"Little" Horse in the Pasture

We received a surprise phone call yesterday afternoon, and next thing we knew, there was a horse living in our pasture!

One of Dan's clients knows that we are looking for horses. In fact, he loaned us equipment to help put up our fence. Anyway, he called yesterday to say he was in his way back into town with his granddaughter, and they would drop by with a couple of horses so we could ride one and see if we might be interested in buying him.
To make a long story short, his name is Bourbon, and he's an 19 year old gelding. His owner wants to sell him because he doesn't get along very well with his other horses, but he seems pretty gentle around here. I guess we're going to keep him over the winter, and if we decide we like him, we'll buy him, but no commitment at this point. Sounds like too good a deal to be true, but this is Missouri and people seem to like to work deals :)

Isaac in cowboy gear, with Bourbon (he is very excited)



Elizabeth got the first ride

Abby led Isaac and Becky around before they posed for a picture - then she and Dan, the experienced riders,
got on(separately) and gave him a workout.

Our God is an Awesome God

How about this for a beautiful vista? That's a front moving through the neighborhood.

Don't Try this at Home

Today was a beautiful Saturday, without any other commitments. So we worked hard all day on all those fall projects that we haven't gotten to. One is a long overdue cleaning of our vinyl siding... we tried power washing last year, but it didn't work. Seems like the best approach is just plain old-fashioned elbow grease, so Dan tackled the job with vigor. The problem is reaching up that high! So he got creative. We didn't get a picture of him hanging out the windows right above him, through which he cleaned above and beside and below the windows about 18 inches each directions. YIKES. Hopefully the next post will not be a picture of Elizabeth imitating him, since she is a climber... need to get a picture of her up a tree, though usually I'm trying to get her down, not looking for a camera!

Food

Two adjustments in the area of food for the Hall this year:

#1 We went back to making popcorn the "old-fashioned" way, in a pot on the stove. It isn't all that much work, is cheaper, and we've found it tastes a lot better. We've even figured out how to make it like kettle corn -- basically just sprinkle with salt AND sugar.

#2 "Bread eggs" have been part of my family forever -- I think my dad learned to make them from his mom. I've heard other people call them "egg-in-a hole" and "one-eyed Egyptians" , but they are all basically the same yummy breakfast treat. This year, though, I was amazed when my friend Jan, who was living with us while looking for a rental house, asked me for a biscuit cutter. She used it to cut a nice round hole in the bread. I've always torn a piece out of the middle, leaving a very ragged, random "hole" in the middle. I loved the nice round hole, but I didn't like it so big, so we experimented until we found the perfect tool -- the lid to my half & half bottle. It makes just the right sized hole for the egg, so now I can make beautiful bread eggs (that taste just as good!)