Independence Day

This 4th of July was spent quietly. Not one vehicle drove past our driveway, and we puttered about in the heat-splitting firewood and doing other outside chores. It was a high cloud, hazy day, so supplies for the day consisted of sunglasses, glasses of ice water or sun tea, and hand towels to wipe the sweat away.

So far this weekend I have managed to get most of the gardening done, water and weed elsewhere, make a whopping big cheesecake, and generally not work at anything too hard. We have the perennials placed where they need to go-but rototilling is on the back burner while we deal with firewood. We fired up the new woodstove and have quickly learned it is much different than the older stoves we grew up with-it's now a rather toasty 79 degrees inside, lol

Last week my wonderful husband ran up to the one farmer whose hay I prefer-and brought back nearly 100 bales of freshly baled local grass hay. It's wonderfully dry and while the bales may be lighter than I prefer, it's great stuff. The horses are digging into it with relish, always the "quality control" I can rely upon. I am delighted to have secured another load, due sometime in September. As usual, space is at a premium and I have no idea exactly where I am going to put it! My wonderful hub loaded the hay by himself while I was working, taking along our son-too young to drive the fields as yet. Having done this more times than I can count, I am suitably thankful for his efforts :)

Also last week, I posted an ad on CL, and on a local group about Wingnut. I had one person come out who spent some time with her, and it went well considering no one has done anything with her in nearly a year. Inside of six minutes they "joined up" as its known, and I was very pleased to see Wingnut turn into putty in the womans' capable, quiet hands. Alas, they chose not to go forwards with a lease. The horse would have been for her talented, experienced daughter-and a lease is not really what they had in mind. As I mentioned previously, the owner is unwilling to let go, period. Really too bad, it would have been a wonderful home for her.

Today I am working at contacting several other people about Wingnut, whose inquiries I found in my inbox. I won't hold my breath as it will take that special someone to click with her, like she has with my decidedly unhorsey husband.

For example, this weekend the trimmer and I discovered (much to our dismay) that someone has seriously thumped on her over the winter (probably). We base this assumption on the mare's outright fear of having anyone touch the one hindquarter in order to pick up a hind leg. We attempted to do this in the stall, and after a couple of backing sessions, it was obvious that she was ramping up into something explosive. So, I walked her over to the arena/round pen, and made her work off the excess nervous energy. Five minutes worth of speed work and she was more than ready to stop-and stood quite well for the balance of the trim. This was a big surprise to us both since previously Wingnut had shown no fear at all-I now wonder if there might have been some sort of wreck at Belardi's, it would coincide with the scrapes and marks on her hindquarters when she arrived. What happened, I have no idea....but I do know she shows fear and it will take some positive reinforcement and careful handling to get through it for a while. She also now has a scar on the back of her fetlock that was not there when she left....I can only speculate about what happened. Thus it falls to me to start working with her hindquarters in the hopes we can get her through this, as no one has been over to see her in weeks.

Today has started off rainy, although it's rather warm out. The dog has found a small nook here, away from the woodstove to take a morning snooze. The cats have curled up into fuzzballs, as high as they can find a spot and they are sleeping too.

And me? I am going to watch the balance of Sunday Morning with a fresh cup of coffee, and hopefully....find a new person for Wingnut today.