Christmas

So many fun ways to enjoy Christmas!  We went to Strawberry Banke this year for their Candle Light Stroll and enjoyed remembering years past when we went with the little boys.  They loved it again.  I think the oldest enjoyed the tinsmith the most as we saw presents given from him that he bought with that man.  I enjoyed the magic show we attended especially.

Our little boys posing with Father Christmas at Strawberry Banke's Candlelight Stroll

Our middle son worked at the Farm Museum's Christmas on the Farm event the day or so after he arrived home from college.  It was a banner year with the highest attendance yet.  He was very busy and happy after working that day.

 Mouse the present

Back at home we've enjoyed our old cat deciding to be our present this year.  She has spent many an hour sleeping under the tree, all nestled in around the presents.  Our Christmas Cactus needed no help this year in being moved or anything.  It's blooming on schdule and beautifying our dining room.

Christmas Cactus in bloom on time

Christmas Day at Laurie & Rob's house

On Christmas Eve we visited neighbor and friend Amy, then off to church for the candlelight service with Louise playing organ, then off to Ken & Louise's house for what she called "pickies".  Finger foods and harp music playing.  We visited and ate and played Sequence and enjoyed the evening together.  Then Christmas day found us visiting again only this time at Laurie & Rob's house with kids playing and present exchanging.  My favorite Christmas memory is of all the "little feet noises" in our house.  It reminded me of the early years with the boys.  I'd wake up to the sound of little feet running down the stairs to see what Santa brought.  This time the little feet were from our 22 year old.  He works the night shift now.  7pm to 7am so he was kind enough to let us all sleep in until nearly 6am.  He'd been awake all night of course.  So I woke up to excited running through the house of this "boy" waking his brothers and us.  By the time we arrived home from visiting around 4 in the afternoon...John and I both collapsed for a nap.  We're feeling a little older lately maybe.  :)

Warm Christmas weekend ride

The weekend after the holiday was sunny and warm so I took advantage and went for a trail ride up in Effingham with friends.  That skyline was just beautiful.  More beautiful than the photos could show really.  What a great time.

Christmas visit with Cory & Justin

And on Sunday we visited with Cory & Justin at their place to with them a Merry Christmas too.  This adorable little one entertained us the whole time.  Never a tear or a whine.  What a sweet little boy.

Uncles make the best toys

Opening presents like a pro

Solstice

Solstice Party Bonfire

What a fun time we had at our Solstice Party.  Today is longer than yesterday and that is something to celebrate!!  We invited a few of our friends and 45 of them showed up bearing food and drinks and joy.  The weather totally cooperated with a crisp, still night.  Just what we wanted.

John preparing the LED balloons

We constructed a short walk around the property and marked it with light up balloons.  I think these things are pretty cool.  As I was collecting them this morning they are still lit and on our test one it stayed lit for over 24 hours.  The packaging promises 15 hours.  I'll get more of these in the future for sure!

Two helpers?

These two helpers did a lot of the preparations with collecting limbs and moving wood from our backyard burn pile out to the bonfire spot in the front yard.  We cleaned and transformed John's workshop into a buffet and warmup area.  Part way into the evening a good crowd of folks showed up in there to warm up and with a quick turn on of the bullet heater, the space was toasty enough in no time.  We enjoyed the food and were surprised that with little to no planning, the guests seemed to bring just the right combinations of desserts and appetizers and hearty items like soup and meats, warm drinks of cider and wassail and cold drinks of hard cider and more.  "Mitten food" I'd said when asked and that is how it went.  So much fun.

Wish Balloon

We set off a bunch of wish balloons.  We provided paper and encouraged people to toss their written regrets into the fire.  We also had fire colorants to add to written wishes and encouraged people to toss those in as well and watch the colors as they did so.

Away it goes

Good Time with good friends

I think this guy had a lot of fun in the setup and in the party itself.  We may need to repeat this event in the future.

One happy hubby

Beach Day

Kent, Nancy & I at Well Beach

November 25th I had a lovely ride.  Then the storm started on the 26th and we got over 10 inches of heavy, wet snow.  Since then the ground has been covered in a mixture of snow, ice and crusty snow and more ice from rain storms.  We haven't been able to walk around the property without ice cleats on our boots....nevermind riding.  So my dear friends stopped by with their sander and sanded the luge run I call a driveway, my dear groom dug out the horse trailer and removed the ice sheets from the roof of it for me...all so we could enjoy a beach day together on December 14th!

They're getting away!

I'll pass you yet...

All is right with the world-I'm in front!

I love the shadow and reflection in this photo.

Let's go round again.  And again.  And again.

Do you see what I see?  More horses arriving on the beach!

Do you see the horses over there?  

We could go again!

I just love the beach

My favorite maple tree in it's colors

Here is a fall scrapbook of sorts.  Fall was so busy this year.  We should have been taking more photos.  One boy away at Plymouth State University and another boy on night shift has had quite an effect on our lives--I don't take nearly as many photos as I used to.

So many red berries on this bush near the beaver pond

Behive near the high bush blueberries

our boys being gatherers of teaberries

Teaberries aka wintergreen aka checkerberries

Someone is very pleased with his new sword

Horse Health and Homeopathy

Photo by Dusty Perin 

Last winter I went on a new quest to help out the chronic uveitis of my horse.  He had a "corneal ulcer" in 2010 I think it was.  The vet came out and checked the eye, stained it to see what was going on and left me with antibiotic cream to apply to the eye for some time while it healed.  He told me that while it was healing I'd maybe see veins form and then it would heal the rest of the way.  It looked like a white spot on the surface of his eye.  This happened in the fall that year.  Then he got another one in the summer.  I can't recall just now if it was 2011 or not.  Anyhow, after that 2nd one and just applying the ointment again I wondered a little more about it.  

The next year or so I know there were more.  I do recall at one point reading up on it when one happened in the summer...perhaps 2013 and I read about neck threadworm being a possible cause.  My vet was away at a conference so I just wormed with ivermecterin in case.  Worming is a whole different discussion.  I'd been going forward with only worming to the fecal tests which I can say now...isn't the right plan for my horse.  I still get a fecal test done once a year but he stays on a worming schedule throughout the year now.  That ivermecterin dose he reacted to in a big way.  Lumps all down his neck and chest and on the back of his hind legs.  He was actually loaded with little neck threadworms.  We live right next to a beaver pond and this horse is totally eaten alive by mosquitos in the summer.  I guess some had those little threadworms in them.  

Still it was not really the key to his eye troubles.  

One white spot would barely heal before another would pop up.  Always the left eye and always with those incredible veins showing up to heal the white area.  

I did a competitive trail ride in the fall of 2013 where the vet there talked about a new "plasma" treatment for the eye.  It involved drawing the horse's blood and spinning it to separate the plasma and then applying that to the eye 4 times a day for expedited healing of the ulcer.  Hmmm.  My current vet would not have been a good match for that treatment as he traveled a long way to get here.  The farm call alone would be quite expensive.  But we have a new vet who lives about a mile away from me...  Maybe I should see if she'd be game.  She came out and we did the plasma treatment on a healing white spot just to see if he would tolerate the process.  He did.  It was too late in that episode to really know if it would be a good match for him.  The next event was to have the same vet come by to meet and greet my equine dentist the day he came to do work.  While the 3 of us were chatting about horse things in general something was talked about which sparked some thoughts in this young vet.  Turns out she studied in Scotland.  She grew up here and did her undergraduate at UNH but then did her Veterinary Surgeon training in Scotland.  She literally took a step back and started ticking off the health issues with my horse.  Skin issues, uveitis, large intestine ulcers, hoof cracks...

She asked if I had ever though of homeopathy for this horse.

HUH?

More research and finally a call to Joyce Harman to consult.  Her answers were a lot to take in.  It's been nearly a full year now so I think it's worth reporting.  She's been right on with healing his eye.  

King's eye 2 weeks after first homeopathic treatment

He responded beautifully to the treatment.  She was able to suggest changes to his feed and to his lifestyle which have made HUGE differences in his eye.  For 2013 he went through more of the year with white spots than without.  For 2014 he healed that spot in January and each time an episode started at all I'd treat him and he'd never get the white spot.  Never had the veins...it would just heal.  The only time it didn't work was when I was out of the remedy and had to special order it in at our natural food store.  It took 3 weeks to arrive.  He developed a white spot during that time and it took several weeks to heal but it was never as bad as any of the ones he experienced prior to homeopathy.  

Side benefits...

Dew poisoning in 2008

King has suffered with dew poisoning the whole time I've owned him.  It's photo sensitivity and "scratches" that happens to his face when he eats wet grass.  So once we figured out the cause the first year he was kept off pasture during the time that the morning dew was on the grass.  I'd bring him up to the little barn on his small paddock each night and keep him there until the grass dried the next day when he could go and eat grass.  I'd put zinc oxide (diaper creme) on his nose to further protect it from the sun and wetness to keep the fungus off.  It's very painful for him.  It's why I ride him with no cavesson (noseband) and why I can't use hackamores on him.  The skin would be so raw.  I'd put a long face mask on him as well to further prevent sun from burning it.  This was an annual problem that I just had to keep tabs on daily as it can get ahead of us so fast.  I've never had him go into a winter with actual hair on his nose either so I'd worry about the cold burning that skin too.  

Joyce said to put him out on pasture and leave him there.  I told her about the dew poisoning.  She said it would be fine.  I didn't understand.  I did as she said.  The same remedy that we're using for his eye...it works for his skin as well.  

I had one tiny bought of dew poisoning this summer.  Not much.  Then nothing for a long time.  24/7 on pasture and no nose issues.  This was strange.  Then he had this tiny 2nd round.  

Dew poisoning 2014

Well.  The second round happened after I'd brought him up to the little pasture due to the bugs that were eating him alive out back.  He came to his old barn and started eating the grasses and clovers that grow there with gusto.  I'd never noticed what grew in there before as he always had it grazed to nubs.  I noticed a LOT of clover.  I know that alsike clover is a problem but I'd never really seen any on our property.  Until now.  

Red Clover in King's paddock

Alsike Clover in King's Paddock

Alsike Clover causes the issues he had on his nose but that's only a part of the poisoning it can cause.  The remedy has kept his nose intact this year but our change in horsekeeping has also helped us to discover this clover and now I can do something about it.  This is the first winter he has had hair on his nose.  I'm so glad for that.

First attempt at a "selfie" on trail ride Nov. 25

I know this photo doesn't show it well...but that is one fine looking nose on King.  He does still have that nose "bump" from old injury which I still have to be careful with nosebands about...but maybe a hackamore is in his future someday.  I think he'd like that.  :)

Interesting things on trail

This is what I want to see when out trail riding.  It the view that I bottle for winter days like today.  It's freezing rain out there just now--on top of all the snow and the additional snow we got last night.  So I'm thinking back on the good rides this year.

I took a "conditioning" loop sometime in September to see if I was ready to do another endurance ride this fall or not.  It was about a 20-25 mile loop.  At approximately the 1/2 way point I stopped to eat a cliff bar, drink some water and let King graze a bit.  This spot offered a little shade, a little breeze and some yummy grass for him.  And that view for me.  This is Lyons Rd. in Wakefield, NH...maybe?  I'm not sure what town I was in at this point.  The ride started in Ossipee near Rte 16 and took me through to Effingham and over part of Pocket Mountain and out to Lake Province--which is in Wakefield I believe--before heading back around the mountain and over Fogg's Ridge back down to the sand pits near Route 16 before going around White Pond and back to where I started.  This Lyons Rd. spot has a tiny bit of view of the Lake over on the righthand bit of that photo.  There is an old camp/house there and a really old cemetary.  There has been recent logging which opened that view back up again.  I'm assuming it was open before when looking at the age of the trees in the area.

BUT

There are a lot of other interesting things I see out on trail.  

Check out this doorbell.  I love it and wished I could have pulled that ring to hear it and see it go.

These are very common signs for the "roads" that I enjoy riding.  GPS users beware...

Do you see the turn signal?  It's that can on the tree at the right.  The roadbed is gone from the washout so they've created a new trail and it's there on the right...with it's marker which is well seen at night in the headlights of your snowmobile or ATV.

I usually miss these but King doesn't.  He'll stop and stare, and blow sometimes when I'm dense so I can look.  What a terrified porcupine to find us in the woods!

I LOVE this yard.  I wonder about the reason for the large heart in the lawn.  Someone has fun with their mowing.

Who hid the bush?  Those are webs.  Of what I have no idea.  I've never seen anything like it.  It was in Ossipee, NH in June.  What sort of creature does that?  I've ridden that trail again in the fall and the bush looked fine and had leaves on it.  I still wonder what that was.

I'm sure I have other interesting photos somewhere.  Old and abandoned things from recent (like boats, sofas and TVs for some reason) and older such as buckets, wheels and other turn of the century types of metal.  I see interesting things hunters create--tree stands, blinds, feeding stations, and I'm sure I've been on many a game camera.  I see interesting things for tracks in the mud and wildflowers and berries.  Some are so fragrant or delicious that I just have to hop off the horse and indulge.  :)  These memories will have to do while I wait for the seasons to turn again.  The ice that is forming from this freezing rain will keep me out of the woods for some time.

First Day of School

First day of school for at least one of these boys.  This is the day we moved our middle son to college.  We're having fun with that youngest son and his height lately.  He is clearly the tallest now (don't tell John that) and at 13 he's still growing.

"Little Brother" is sort of synonymous with Robin Hood's "Little John" character lately.

If you don't like the weather...

Just wait a minute.

That's a local saying here...and probably in a lot of other places.  But I enjoyed this series of photos from Thanksgiving morning.

We went from the sun just coming up to the sun on the trees and the beginning of the next storm cloud and then that incredible photo of the cloud covering the sky with the brighter sun on the trees.  Amazing.

We went from 70s one day to not quite 32 for a daytime high on another.  Also an overnight low of 8.  What shifts in weather in a short time.  

We made the best of the new snow and having all the boys home (and awake) to go and fetch a tree that weekend.  I can't remember getting one so early before.