Happy Family

As Jason mentioned in our last post we had quite a weather shift this week.  We went from temperatures in the 70's to temperatures hovering right around/above freezing day and night, and lots of precipitation.  I mean a LOT of precipitation.  So far the weather forecasters have pretty much gotten it wrong every single day.  We were supposed to have what everyone was referring to as the Ice Apocalypse. We did have some freezing rain come down every day this week.  Thankfully it always changed back to rain so no havoc was wreaked on middle Tennessee, occasionally it even stopped precipitating for brief periods of time.

Well, that is not entirely accurate. I imagine by Monday evening there wasn't a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, or a container of milk left in any grocery store in the state. Havoc was wreaked regardless of if the weather event actually happened. Since Jason and I were still not eating thanks to our stomach flu this was not a problem for us (I'm still not eating but that's not really the point of this blog . . . ). 

We were lied to by the meteorologists and told this gross weather would clear out by Tuesday. Then on Tuesday we were told it would clear out on Wednesday. Then on Wednesday we were told it would clear out by Thursday. Are you seeing a pattern here?

It did, finally, clear out this afternoon, and - GASP - the sun came out.  I was starting to think I was going to live with this crap weather forever, and we were going to have to learn to coexist like two hearts that beat as one.  This was not making me happy.  This was not making Jason happy either. This meant it was hard for anyone to be happy in our house. As I commented to Jason that we weren't providing Carter the most cheerful environment ever the last few days, he said, in all seriousness, "dammit, we are a happy family!!" I kid you not. I just looked at him with a confused expression while trying to understand why on earth he couldn't see the conflicting items in that statement.  

Quite frankly, the only ones that didn't seem to mind this crap weather were the horses. I'm telling you it just plain isn't fair that you can throw a waterproof blanket on them and they act freaking immune to this miserable weather.  As I threaten to do every year, I am seriously thinking about packing up myself, Carter, Jason and the horses and moving to the Keys.  However it is looking I will be able to hang on here for at least a few more days. If the weather forecasters actually got the forecast right it is supposed to be sunny the next few days, and warmer.  Note I didn't say warm, but at least we'll be sunny and in the 50's for a few days.     

______________________________________

Stormy and Rocky

Silky and Maisie

Chili, Renny, Wiz, Murphy, Lighty and Johnny

Oskar, Toledo and Stormy

Lily

Cuff Links

Kennedy and Bergie

Romeo and Faune were playing

Silver though that looked fun so he played with Faune for awhile; George was ignoring them

Baby, Homer, Moe, Levendi and Trigger

The Ides of....January ?

(post by  Jason) It seems like once every winter the universe converges in such a way as to make sure that chores are going to be absolutely miserable and Monday was our turn for 2013.

On Friday of last week Carter caught a stomach bug of some sort. Aside from some diarrhea, his illness was pretty mild and in 24 hours he was pretty much back to being himself. Unfortunately whatever Carter had was extremely contagious. I came down with it early on Saturday morning and I can assure you that I felt exactly like death warmed over for most of Saturday and much of yesterday. It took 36 hours until I thought there was some chance of being able to keep any food down. Melissa laughed at me until Saturday night when she started feeling ill herself. She got really sick....way more sick than Carter's light sickness or my moderate illness. She spent all of Saturday night and most of Sunday in the bathroom. 

After an illness of that sort you really want to step gingerly into Monday morning. When I worked for someone else I probably would have called in sick, and judging by how I felt Monday morning I would have been justified in doing so. Melissa frankly needed to spend another entire day in the bed. What we did instead was feed and put blankets on all the horses on the farm, stopping periodically to lean on the fence and retch our way through some dry heaves for a few minutes. I fed and Melissa blanketed. She had the harder job by at least a factor of five. It is easy to underestimate how hard of a job it is to blanket horses in a pasture. You have to find the correct blankets for each pasture, drag them to the pasture by the armful, then hope the horses are feeling cooperative (knowing of course that there are certain horses in each group guaranteed to be runners).

As we worked our way through this it started freezing rain and the temperature dropped from 40 to 31 degrees accompanied by a gusty northwest wind. This was hard to take after several days of 70 degree weather, and even harder to take in our sickly condition.  By the time we got through I don't think either of us could have been colder, more sick or more miserable. But the horses were happy and warm, smiling and even playing in the miserable weather.  In the end, that's what counts. We all take care of our kids when we get sick and when you run a retirement farm you take care of the horses when you are sick.  (Melissa here - I wish putting a waterproof coat on me instantly made me immune to the weather and perfectly content to be out in it. I envy the horses a lot in that regard).

______________________________________

Jason showing Mina something on his smart phone; were we really healthy and walking around in t-shirts a few days ago?!

Sky and Griselle

 Moe, Homer and Leo

Thor

Merlin (Fabrizzio hiding behind him), Walden and Noble

Gus, Lotus and Asterik on the run

All grey horses come with a gene that programs them to get dirty, but I have decided Bergie wins the grey horse constant. He is always dirty!!

Rocky, Tiny and Johnny

Hemi and Apollo hanging out

MyLight and Calimba having some quiet time

Silky having a snack

Lightening

Gus, Faune, Winston and Titan

Pictures

Cinnamon, Calimba, Norman and Cuffie

Chili and Sebastian

Largo

Bergie and Stormy hanging out in the woods

Titan and George

Lightening

Grand, Baby, Moe and Homer on the move

as they got closer I realized Grand had a mouthful of grass

Hemi and Trigger (that is Leo hiding behind Hemi)

Wiz, Dutch and Renny

Johnny and Sam

Darby, Alex and B-Rad

Faune and Romeo were playing

 Fabrizzio and Merlin

Thor and Lucky

Exploring

All work and no play is never a good thing, right?  Jason and I actually took a little break from farm work today and did a bit of exploring.  I was walking up the driveway from the back of the farm and I could hear Jason crashing around in the woods around the spring that cuts through the middle of our farm.  It is a good thing Jason isn't a hunter of any sort since he is about as quiet as a bull in a china shop.  

Anyway I heard Jason crashing around so I stood and waited for him to make an appearance. He finally came out of the woods and called me over. He was very excited as he had found another small cave.  We have a spring that originates on our farm, and it cuts across the middle of our property. We built our driveway over it so anyone who has driven the length of our driveway has seen the spring.  The spring originates at a cave opening and we had spent some looking around that area once.  Sadly I realized it has been almost two years since we did that when I found the pictures.  

the cave opening we knew about and where the spring comes above ground

the bricks clearly indicate that someone else used to enjoy hanging out around this cave at some point

The horses are fenced out of the spring and also the creek that runs along the southern edge of the farm. The spring feeds into the creek, which is part of the Robertson Fort Creek watershed.  It was a beautiful day today,the last of the blankets were removed and all the horses are naked again, and Jason felt the urge to follow the path of the spring.  Amazingly we had never followed the whole spring, just looked at parts of it here and there. 

Jason was quite excited to realize that we had another small cave opening along the spring.  The spring had a fork in it, and the majority of the water flow stayed on the path to feed into the creek. Until today we thought that was where all of the spring water went.  However at the fork the water feeds into a cave opening a few feet away.  At some point we need to do some more exploring and see where the water goes once it is in the cave.

The fork in the spring; most of the water continues on around the curve to the left, but some of the flow diverts to the fork at the right.

This is where the water flows if it follows the fork at the right. This small cave entrance is only a few feet from the fork.

Finding cave openings is nothing special in middle Tennessee, I remember reading an article once that said something like 8,600 caves have been documented and explored in Tennessee.  My parents' farm has a couple of huge cave openings on it and we've done some exploring in them.  We even found a few civil war artifacts as we looked around.  However it is still fun to explore our farm and find hidden surprises even though one should pretty much expect to find a cave on your property in Tennessee.

It was nice change of pace to spend a few minutes doing some exploring on such a beautiful day.

a deer path crossing the spring

Jason the explorer, he loved that it was still so green and vibrant around the spring in the woods.

Since I had my rubber boots on I splashed my away across the creek.

________________________________

Leo and Chance

Faune rolling with a big audience. They each took a turn as you can see just by looking at them (Silver, Lotus, Romeo, Winston, Gus getting ready to roll, and Asterik)

Titan, Asterik and George hanging out

MyLight, Cinnamon, Norman, Cuffie and Calimba. The ponies are napping while the mares hang out.

Walden and Merlin with his tongue sticking out

Oskar hanging out, Kennedy and Toledo napping

Traveller napping in the hay while Lily was having a snack

Bergie and Johnny

Thor

Baby and Thomas