Cliff got our pasture seeded Sunday and Monday; it was mighty wet for him to be working the soil, but our sandy soil drains quickly and he got the job done. Grass of any kind needs, ideally, to be sown by September 15, so he got it in just under the wire. Tuesday the rains came, over 2 1/2 inches. The pasture ground is not level, and we both figured half the field was washing away. As it turns out, the rain came slowly, and there was only minor erosion. Yesterday it rained again, almost an inch in the course of the day.
Again, the rain came slowly. So far, so good. All this rain should have that seed germinating in record time; once the grass and clover is up and growing, the danger of erosion will be reduced. Cliff has been having a lot of back pain lately. He has a history of back pain, ever since he worked at the butcher shop and was the only person big and strong enough to move beef quarters from one rail to another. But he's been able to manage the pain. Now he has a hip bothering him too, and it sometimes pops when he's walking. I'm pretty sure what that means, but I'm no doctor. I do have experience with osteoarthritis, though. Anyhow. We've never been ones to go to a chiropractor, but Cliff decided to try one while we still have good insurance coverage. We'll see how that goes. His first visit was yesterday. He experienced some relief immediately following the treatment, and he goes again today. It seems as though it takes forever for daylight to arrive now. I was in the habit of going outside with my coffee and checking the garden and flowerbeds to see what little miracles had occurred while I was sleeping. These days the coffee is long gone before it gets light enough to see. On the garden front, I'm feuding and fussing with a mole who insists on making his run right under my row of fall beets. The miracle zucchini is producing better than ever, and I am celebrating the fact that the squash bugs have not bothered it. I'm only getting a couple of tomatoes each day, and they aren't very pretty. But they still taste better than store-bought. We're getting garden-fresh green beans, and these recent rains have given the eggplants new life. I've blanched a couple of gallon freezer-bags of sweet peppers to use in stuffed peppers this winter. My little garden is giving us lots of free food, and I'm thankful for every bite.
I have to tell you, I was disappointed in this video. The horses have been confined pretty close to the house and barn in order to give the rest of the pasture a chance to green up and grow. Saturday Cliff took down the electric fence that confined them.
I expected them to run and buck and kick up their heels, once they realized they were free. That didn't happen. When they saw that they could get beyond where the electric fence had been, all of them (starting with Libby) ran to check it out. But once they were across their former boundary, they simply put their heads down and started picking at the short grass.
Notice that Libby, always the ham, keeps coming close to me. She loves people, and she's a total ham. I swear she knows what the camera is. Watch her pose.
When I'm working Libby in the round pen, not only does she come to me when I lower the whip, but if I walk around, she follows close behind. We had a great, relaxed session today.
The horses aren't on the main pasture yet because the grass hasn't really started growing. It has indeed been a long winter, because normally by now there'd be plenty of pasture. Usually if I'm not pressed for time, before I take Libby out with the rest of the horses, I let her nibble at what grass she can find in the yard. She loves this.
Today I figured I'd turn her loose in the section that we hay once a year in spring, before we use it for pasture. You can see by the pictures our grass isn't growing much, but there's some green there. Horses have teeth that can tear grass off if there's only a quarter-inch showing.
For some reason, Libby wasn't enthusiastic about the pasture grass. We've had the calves on this section, and they're picking at it all the time. Oh, she'd taste it. But for the most part, she followed me around like she had done in the round pen. I wanted to take some pictures of her, but it was hard to get far enough away from her to get a whole-body shot. If I trotted (believe me, I don't trot much), so did she.
