mud! I know I harp on this a lot since this project began, but I hate mud in pastures. It isn't great for the land, and it isn't great for the horses that live on that land. I dealt with some ridiculous mud at every barn I spent time around growing up. I witnessed situations that I now know were largely preventable with a bit of foresight and planning.  I knew going into my purchase that I was incredibly fortunate to be buying land that drained exceptionally well.  When Dave had a perc test done years ago, the tester noted that it was one of the best in the region. Still, with neglectful practices that lead to gross mismanagement, anything can become a mud pit in a hurry in the east (as evidenced at other farms in the region I've spent time at). Too much hoof traffic can compact soils and damage vegetation above and below ground in a manner that negatively effects growth. This reduces the ability of vegetation to draw in water, which helps prevent erosion/sedimentation.  Barn with dry lot. As viewed from here, the French drain resembles a capital E: the toe of the slope is the vertical portion of the E and then the three horizontal figures extend on the far side of the dry lot, through the dry lot right before the overhang, and on the far side of the barn.  The first big step to minimizing sedimentation/erosion/damage to my soils was opting to have a dry lot for the horses. This "armored" area would provide a place for the horses to spend the majority of their time without harming soils. Planning for this from the get-go to dramatically reduced the likelihood of issues. I also installed a pretty intense French drain in and around the dry lot to both protect it and further minimize the likelihood of sedimentation/erosion (especially of areas downslope of my property). The next step to minimize sedimentation/erosion/damage to my soils was planning to have multiple [small] pastures to rotate the horses though. Step 3: Pasture Rotation Designing the property to have two pastures to cycle the horses' time on was the next step in my grand plan to manage my land in the best way possible. This would allow the land to have a rest period to grow and recover from the stresses of grazing/traffic and help guarantee that the land remains healthy and functioning as it should into the future so that it can continue to support my horses.  Majestic Grif posing during evening turnout a few weeks ago. Currently, the horses are turned out for 3 to 4 hours per day on days that the ground is not a soppy, wet mess. This is still a very fluid thing based on my learning and the weather/environment. I also have been turning them out for one month per pasture. However, with less precipitation (leading to less vegetation growth) this is likely to evolve as the land dictates. Thus far, the pastures are looking really great. We had heavy rain event of ~2 inches in 45 minutes last week and the only place I noticed erosion from runoff was along the edge of the dry lot where the water running off the pasture pushed the stone dust around a bit and partially covered a T post that has been lying there since last year. (Yeah, yeah, I know I need to move it, but look how my procrastination has paid off - its helped me make this cool observation!) Step 4: Future Plans? Looking forward, I plan to continue soil testing, liming, fertilizing, disking, and seeding as necessary. The composition of vegetative species growing in the pastures is far from where I'd like to see it one day, but this is a process that takes time. And ultimately, as I have already stated, this process will be one that is on a very fluid schedule based on what the land is telling me it needs. Additionally, as I learn more from my equine nutrition course, my approach will likely change to help guarantee my horses the most balanced diet possible from their pasture. Thunderheads rising above the pastures earlier this month. The near pasture had just completed it's month rotation with the horses on it. They're in the far pasture for July. Overall, I am very pleased. There is definite room for further improvement, but for the first year, I am super happy with the progress I've made and the land's response to that progress.... [Read more]

A silver lining to COVID-19 is that I've had ample time to work on things around the property. Usually I feel pulled in multiple directions: photography gigs, hangouts, post-work libations with my coworkers, potlucks, travel, etc. Noooot so much now. As a result, my to-do list for the barn and property that I expected to take until autumn has been completed. Preparation and Liming of the Pastures I'll likely lime my pastures for a few years in a row to get them up to a better pH. When I tested the soils last year, they rung at a pH of 4.6  This wasn't at all surprising, but it is a bit too acidic to grow lush pasture grasses. To prepare for liming, I spent a few days picking up rocks, firewood, and wood scraps/shavings from the milling process last summer. This involved three more pick up loads of firewood to be transferred (we had already done a good 6 loads last fall), raking and shoveling of all the scraps and shavings, and clearing out rocks that remained from excavation. I slowly did these tasks over a period of a few weeks while I waited for the weather to get its shit together so I could lime. When I finally found a window of time, I headed up to Oakland to get a buggy from Southern States that was full of pelletized lime and returned to spread it in the first pasture (I'm waiting to do the other one this autumn).  Spring pastures sans all the firewood that had been piled up here! Wheelbarrow with scraps, one jump that hadn't been moved, and tarp-encased slab of wood we're letting cure before turning into a bench  Hooked up to the buggy waiting for pelleted lime to fill  Hooked up and about to drive around the pasture spreading the lime Post-liming.  And the only morel I've ever found in Canaan...in the middle of my damn pasture! It was a funny shaped little thing, but I was happy to discover it right before liming. I totally ate it with dinner that night lol Rock Path As my barn routine normalized, I began to notice that I was wearing a path down to the barn. This wasn't unexpected or surprising in the least. What was a slightly surprising and a bit frustrating though was that the last 6 feet or so was muddy because despite spreading top soil back, the vegetation was really struggling to reestablish itself. My constant trodding on it really wasn't helping either. The area was muddy and becoming worse by the day. A big reason why I designed the barn/dry lot/pastures in the manner I did was to avoid ever having to step in mud again. I hate mud and one of my big goals with the barn project was to do all I could to effectively manage mud around my property. And so, in an effort to resolve the little bit of mud I was encountering on my walk down to the barn, I began building a stone path.  It wasn't anything special at all, but it did help get me up out of the mud! I worked on it bit by bit this spring. First the topmost and bottom-most sections. The middle remained incomplete for a long time. And when I was about to mobilize and go fetch rocks to complete the middle section, I screwed up my shoulder.  Fortunately for me, my brother - who has been back in WV for a few weeks and staying with me during that time - took it upon himself to upgrade/complete my rock pathway last week. Thanks, brother! Norah checking out the lower part of the walkway Middle missing Rock walkway pairs well with the rock perimeter on my flower bed Brother and his work in progress A lot of the small rocks in the middle of this image and the next have been replaced with giant river rocks I'm a big fan! Barn Mats While not the biggest or craziest upgrade, I did finally buy a few more barn mats. These damn things are pricey - especially when one needs to buy multiples. I'd like to eventually get about four more before calling it "good", but for now this is more than workable. I LOVE having mats to sweep. It's so much simpler than raking them for cleanliness. Earlier this spring, I just had a narrow strip of mats up the middle. But now mats fill the very large majority of the space! We're pretty happy about this development for all barn aisle needs.... [Read more]

It's old news to those who follow me on Instagram, but Q and I suffered a slip/fall/crash 2½ weeks ago. Q is very fortunately fine beyond rattling her confidence. I on the other hand suffered an acute injury to my upper trapezius muscle.  I have no media to accompany this story, so have some random shots of the horses one pretty summer evening I was on a ride with Kate and Dave when it happened. We reached one of our favorite gallop sections and I became a bit caught up in the moment, giggling as Dave and Stan rocketed past Q and I because Dave was making silly faces. I knew that there were pseudo water bars present in this area, but forgot in the moment. ...until Stan and Dave tripped slightly (but regained balance and momentum without issue) in front and to the right of Q and I. Fractions of a second later, we hit a slightly more uneven piece of ground.  Q stutter-stepped as she encountered the uneven terrain. In her attempts to save us, her left foreleg slipped out from under her - and me. I was propelled unceremoniously over her left shoulder (a first!, it has always been the right side before now) and slammed into the mountainside. I essentially pile drove my left shoulder/neck into the turf and heard my neck (maybe other things?) crack 8-9 times. I quickly checked my CMS (circulation, motor, sensory) by wiggling all my fingers and toes and found everything to be in working order. In fact, one of my first thoughts once I had done that was, Wow, that was a shock, but it wasn't so bad at all! Not so different from my visits to the chiropractor...well, other than the suddenness and force of it all... I love her big ol' eyes.  Within seconds of my unplanned dismount, I was up and mobile. Q was standing idly with Stan and Dave while Kate, who had witnessed the entire thing, gaped at me in abject horror before asking me multiple times if I was sure I was okay. In that moment, I truly felt fine. My shoulder was a touch tingly, but nothing too crazy. The bones seemed to be in fine order and there were no deformities anywhere between my neck and shoulder joint. All in all, I counted myself lucky.  More importantly to me in that moment, Q checked out to be completely fine. She had a bit of mud on her left stocking, but that was it. The worst of it was that she seemed a bit alarmed/uncertain about me being on the ground. I can only assume that my coming off her her left shoulder surprised her. In the countless times I came off that mare during 2014-2015, it was always over her right shoulder.  He looks so great right now. I'm so freaking pleased. I massaged my shoulder and surrounding muscles on and off as we rode for another 45 minutes. But by that evening, the pain in my shoulder had grown to a steady 4 on the pain scale. It would spike to a 5 or 6 if I did certain things. I dosed with NSAIDs and iced it and called it good. The pain was still present the next day, my range of motion (ROM) was further limited, and my shoulder had a "dropped" appearance that friends could see from a distance. Even Dave, who is notoriously bad at observing such deformities, could see a difference.  By Sunday, I was highly suspect of a second degree AC injury. I continued NSAIDs, ice, and soaks in a cold river to ease the pain and inflammation and [slowly] one-armed all of my barn chores. I slept shittily Sunday night due to the pain waking me up multiple times and was in throbbing pain by Monday morning. At that point, I cried "uncle" and headed to the closest urgent care. I was checked over by a PA and sent to the hospital for x-rays. By Tuesday afternoon, the PA called me to let me know that my x-rays were clear and she was going to refer me to a physical therapist. My first appointment was set for 10 days later. The whole reason I flitted out to take photos of the horses in their temp fence grazing area this evening was because that gorgeous rainbow was cascading down behind them In the 10 days leading up to that appointment, the pain was a steady 3-4 with spikes up to 5-6 if I pushed myself outside of my comfortable ROM...and my ROM became increasingly limited during that week. The only way I could sleep was if my shoulder was heavily iced. The NSAIDs helped, but not as much as the ice did. As soon as the ice pack warmed, I would wake up from the pain. Not an enjoyable experience!  In the 2-3 days prior to my first PT appointment, I regained some of my ROM. I was still limited, but not as much as I had been. The pain was finally under control with the sole use of NSAIDs, too, which was a big relief.  His little cheek freckle has remained unchanged since I met him 15 years ago. I always wondered if it would evolve as he aged. Upon arriving at the PT, I rehashed how the injury occurred, demonstrated my ROM, and discussed the limitations and pain I'd been experiencing since the crash. The PT assessed me and said that I'd suffered an acute injury to my upper trapezius. The muscle was "stuck" in a contracted state to protect itself and was the cause of all the referred pain I was experiencing throughout my whole neck/shoulder region. I knew it was knotted, and was incredibly relieved to hear that it was just that muscle and not the AC joint! My PT is confident I'll be back to normal in short order. In fact, he told me to not limit myself and noted that it's highly unlikely I will make it any worse. So that's pretty sweet! ] The teeny black tips on his ears in the summertime make me so happy. And I know many of you are a fan of his "lipstick"  After receiving this news, I had the pleasure of experiencing one of the most uncomfortable therapies I've ever experienced: dry needling + electric stimulation. The logic behind it makes perfect sense to me and I'm happy to deal with the discomfort of the treatment because I do know it will help speed my recovery. But fuck, y'all. That shit sucks. The PT took time and care to insert three needles deep into my trap. All I can say is thank god I've had tattoos and acupuncture before because those experiences were the only thing keeping me from crying out more than I did as he placed the needles.  Once the needles were placed, he hooked them up to electrical stimulation that then triggered the muscle to twitch on and off for the next 20 minutes or so. While bizarre, the twitching due to the electrical stimulation wasn't actually painful. Once the treatment was over, he removed the needles and had me lie with my shoulder on a vibrating ball for a few minutes. Then he sat me up and HOLY SHIT. I couldn't exactly turn around to confront him face-to-face, but I exclaimed, "Ohmygod what did you do to me," as I devolved into nervous laughter over my predicament. The PT laughed with me, then noted that yes, I would be sore. Really sore. Really, really sore for the next 24 hours or so. He applied CBD salve, told me to continue my NSAIDs as needed, MSM/arnica salve as desired, and to lay with some kind of ball under the muscle a few times a day until he sees me again next week. So happy to finally capture this little maneuver on camera! It always makes me giggle to watch them do this. My trap was SO SWOLLEN AND ANGRY within 30 minutes of leaving PT. I wish I'd taken pictures! I couldn't help but laugh at myself every time I caught my reflection for the rest of that day. The swelling was absolutely comical. Fortunately, by 72 hours post-PT, my shoulder was feeling the best it had felt since being injured. The pain no longer wakes me up at night, my ROM is vastly improved, and barn chores are a breeze again. Q and her minions...erm, I mean geldings. I'm so grateful that the crash didn't result in worse injury for myself and Q. I'm especially happy that Q is okay. I've only ridden once (under Kate's watchful eye) since the incident, and am so very relieved to report that Q's confidence, which was really shaky immediately following the incident, seems to be right back to its normal level. She led half of our 90-minute, 4-mile ride without a single nervous step. (And that ride didn't bug my shoulder one bit!) I think Q and I both needed that time in the saddle to move forward.  I hope to resume riding with my previous frequency over the next week or so! There are many adventures to be had through the rest of summer. Hopefully without further injury ;-)... [Read more]