Spellbound leaves us

I knew it was coming, but it was still hard.

As I went to do morning feeding, I saw Spellbound lying down. She didn't get up when I went in the pasture and after I poured her feed first, she got up but didn't run anybody off as she usually does. I knew then she was dying.
She was colicing, not badly, but enough that she was uncomfortable and my vet couldn't come until after noon.
Surprisingly, she got up and cantered to the woods of the front pasture where she stood for awhile then trotted all the way to the very back corner of the property and neighed for the others. They went and so did I. This is the last picture I have of the four of them.
Cheryl, who runs the Horse Rescue, Relief and Retirement Fund Inc. in Georgia, emailed asking me to give Spell a kiss for her. My friend Anne, who gave us Spellbound with the blessing of the rescue, sent a hug too.
Just after noon, my vet arrived and we put Spell's leather halter on her. I bought her a beautiful red nylon one earlier this year, but since she's a racehorse, she was like,"Are you kidding me?" So I had to get her the perfect leather one.
Hayes and I petted her, told her how much we loved her and to go run her races and win them all. She gave us a neigh and, just like that, she was gone.
Spellbound was a Grade I winning mare back in the day. She was an awesome babysitter for both me and Hayes. I remember this past winter when I saw Spell take off with Hayes on her back without a bridle, saddle or helmet, but Spell took care of that girl. And once it was all over, Hayes exclaimed,"I wanna do that again!"
We told her she'd be met by Lisa, our Percheron who died in February, and Hayes' pony Dee Dee and my trainer friend Bob and, of course, my mother, who never met Spell but instilled a love of horses in me.
And we'll meet her on the other side too when the time comes.

The Hayesee-Daisy

When the girl is supposed to be doing chores, I look out the window and see her riding Tara Jean all over the yard!
And just had to put this on to show how tall my girl is now. I think she'll hit 5'10" easily once she's grown.

Thanksgiving presentation in Covington

This was my last presentation for Native American Month and I finished my schedule at the Covington library. I'm guessing about 50 people were there - many returnees from last year or programs from a few weeks ago. Always nice to see familiar faces but now I'm going to have to come up with new lines during my gig!
Something different this time was doing a Rabbit Dance. Chooj got to dance with Sara Howery, the children's librarian. Then he danced with me during the closing Cherokee Friendship Dance. My friend Jennifer and her son, Johnny, round out the line during dancing. Hayes did her part in the lead for the Cherokee Booger Dance (always a hit with the kids):
Everyone loved it, as usual. Aside from only one other performance for the year - at an elementary school in Charleston, SC - I'll have a break until spring.

Shannon's day over & Hayes' re-invention

Hayes and Chooj's friend Shannon came over Thursday. We made a day of it by doing a homeschool painting project. Here's the finished turkey: After the kids went into the creek and Chooj got soaking wet, the girls came inside for a rousing game of Monopoly Jr. I had to referee from the kitchen.

Then it was on to dance class, where it was parent observation week. This is also where I teach. Look at that concentration! Look at that very nice 5th position. Onto tap class:

Then it was time for jazz. Here they're doing some Miley Cyrus song about ice cream that I think I'm going to have to steal for my classes:

Hayes' dancing has really improved since she started with me at age 4.
This weekend she announced she wants to be an engineer. So she's started by taking apart one of Chooj's remote controlled cars:

Riding aside

Here is my new project:I've wanted to learn to ride sidesaddle for years, ever since I did a story on aside rider Sally Truss in Camden, SC. Turns out, Sally and I sat next to each other during a memorial service in March and she offered me her advice on getting started. One was to get an older sidesaddle - this one was made in 1880 in Kentucky. For that reason alone, I just love it.
Sally also said I was going to need a "forward moving" horse. I was offered a Thoroughbred a few weeks ago and that was going to be my horse for this new venture, but Helen Four Legs is getting retrained as a jumper. I'm sure another horse will be along when the time is right. I'm not sure Spellbound, at 31, will put up with me trying to figure out how to ride sidesaddle on her.
The saddle needs some work - it has to be cleaned and oiled, I need a girth and new stirrup leathers and a stirrup. The lone stirrup for this thing actually only fits Chooj's foot!
And my friend Tracy has volunteered to make me a riding habit so there you go.
When I next return to South Carolina, Sally and I will get together for sidesaddle lessons. In the meantime, I'll be getting good advice via email from my friend Kimberly in Florida.

Outdoor Nature Hour: downy woodpecker & mushrooms

We have been remiss in keeping up with our Handbook of Nature Study. There's been lots going on, travelling up and down 75, and this week I have refused to go anywhere. So our assignments from the past two weeks are the downy woodpecker and mushrooms.
We read about the downy in the HNS and know we have many around our farm. Were they anywhere around when we went looking? Of course not. But there's lots of deadfall along the creek and so we examined this tree

and all of its woodpecker holes:

Shadow often chaperones our walks. Just making sure everyone's ok at the homeplace. While this tends to drive me a bit crazy, one of the advantages of homeschooling is you can just leave the class and go jump on your pony.

That's until your mom yells at you to come back and look at these mushrooms.

We tried to make spore prints out of two different types of mushrooms but neither took. Hayes said they looked dead and maybe that's why our experiment failed.

When we were in South Carolina a few weeks back, we examined these mushrooms growing on trees along my grandmother's street. These are called turkey tails. (Again, I jumped out of the car to take a picture but I'm not admitting this is a habit or anything. I'm just sayin'...)

So we finished all of that and walked all the way to the back pasture. Several weeks ago, the creek flooded and actually ruined this paper wasp nest up the hill that we were hoping to save for future study.

Oh well. For more Outdoor Nature Hour, click on Barb's Handbook of Nature Study blog.

What my future holds ...

This is what happens when the children prowl around in your closet. Chooj looks entirely too happy to be wearing my heels. Perhaps we should scroll back to my entry "Little boys in pink hats."
I have another picture of Hayes with these shoes on. She has my legs and all I can say is it's a good thing we live in the country.

Wonder of Science: making kudzu paper

Our tri-state homeschool group is doing a yearlong Wonder of Science program. For "extra credit," we can do projects to further our learning about whatever happens to be the topic of the month. One idea is making parchment and since Hayes will tell you that she will be going to Hogwarts when she turns 11 since she has done the Hogwarts Summer Correspondence Course two summers now, we thought making paper was an exciting idea.
And then I thought about my friend Nancy Basket in South Carolina who is widely known for her kudzu paper artwork.

After a couple of trips to South Carolina in which I completely forgot to get some kudzu, I finally jumped out of my friend Leisa's car while in the upstate and grabbed a bagful of the weed for our project. Hardly anyone outside of the South knows about kudzu but it has overtaken the warm humid states and actually grows up to a foot a day. Nancy not only makes paper but also weaves the vines into baskets and I took her lead one year and made kudzu jelly. Knowing how prolific a weed it is, I was a little afraid to put the leftover bits in the compost once this project was done.

Nancy's daughter, Joleen, helped with the kudzu paper making process via Facebook. First, cooking the leaves a few hours until they "smell ripe." Ours cooked four hours and the only noticeable smell was that like spinach.

Then the cutting of the leaves. Joleen said to do it after cooking and add in recycled paper. (The beauty of homeschooling is you can do your work in your jammies whenever you feel like it.)

Next was making the whole thing into pulp. Really, really difficult. I think I may have ruined my blender at this stage.

Joleen said it was supposed to look like "green grits" after the blending process. Again, only a Southerner will know what this is supposed to look like and this is definately not grits-like consistency. Now I was worried we'd done something wrong.

Hayes pressed the pulp onto paper towels and we let it dry in the sun for four days.

Here's how it turned out.

Cindy, our homeschool group's coordinator, suggested Hayes send her a letter on the paper. Certainly Leisa, since she had to put up with my yelling,"Hold on! Let me get some kudzu!," asked for and will get a letter from Hayes as well.

What you can do with Silly Putty + our trip to CoCoKey Waterpark

I am the first to tell you that my daughter is so much smarter than I was at her age. She has found a myriad of things to do with Silly Putty.

I think all I did was use to lift comics off the page with Silly Putty.

While at lunch the other day with my friend Jane, Hayes crafted this Silly Putty snail.

Yesterday we had a homeschool outing with the Simpson family to CoCoKey Water Park. I don't have pictures because right off my camera batteries died. Chooj and Hayes were in heaven after I cajoled Chooj to try the slides then he was all over it. Hayes came and took him on the speedy water slide and, no kidding, he did that slide about 100 times in a row. Meanwhile, I shivered on deck. You'd think an indoor water park would have warm water, although I do like my water just below boiling so maybe I'm just being picky.
The kicker was I was standing on this obstacle course getting my friend Holly's attention to catch Chooj on a slide and this mountain of water got dumped right on the two of us. If you've ever seen the game show "Wipeout," it was just like that only I didn't get my $50,000. Rats.

Field trip: Shadwell's breeding farm

While in Lexington picking up my new sidesaddle, we dropped in on Shadwell Farm's breeding facility.

My friend Bob in Camden worked for Shadwell, training its new babies, until his death last December. This was my first time at a large farm of this sort. So when we drove up and the big iron gates just open automatically to the long road toward the office, I was feeling like I needed a Derby hat and heels.

I was told this was a "small office." Ok, small as in 2,000 square feet. Kent, the stallion manager, met us "in the circle" and I told him I was most interested in seeing Jazil, winner of the 2006 Preakness Stakes. I was surprised at how small he is. My Thoroughbred mare is quite bigger.

Invasor, winner of 9 Grade I stakes, also came out to see us. Chooj was desperate to pet them and I had to remind him to stay away from their heads. (Stallions like to bite once they've been to the breeding shed.)

In fact, here is the breeding shed, which was totally different from what I expected. I was thinking the whole thing took place in an area the size of a stall, but no. They get like a four-car garage type space. This picture is toward the observation room.