Fun Horse/Flower Mashup

I think I'm going a little spring-crazy. I found crocus flowers in the park, the barnyard is a muck pit from the rain, and I'm walking a lot of the horses around the ring getting them out of the mud and, in some cases, started back up for spring lessons.

I thought it might be fun to match the horses at the barn up with the flowers I think they would go well with. ^_^ So here goes!

Starting with the mare field...

Cyd: Morning Glory



Morning glories open only in the morning and evening or on cloudy days. When they do open they are gorgeous pink, purple, or blue flowers. The vine is sometimes hard to control in the garden because it spreads via underground runners.


Mia: Queen Anne's Lace



Related to carrots, Queen Anne's Lace brightens the countryside in fields and along roads. Though they can thrive in tough conditions, they are also good in the garden as a companion plant to lettuces and other greens which require shade in the heat of summer.


Jewel: Snapdragon



Snapdragons come in a variety of vibrant colors and attract bees and hummingbirds with their fiery bright blooms. Just like Jewel they are fun and fairly carefree, but do enjoy some pampering!


The main barn....

Ernie: Wild Geranium



The wild geranium is a native plant in eastern North America. The tiny pale purple flowers grow well in full sun but can also be found in shade, creating forest carpets of color. The flowers attract native bees and make a lovely addition to any garden, peeking around the front of the other plants and adding their charm to the landscape.


Gus: Hoya

Hoyas are tropical flowers that love warmth and high humidity. Clusters of kaleidoscopic colored flowers in white, red, pink, and/or yellow hang from the vines and look like perfect little wax stars. The flowers are somewhat infamous among house plant owners for dripping sticky honeydew onto surfaces below.


Taz: Sunflower



Sunflowers are hard to miss. These sunny plants grow rapidly, attracting bees with the bright yellow petals in late summer and creating an enormous seed head which is food for autumn migrating birds. They require a good amount of nutrients from the soil to grow so large and have a handy trick to keep other hungry plants at bay- they secrete a toxic chemical from their roots which drives off all plants in their vicinity.


Maggie: Miniature Rose



The miniature rose is a petite beauty. It comes in several colors and is actually more hardy than the average tea rose. Miniature roses still require a fair amount of care to keep them at their best. Be careful picking the flowers though- the mini rose comes with mini thorns!


Harry: Daisy

 




Daisies grow freely in meadows and along roads and are a favorite of bouquet-gathering children. They are a very tolerant flower and can grow in a wide variety of conditions. The daisy has a very long flowering season and flowers can be found reliably from spring all the way through to autumn.


Miles: Trumpet Lily

The trumpet lily is a bold, striking addition to the garden. Its big bright petals form a trumpet shape that can be up to 6 inches long and comes in nearly every color, from white to deep orange. Trumpet lilies bloom in the middle of summer, when most other flowers have gone dormant. They plough right through the heat with relative ease.

*I did have Miles with Balloon Flower, but I think the Trumpet Lily is a more accurate match.

Aspen: Cherry Blossom



Cherry blossoms massed on the branches of a cherry tree are one of the most striking signs that spring has arrived. Blooms can be white or pink and are beautiful, yet delicate. The amount of blossoms that form depends highly on the weather conditions. They tend to fall apart on windy days.


Nadiya: Orchid



Outside of its native tropical environment orchids can take several years to bloom and will sometimes refuse to do so if moved to a different temperature, lighting, or soil. They dislike change. When an orchid does bloom though, the flowers are some of the most intricate, varied, and beautiful in the world.


And the pony field...

Abby: Foxglove



Foxglove forms tall stalks full of large, bell shaped flowers that are pink, purple, grey, or white and usually have spots or speckles. The unique shape of the flowers means they have whimsical alternative names such as "witch's mittens" and "fairy caps." The plant grows equally well in forests and in fields and is a favorite of hummingbirds. Extracted chemicals from foxglove have long been used in treating heart ailments.


Pudge: Hydrangea



The hydrangea is a flower that is made up of clusters of smaller flowers. In some varieties these clusters can be several inches wide, creating giant puffballs of blooms. Normally the blooms are white, but many gardeners turn the flowers different colors by adjusting the soil pH. These shrubs can't be fed too much nitrogen-rich fertilizer or they won't produce flowers.


Presley: Virginia Bluebells

Another native east coast plant, Virginia Bluebells flourish in shady woodlands where they flower in early spring and can create large patches of color. The flowers start out pink and then change color to blue. Bees and butterflies adore the little bell-shaped flowers. These plants dislike hot weather and go dormant after June, biding their time beneath the soil until the weather gets cooler.


Bodi: Dandelion 

Though considered an annoyance by some, a truly nurtured dandelion is a wonderful sight. It has adapted to a wide variety of conditions and grows through concrete, but it also finds a home in the garden where its bright cheerful flowers can grow to an inch in diameter. If left long enough it develops a delightful puffball of seeds that can then be blown on the wind to new places.


I hope you have enjoyed this fun adventure in matching ponies with plants. What flower do you think your favorite horse would match well with?

PS: Too many photos in this post. I was up waaay too late trying to find pictures to go along with all the descriptions. Bed time now.

Waiting for a Horse to Decide

When I was in high school I wrote a poem about how time seems to have almost palpable turning points around decisions. I don't remember the exact words, but the idea was that just before a decision is made time seems to tilt gradually, then all at once as it tumbles into a new reality.

This phenomenon is only amplified for me around horses. Unless they are frightened, in pain, playing or fighting, (all adrenaline-fueled decision situations) horses seem to make decisions relatively slowly compared to human beings. I get a weird joy out of waiting for a horse to decide to do something I wanted rather than shortcutting to make it fit human time.

Beautiful Nadiya teaches me a lot about waiting for horse decisions

Waiting for a horse to decide involves looking for a moment where I can give them a nudge to tip the decision in my favor. For example, when Aspen and I go walking we play a game where he stops to look at something and I wait expectantly until I am almost sure that he is done looking and then I turn toward him ever so slightly and he looks at me and starts walking again. If I turn too soon he pays no attention to me. If I turn too late then he has decided for me and I've lost the game.

Aspen out for a walk.

When I pick Nadiya's hooves she is particular about getting her front hooves done because she's protective of her front bowed tendons. Sometimes she doesn't want to lift her front feet at all, and then I play the foot game. I start with her back feet, picking them up carefully and gently. When I'm finished cleaning them I put them down slooowly. Then I move up to the front again and stare at her. She might be eating hay or looking out of her stall, but eventually if I keep staring intently at her eye she'll turn her head and look at me. I look back for a long moment, sometimes several seconds until she stops looking. Then I matter-of-factly bend down and put a hand on her hoof and kind of nudge her as if to say "you know this is ok. I just showed you I'm good at this. Lift up your foot." Sometimes she does the first time, sometimes I have to go stare at her some more, but in the end the hoof comes up and I hold up my end of the bargain by being as gentle with it as possible.

Nadiya

I used to play the foot game with Aspen but now he lifts each foot up in turn as soon as I put the other one down. I know when a foot hurts more than usual because he'll refuse to pick one up which is by now rare enough to alert me. Sometimes he'll even hesitate or put the hoof back down briefly before picking it back up again, and almost unfailingly there's a soft frog or a deep smelly crevice in that particular hoof that I have to be careful about.

Aspen who is now so good with getting his hooves picked. <3

Sometimes figuring out when to press for a decision and when to wait a little longer is hard- I am still working on being able to catch horses when they aren't sure they want to be caught, especially Gus. I call it practice herding. I can't just walk up to Gus with a halter all the time. Sometimes he "nopes" right out of there and I have to walk a little ways behind him and try to anticipate where he's going to go. If I over-anticipate then he can avoid me. If I'm too hesitant he can slip past me too. The one time I got it perfect was when I was catching him for the farrier and he started avoiding me. I stayed far enough back while following him that when he made a turn I only had to step one step in either direction to get in his path and block him. Finally, he stopped moving but I couldn't move any closer until he decided to be caught or he'd have the space advantage and herding would continue. So I waited, trying to watch closely to see what he would decide. After maybe 15-20 seconds of motionless decision making, he looked at me and sort of sagged his ears and leaned his neck toward me a little and the decision was made. He let me walk up and halter him and lead him over to the farrier. (Then I accidentally tried turning him around in the barn and he got confused and attempted to drag me out of the barn again, but that's another event entirely. :P)

Gus

As usual with my horse posts, I'll point out that there's still a lot to learn about the timing of horse decisions. They inevitably still surprise me with the things they choose to do and when they choose to do them, but more and more I'm seeing how they communicate their thought processes before they decide. If I wait and observe I learn more and more.

Winter Plant Puttering

This is the season when I start getting really antsy about not having anything growing in the outdoor garden. The plants on the porch are either dormant or dead (probably a mix of both out there) and the indoor plants have slowed growth to a crawl. I need spring to get here!!!

In the meantime I putter around with the indoor plants.

The succulents I put into a large shallow container are doing well, though I had to move them out from under one of the higher wattage LED grow lights and over to my tube grow light. They were getting too MUCH "sun" and were getting all closed up and burnt looking. When the String of Buttons plant started looking like it might be going downhill I propagated some of the leaves. Now I have new tiny String of Buttons plants. So cute!

Propagated String of Buttons

 The only plants that seem to be doing really well so close to the LED grow light are the blue and pink colored Echeverias and the cacti. These enjoy full sun and are getting a nice pink tinge around the leaf edges of the Echeveria.

Some Echeverias turning a nice color.

J.D. and I had an onion sprout on our counter... so we decided what the heck, we'll plant it and see what happens. It has been growing us fresh green onions for weeks now. I planted it like I would an Amaryllus or Paperwhite bulb since it was winter and I couldn't plant it wholesale outside. I didn't want it to get too wet and start rotting. So far it seems to be doing ok, other than getting a bit leggy for light.  

Sprouted grocery store onion

The Peperomia plant I got around this time last year is doing really well! I do need to re-pot it sometime this spring. I love how adorable the leaves are on this variety. In the photo below you can also see some sad looking Polka Dot Plants in the back which I'm hoping to cut and re-root into healthier plants in spring, and some succulents.

Peperomia front and center under the grow tube light. 

Finally, the lavender and rosemary plants are getting by indoors. They're both under grow lights but not growing much, as it's not really their preferred habitat. They'd normally like just a mild winter outdoors. Too bad for them we're still getting some 15F nights! They'll probably stay in until mid to late March.

Lavender chilling amongst the Begonias.

Well, there you have it. Not much new here, just some small projects slowly growing indoors. I can't wait to grow outside again. Soon I'll start my lettuce seedlings and this year I have some Swiss Chard too! Can't wait.