The Boyfriend and I get really serious....

As we say down here, "Ain't he purdy?"  All grown up, five years old now and a few months of training under his cinch.  No, I am not on his mouth, just started to ask him to back when this photo was taken.  We were working on baby steps here.

And here we had worked on trotting.  My inner thigh muscles were sore from holding on the first time a couple of days ago but for this ride I was fine.  I used the new saddle I bought for him two years ago.  Very comfortable and my knees didn't hurt when I got off.  Oh, yeah, getting up was accomplished without too much drama.  He's so....big.....at least 16 hands, I will try to measure him next time I go.  The round pen was ankle deep in mud but I found a lower place to have him stand so I could get up on him...by myself.  This is a real accomplishment!  Shopping has commenced for a mounting block.  I think I would do ok if the ground was level and not deep in mud.
Jacques is doing very well and will be coming home this week for a little more getting the feel of him in our round pen, some rides around the property and then off to the trails!
I've waited a very long time for this.
Oh, by the way, that is him at about 6 months old in the little photo on the blog, if you want to see how adorable he was when I bought him.

Gone Ridin'. 

The End.

Fun Names of Towns!

I believe I have mentioned the town of Marrowbone at some point in this blog, if not, well, yes, it is a real town.  I have not been able to find out the reason it was named this. There are also TWO Marrowbones.  So if I ever have a corgi picnic down here, I have to make sure people get to the right one!

 We also have Eighty Eight and Forty Four down here.  So I grabbed the map and have found some more fun names here.

Good Night

Knob Lick (Anything with the name Knob or Lick drives Jerry into giggles....got to love that 60 year old teenaged mind)

Nobob (No Bob!  Just for Helen!)

Dog Lick

Bandana

Beaverlick

Bee Springs

Broad Fields

Bluehole

Bimble

Cranks

Flippin (one  of Jerry's favorites)

Dog Walk

Dwarf

Gap in Knob

Fourmile

Goldbug

Indian Hills (not so unusual but there are three towns named that!)

Kinniconick (wonder if this is like Kinnikinick?)

Linefork (what exactly IS a linefork?  And where can I get one?)

Louella

Mousie

Moon

Oddville

PeeDee

Peoples

Quicksand

Rabbit Hash (I think this would be my second or third choice to live in!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Hash

Apparently for some years they vote in local dogs as Mayor of Rabbit Hash.  Here is Lucy Lou, one of the previous Mayors:

http://blog.mackenzieland.com/2008/11/theres-new-dog-in-town.html
I AM going to go and visit Rabbit Hash one of these days!
Raccoon
Redfox
Ringos Mill
Salt Gum
Sassafras
Science Hill
Shopville (let's go!~)
Shoulderblade
Soft Shell
Skylight
Teaberry
Sunfish
Viper
Wellington (not unusual, but there are two of these, too)
Zion (ditto)

I love the name Summer Shade and am so glad we live here, but Marrowbone just is a perfect place to live if you have dogs....

Our Local Celebrity

When we moved down here, I kept seeing this very bizarre van in town.  What on earth?  :)  Turns out it belongs to a lady who also raises and shows her Afghan Hounds.  As far as I can figure out, she is a smoker and a defender of smokers' rights.  She has taken her van and made it into a political statement.  It's best to find the van parked somewhere and read the signs and things on it, or you would surely drive off the road trying to do so.  She is even mentioned in Wikipedia for Edmonton.
I have been stalking the town, waiting for a opportunity to take a photo of it, but either I'd see the van and not have the camera, or the reverse.  :)  However, I happened to find this website where there are some great photos of it, so will direct you all there to take a peek!
Oh, and she also decorates it for the various holidays.  Christmas was....stunning...I can't think of another word for it.  There is just no good word to describe it.  In these photos, it is decorated for Valentine's Day.
But God Bless her for being able to express her opinion in her own way.  It certainly does get attention and gets her message out to people. There is no mistaking her feelings on several subjects!
Only in Kentucky..... :)
http://www.libertyvan.com/

Happiness, The Bluebird

Yep, he exists.  He lives here with Mrs. Happiness, who is nesting in the nest box out back.  They raised two broods last summer, one nearly lost his life late one evening, the corgis were after "something" and I ran down the one who had something in its mouth.  It was Little Happiness (not sure if it was a boy or a girl) who was newly fledged and stupidly decided to begin his/her maiden voyage of flight very late one evening.  I managed to save it, stuffed it back in its little box and the next morning he/she was gone. Thankfully!  :)  I'll try to get a better photo of Happiness for you all.
My friend Jan, came to visit a few weeks back and so I made her a picture pie.  Here it is:

I did it in honor of Spring, which she doesn't have. And probably not even just yet, as she lives in mid Maine!  We had lots of daffodils blooming then so I thought this was an appropriate subject for the pie.  It was chicken and Jan loved it!
And don't think I don't mess pies up.  I mean, they always taste good but I tried to do one with the sun, moon and a comet on it.  Oh, my!  It didn't even rate a photo.  The comet resembled a four tailed sperm.  I didn't want to end up on Cake Wrecks or anything!  (see www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com for more incredibly bad as well as incredibly amazing cakes!).
Last are some photos of the pups. Here is Kitten:

This is Carling (Kar-leen):

Last of all is pretty Zophia:

I'll give them all a kiss from each of my readers!  :)

Let's Just Chat Today! :)

I have had computer woes again.  The modem decided to die on us.  So after spending some time on the phone with the very nice and actually understandable Pakistani gentleman, they said they would send us a new one (for a huge charge, of course!).  It arrived yesterday evening so I spent another hour on the phone with a nice but not so understandable Pakistani lady and we managed to get the settings and things fixed, so now, thankfully, we have the internet back.  (Kisses computer, so happy to have radar again with the storms that have been moving through.)


Apparently I also dropped a crumb near the computer because it now has ants.  Which I fixed with flea spray.  It works great.  :)  And the old modem has been placed in a box to go back to "Peggy" in Pakistan.  Or maybe it was New Jersey.  Same difference.  (You have to see the commercial with "Peggy" in it to understand this paragraph.)


So I am cooking a chocolate cake while I do this.  They usually celebrate birthdays at work with some kind of treat but somehow, in the spring rush, they forgot mine.  Fine.  I'll cook my own darn cake, thank you very much!  Maybe I will take it into my office and eat it all by myself, too.  So there.


In the meantime, Kathy made us this cake for Easter:

He is made out of two round cake pieces, Kathy cut them out and isn't he just adorable?  All three of us gobbled him down in about two days.
Then she made a chicken cake for Hayley:

Oh, how Hayley loved this cake!  All the corgis got a slice and all pronounced it very yummy!  There is some leftover, and we have been using bits of it to get Cookie's painkillers down her.  She doesn't object to the chicken cake at all!
Anyhow, here is Hayley with her birthday cake.  And she ate the brownies I got for her and tonight she gets to have a pig ear:

Now as you all know, none of my posts would be complete without a sunrise or sunset of some kind.  So here is a sunrise we had last week:

I'm starting to think they are like snowflakes, they are all different and I love each one, from the most delicate and soft ones to the blazing "it's gonna be a great day!" ones.
On to gardening.  Here is the garden we hope to get dug up if it ever stops raining:

It was sadly neglected last summer, and fall, just had no time to work in it. We have a rototiller lined up from a friend but need to wait until it's not muck.  Another few days and it will be ready to work in.  Lots of veggies and some flowers to try and keep bugs out of it.  The guineas do a great job with the bugs around here and I have 15 new ones ordered to help out with the work here.
Here is the little flower garden which I am turning into a rose garden:

It still needs work but is coming along. All the little pots out front have been planted with nasturtiums and zinnias.  More zinnias for the back yard, too.  I have six knockout roses planted and some little flowers that look like tiny carnations, have forgotten for the moment what they are, but very dark pink and should look great.  I think I will paint the little pots white, too, for contrast.
There are two azalea bushes here, this is the darker one, the other is a medium coral color. So pretty!

And we have the hillside which is now all green. The goats and horses are in heaven, all they want to eat and plenty of room to roam around in and also to run.

Just so nice on the eyes, isn't it?
Last, and this is the really great news, we have new BABIES here!  Blizzard, the little one who lost her ears in the stupid winters up north, now has two baby bucklings.  They are gorgeous!  The white one will look like his mom and the brown one will look like the sire, Blaze. These are both of their first babies.  

He will be a blue roan like his dam, with brown stockings (Blizzard has black stockings).
His brother will be what is called a buckskin:

Both of these sweeties will be sold, as I have five boys already.  They are really nice ones!
So that is the news for this week.  I think I have one more goat that is pregnant and then there is one that I think is just fat.  I didn't have the set up to be able to breed much this fall and was lucky, I think, to even get two bred.  The other mother to be is Clare, who is Blizzie's dam, and I bred her to Splash.  They should be very nice babies, too.
That cake is ready now.  Come on over for a slice!

Hayley's Sweet Sixteen Birthday!

Her birthday is tomorrow!  She looks marvelous!  So I prepared last week by buying her some neat goodies, some "Brownie Bites" which are actually carob, for dogs, 2 pigs' ears and some special neat cookies that look like frosted brownies:

I know, I know, it's really bad form to leave price tags on the gifts.  But she never saw them so it was ok, I think.  
I decided to start giving the treats on Monday night, but when I came in from outside, Jerry had already given Hayley her night cookies, those little ones that look like cheese nips, and a pupperoni or two.  Uh oh!  Will she have room?  Well, turns out she did.  Of course she did, she is a purebred corgi, after all, and mother of The Beautiful But Evil Yet Terribly Misunderstood Aisling, Food Queen of all Food in the Universe.  So I handed Hayley one of the "chocolate" brownies.  She took a quick look and then went back to eating her cheese cookies. Wait...just a minute...what?  She did such a fast double take and I'd wished I'd had it on video.  She abandoned the cheese cookies and really enjoyed eating the brownie:

Oh, what bliss!  She loved the brownie and ate every crumb!  So last night I decided to video tape the Brownie Enjoyment:

Now you have watched a full three minutes of an elderly dog eating a cookie.  And you call this a life?  :)  OK, so go and do something, like go to Dairy Queen and raise a cone to a frisky old lady dog who still enjoys life and is not ready to leave us any time soon at all!


I love you, Hayley Boo Banana Nut Bread Chocolate Brownie Girl!

No Words Are Necessary, Just Enjoy!