Surprise! Snake on the bike! 😲🐍

Happy Saturday friends!

Let's start off with the ranch! This is Denali and her fabulous "necklace." It makes me think of a feather boa :-) This was a normal collar a few months ago. I'm not exactly sure how the unraveling got started but now it just makes me laugh every time I see her. I think she likes it too! (Also, if you ever want to make friends with a goat, scratch its shoulders :-))

Speaking of feather boas on animals. Here is a little painting I did of my sweet Onya in 2005. What a trooper to put up with all of my silly photography set ups just so I could paint her lol:

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Big boy Wynter having breakfast:

Wynter is 24ish this year and other than needing a LOT of food to keep his weight normal, otherwise he's healthy as a, well, you know. ;-) Some horses are "easy keepers" meaning they gain weight by looking at grain (I'm an easy keeper human!) and some aren't. Wynter, Rayn, and the donkeys have always been easy keepers—not needing any extra grain, just hay twice a day. But our first winter here, Wynter started losing weight. Luckily we were familiar with what to do since we had had one of our favorite boarded horses in Colorado who was older and needed extra "groceries." He was a little black Arabian named Midknight and Wynter's best friend and boy for someone so tiny he sure needed a TON of extra grain to keep him healthy! So we started by giving Wynter the same kind of old man grain and upping it until he looked good. It's kinda shocking how much a horse can eat!

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This next week I'll be putting together the birthing box for Dancer's big baby goat day in mid April:

I had this numbered photo, maybe I'll label it for you by next week!

Still hoping and praying for a simple, straight forward birth for Dancer. I realize I'm a little more nervous about it and I think it's because she will be the first goat that was born on my farm and went on to have babies! I've been breeding goats since 2018 and yet, strangely, I've never had a baby grow up to have babies of her own!

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B-Rad sent me the following text one afternoon when I was finishing up with a neurofeedback client: "Horses escaped."

😲😳

I went tearing out there and found this:

Ah, the joys of slow phone texts. It was already under control. That's Rayn and Little Man Sweetness being naughty. (Also, I think something should be done about our grape arbor...)

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B-Rad had one of those weeks where things weren't going quite right for him (huge soy sauce bottle smacked into the stone countertop, shattering the bottom of it—looks like a pint of blood):

And an ice maker that needed a bunch of new parts but it's working like a dream now!

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ManChild had a shock when he went to go get his bike out of the lower garage—see if you can trace how long it is!:

Harmeless ❤️

B-Rad wheeled the bike out of the garage, touched the snake's back with his finger and off it went. Kinda glad to see it, keeps the mice population under control. Where there is animal feed, there are mice!

Funny, old snake memes popped up on Facebook the same week:

MEMORIES:

Back when I was the cupcake lady:

Back when B-Rad and I were whitewater kayakers (that's how we met):

When I do coaching with kids, I often get super sensitive, creative children to work with—it's lovely! This is what one of them did to my hand with face paint she found in my stash of creative stuff!

It's often easiest, especially with kids (as opposed to older teens) when we play together. Sometimes it's brushing animals, or games, or art, sometimes we walk, depends on the kid. Easier to open up when we aren't in a traditional setting, two people sitting and talking about what's going on in the kid's life :-)

Things that make me laugh:

Please, please go watch this! This is SO my brother but with spiders (and probably squirrels too.) I have to play it almost every day now! 😂

Resident Alien: B-Rad and I can't get enough! Season 1&2 on Netflix and we bought season 3 on Prime. So worth it!

Someone told me to watch The Young Royals and I wasn't paying close enough attention and ended up watching Royal Pains which is basically a cross between Magnum PI and McGyver. Unfortunately, I didn't find out my mistake until I was 3/4 of the way into season 1 and now I'm invested :-/

THE MEMES:

B-Rad in the blue:

Let's talk about the Women's Group I'm starting in the spring! For those of you who are thinking about it, would you answer these questions for me:

1. What interests you most: 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks?

2. Are you only interested in an in-person group, an online group, or either?

3. If in-person, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

4. If online, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

5. What is your biggest fear for attending a weekly group?
a) fear of strangers/talking about your life to strangers?
b) fear of art/perfectionism/newbie?
c) fear of committing to how many weeks the group is held?
d) fear of being out at night?
e) I'm a little nervous about new things but I've been following you for awhile and I can't wait!

Just reply to this email to tell me you are interested and/or to answer questions! THANK YOU

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