November Hill farm journal, 133

 What a morning! Elsa is moving in and when I woke up, the rain had just started. I ran out and got the horses and the donkeys in, gave them their morning hay, tidied the barn, and then ran back in to take the dogs out for a run before the rain got heavy. Thankfully the big rain set in after we were back inside.

It looks like we’re in for a very rainy day. I hope this storm passes through with the least possible damage for those east of us and up and down the east coast as it makes its way north.

For now, this is what’s happening on November Hill:

It’s been a fairly quiet but crazy week. On Tuesday we lost internet and cell service simultaneously for about 12 hours. That evening found me sitting in a silent house with book in hand. Actually, a nice break from devices! But I was glad to wake up Wednesday a.m. to everything back to normal.

We lived through three nights of fireworks this year, though Keil Bay seems to be having an EPM flare-up as a result. The disease is never truly gone, and flares can happen when stress increases. We did everything we could to minimize that for him, but we couldn’t stop the idiocy of humans shooting things off, and if you detect anger in my tone here, you are right on the mark. I’m so disgusted, more so than ever, with the use of fireworks to celebrate anything, really, but independence in particular. What I want is independence from people’s desire to create what sounds and looks like a war zone. And one that impacts every living thing around them to boot.

I’ve checked in with Keil’s vet and we’re putting him on Banamine for several days, then Bute, and finally Equioxx, to try and get control of any inflammation going on. She’s on the schedule already for her monthly visit, so he’ll get a thorough assessment then, his acupuncture, and we may increase acupuncture to weekly for awhile, again, and if absolutely necessary, we can do a course of EPM treatment as well. 

He’s in good spirits though, whinnying for meals, and generally seems to feel fine, for which I’m very grateful.

Everyone else in the barn is doing well. 

We’re in the midst of cucumber production here - I’m deluged again! I picked 10 large ones yesterday in advance of the rain coming in today, and three large tomatoes. For whatever reason, the tomatoes aren’t doing quite as well this year. They’re producing, but not in large numbers. We staggered planting, though so have several plants coming up to replace these older ones. I’m also overrun with sweet and African basil, and should have cut some yesterday before this rain so I could make the annual favorite brie and tomato and basil pasta for dinner! If we get a break in the rain I’ll run out and get some later today.

Everything is growing - grass, pollinator plants, trees, shrubs. We’re in NC jungle mode and with the rain we’ve been getting, it’s NC tropical rain forest mode as well.

The bees are doing well too. We have ended up with 5 colonies. We’ll soon be in summer dearth time here in NC for bee forage, though all the pollinators I’ve planted that bloom in midsummer will help out some. This year’s spring nectar flow was very strong, so the bees have plenty of honey and we don’t harvest it (though we would if they had extra, and probably could have this year). They should be fine until the fall flow begins.

Speaking of bees, I dreamed that we started finding bee trees on November Hill. In other words, trees with  bee colonies living inside them. In the dream, we kept finding another one, and another one. It was quite wonderful. I would love it we found even one!

Writing: I have 15 pieces out on submission and am working on a creative nonfiction chapbook of essays this month. I think I forgot to note here that I had a piece come out on Manifest-Station recently. If you go to their site and search for Billie Hinton, you’ll find this one and an earlier essay they published a few years ago.

I have a number of writing projects on the stove, as is usual for me, and am trying hard to get them completed and out the door!

In other news, my grandson is loving cloth books, laughing and smiling and in the midst of early language development, and a total joy to behold. 

We’re at the second viewing stage of land shopping, which has been an interesting process. With larger land parcels there are more things to review and consider than I realized. Since looking at land has been something I’ve loved since I was a young girl and did it with my parents, this is in some ways like a return to childhood, when I analyzed each parcel we walked for its suitability for horses. I started that early and I continue to do that now. Life is full of circles, isn’t it? 

Annual PSA for July 4th celebrations

Find other ways to celebrate than re-creating a war zone!

Animals of every kind, including wildlife and birds, are negatively affected. People are affected, especially combat veterans and anyone who has been traumatized by gunfire. Many animals including livestock cannot be brought inside to safety. Shouldn’t a celebration of independence be something quiet and peaceful for all?

I just got an email that at least one neighbor will be setting on fireworks tonight. While I very much appreciate the notice, I wish they would choose not to do it at all. 

My least favorite years are the ones when July 4th falls on a weekend night, which seems to stretch out the celebrations. This year I’ll spend July 3rd AND 4th sitting at the barn hoping for the best. Thankfully the thunderstorm last night meant I didn’t have to be out for three nights in a row.

If you read this and you’re planning fireworks, please at least think through what it means to every living thing around you. If you think it through and decide to do it anyway, then consider what that says about who you are as a person. I’m being very serious. What does it mean to do something loud and obnoxious that others cannot get away from? That you are imposing onto them because you have the “right” to do it?

We all need to practice considering how our behavior impacts others. Let’s all start right now. 

November Hill farm journal, 132

 I’m happy to be in the middle of a 3-day cooler spell which is giving us nights in the 50s, in JUNE! What a great break from upper 80s and 60s at night.

It seems like there isn’t much news to report this week, which is fine with me. Everything is growing, we’re getting good rain and plenty of sunshine in between, and our veggie garden is producing now, so we’re starting to enjoy the harvest just as our weekly CSA winds down for the summer.

We split Echo hive this past week, as the population was booming. So we now have 5 hives: Artemis, Echo, Hegemone 1 and 2, and Mnemosyne. All are doing well as we begin to move into the beginning of the summer dearth here in central NC. A number of pollinator plants are in bloom, and several more are getting ready to pop, so the bees here will have forage, just not the big nectar flow of the springtime. We had to remove burr comb from Echo when we opened it up to split, and got some honey to sample. Wow! It was a very light honey that had a slight fruity flavor. Really nice. 

The herd is doing well. Hoof trims were today and they’re all growing lots of hoof this time of year. 

I started this earlier this week and never finished it, so I’ll update that we are now out of the cool spell and back to summer heat and humidity. 

We’re already giving cucumbers to neighbors, I’m at the point where the pollinator beds are on their own for the most part, though I am cutting back the goldenrod so they don’t get 10 feet tall, and I’m enjoying the fact that our rain is reliable enough thus far to keep us from having to do much watering.

One exciting bit of news is that I approached one of our local native plant nurseries to see if they could partner with me on a native grass pasture seed mix that will be good for horses, and they are interested! I’m very happy about this, as the native grasses will thrive and be so much more hardy than anything else, and will be better for a balanced ecosystem. I suspect having a variety of native grasses will also offer better nutrition to the horses. We’re aiming to have this seed mix ready to sow in the fall.

This was writing weekend for me and I had a marvelous time with my two long-time writer friends via Zoom. We planned, we caught up, we laughed, we read and critiqued, and we inspired one another as we do each month since the pandemic began. I’ll be submitting a new essay I polished this weekend, and also submitting three chapters of my newest novel to a first chapters contest. Once I get these sent out tomorrow, I’m moving on to a longer project and hope to be focusing on the longer form work through August. 

It’s summer! It’s almost July. And I’m already stressing July 4th but that’s another post altogether. 

Pet Peeve #874: when horse people attribute negative intention to their and others’ horses

 I have to vent. Today on a horse group discussion someone asked what to do for her horses who are free to come and go between stalls and pasture. They are urinating in the stalls and she doesn’t want them to mess up the shavings.

She said they will actually come in from the pasture when she’s mucking and pee/poop right in front of her.

She feels this is them insulting her.

I could not believe how many people responded saying their horses are “jerks” who do the same thing, their horses are “shits” who are “giving the middle finger” by coming into a stall to pee.

Many recommend not putting any bedding in the stalls so they won’t pee in them. 

I am totally confused. Isn’t a stall a horse’s space to rest, relax, eat, drink, pee, poop, as they see fit? Some horses are closed in stalls many hours a day, some are free to come and go. What is the point of a stall if you’re going to take the bedding out so they won’t use the bathroom, and you lock them out because you don’t want them to be in there messing up the shavings. What are the shavings even for, if not to be rested on, peed on, and pooped on?

We do close our stall doors when horses are turned out, but when they’re “in” I expect there will be pee and poop and that it’s sometimes going to be messy and that some horses are tidier than others just like humans are. They pee in the shavings because it soaks up the urine and doesn’t get all over their legs. Same reason I sit down on the toilet and use the bathroom instead of going outside and peeing behind a bush.

If I’m mucking and any one or more of them comes in and pees or poops, I consider that is them doing me a favor, not them giving me the middle finger. 

Why do people who presumably love horses and keep them insist on attributing negative intention to what seems to me normal behavior?

I do not even begin to understand this mentality. Sigh. 

November Hill farm journal, 131

 After several days of good, needed rain, we’re having a quiet, cloudy but not rainy Saturday. The cats are sleeping on the front porch, the dogs are stretched out in the living room, and I’m sitting here feeling very grateful that two of the largest projects we had lined up for this season are now behind us. 

With the rain and the season, November Hill is right now in tropical jungle mode. Grass is growing, flowers are blooming, trees are thick and green, and the farm is teeming with life. This week marked the end of dog romps in Poplar Folly for the season, thanks to my son spotting a large copperhead in the pathway. I had hoped that what I’ve always heard was true: that black snakes are territorial and keep the copperheads away. We know we have a number of black snakes back there, so it seems this is a myth, or at least has exceptions. We keep a path weed-eated along the back fence since we use that as a walkway and place to sit and watch the honey bees, and there are several other bare path areas from the dogs running, but the brush piles and other foliage are there for wildlife, and snakes reside in that category.

I had been tromping fearlessly back there but will probably be more watchful now. I always wear my muck boots, and I don’t mess with the wilder sections of the folly, so it’s likely I’ll never see all the snakes that pass through. But for safety’s sake we’ll keep the dogs out until we get around to autumn again.

I’m happy to say that in the barn, the swallows are flying, the horses and donkeys are happy, and yesterday, when his chiropractic vet arrived, Keil Bay broke away from my husband and trotted out of the barn, giving her the perfect look at how he’s doing. He had very little needing adjusting, and he’s finally shed his winter fur. I’m happy to see him so feisty. 

Hopefully this week I’ll get some photos around the farm. I’ve been forgetting to take my phone with me when I go out, and there’s a lot to share right now. Early summer on November Hill is always nice. Not yet to the multi-shower days of midsummer!