Lumber
Sep. 28th, 2025 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ranunculusAfter my ride I went to town and picked up several pieces of lumber. There are only a few cuts needed to put together three narrow bridges that I'll use for an obstacle next month.
ranunculus
Elly
Sep. 28th, 2025 09:06 pmranunculusI rode Elly today. She is a small pinto mare, about 20 years old, that Carol brought along for me to ride. Carrie, Carol and I went out and did a 5 mile loop, first up to Post A and then an extended Waddington Pond Loop. We were scouting for a good route for my ETS event in October. I began my ride by doing about 2 minutes of ground exercises, asking Elly to yield to me. She was good, and it really did bring her focus to me. On the trail it was clear that Elly had babysat a lot of kids. She really walked out and wasn't very good about responding to my rein cues to slow down. She was fantastic about weight and leg cues. I did my very best to demonstrate to Elly that if she responded I would instantly stop my rein cues. As the ride went on she got better and better. Carol had apologized and said she would fuss and jig the whole way home. Nope, she only fussed for a couple of steps on two or three occasions. The rest of the time she was on a loose rein. I was quite pleased. It was a nice ride only spoiled by quite smokey skies. We are getting smoke from the Oregon fires. Hopefully tomorrows storm with help put them out, I hear that Oregon could get two or three inches of rain.
More Canning
Sep. 25th, 2025 05:37 pmranunculusM and I put up 27 pints of pickles today, using up all 20# of the cucumbers I harvested yesterday. 15 of the pints were Bread and Butter pickles, the rest Dill with garlic. These are the first, and only Bread and Butter pickles I'm doing this year. Have no idea what I will do with the future cucumber production but I'm done canning for the year.
Edit:
Ok, I might make one more batch of Dill Pickles for my friend Phoebe.... She needs them not to have garlic in them.
Edit:
Ok, I might make one more batch of Dill Pickles for my friend Phoebe.... She needs them not to have garlic in them.
Search
Sep. 25th, 2025 11:33 amranunculusI've been searching for my pickle recipes. I knew I wrote them down last year. Could not find anything, no paper, nothing in the computer. Eventually it was DW to the rescue. Found the recipes posted in August of last year. They are now also on my computer.
Teaching
Sep. 24th, 2025 01:00 pmranunculusI love to teach.
My current horseback riding student is lovely and I know I'm making a big difference in her horse handling/riding ability. One of her major complaints is that her horse Dollar walks at a snail's pace. When she mounted up we talked about her position in the saddle. She was slouched back with much of her weight in the back of the saddle "riding on her pockets", as she was taught. Her position was telling Dollar to stop, then she would kick him to ask him to go. The instant she moved her weight forward, onto her thighs instead of her butt, the horse moved forward at twice the speed. Not only that, he moved off at an even faster walk when she asked him to. Sitting up (in balance) is also way safer.
Lisa has homework though. Dollar is a very laid back gelding who has been allowed to ignore human commands. Obviously he thinks he is higher in the pecking order than humans. I was very aggressive with him, and got some nice brisk responses. As I said to Lisa "the lead mare would never allow him to drag his feet, she would lay into him and remove hair from his hide for such a slow response." I am not suggesting such a drastic move, but Lisa needs to be far more aggressive and less tolerant than she has been. The more I demanded, the quicker he moved. The faster he moved, the more focused he became. Horses move focus to the lead animal, human or horse. They feel safe with the lead animal. Dollar kept trying to follow me around in the arena because being next to the dominant animal is the safe place to be. He is going to be a great horse for Lisa once they get this sorted. Their next challenge is for him to learn that he will -always- get a release for the right answer. Dollar will be so, so happy when communications are better. For the past number of years he's just been hauled around, pulled on and given contradictory signals. I'm always in awe of the tolerance of horses like Dollar who just keep trying to please their humans even when the humans put them in impossible, often painful situations.
My current horseback riding student is lovely and I know I'm making a big difference in her horse handling/riding ability. One of her major complaints is that her horse Dollar walks at a snail's pace. When she mounted up we talked about her position in the saddle. She was slouched back with much of her weight in the back of the saddle "riding on her pockets", as she was taught. Her position was telling Dollar to stop, then she would kick him to ask him to go. The instant she moved her weight forward, onto her thighs instead of her butt, the horse moved forward at twice the speed. Not only that, he moved off at an even faster walk when she asked him to. Sitting up (in balance) is also way safer.
Lisa has homework though. Dollar is a very laid back gelding who has been allowed to ignore human commands. Obviously he thinks he is higher in the pecking order than humans. I was very aggressive with him, and got some nice brisk responses. As I said to Lisa "the lead mare would never allow him to drag his feet, she would lay into him and remove hair from his hide for such a slow response." I am not suggesting such a drastic move, but Lisa needs to be far more aggressive and less tolerant than she has been. The more I demanded, the quicker he moved. The faster he moved, the more focused he became. Horses move focus to the lead animal, human or horse. They feel safe with the lead animal. Dollar kept trying to follow me around in the arena because being next to the dominant animal is the safe place to be. He is going to be a great horse for Lisa once they get this sorted. Their next challenge is for him to learn that he will -always- get a release for the right answer. Dollar will be so, so happy when communications are better. For the past number of years he's just been hauled around, pulled on and given contradictory signals. I'm always in awe of the tolerance of horses like Dollar who just keep trying to please their humans even when the humans put them in impossible, often painful situations.
Update
Sep. 24th, 2025 08:55 amranunculusGot my Covid shot day before yesterday and spent most of yesterday asleep. Arm is still a little sore. Next week is the flu shot. Hopefully that won't be as big a reaction.
M is back from Alaska, which is nice.
The electrical for the shop is finally done.
Still no one signed up for my event in 2.5 weeks. Sigh. Maybe cancel?
The garden has a very fall like look. It is still producing, but has slowed way down. Cucumbers and tomatoes are still doing fine, but the okra is about done.
I'm off to teach a lesson in a few minutes. Looking forward to it.
M is back from Alaska, which is nice.
The electrical for the shop is finally done.
Still no one signed up for my event in 2.5 weeks. Sigh. Maybe cancel?
The garden has a very fall like look. It is still producing, but has slowed way down. Cucumbers and tomatoes are still doing fine, but the okra is about done.
I'm off to teach a lesson in a few minutes. Looking forward to it.
Electrical, Rain
Sep. 19th, 2025 01:46 pmranunculusIn order to finish my shop dust collection setup the last cord, the one going to the actual dust collector, needed to be hooked up. For safety I turned off the entire garage/5th wheel panel. Then disconnected all the wires going into the garage, pulled them out of the panel and tried to pull in one set of new wires. Tried being the operative word. I could NOT get them through the conduit. Partway, yes, all the way, no. I left the mess for the night.
This morning I went back to work. Eventually I remembered that -somewhere- there is an old fish-tape. Fish tapes are long, slender, flexible, metal things. They are the right combination of not very bendable, but just enough to push through corners. The fish tape got through on the second try. That is to say it got through all but the last 1 foot of conduit. It came out at a box just above the electrical panel. I pulled the wire that far and then started trying to get it through the last foot. I couldn't use the fish tape, there was a bend that was too sharp for it to go around. I could get the wires to 1 inch from the end, where the stubbornly caught on a tiny ledge. Took me more than an hour to finally, finally get the end off that ledge and out. Whew! All the wires are now re-connected. Unfortunately I need one tiny part, for the box in the rafters, to finish the whole job, but at least power is restored to everything else.
It rained last night, the very outer edges of tropical storm Mario. We got almost 2 1/10ths of an inch. Enough to damp down the dust, which is very nice. It is still cloudy and cool today at 2pm. Makes it feel even more like fall.
This morning I went back to work. Eventually I remembered that -somewhere- there is an old fish-tape. Fish tapes are long, slender, flexible, metal things. They are the right combination of not very bendable, but just enough to push through corners. The fish tape got through on the second try. That is to say it got through all but the last 1 foot of conduit. It came out at a box just above the electrical panel. I pulled the wire that far and then started trying to get it through the last foot. I couldn't use the fish tape, there was a bend that was too sharp for it to go around. I could get the wires to 1 inch from the end, where the stubbornly caught on a tiny ledge. Took me more than an hour to finally, finally get the end off that ledge and out. Whew! All the wires are now re-connected. Unfortunately I need one tiny part, for the box in the rafters, to finish the whole job, but at least power is restored to everything else.
It rained last night, the very outer edges of tropical storm Mario. We got almost 2 1/10ths of an inch. Enough to damp down the dust, which is very nice. It is still cloudy and cool today at 2pm. Makes it feel even more like fall.
Water Update
Sep. 17th, 2025 09:33 amranunculusThis morning the tanks were half full, which is respectable for this time of year. However, the water at the house was still trickling out of the faucet indicating there was virtually no pressure. I opened the faucet at the base of Tank Hill, which is about 40 vertical feet below the tanks. The water ran out with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Water flow was even more anemic at the faucet on the hillside. The faucet at the garden, which is lower than the one at the base of Tank Hill, ran reasonably freely, but not the way it should have. I got out the new hatchet and hammered open the valve for the 2 inch Fire Hose pipe. A LOT of water poured out. The flow from the garden faucet increased. After a minute or so I hammered closed the 2 inch valve, closed all the faucets, got a bale of hay from the Iris Barn and came back to the house. Low and behold water comes flowing easily out of the faucets. I'm still not entirely happy with the pressure, but further "blowing out" of the water pipes can wait till the tanks are full and the garden is watered. For now I can at least take a shower! My guess is that dirt has accumulated in the bottom of tank 1 and partially blocked the flow of water down the hill. This is a real problem because there is no effective AND safe way to clean the tanks. It is possible to climb into the tanks and bucket out dirt (dirty water) but doing that requires a supplied air source. No one installed a "cleanout" valve for the tanks so there isn't any way to drain them and clean them. On top of all of that there is no way to isolate one tank from the others so cleaning can be done without draining everything. If I drain everything there will be no water for a couple of days while the tanks refill. So it has been about 20 years since the tanks were cleaned last. Plenty of dirt and tiny stones get washed down from the springs despite my best efforts. As soon as I've finished paying for the new stove I'll hire someone to help re-plumb the tanks and fix this issue. Maybe next spring when the springs are running fast and the tanks aren't doubling as a source for water in case of a fire.
Water. Sigh
Sep. 16th, 2025 09:58 pmranunculusI left a hose on yesterday. It completely drained the water tanks. Water is only trickling out of the faucets in the house. Tomorrow I need to go up and look at the springs to see if I can improve water flow as the tanks are filling very slowly. Of course it is September and it hasn't really rained since early April so I should expect some slowdown.
Went to a lovely talk about Irish Birds this evening. Was modestly inspired to consider going to the north end of Ireland someday.
Went to a lovely talk about Irish Birds this evening. Was modestly inspired to consider going to the north end of Ireland someday.