Winter visitor

Thought you might like to see one of our winter visitors this morning. He obviously found a mouse in the carriage house. If you look closely you can see the little mouse tail hanging down by his feet. We're not sure what he is. He is about 9 inches from head to tail. Haven't heard his call. He thinks the carriage house is quite a good place to be, as there is chicken feed and mice. We would love for him to stay, to help keep the mice away.

Exciting times

Well, colder today, and thought I would share some of the happenings here at Sisters Creek over this winter. Technically it isn't winter yet, but at -10 C, let me tell you, it's winter. So work is going on inside now. Fred is shaping the timbers for the upstairs master suite. This is quite the undertaking. Posts and beams, gunstock braces, all need to be cut and treated. They are almost finished now, the plan is to put up the main posts and beams down the centre of the room on Saturday. Thought you might like to see what they looked like before they were put in place. It will be cold on Saturday, but the beam work shouldn't be too long. I guess we'll see.

Lots of new things happening

Well, Christmas is coming, and with it the prospects of sleigh rides on Christmas Eve. We are biting our fingernails, because the weather is very mild and yesterday and today the snow is melting. Everyone who is coming is so excited about the sleigh rides, so I hope we will be able to meet their expectations, if not, maybe carriage rides, we will see.

Working on some art, or trying to, and thinking about the garden in the spring and putting up a small hoop house to extend our seasons, we will see. Thinking about it doesn't really take a lot of effort, but actually doing it is something else. Eliot Coleman's books and ideas about year round gardening really look interesting. Also the zero mile diet books from Victoria. We are putting on an agricultural gardening workshop on January 22nd in Quesnel at the College to put forth some of these ideas.

Our newest nephew was born on December 10th, in Saskatoon to Carey and Josh. Congratulations little one. Welcome to the world.

Carriage driving this weekend

I probably shouldn't call it carriage driving, since I was driving my cross country cart, but we did go out and have fun at the local show, with dressage, cones, and a mini marathon. Artist was such a good horse, and we came home happy and tired. Did a few driving classes as well, and won the reinsmanship class which is important, since Rose won the last one we entered, so we kept it in the Sisters Creek family.

Not many posts this summer, so here is the up date. Hot, fires, smoke, more smoke, more smoke from forest fires in the area for the last half of the summer. Put concrete foundations under the horse waterers, went to a few driving activities including a combined driving competition in 70 Mile house which was a blast. We had two entries from sisters creek, the team and my single horse. We both got eliminated but it was an honor to show under Muffy Seaton. She was just great, and gave us extra help and was so concerned when we got eliminated. We weren't able to complete hazard one in the marathon phase. Artist just didn't like the cut out moose and we had to be excused from that hazard.

So now we are working to renovate our house, to create a master suite at one end of the house, and put new windows in that area. Actually they are new to us windows, as a friend of ours was replacing what we consider to be beautiful, perfectly good windows, so we got the windows. Our old windows will go into our green house, so we will be going on with our philosophy of recycle when ever possible. Hopefully will start replacing the windows this week, as the frames for the greenhouse walls are ready. Unfortunately gh strained his back on the carriage with the team this weekend, so we will see how he does tomorrow.

Got most of the potatoes up today, tried two new varieties this year, Blush and Ptarmigan. Haven't got the Ptarmigan up yet, but the Blush potatoes got a good yield. We should have hilled them a little better, and one row got water and the other didn't, but not too much difference in the rows. It was a very dry year. The red burbanks were the star of the potato patch though; bright, bright red and huge with no scabs. The russet burbanks were smaller than we would like, although a good yield. The Shepody did well. All in all, the potatoes were very good this year with the dry weather. The red burbanks were planted at the edge of the garden, in a row that gets planted with potatoes every year, so I was surprised that they did so well. We try to edge our garden with potato plants as it seems to keep the weeds at bay just a little.

A rest day for the horses, although the six pack of standardbreds; Nron, Gerry, Buckley, Outlaw Rob, and the other two did manage to get out and wander around. Max is in with them now so he probably got the fence panel down. We found him in his favorite place this morning, outside the west side of the house, munching on the lawn. He was happy to go back in though, and for the most part they stayed in their pasture, so we just left them. They can't get anywhere as long as the gates are shut.

Rose drove Buckley(Pump Handle) this weekend and had a good time in the dressage. We were going to pair him up with Outlaw Rob, but Outlaw Rob seems to be a roarer when he is exercised, so Buckley will go back to being a single driving horse. I think he would prefer that, although he does like Rob.

Rained this afternoon, so no more potato digging. Managed to get all we dug today into the basement to dry. Put a fan on down there to circulate the air so hopefully will dry any moisture off them. We have a very good yield. Only one more row to dig, and I think some carrots still to get out of the ground. Our corn did well this year as well. Most cobs manged to mature.

Will try to keep up with the renovating so people can see what we are up to.

Prance and Pleasure Driving Classes

We entered our first driving classes this weekend. We finished the cross country cart just before the event, so we had the team driving, and two standardbreds harnessed in carts. What a blast. There were mini's in their own classes, then ponies, and then the 14'3 and over class. There were six horses in most of our classes which was great, a little competition. This was the first time our horses had to compete against so many carts in the ring, but we all were well prepared. All the clinics and driving times we have arranged in the last few years really came together for all the competitors so we had a wonderful safe driving event.

The new cart is working out well. At first the air shocks were set too hard and the ride was a real jaw rattler, but with them adjusted down a little it worked really well over the weekend. We tried our hand at pleasure driving, command class, reinsmanship and then pole bending and barrels. I really shouldn't have taken Artist in the pole bending and barrels, too much turning for a "green to pleasure driving" horse, but I think in the end it was okay, as he was able to get out there and blast and that seemed to calm him down.

One funny thing was that he was a little agitated by the applause. I had to laugh, as this is a horse that has raced on many of the top standardbred tracks on the west coast, and here he couldn't quite understand the applause. I guess when the crowd roars in the race tracks the horses are going so fast they just run right through all that noise, of course, many of them have ear plugs as well. He wasn't very good at standing, but we will work on that. Next event for the team and Artist is the combined driving event at 70 mile on July 9th. Hope we are ready for that.

Combined driving clinic

We had a clinic with Elisa Marocchi two weekends ago and really enoyed it.
What I learned: (not in any particular order)
1. Plan your cones course from outside line to outside line. Sometimes it is better and faster to go the long way.
2. There are always many different ways to plot your path in a Hazard. The shortest isn't always the fastest. When you change directions it is like adding in five or six extra strides.
3. Half halts should be timed to co-ordinate with the picking up the the inside hind leg. (I am still working on when to squeeze and when to release on the half halt)
4. check your harness carefully for safety. Even if you think the blinkers are not rubbing on your horse's eyes, they may be. Have someone else look at them to see what is happening.
5. The breeching strap (the brake) should be wide - usually much wider than comes with most harness.
6. Be careful in your selection of bits. A loose cheek liverpool can really pinch a horse's lips, and a straight bar is more severe than you might think because there is no tongue release.
7. Try to use release rather than pull in steering your horse. Release the outside line to turn. (Half halt, release, half halt release)
8. A 40 metre circle has four points on the rail or at centre. Drive to each point to make a proper circle.
9. You have to have a nose band on a bridle - or caveson.
10. Wear gloves and carry your whip so that you can get used to the feel of it. The whip should be carried at a 45 degree angle across your body and should be long enough to be able to touch the shoulder of your horse.
11. Presentation dress should be conservative and coordinated. Women's hats should not be floppy. A small brim is appropriate.
12. Under your apron you can wear dark pans and black boots, or a skirt, if you are a woman.
13. I'll add to this as I check my notes.

What is it about the weather

Spring is a difficult time of year. One minute it is hot and your muscles all relax and you want to get out and do things; then, like yesterday, it was blowing and snowing and it made my body crunch up and get tight again, like it was December, instead of Easter. We now have nine new standardbreds, with sleek coats and expectations of warm weather.
Last night we used our tie stalls for the first time, putting Max, Jaxon, Kiki, Pacing Artist, and Herbie in the tie stalls. I was pretty sure this morning we would have a mess, but the only thing that happened was Pacing Artist had got himself unsnapped and was turned around in his stall greeting us this morning. There is a chain across the back end of the stall, so he hadn't left the tie stall, but just turned around to see what was going on. Everyone else was happy to be fed their oats this morning in the tie stalls, and this afternoon, they all lined up at the gate to be put in again. However, the weather is a little better, so they are out for the night with a new round bale in their feeder.

We put DD Zilch in a box stall, as he is a little more high strung than the rest, and I was worried about his being in a tie stall. Nron and Crackers decided they would rather stay outside than have a halter put on, so they were happy to see the rest of the herd this morning.
Compromize was in a box stall as well because she was a little stiff yesterday, but has improved today and seems fine.

We had the opportunity to unite a local breeder with a horse that had been hers and was being apprehended down in the States for neglect. Hope something comes of it. Her horses are so nice and it is a shame that one of hers or maybe two have got into this problem.

Still working on the bending problem for the sleigh dash. We tried steaming the baltic birch, but it wasn't really working. Too little steam and there was no bend, too much steam and the dash delaminated. The delaminations may not be such a bad thing, as we could rebuild the plywood to the form we want if we can get it to lay flat. Wish us luck.