Thistleblooms Rambles

Duckfarmerpa1

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Duckfarmerpa1

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There's more!

This is built on a Wade tree using Hermann Oak leather. Hides from American cattle, tanned in St. Louis MO.
Originally I had requested no rigging for a back cinch as I didn't anticipate dragging cows around and wanted to cut weight where possible.
He went ahead and double rigged it and even threw in the back cinch for no extra charge. He also rigged it for a crupper and britchen. I think it was a way of making up for the 3.5 month delay. But even with the extra rigging and back cinch it's only 33 lbs.

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View attachment 70497 The back cinch.

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My sunflower :love

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And the inspiration for the tooled sunflower on the cantle came from the blingy headstall I bought for her a year ago.

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I never get tired of looking at it. It's currently enthroned in the living room where I can gaze at it. :lol:
I will probably shed a few tears when the first scratch goes in.
Oh my goodness...I really have never seen one like that, and never seen all the details!! It’s just amazing!!
 

thistlebloom

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Today I made up a double batch of fire cider. I like having it on hand and finally remembered to pick up some horseradish and turmeric today. I had left out an important tax form when I dropped my packet off at the CPA's Monday and had to make a return trip today to drop it off.
Town felt weird. A lot of parking lots were empty, and there was traffic, but not as congested as has been usual the last few years with all the new arrivals moving here.
Thanks to @Baymule sharing the TSC's CEO's email I stopped off there, and found they had plenty of the feed I need for Luke. I bought two extra bags (not hoarding! ) just in case I can't get back for whatever reason. I have six months worth of hay left, so no worries there. Unfortunately I forgot to pick up dewormer, I seem to be a little unfocused lately when I'm in stores.

My tomato and pepper starts are doing pretty good. I didn't set up my lights this year. I just have them in a south window. Simple seems to be my theme this year.

I've saddled Syringa with my new saddle 4 times, but the round pen is still bad footing so no actual getting up on her yet. There is a little covered arena I can trailer too, but with my little tutoring job, and garden work starting up, time is kind of tricky. I did put it on Luke and rode him around the yard just to see how it felt. It's lovely and balanced. Too bad it doesn't fit him too.

I need a new batch of layers this year, and almost did an impulse buy at TSC, but came to my senses.
Instead I'm going to keep an eye out for started pullets as I don't need very many to keep us in eggs.

So here's the fire cider. One jar anyway. It's doing it's magic in my dark pantry right now.

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thistlebloom

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Recipe? I know I can skip over to SS, but i'm lazy. haha

Everybody has their variations, but this is how I did this batch (I split the ingredients between two half gallon canning jars) :

Horseradish - 1 pretty big root, 2.5" x 8" ish
Turmeric- 2 good sized roots
ginger- 2 large almost palm sized roots
2 heads of garlic
2 mediums sized onions
4 big jalapenos
2 big lemons
2 oranges
2 heaping TBS of ground cinnamon
2 qts of raw unfiltered ACV

Everything got a really good scrub, and this time I didn't peel anything, (except the onion) just coarsely chopped all the roots, smashed the garlic, sliced the peppers and citrus thin. Pack it all into your jar and cover to the top with ACV.
Let it infuse in a dark cool cupboard for 4 weeks. Give it a shake once a day.
Strain, add honey if you want (I use one cup).
Pour into a clean container and refrigerate.
I have found that it's fine to just store in a cupboard, but we use ours up within 6 months.

I am going to send one jar with Kid#1 when he leaves on his fire fighting assignment. We probably won't see him again until fall. Kid#2 thinks this is a crazy thing to ingest so he's not a fan, but I'm working on his tiny closed mind, haha.
 
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thistlebloom

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Took a few pics of Syringa all dressed up in her new saddle. Dh drives the pickup and I sit on the tailgate holding her lead. We trot her around the neighborhood (dirt roads) about 2.5 miles to let her stretch her legs and get the wiggles out. It was hard to get a full body shot since she wanted to be so close to the tailgate. She did real well with the stirrups swinging and tapping her sides. Got a little bucky for a few strides, but that was just joy I'm sure. ;)
;)

The latigo is way long, got about 3 miles of it even with 3 wraps around the cinch ring. So I marked it after 2 wraps and took it over to the saddlemaker's and he removed the excess.

Before the latigo trim *



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My little sweet potato.:love

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In other events, I worked today at my smaller job, pruning the redtwig dogwoods and raking out a few beds.
The rest of the week is devoted to my big estate and I hope it doesn't rain because I intend to work anyway.
I used to work in the rain all the time before I turned into a sissy. Just gonna have to find the old tough me. 😄
It's all good with quarantine type standards as the owners don't come to stay until June, so it's just me on a few acres.
 
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