Learning to Paint

 One of the things I’m doing during COVID/heat waves/wildfire-smoky days is learning how to paint.  And, of course, I fell in love with watercolor which is one of the most difficult mediums.  Figures.  Fortunately, there are a ton of great tutorials on YouTube and that is how I got started.  I discovered that within watercolor, there sub-categories of painting: loose or realistic, landscapes or botanicals or animals.  I want to learn them all.  I seem to do best at botanicals and my landscapes look like kindergarten.  

I enrolled in a couple online schools about a month ago.  One of them is focused on botanicals and the other on realistic animals.  When my dad was visiting last month, he made the observation that I paint from photographs and not from real life.  That got me to thinking.  I’m painting from photos along with tutorials helping me “see” the important shapes and shadows.  So, is that really painting?  I think so.

Remember when you were learning to write the letters of the alphabet?  First, the teacher showed you how to hold the pencil which felt super awkward.  Then she wrote letters on the board and you copied them onto your paper — that had lines for capitals and lower case.  But it was still hard at first.  How far down do you go for the tail on a “g” —and a capital “S” — man that was hard.  I thought a capital “W” was hard, too, which was a problem because my last name started with that letter.  

Gradually, we learned to print our letters and then to write in cursive.  We copied our teachers until we could do it solo.  Painting is the same.  I’m tracing the outline of a picture and then watching a video of the instructor as she explains what she is seeing, the appropriate brush strokes, and how to mix colors.  

I’m getting better — I fast-forward through about half of the video now.  I’m learning to trust my eye.  I’m getting some muscle memory around how to hold a brush and how much paint to load and how to blend one color into another without hard lines.  

Maybe I’m delusional, but I consider what I’m doing “real” painting.  Not great painting, and not original painting, but real just the same.  

  

Sage tells Tex Where to Go

 Yesterday as I walked down the driveway to get the mail at 2pm, I noticed that Sage and Kersey were busy trying to get a squirrel from under the logs in the oak pasture.

I could hear the squirrel squeaking angrily all the way from the driveway.  The dogs didn’t look up when I came back up the driveway with the mail.  They were intent.

At 4:30 I went back outside and the dogs were still intent on their squirrel.  The horses were standing in the corner of the pasture, by the front gate, watching the occasional car drive by.  Tex left the group and wandered over to see what the dogs were doing.  He stretched his nose down between the squeaking logs.

Sage stood on the other side of the log and launched into Tex.  “Get away! That’s my squirrel! Stop being so nosy! GO AWAY!!!”  

Tex eventually ambled away and Sage resumed her position in front of the log.  By 6:00, Kersey was done.  

She just laid in the dirt panting.  Sage kept at it.  She was 30 minutes late for dinner; and she’s never late for dinner.  When it was time to come in the house for the evening, she was late for that too.  We had to go out and get her.  Normally, she’s waiting at the door.  It must have been one heck of a trophy squirrel.  ...and she never did get it.

Luek and Rachel

 In mid-July, Brett’s granddaughter came to visit.  She lives in Colorado so flew into Sacramento where Brett picked her up and brought her to Oak Creek Ranch.  It was her first visit here and I don’t think she stopped smiling from the minute they drove through the front gate until she left.  The animals all loved her; especially Sage and Luek.  

Sage normally sticks pretty close to me; sleeping at my feet, trotting around the pastures with me, and bringing me balls to throw.  But, she preferred being with Rachel who ran with her, played with her, and loved on her.  Sage thanked her for all the love and attention by dropping a squirrel that she caught at Rachel’s feet.  (She has never voluntarily given up a squirrel before).  

Rachel was interested in doing two things on her visit: boating and riding.  Riding primarily.  We did get out on the lakes with her a couple of times, cruising a large lake and kayaking on a small one.  

And she rode Luek.  And groomed Luek.  And loved on Luek while he was eating in the pasture.  

Rachel had some experience trail riding in Colorado but was unfamiliar with dressage or any aids.  She soaked up all my explanations like a sponge.  The first thing I noticed when Rachel got on Luek was how well she followed him with her seat.  Brett is very tight in the hips and Luek has a bit of a choppy walk when Brett rides him.  Rachel naturally swings her hips and Luek took big, happy steps with her.  

We mostly walked around the property (Brett was on Pistol and I was on Tex), and hung out under the trees.  It was pretty warm.  

We are all, animals included, looking forward to her next visit.  

Attracting Butterflies

Since retiring in November, I’ve spent a lot of time in my garden.  I’ve done everything from replacing drip lines to general pruning and shaping of plants.  Everything is thriving and that makes me happy.  I plan to plant a boat load of plants in the fall — I’ve started a new planting bed by the barn which will primarily be lavenders and agastache, which are fragrant and don’t need much water. And, I plan to fill in more spaces in the front flower beds and make some changes in the bird/pollinator bed.

This is a butterfly bush (buddleia) which is very beautiful, very showy, and the nectar attracts butterflies.  However, it is also invasive and not native.  If you really want butterflies in your garden you need to have plants that they like to eat as caterpillars.  Sure, you get some ratty looking, chewed-up, leaves on those plants but you also get lots of butterflies instead of ones that happened to grow up nearby and found your butterfly bush.  The butterfly bush below is particularly showy and I plan to keep it but the others (two in the bird/pollinator bed and three in the front flower bed) are going to be removed in the fall.  I will replace them with something else that attracts butterflies.

I will be adding more coneflowers (Echinacea) since the ones I planted last fall are doing great.  I like to make sure a particular plant is going to do well before investing in a truck load of them.  Coneflowers are a great native flower here in California, much loved by pollinating insects and butterflies.

The new planter I created up by the turnouts behind the barn will be filling up with native and drought resistant plants.  Right now it just has that one beautiful butterfly bush, one agastache and one nepeta.  I’ll be adding more of the agastache and nepeta, iris, milkweed and lavender.  It should be humming next year with happy bees and hummingbirds.  And butterflies.

In the bird and butterfly bed, I have the agastache (hummingbird mint) below and creeping hummingbird trumpet (Zauschneria) going crazy happy.  

Agastache 

Creeping hummingbird trumpet

So far, I’ve seen a lot of butterflies: swallowtail, painted ladies, small blues and buckeyes mostly.  I’m hoping the milkweed I plant will bring monarchs next year.

Score One for the Hawk

The last few days there have been an adult and a juvenile red-tailed hawk soaring over the open fields around the ranch.  I think that Junior is being taught how to hunt but I don’t, of course, know for sure.  But I do enjoy watching them.

This morning I was sitting on the front porch nursing my wounds (but that’s another story) when I heard their distinctive screech — pretty close by.  The dogs, who had been snoozing by my feet, took off barking.

I looked up to see one of the hawks snatch a squirrel from under the oak tree between the driveway and the front pasture.  Whiskey had a front row seat.  The hawk cleared the fence and soared off to the fields, but dropped the squirrel in the pasture.

Sage was pissed.  The hawk took her squirrel (all squirrels are her squirrels) and then dropped it where she couldn’t get it.  Poor Sage.  Kersey came back to the porch and resumed her nap.  Sage came over to me and started complaining, whining and growling, before laying down on the front porch step.

(And my wounds?  I fell off the back of the utility trailer yesterday when I was helping Brett unload some hay.  I fell about three feet onto the cement floor.  No broken bones but some nasty bruising and my back is tweaked.  Of course.)

No Such Thing as a Free Horse

Those of you who own horses already know this to be true.  But, here is a reminder for those of you who need a refresher.

Who could resist this face?

Back when I was a horse-crazy girl, growing up in a quiet suburban town in Southern California, my parents were offered a free horse.  They had a daughter (me) who spent all her money on Breyer horses and rental horses, and all her time at the neighborhood horse stable doling out sugar cubes and kisses.  I begged and pleaded for a horse.  For years.  My parents didn’t have a lot of extra money and there were three of us kids.  They surely didn’t have money to buy a horse.  But free?  Hmmm, worth investigating.  They received an education in the expense associated with owning a horse and quickly (and I like to think, regretfully) declined the free horse.  Although I didn’t think so at the time, they made the right decision.

We currently have a couple free horses on the ranch.  We took them both (Pistol and Luek) with the full knowledge of the financial outlay that any horse represents.

Yesterday, was an $800 day for Luek.  He has been off for about a week.  He also needed a blood panel done so that he could continue on his joint medication.  So, we took him to our vet for diagnosis of the hoof problem and blood work.  It turns out he has an abscess, most likely the result of a hot nail.  X-rays did not reveal any fractures or other issues.  X-rays for a horse are expensive, especially when they require sedation.  The blood work was normal relative to the joint medication (so we got a big bottle of that); however, he is anemic.  So, we are starting him on medication for that.  Fortunately, he is basically a healthy horse and these are pretty routine things that come with horse ownership.  Abscesses are very common and pretty easy to treat.

Luek enjoyed his foot soak in Epsom salts this morning.  While his foot soaked, I groomed him.  Afterwards, I applied a poultice and wrapped his foot.  Ten minutes later, he was filthy and the wrap was coming undone.  He has a history of abscesses, and he was a circus trick horse, so I’m sure he is also a master at undoing a foot wrap.  Not to brag or anything, but after all the years of dealing with Jackson’s abscesses, I am pretty dang good at wrapping a hoof.

I’m pretty sure he’s laughing at me

Feed the Birds

...and the raccoons and the dogs... Cherries are ripe in the orchard and are in great demand amongst visitors and residents, both invited and not.  Cherries are my favorite fruit so I have, over the past six years, planted five trees.  The first two I planted, a Black Tartarian and a Ranier, are old enough to bear a nice amount of fruit.  Unfortunately, they both got sick a couple years ago with canker so I’ve been pruning out infected limbs each year.  The black tartarian was drastically cut back to the trunk — all limbs gone — but it has rebounded.  A couple of the new limbs had a couple of cherries.  The critters got to them first which is a bummer.  Black tartarian cherries are dark red, almost black, with a great flavor similar to Bing.  They also act as a pollinators for most other sweet cherry varieties.

On the Ranier, I cut off most of the limbs two years ago but left one that was only slightly infected.  The new limbs on that tree are covered in big, juicy, sweet cherries.  The diseased limbs have small leaves and small, sour cherries.  There are a lot of cherries on this tree; enough for all of us to share.  I’m hoping the birds and raccoons will eat the small, sour ones and leave me the big, sweet ones.

A third cherry tree had its first, small crop this year.  It is a Utah Giant which has cherries which look and taste similar to Ranier but are larger (hence the name) and I think have a nicer, more complex flavor than the Ranier.  My last two cherry trees are just a few years old so no cherries yet.

The cherries are particularly loved by Bullock’s orioles but I see other birds snacking in there as well.  I’ve been finding random cherries on the ground in the pasture so I’m not sure if birds are dropping them or other critters are doing so.  Yesterday, the bird bath was full of cherry pits.

I cleaned out the bird bath before taking this photo.  It was disgusting.

I thought, what the heck?  Then I remembered that raccoons like to wash their food and figured that explained the pits and the toppled plants near the bird bath.  Sure enough, later I found raccoon scat under a pear tree — and it was full of cherry pits.

All the hard work I did earlier this year in the orchard seems to be paying off.  The trees all look healthy (except for the one diseased cherry limb which I will remove once the cherries are gone) and are loaded with fruit.  I didn’t fertilize them at all this year with anything other than a nice layer of composted horse manure under their mulch of wood chips.

There’s a Light Horse In There

We’ve had blistering hot feels-like-July weather all week.  I have been wanting to ride but the weather has kept us indoors, other than morning and evening chores.  This morning was slightly cooler, with clouds gathering slowly, so even though the thermometer said it was a bearable 84F, the humidity was high.  By the time I had Tex groomed (not thoroughly, even) and tacked up, sweat was running down my back and I felt a bit woozy.  We stood in the shade for a few minutes until the nausea passed and then headed for the freshly mown back pasture.  Because there are trees.  The dressage court is sand and direct sun so that was not going to work.

Besides, Tex and I like riding under the trees on the grass.

My goal was simple: get a light walk to trot transition.  That’s it.  Tex is a sensitive horse by nature but he’s a bit of a brute under saddle.  Clearly, he was never ridden with feel.  He has no concept of a half-halt and stopping him is like stopping a Mack truck.  Abs, seat, arms — and eventually a “did you say stop?”  Not that he’s running away, mind you.  This is at a walk.  It is part of the reason why I don’t work with him much at trot and canter yet.  If you ain’t got brakes, you ain’t got nothin’.  Similarly, getting him to move off or transition to trot requires a kick.  Ugh.

In ten minutes, we got a lot done.  The first transition went like this:
1. Lighten my seat: nothing
2. Light squeeze with my calves: nothing
3. Heels into his side lightly: nothing
4. Digging into his sides with my heels: off we go

Second try:
1. Lighten my seat: nothing
2. Half halt and light squeeze with my calves: ear flick
3. Heels in lightly: off we go

Third try:
1. Lighten my seat: ear flick
2. Half-halt and light squeeze: off we go
3. Lots and lots of praise from me and... suddenly we are cantering; a lovely balanced canter.  The FIRST balanced canter on this big red over-achiever.

And Brett, who was riding Luek, missed it.  So, I had to ride over and tell him all about it and then we called it a day.

Garden Thoughts

It’s almost impossible to keep track of the days anymore; they run together in a continuous thread of sameness.  I rarely leave the ranch — a weekly pick-up at a local farm for produce, a bi-weekly run to the grocery store for staples, maybe a monthly stop at the nursery or irrigation shop, and that’s it.

This rose bush was here when we moved in, and it really struggled.  I’ve been pruning out the old wood each year and it has become vigorous, prolific and fills the air with its wonderful fragrance.

When I was working, I put over 30,000 miles on my car each year.  Now, I’m lucky if I drive it once a month.  

Simplicity roses form a beautiful hedge along the front of the garden fence.

We have two baskets of masks in the mud room.  One for clean, and one for used.  We carry a bottle of Lysol and a rag with us in the car.  

I’m going to have a lot of cherries this year, if the birds don’t take them all.

I haven’t had a haircut since March 3rd.  Pretty soon, I’ll be able to put it in a pony tail.

My favorite iris.  No, I don’t remember the name of the variety.  

I have strange dreams at night; dreams of a garden with a patchwork of safe garden beds.  Gradually, over the course of the dream, the safe garden beds shrink and disappear and just the deadly ones are left.  

I like companion planting and interspersing flowers with vegetables. This is my tomato bed.  Or is it my poppy bed?  Having flowers scattered around means that there are lots of bees and butterflies  to pollinate everything.

I know we have to get people back to work.  We need to find our way to a new way of living with this virus.  But, I’m scared of going too fast.  I see people flooding local bars and business without masks and no distancing.  I see photos of people with snarling mouths and glaring eyes, demanding the removal of all restrictions.  And I feel threatened.  

Figs

So, I garden and bake and paint.  During the day, I focus on my life here on the ranch and try to ignore the rest.  And then, at night, I dream.

Sugar snap peas, lettuce and chard.

How are you doing?

I’m propagating some big leaf maple trees — one of our favorite trees.

Sage Gets it Done

We have a morning routine and Sage knows it well.  Brett is wide awake the second the bedroom goes from dark to barely grey.  Me, I wake slowly.  So, while Brett is up and letting the dogs out and putting together the horses’ vitamin buckets, I stretch lazily in bed and think about my day.  After 20 minutes or so, I am up as well.  One of the joys of retirement is that I don’t have to stumble out of bed, half-awake, and head off to work — getting coffee half-way there, when I am waking up.  I savor those 20 minutes of leisurely rising.

While I am easing into the morning, Sage follows Brett around while he feeds the horses.  About the time Brett starts cleaning the first pasture, I am outside.  Sage is waiting for me on the porch and stays at my side while I muck the long pasture and then check on the garden.  

Then I head into the house for breakfast and Sage heads off, with Kersey, to find squirrels. 

The other morning I was at the far end of the long pasture with Sage by my side and Brett was finishing up in the front pasture.  He called Sage — which is highly unusual.  I wondered why.  Sage glanced at me quickly and then she was off; 

all the way down the pasture to the gate 

where there is an opening for her to exit, 

across the bridge, 

past the chicken run, 

skidded around the corner, continued past the pasture and the barn, reaching Brett between the round pen and the agility arena.  

Next, I saw Bear walking down the pathway between the goat area and the agility arena.  He was on the wrong side of the fence and his goat buddies were watching enviously...until Sage arrived.  Bear had slipped out of the pasture behind Brett when he pulled the muck cart out and had ignored Brett’s efforts to get him to go back inside.  Sage went to work.  She leapt around Bear, barking and crouching and wagging her tail like mad.  Bear tried to head-butt her and then gave up.  Brett opened the pasture gate and Sage herded Bear into the pasture.  

Maybe I’ll enroll Sage in a herding class when she finishes obedience training.  Something tells me she would enjoy it.

More Changes

The goats wondered what the heck was going on.  Bear watched intently from the goat platform, where he was high enough to see over the fence, as the donkeys approached.

Luek watched from his pasture.

Further down the pasture fence, Tex and Lucy kept an eye on developments as well.  So much commotion, so much confusion.

Why were the donkeys out of their pasture?  Why was Tuffy doing circles around Annette like he was being lunged, while Finessa was led docilely behind by Brett?

And then, a few minutes later, what were they doing in the front pasture?  With the goats?

The donkeys, themselves, were pretty chill about the move to their new pasture.  I expected them to be lively, given that they have been in the “donkey pasture” for the past seven years.  We figured it was time for a change.  Pistol and Flash like the donkey pasture, where they have been hanging out lately, eating the grass that the donkeys can’t eat fast enough to keep under control.  When the donkeys spotted the goats, they did get a bit more animated.  For a minute.  The video is best with sound on so you can hear the donkeys voicing their opinion of the goats.

They’ve been together for a few hours now.  The donkeys are grazing and exploring.  The goats are grazing and keeping their distance from the donkeys.  This pasture has two run-ins — one for the donkeys and one for the goats.  Pistol and Flash were not sharing the one run-in that is in the donkey pasture so the donkeys were left without a shelter.  And they love being in their shelter.  This way, they have a shelter and a large pasture, and something new to think about.

Lilacs

The garden continues to bloom, with lilacs and iris taking over where the daffodils left off.  I struggled to grow lilacs at Aspen Meadows but they never really did very well; a few sad blooms if I was lucky.  Most years, nothing.  Up here, we have perfect lilac conditions and they grow like weeds.

When my mom died, I planted three in her memory.  I’m not sure if she loved them or not, but my dad always talked about lilacs blooming when they got married at my mother’s parents’ house in Illinois.  So, I have always associated lilacs with the stories of their wedding although her stories were more about not being allowed to wear an off-the-shoulder wedding dress — so she got married in a very smart suit that she sewed.  And hated.  Don’t you love family stories?

Syringa vulagaris ‘Katherine Hanemeyer’ (hybrid)

Syringa vulgaris ‘Sensation’  (French hybrid). I love love LOVE this lilac.

Syringa vulgaris (Common lilac)

A few years later I added a double white lilac to cover up the corner of the garden fence by the chicken shed.

And, just this past year, I planted three dwarf lilacs in the new front planter.  They are too tiny to show up very well in the photo.  There is one in front of, and one behind, the glorious yellow iris.

Am I addicted to lilacs?  You could say so.