July 2023 – Where do I even begin?

July 2023 – Our June blog post came out nearly a week before the end of June and a lot sure happened in those few days. I’ll start with one scary hilarious day. Lodi called me at work and stopped my heart, “You have to go home now!” My nephew had called him (thinking he was home because of his schedule) because, believe it or not, our horse was just seen running down the damn road. I talked to him while I bolted home and absolutely couldn’t believe it until I saw it… There was no way our 32 year old crabby old man who accidentally got out ONCE only to wait in panic to be let back in again… was just going for a joy run?!

(His “official” name is BR Hal Garcia but he’s called Gar, Garbage, Gar-man, Garfield and anything else starting with Gar that we’ve come up with… I mostly call him Gargoyle. He’s about 90 in human years.)

July 2023

Fortunately Gar’s “breaking out” couldn’t have happened at a better time.

My dad’s car was in the shop for a couple of days so he had borrowed my brother’s truck and in the very short span of time my nephews came by to get said truck (literally standing in the driveway) they witnessed a tiny Shetland pony sprinting by followed by our old gelding.

“Was that Gar?!” “NO WAY!”

My nephews took off after and my dad followed in the car.

Said Shetland pony ran herself all the three miles home. Her owners spotted her, opened the gate and got a bit more than expected when Gar followed her right in!

(When we showed up he was showering little lady with kisses and he was also being showered with love by her owners – he really is quite charming.)

WHAT AN IDIOT!!

My gosh did he love her though!

(She was about as tall as his knee but he didn’t care one bit lol she must have waltzed right up to our pasture fence and didn’t have to do more than duck to trot right in. He on the other hand must have tripped all over himself taking down the center line to follow her out.)

I would have said absolutely nothing could have gotten my scared-to-death-of-everything gelding out of his safe happy home pasture…

Except it turns out that little lady was in heat and was on the prowl for a gentleman…

Way back Gar was used as a breeding stud and had his own little herd of mares for a couple of years before being gelded and sold to us.

BUT HE HASN’T HAD BALLS FOR OVER 25 YEARS!

He also hasn’t had any company for a couple of years either though since we lost Jazzy so I guess I can’t totally blame him.

July 2023

I’m still in disbelief.

My nephews and dad couldn’t believe it at all, I can’t imagine the looks on their faces when he trotted by.

And I’m VERY lucky the circumstances of not only my dad and nephews spotting the idiot but also my two tall farm boy nephews who are used to dealing with cows MUCH larger than our old Gargoyle.

We got a halter on him with a bit of him acting a fool but he didn’t give too much trouble once we got him heading home. We were quite the train going down the road at a snail’s pace… two cars following an old horse walking between my two nephews.

My dad said, “You can’t blame him… it was on his bucket list! One last romp in the hay before he kicks the bucket!”

Oh hahahaha…..

Very fortunately no one was hurt (and I didn’t have a heart attack) and Gar hasn’t given us any indication that he plans on breaking out again…

That was within just a couple of days of our June blog post coming out so I didn’t have a chance to update it and, besides that, I was also just reeling then with the news of when the barn would be taken down too so…

The barn actually turned into a job out of our guy’s (and our) total nightmares.

He had thought it would be all of two days at best… It was literally over five and is going to cost ALOT more than we were expecting.

The slab turned into several slabs on top of each other and about seventy feet of four foot deep footings that looked like they must have supported two other silos at some point. (Another question I have now that I really wish I could have asked grandpa about the history here.)

It was just so much more than anticipated… If we / he had known going into it we probably would have just left it all and called it our own “stone hedge” but by the time we realized it was too late.

So it was DAYS of digging, breaking up concrete, filling up trucks with giant hunks of it and taking it to the dump.

By the time it was all said and done (and we got the bill) I will say any sentimentality for the barn had kind of been hauled out of me lol. I’m still sad about it, of course, but now just glad that its over.

Now we can look forward to the other big expense the Universe handed us after we said we were going to cut back on our spending this year… our new septic is being installed as we speak…

…sighs…

July 2023 we saw some pretty much perfect weather this month (minus needing rain) it wasn’t too hot like July usually is and really it was just all around lovely.

My little “container” gardening experiment turned into a crazy riotous flower bed / vegetable garden extravaganza. Despite Lodi mowing them to the ground this spring (or probably BECAUSE he did) my Grandma’s perennials came back with a vengeance.

They completely surrounded all of my vegetable containers and everybody just comingled and bloomed together!

Its not ideal for the veggies as the perennial flowers really block a lot of sunlight but I still love the craziness.

The milk weed around the farm did really well this year, blooming all over the place and around our front door and in the garden area. Such a Heavenly smell!

I miss the barn but seeing her look so terrible every day is not something I will ever miss. I think the area up by the silo honestly even looks good – like we cleaned the whole place up and did better by the property.

I always knew something would “have” to be done I guess and not having that in my future anymore is certainly a relief too.

I’m not planning anything in regards to our new empty space or the silo currently.

July 2023 We have no money after all of this anyway (lol) but mostly I’m just so done.

I had been excited this last winter to finally build new gates for our deck and also get an awning built over our garage’s access door… Honestly I’m just not feeling it right now.

I am just SO unmotivated.

I think I broke my brain (or at least my heart) on all of this and I guess I’m going to need a good long minute before I’m going to want to work on anything big again.

And I think that’s fair.