The 'other' girls

As you know, these two stooges are the ones I commonly refer to as 'the girls' on my blog, at least over this winter when my other equine 'girls' have been turned out to pasture only to be visited every month or so to check in and make sure they know I haven't abandoned them.

In this photo, the canine girls were loaded up in Scott's pickup a couple days ago and we were all headed out to feed and open water for the equine girls and their pasturemates. It cracks me up that Lucy uses the arm rest. I don't know what they're going to do when they're displaced from their backseat by children.

In the foreground here is April, one of my girls. At 18 years old this spring, she and I have had a good run of 16 years together.

It was about this time of year in 1995 - in fact, exactly a week before I turned 11 years old - that I went with my dad and another man to the eastern border of Georgia to take a look at her. That previous Christmas, a couple months before, our parents had told us they would buy each of the three of us kids our own horse, and in the months following we got to help pick them out and bring them home. Turns out, we brought April home that evening from Augusta, Ga. And just look where she ended up - all the way from Georgia to the middle of Wyoming.

Although she has her share of flaws and bad habits - probably some due to both of our young ages when we started out together - she has been a good, faithful horse and continues to keep on working even as she ages, and we've always gotten along well together. She's responded well to whatever new tasks I've asked of her, and her best quality is her jog trot. I've never ridden a smoother horse. She's had one horse colt, probably about eight years ago now, and has survived one nasty wire cut that's left an everlasting scar on her left front leg. She still tends to be accident-prone, mostly because she gets nervous and panics easily, especially on surfaces she thinks are slick. And don't even talk about ice. And the only gelding she likes at the Association is Scott's big black Deets.

After much debate last spring, because of her age, I turned her in with Bob's young stud colt and bred her for a second foal this spring. Looking at her that day when we were feeding, I thought it looked like she'd lost it, but now looking at this photo, maybe she is still bred. I think part of it was that the other bred mares are a few months ahead of her, so compared to them she doesn't look very big.

Jazz, pictured here on the right, is my other girl. While I brought April with me when I first moved to Wyoming, it wasn't until a couple summers later that Jazz moved west. The reason I took her on was that she was extremely bored without any other horse company on my parent's farmstead, and that led to to her tormenting the cows and calves. What's a horse to do? She was at the end of my dad's patience, and I'm glad I brought her out, because I use both of them frequently, and they're each good at different jobs so I can pick the most suitable horse for the day's work.

I've also had Jazz since she was very young. We purchased her and her mother together when Jazz was a yearling, and she was my project when I was around 15 years old... I always forget exactly what year we got them. Needless to say, the older I got, and the more horses I rode, the more I figured out about training and working with young horses, and Jazz benefited from that. She has always been very trainable - that's why I chose her for the job of pulling our four-seater buggy. She's smart, and catches on quickly to new things. She's the first horse I figured out how to teach to pick up leads on command, and she yields really well to leg pressure.

Although small, and not the smoothest horse around by any means, she's a hard worker, and has a big heart and will always respond to requests for effort. So does April, and that's one quality I really like about riding mares. I'd rather have too much horse than not enough.

So, both of my 'equine girls' have been with me for over a decade, and they're not going anywhere anytime soon, much to Scott's dismay, who wishes I would get geldings instead. :-) On that note, although I'm in favor of horse slaughter as a way to control the populations of unwanted, unusable horses in this country, I'm also all for keeping quality horses until they're a ripe old age. My mares owe me nothing, and they will die of natural causes, or when health and/or age conditions dictate that the kinder thing to do would be to end their pain and discomfort after a good, long life. I have always taken the best possible care of them, and I hope that I get to keep them around well into their 20s.

The best free digital download:

I really am getting ready to go to bed after an evening spent working on some editorial things for the paper... but I made a quick visit to some of my favorite blogs, and found this:

Just Something I Made

This pdf and another are available over at Just Something I Made, and I can see nursery inspiration coming on. I knew I didn't want to decorate the nursery with the normal baby animal themes, I guess they're too cartoonish and unrealistic for me, and now I'm thinking I could maybe somehow use these vintage images as a jumping off point of inspiration for our baby room's decor.... I'm envisioning trying to blow one of these up and transferring to the wall. Too ambitious? Maybe. :-)

InDesign: Learning a new skill

Sometimes it's hard for me to believe, but there are some slow times here in the Roundup office. It's just the nature of the business that sometimes all the deadlines loom at once, and other times we're all caught up, like on Friday afternoons in January.

So one Friday afternoon a couple weeks ago I was in the office by myself and  I started to design this invitation in my InDesign program, and killed two birds with one stone as I also figured out how to type on a path, which is pretty tricky to pull off, and I'm still not a master at getting the text to do what I want.

Click for zoom image

Something else I haven't mastered is screen shots in programs, otherwise I might have attempted to put together a tutorial on type on a path. As it is, I found several helpful tutorials through search engines, and that's how I was able to figure it out.

The inspiration for the invitation was vintage advertisements like this one for Northland SnowShoes. That's where I stole the 'Vigorous health and a million thrills' from. 'The greatest sport of the season' also came from a vintage advertisement.

I find my images and inspiration on Google image search, most times, including the snowshoe, dogsled and pine bough graphics I put in my layout. Finding images is a lot of trial and error for me - there are at least five others in the file that I started using and then discarded because I didn't like them well enough.

This ad for hot cocoa was the inspiration for my text layout, and why I wanted to learn to make curved words.





So even though there's some down time in the office, I was able to put together an invitation for our snowshoeing party on Sunday, and learn a new InDesign skill to use in building the paper and designing ads in the future. There are endless things to figure out and experiment with in the Photoshop and InDesign programs, if only one has the time (and patience) to tackle them. Online tutorials are wonderful things.

Cheap entertainment: moving furniture

For our Superbowl party over the weekend we rearranged the upstairs furniture to make more seating in our tv area. That means a crowded tv area, but a spacious front room now. Foxy likes the open floor space where she can play with her rawhide chews.

Actually both of the girls like the space for wrestling. I've put several rugs down by the door for snowy/wet/muddy boot traffic. Before we didn't really have anyplace to go with our shoes.

I kind of like how open the space is... but I also like the loveseat, and for right now the only space it can go is the front room.

This is my eight-dollar desk that I found at Salvation Army. I have yet to make it what I want - I'm planning at least a paint job and new drawer pulls, but at least it's not in the garage anymore.

Here's the big front window minus the sheer burgundy panels that I took down and disposed of yesterday. I can't wait to take the wood scallops down and see what a difference it makes for the summer sunrises in a couple months. Ok three months. Ok maybe five. The tablecloth is one my sister brought back from South America, and I love it with all its colors, which you can't see too well in the photo. You also can't see it too well in the photo, but the chair at the foot of the table is red. I really like them red.

So as nice as the front room looks, here's the tv space with the loveseat. :-) Scott says, 'Can we leave this here for a while?' He asked because the loveseat is the most comfy thing we own, and it really is too bad it doesn't fit with the tv area. The limits of our square footage mean I have to get creative.

Lucy thinks the loveseat is ok in that space.

These are the horseshoe hooks that I mounted on either side of the bathroom door. As you can see, the other two I hung over the weekend already look full.

And this is the coatrack that I hung on the right side of the hallway, and it kind of extends to the over-the-door rack of the spare room. It was plumb full of jackets, vests, caps, insulated pants and whatnot, but I had cleared it off so our company would have a place to hang their coats.

And here are my new shelves above the refrigerator, which I also love. It's a great use of that space for my lesser used dishes, which ends up being mostly goblets. The blue-stemmed goblets that my mom gave me some time ago can finally see the light of day. :-)

The kitchen isn't much changed from the usual, except I did get some new rugs at Ross last weekend. I've found myself using the bowl set that friend Holly gave me for Christmas quite frequently - that's the biggest one of the set on the counter.

Foxy likes the new rug.

My new Martha Stewart magazine came today, and I had to tear myself away to go back to work at the office the rest of the afternoon. It's full of summery and gardening ideas, and that's a welcome thought, considering we're sitting here under a pile of snow that has dumped on us in the span of a few hours this evening. It's spring snowstorm season in Wyoming.

An early start on spring cleaning

Well, of course I forgot to bring my red camera to the office to upload some of the weekend photos to my computer. Saturday I spent mostly around the house and some out on errands, and got quite a bit accomplished. Even though it's not yet mid-February, I'm already feeling the need to freshen up the house in preparation for bright, warm sunshiney days. Yes, I know it will be three months before I get any green grass and can open the house windows, but I'm already starting to hurry along spring.

Here are a few things I accomplished. Photos to come:

- Organized/rearranged kitchen cupboards. I think my kitchen gets unfair attention compared to the rest of the house, but it is the space in which I enjoy spending most of my time, and that's how I justify it. After Scott and the girls left first thing Saturday morning to open water for the cows and go to the Association to work on the new flatbed for Snowflake, his little white pickup, I spent the first few hours of my Saturday organizing cupboards, weeding a few things out, putting some extra cupboard organizers in place and finishing filling my new shelves above my fridge with dishes, which ended up being mostly goblets. I also dusted my bottle collection that's on top of the cupboards.

- Washed all the couch pillows, pillow cases and couch cushion covers. There's nothing that makes a house feel cleaner than freshly-laundered couch accessories.

- Took down the sheer burgundy panels that have been on the big front window since move-in. They were dusty. And after taking them down I realized how much natural light they really did block.

- After taking down the panels, I also realized how dirty the windows were. It wasn't yet snowing, and the temperature hadn't dropped, so I cleaned them inside and out. That included the window pane where the neighborhood tom cat had climbed on my porch chair and sprayed the glass. And the wall. And the chair back. I think that's earned him a ticket out of town in a live trap. Window cleaning also took care of Link's nose prints on the inside of other front window, where he likes to sit on the ledge, which his furry belly now overhangs. I think his days spent snoozing in his chair this winter have resulted in a little weight gain.

- Swept, vacuumed and washed all the wood floors upstairs. Although there isn't much for square footage, it sure takes a while to chase down all the hair balls - we're entering shedding season, and Lucy has wasted no time - and the wood chips, chunks other remnants that accompany a wood-burning stove.

- Painted a set of dining table chairs red. They came from Salvation Army, were unfinished wood and had been drawn on by the previous owner's children. Or somebody's children. I had picked up a can of Rustoleum Satin Finish spray paint at Menards with the chairs in mind. The paint project I also did before the temperature dropped and the snow came. It was a little chilly outside, so I brought them inside to the basement to finish drying. Scott came home that evening and we were both in the basement for some reason. He saw the first chair I'd finished and brought inside, which prompted a 'So what've you been up to today, sweety?' Like any husband of a DIYer, he's learned not to ask too many questions, or be surprised at changes to the house. :-)

- Stained a set of three wooden shelves a dark brown. Also before the snow came. They're intended for Scott's collection of shot glasses, which right now are on top of the scalloped wood valances in the front room that will soon meet their end. Although I got the staining done, I didn't get the shelves hung this weekend.

- Hung up two more horseshoe hooks on the right side of the bathroom doorway upstairs. Several weeks ago I hung two on the left side of the doorway, near my newly-established coatrack station in the hallway to the sewing room,  and they were already overflowing with scotch caps, cowboy hats and silk scarves, so hopefully the additional hooks will help spread out our collection. And they also already look full. I have more horseshoe hooks, but currently no good idea of where to put them where they'll be as handy.

- After all those projects I headed out to clean the Roundup office and return some useless off-brand Swiffer wet wipes to Walmart. They did more harm than good, leaving streaks all over my floors. I'll stick with the Swiffer brand of wipes, which work great. So much for cheaper.

- I also was on a quest to find a black dress for friend Emily's upcoming Missouri wedding. I found something at the mall that I think will work. We'll see if I still like it when I put it on again.

- When I got home from errands I started cooking food for our Superbowl gathering, which included the yeast rolls to serve as buns for the sliders, the S'more Brownies... and I forget what else. I was in the kitchen from 6 to 11 p.m., and got quite a bit prepared for the next day. Including cinnamon rolls for breakfast in the morning. Since the yeast roll dough can also be used for the cinnamon rolls I doubled the recipe. I baked half that night, and put the other half in the fridge to bake in the morning. I've never successfully done that, but it did end up working for me, although you have to be patient and wait for the rolls to completely warm up and for the yeast to become active again before baking. For all my yeast recipes - the rolls, soft pretzels and pizza dough - I turned on the oven just enough to warm it up, then set my bowls of dough inside to rise. In the apartment there was a perfect corner on top of the refrigerator that stayed warm from the motor, but I don't have such a good sheltered spot in the house.

- My KitchenAid mixer worked overtime this weekend. It's my most-used kitchen appliance.

- On Sunday Scott went with the girls to open water for the cows again, and I got back to work with some cooking and more cleaning that didn't get done Saturday, like the upstairs bathroom and vacuuming the rug in front of the couch, which is the dogs' favorite napping/chewing/wrestling area. I also moved the loveseat over by the tv and adjusted the tv for better viewing by a group, which caused the antenna to come crashing to the floor because the cord wasn't as long as I thought. I thought I might have to have Scott bring another home, but turns out everything still worked.

- Mother-in-law Shirley arrived at about 11:30, right after I'd finished cleaning the bathroom and washing the bathroom and kitchen floors and showering. I cooked and she and I visited while Scott went to get Bob, who needed a ride to the house while Becky dropped her new grandbaby off with her daughter. Baby Brooklyn and mother Emily ended up coming over to the house later in the day.

- The rest of the afternoon was consumed with visiting and nibbling and sampling my new recipes. Thankfully the soft pretzels turned out really well, and I enjoyed them with the mustard sauce. The cheese sauce I tried to make to go with them didn't turn out so good, and now I don't know what I'll do with that bowl of cheese mixed with green chilies. :-)

- And then everyone left when the football game ended. And I went to bed at 8:30. And it was wonderful. I didn't get my usual couple-hour nap this weekend.

Backing up a few days...

Since I was out of town for both work and play last week/weekend, I completely missed a post about Lucy turning one year old!

How could I forget?

She and her littermates were born Jan. 29, 2010. I first heard that there was a litter of red heeler pups when Scott and I were in his pickup with Bob and Nick. We were on our way to Riverton to order bits and spurs from Alan Taylor - when I ordered my birthday spurs from Scott - and Bob mentioned that there was a litter of pups belonging to our friend Francy. I immediately put in a reservation - I'd been wanting a dog for quite some time, and a red heeler was what I really wanted.

A mere four weeks later I went to Francy's with Heather to pick out my puppy, which turned out to be our spaz Lucy! It was so fun to have her so young, and I don't think she's any worse for it. Except that now she has to have her nose in everything, be in on everything and be in the middle of everything, and I think that's a consequence of taking here everywhere, and I mean everywhere, when she was young. She's not known anything else.

Her first few weeks were spent growing up in the Roundup office, as I was still living in my apartment and didn't want to leave her locked in a cage all day long. I loved the stage where her ears were half perked up. Pretty cute.

She went to feed my horses with me every day, so she never knew anything else than being around horses and livestock. She was soon introduced to cattle, and worked on the first opportunity I gave her at six months old. She remains a good, attentive cowdog, and she listens to either Scott or myself off horseback, so she's pretty handy to have around.

The thing I like most is she's got a good 'get back' on her, so that if she's going after a cow and has put it where it needs to be, or if shouldn't go after something she wants to, all we have to do is tell her to get behind, and she'll fall back behind your horse. For as much of a spaz as she can be at some times, she really pays good attention when we're working, and she tries really hard.

So far she's been pinned to the ground by a horned cow at least once, and has been kicked in the face a couple times, so come this summer she'll be all the smarter and all the better to work with.

Soon after I got her I bought my house and moved in, and so it was a good time to get a dog, which, as I said, I'd wanted for a long, long time. A couple months after moving into the house Scott got Foxy, and Lucy now has a sister and someone to make mischief with.

We're still working on being calm, especially when company arrives, and not losing her mind and spinning in circles on the floor when she's excited :-), but we'll get there. She is, after all, only a year old, and I think she's done quite well over the past year for being so young. She's well socialized and has been there, done that, including the horse camping and pack trips I took her on last summer. And she's protective of the house, and of Scott and myself, so we're hoping she bonds well to the baby and takes the same care with it as she does with us.

It's good to have dogs around the house, and I wouldn't trade my little red heeler pup.

To the previous owners of Odds and Ends..

I miss you.

For several years now the thrift store Odds and Ends here in Casper, on the corner of 12th and Beverly, has been my guilty pleasure, my relaxing lunch break, my curious stop after work or on slow Saturdays. It was a store full of quality used furniture at great prices - the kind of prices that make you say, "Yes, I like that enough to spend XX dollars. It's definitely worth that."

It was the store that contributed to overcrowding in my apartment, and the store where I found several key pieces of furniture for my new house last spring. I loved making good finds at Odds and Ends, and most of my current furniture has come from there. More than once did I stop by in my car last summer, only to return after work with my truck to pick up my purchase and bring something new home.

But those days are over.

Sadly, the store sold last summer. It stayed the same for a little while after the sale, as the old owners stayed on to break in the new ones. I thought maybe things would go smoothly, and hoped that the new owners would have the same vision and understanding for thrifting and used furniture that the old ones clearly did. It's now clear to me that I should have bought the shop!

All this has been brought on by my visit yesterday, while heading to the house from Hobby Lobby on lunch break. I had stopped in several weeks ago, and was disappointed to find that some piece of crap fake poinsettia had a price tag of five dollars on it. In any self-respecting thrift store, it would have been 50 cents. That was an indication of the direction the store has chosen to take.

So yesterday I walked through the door once again, thinking maybe that was a fluke, or that maybe they'd seen how wrong they were going with the business. My first impressions now upon walking in is that it's gotten white trashy, and the new owners seem to be going for quantity over quality. The front room is much more crowded now than it used to be, and it's hard to get around and see everything. I noticed their upholstered chairs are way overpriced. A decent chair that would suit a living room used to go for $80, and most of the prices I saw yesterday were pushing $250. Really. Who shops at a thrift store because they're looking to spend that kind of money. I could go to Furniture Row and get a brand new piece for not much more than that.

I don't think the new owners have the knack for finding the classic old pieces of furniture, either. It seems like they're just filling the store with whatever comes their way. There were a couple dressers that interested me, but at $150+, I didn't even consider purchasing them.

Add to all this - the new owners, or whoever it is that's working in there now - are not friendly. It used to be that, upon walking in, a customer was warmly greeted by whoever was working the counter. Now it's got the Walmart effect, where they pretend you don't exist.

So anyway, that's my sad tale. I no longer have a favorite thrift store in Casper. There are many others, but none of them are as consistent as Odds and Ends used to be. The others either have a bunch of cheap junk, with the occasional score, or overpriced furniture, with the occasional, "Well, I guess I could pay that much for that."

Sad times! But my spending money is much more intact now that I'm not tempted by furniture, so I guess that's one good point.

Homemade English muffins

Does it get better than this?

The photo alone is enough to inspire me to make some tonight, and enjoy them with eggs, bacon, cheese and some leaf lettuce. The recipe calls for all white flour, but I like the store-bought whole-wheat English muffins so much that I'd probably change the recipe to whole-grain.

Here's the link so you can have the recipe for yourself: Tasty Kitchen Blog - English Muffins.

I found the recipe and photo tutorial on a rabbit trail from my main goal of finding a Superbowl menu. Here's what I've settled on for Sunday, although it's subject to change on a whim or inspiration. :-)

- Pizza Rolls - a recipe of my own devising, as I didn't find one that I liked. Fashioned after the Old Chicago appetizer. I'll let you know how it goes.
- Mushroom and Swiss Sliders with Spicy Fry Sauce - from Pioneer Woman Cooks
- Tomato/cheese/Rotel/ground beef dip - Again, nothing that has a specific recipe. Throw it all together and heat!
- White Chocolate Party Mix - from Taste of Home. Because I'm pretty sure Scott can still taste the recipe my mom made at Christmas time.
- S'more Brownies - a definite favorite, good for taking to brandings, that I haven't made in a couple years. From Food Network.
- And... perhaps soft pretzels with mustard sauce? If I have the time and/or ambition come Saturday. Mostly, I'd make them because they sound really good to me, and I know I'd eat one or two. Or more.

Baby growing update

So, there's not a whole lot new to share on this front, but I thought an update might be timely, as I haven't really said anything about it since sharing the news...

So far, so good, pretty much sums it up. I have been slightly sick on more than one occasion, but nothing I can complain about. One night I didn't eat enough food along with my prenatal vitamins, and was sorry for it. Scott ended up bringing me a slice of bread to nibble in bed. Otherwise, as long as I keep fed I'm almost good to go. I bring Oatmeal Squares cereal with me when I'm traveling and in meetings, and it makes a good snack to tide me over.

I've been eating a lot of whole grains, vegetables, lettuce salads, sandwiches, yogurt... really nothing different than usual. I did get some sweet potatoes and roasted them in the oven with a little olive oil, salt and pepper - the way my mom fixed them when we were in Iowa and they were so good - because sweet potatoes are supposed to be really good for you, as well as black beans, which I also like, and have a favorite salad recipe with a vinegar, lime juice and honey dressing. It's so good.

There are too many things that women aren't 'supposed' to eat when they're pregnant for me to keep track of, and I found myself forgetting until halfway through a meal, so I've thrown out the list and am just trying to eat healthy and carefully. Yes, *gasp* I am eating deli meat, some seafood like tuna and salmon, and the other weekend I did eat a couple eggs over-easy for breakfast in Thermopolis. And there was bleu cheese on that steak salad at Old Chicago, which didn't occur to me until I was halfway into it. Don't tell the pregnancy diet police.

At first I had an aversion to all things sweet, and to large quantities of meat, but I'm over that now. Still keeping away from the sweets, just because I don't need them in my diet, but have added meat back in and am enjoying eating steaks and pork roast again. :-)

When left to my own devices, I usually don't eat a lot of fruit, but many vegetables, so I have tried to make an effort to eat more fruit. Despite that, I still haven't consumed a banana on its own out of the last three bunches - good thing Scott likes to eat them - but I have used them to make banana flax waffles, which were delicious, and banana chip muffins, which I made whole-grain, sugar-free and added flax. Scott liked them, too. They're already all gone.

So with those slight diet adjustments, so far I've tightened my belt two holes... I think the majority of that came from the first weeks of January when I wasn't consuming much food at all. No noticeable weight gain yet, although the scale says it's happening somewhere, with just a pound or two added back at nine weeks now.

I have been back to Zumba several times, though with last week's travel, and yesterday's long trip to Worland and back, I haven't gone recently. Looks like I should be in town for a couple weeks now, unless I go back to the legislature in Cheyenne, so I'm hoping to get back into going consistently, just to keep up my exercise.

So that's pretty much all the baby news to date - the doctor appointment is still a couple weeks out yet, and Scott says then we'll know 'for sure.' I guess he won't believe it till he sees it.

The heifers at home at Thermopolis

Last Friday evening, en route back to Casper from Powell, I met up with Scott and Bob at Jerry Lake's place on Owl Creek, near Thermopolis, to spend the night, visit, look at our replacement heifers and pick up a load of hay.

Saturday morning Scott and I headed out to the feedlot, where the girls are staying, and while we were there we fed the few pens of cattle that Jerry's keeping over the winter. The red heifer second from left is the one that Scott gave me last spring, and she looks small next to the girls from Iowa! She didn't look that small when we weaned last fall, but Scott says that's because her mother is also little. A little cow is just fine, as long as she produces.

Some bulls are staying in a pen across the alley, so Scott gave them their hay, too.

They're weren't really sure why I was getting so camera-happy with them.

Here Scott is giving the hay to our heifers. They will stay here until late spring, when they'll be moved back to the green grass on the Association before being bred this summer. It's best to keep replacement heifers - the females that will join the cowherd as producers - in a situation like this overwinter so they can keep growing and be in good shape come springtime. Being out on pasture would be enough to maintain their weight, but not necessarily gain and grow.

 

They weren't really sure why I was taking their picture, either.

After the calves were fed we went across the road to start Jerry's truck, which was already loaded, and put some straps on the hay before Bob and Scott headed back to the Association with it, and I headed back to Casper.