All summer my chickens have been trying to get to my bird feeders, and finally today one made it, not that it did any good.

An update on our horse, Beauty. Somewhere along the line of auction barns she was in, she got a torn vulva. I had the vet come out and look at it and check her out for any other problems. She checked out fine, the vet estimates she’s in her late teens and weighs around 1300 lbs. Ingrid, the vet, cleaned out the wound and I made an appt. for today for her to come out, clean it again and sew it up.

I’ve never had a draft breed before, and am amazed at the temperament of this horse. She’s been spooked a couple of times, and instead of rearing and shying and running away, she snorts and walks fast. The vet gave her a sedative and then shot a blocker into her vulva, and a couple of times, Beauty tucked her butt in and lifted a back foot, and that was it. I’m glad that’s over, and hopefully the old girl will heal up quickly. In two weeks we have to cut and pull the stitches out.

Some pictures of my nephew and her,


You don’t get the full sense of how huge she is until you’re standing next to her.

Scott was scratching her, and she was almost falling asleep. Cute!


My flowers are all gone now, and the bird migration is about done. The sandhill cranes are all gone.

Some levity,

Some new photos of the horse (really need to think of a name),

The cows are just fascinated with her.

I am just beat! It’s been a very, very busy week, between working on fencing, getting plants in and bulbs dug up, and planting the perennials that I’ve bought the past few weeks.

The 107 amaryllis bulbs (the special ones are separated out into the paper bags).

This was my garden in its glory,

My tuberose sent out the tallest shoots! I had to stand on tiptoe to smell the blossoms, and oh my goodness, they smell soooooooo wonderful!

My flower garden hasn’t had a killing frost yet, so I’ve still got roses, echinacea and dahlias blooming,

Oh yah! I bought/rescued a horse! There’s a stock dealer down in Cannon Falls that lets a woman pull horses out of the kill pen, and she coordinates the ‘bail-out’ of them. You take your chances, some of them are perfectly fine and others have health problems, and some are bought with the intention of letting them live out their last days in a pasture and not a slaughter house. Mine spent 8 hours in a trailer before getting here, so it was dark by the time she came. Tomorrow I’ll be able to get a better sense of what she’s like.

I have no nice pictures to show, only sad thoughts to share. There is a discussion going on at a glass forum that I belong to, with the thoughts that gun laws should be enforced, enforcing gun laws won’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals, anger at people who resist more rigid gun laws, suggestions that more guns are the answer, and so on and on. The same dialog that happens after every episode of mass shootings.

My thoughts, it's not criminals who are doing these mass shootings, it's angry young men with no direction, no goal in life, no sense of responsibility to anyone other than themselves. We have too many guns available to anyone who wants them and a culture that adores violence, a society that seems to think every kid in high school should go to college, so there are no more (or drastically cut) art/music/shop/home economics etc. (do they even have home economics anymore?) classes to keep kids working with their hands. Money is stripped from social and education programs so Wall Street can be happy with the corporations' profits, and we have young people with no future or hope, and any happiness is found in drugs or alcohol.

Gosh, fits right in with 2 Timothy 3:2 “People will love only themselves and money. They will be proud and boast about themselves. They will abuse others with insults. They will not obey their parents. They will be ungrateful and against all that is pleasing to God. 3 They will have no love for others and will refuse to forgive anyone. They will talk about others to hurt them and will have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 People will turn against their friends. They will do foolish things without thinking and will be so proud of themselves. Instead of loving God, they will love pleasure.”

I just spent a day and a half beheading 107 amaryllis bulbs (that’s not counting the babies), taking them out of their pots and putting them in the basement.

WHY did I just order four more?!?!? Sigh, because they look so wonderful in the middle of the winter when I bring them up and repot them and they bloom.

A new calf today! A little bull calf,

Yup, that’s a boy for you, a newborn, and he’s climbing on the hay bale.

Time has flown, summer is almost over, sadly. I am glad, though, that the heat and humidity are going. The plants love that weather, but I sure don’t.
So many photos to show!! An oriole enjoying the water,


A woodpecker,

More orioles,


Young orioles remind me of little kids, they squabble and fight.

A sparkling hummer,

A grosbeak daddy feeding the babies,

I had to move the jelly feeder because someone was getting into it,

Glorious colors!!! I have to store up the awesome sense of color for winter…





Some new beads on Facebook,

And a couple of funny bone ticklers,