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| Ready for 25 miles. |
I had no gardens this year. The perenials still did their thing, but otherwise the only thing I planted was one row of onions, half a row of beets, a row of green beans and tomatoes. All of the plants struggled and eventually produced so little that I gave the gardens over to the weeds.
I discovered that the hay I purchase to mulch my gardens is being sprayed with an herbacide called Milestone (aka aminopyralid), that wreaked havoc on my crops. So depressing! I have yet to find a source of organic hay, so for now I'm going back to tilling and following Dick Raymond's example of gardening. In 2007, at 85 years of age, he was still at it, growing huge vegetable and flower gardens. I found these three short videos on youtube, and they are so inspirational!
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| The Brenderup Horse Trailer. |
So what's a girl to do when she has no gardens to work? Ride her horses of course! At the beginning of the year we purchased a Brenderup horse trailer. I have wanted a Brenderup horse trailer (or any horse trailer for that matter) since 1985. We were just in time~it seems that the mother company, Thule, has discontinued selling Brenderup trailers here in the USA.
I decided that I needed to put some miles on the young gaited mare (Gypsy) I had at the time, so I joined the AERC (American Endurance Ride Conference) and set about training for our first ever endurance ride. We did very well, finishing our 25 mile limited distance ride in 4 hours and 12 minutes. I have since sold the gaited mare but can see myself riding endurance with an Arabian one day in the not so distant future. I also started taking dressage lessons with my Percheron draft horse (Silhouette) and am now realizing my life long dream! Now to figure out how to balance homeschooling, running the farm/dairy, horseback riding, cleaning houses, and gardening. Can it be done?
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| Gypsy and I at Wyandotte County Lake for a training ride. |
Additionally, I returned to work cleaning houses. It seems that running a farm is an expensive habit and I've had to return to work in order to afford said habit. That's all right.....next year (2011) I expect to have my best garden ever!
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| Silhouette and I. |
