Farm life and Semi-ER

Where are you and where are you going?
chenda
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Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by chenda »

Glad you are well Horsewomen I was wondering about you! Hope you have a great Christmas :)

horsewoman
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Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:11 am

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

One of my horses managed to hurt himself, just a minor wound on a fetlock. We usually treat things like that ourselves with antiseptic solution and bandages, but this time we noticed it a few hours too late. He managed to get some dirt in the wound and the leg started to swell, which is a clear indicator for a bacterial infection. One of our former boarding horses got those infections with every tiny scratch, so we know the drill. Vet, two antibiotic injections, a tetanus jab and oral antibiotics for a week, plus antiseptic bandages changed twice a day. Very pricey, but can't be helped.
On Twitter, people often ask for money because they can't pay for vet bills. Assuming it is not a scam, what a terrible situation.
It's good practice to learn about treating minor wounds and illnesses yourself for your animals, and to know when the vet needs to be called. Since my blind horse continuously crashes into walls and fences, I'm a seasoned horse nurse by now :)
At least, I’m getting rid of a fair amount of old t-shirts for disposable bandages. The antiseptic is dying everything it touches neon yellow, so I prefer not to soil our good bandages.

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

chenda wrote:
Mon Dec 20, 2021 2:22 pm
Glad you are well Horsewomen I was wondering about you! Hope you have a great Christmas :)
Thanks chenda! Sorry, I totally missed that post :oops:

The video you linked in another thread with the Irish officer is hilarious! I actually understood most of what the officer was saying, which makes me wonder if it is a nod/dig at duolingo, since all that is covered in the first few units :lol:

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

An update from the farm! Our tenant moved out last week after a few years of living in the flat in our adjacent building. He was a quiet, single young man and made us very little trouble. Nevertheless, I'm kinda glad he is gone now, because I realized that we have never been on our own on our farm. Right from the beginning we've always had strangers coming and going, boarding horse owners, tenants or young Hippo therapy clients with their parents.
This was of course necessary, those strangers generated parts of our income and helped to pay off our mortgage in record time.
The rent was a low effort income stream, but since it is a small and very rustic flat we never charged much (and not invested much either.) In Germany every revenue is heavily taxed, so I`m waiting for the latest tax calculations from our accountant to see how much money this flat actually generated.

I've challengend DH to sell enough of our unused stuff to offset the missing net income of the flat. So far I have listed some speciality kitchen gadgets and a spare saddle that fits none of our horses. He has not yet listed anything so far, but I hope to motivate him. We really don't need additional money, but to be rid of a few things would be great.

Right now we are enjoying our freedom, and considering that it took DH and DD only three days to install some kind of "den" with old sofas and our ancient playstation 1 in the flat, a new tenant will have to wait. It might also happen that we take in Ukrainian refugees, if this horrifying war continues. At the moment there is only a manageable amount of refugees in our rural area, but this might change quickly.

In other news, my chickens had babies and now there are 15 chicks (little hooligans, the lot of them!) eating ridiculous amounts of feed. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be roosters. No idea yet what we're going to do with them (we are vegetarians, and even if we weren't, we keep a dwarf breed - no meat at all for lots of work).
I hope people will take them off our hands if we give them away for free.
But they are adorable, of course.

Since food prices are skyrocketing due to the war we have stepped up our gardening efforts. DH saw a video on YouTube where someone threw potatoes on the ground and covered them with a thick mat to of hay. We've had some free seed potatoes from hubby's workplace plus a large heap of hay to get rid of (the quality is not good enough for the horses - they get sick very quickly with bad/dusty hay).
So that's one experiment going on.
I've planted lots of beans, which is the only thing I manage to keep alive. DH has tomatoes in the green house plus cucumbers, courgette and lettuce in the raised bed.

After reading the article by the Bosnian war surviver Selco, which @axelHeyst recommend in his journal (How I survived a year of SHTF in 90s Bosnia) I'm even more glad to be settled in a rural area with access to land, wood and water. A chilling read, but a necessary one. Fingers crossed that this terrible situation won't spread further!

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

Recently I've been practicing mowing with a scythe. There is a strip of grass/stinging nettles/weeds that our ancient (3rd hand) electric lawn mower just can't manage. It is on the boarder of our property next to our neighbors - who are very nice people, but the kind of people who hire a landscaper to keep their property immaculately in order.
So it's one of the few places that we need to keep neat in the name of peace.

My Grandma was a dab hand at scythe mowing and I have fond memories of her working around her house (she didn't even own a conventional mower). I like to think that it would make her happy that I'm doing the same right now.

We actually own a motor scythe, but I prefer the manual one. Less noise and stink, plus the motor scythe is pretty heavy, so it's hard work as well.

chenda
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Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by chenda »

horsewoman wrote:
Sat May 21, 2022 12:41 pm
After reading the article by the Bosnian war surviver Selco, which @axelHeyst recommend in his journal (How I survived a year of SHTF in 90s Bosnia) I'm even more glad to be settled in a rural area with access to land, wood and water. A chilling read, but a necessary one. Fingers crossed that this terrible situation won't spread further!
Yes indeed. I remember when I was about 11 or 12 hearing about the war in the old Yugoslavia on the news, and naively assumed it was some distant country way out in the middle east or somewhere. I was shocked when I saw a map and saw just how close it was, literally next door to Italy where we went on family holidays.

But I am glad life is good on the farm, I do enjoy your updates : )

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

@chenda - glad you enjoy my updates! There is very little happening these days (which is good in my books), so I often don't know what to write!

As of last week, I left the illustrious club of "people who’ve never had Covid". I got infected at my sister's wedding, no big surprise there. It is as unpleasant as everybody says, and I sincerely hope I won't develop long Covid. So far I'm recovering nicely, so I'm optimistic.
It was a good thing that our tenant left a few months ago, since DH and DD moved into the flat while I was infectious. They both escaped infection.

disk_poet
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Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:33 am

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by disk_poet »

I hope you recover well @horsewoman. Funnily enough I also started mowing my grass with a Scythe this month. It's quite the workout and I am really bad at it. Get well soon!

horsewoman
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Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:11 am

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

Thanks @disk_poet! It's really wild right now here in Germany.
Most of my immediate family didn't have COVID so far because we're a careful bunch but at the moment everyone gets infected.

I'm better but still very weak. A couple of hours at the desk completey wipe me out. DH mentioned, if both if us had it at the same time it would have been a catastrophe, because of looking after the animals.

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Alice_AU
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Location: Sydney Australia

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by Alice_AU »

Hope you get better soon! This Covid is certainly a nasty thing.

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

Thank you @Alice_Au! I'm well now again apart from a scratchy voice. All in all, wouldn't recommend it... I'm going to be a lot more diligent with masking this autumn (seeing that infection is very high even now in summer).

guitarplayer
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Location: Scotland

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by guitarplayer »

Hi @horsewoman, I applaud using a scythe! Also, hope you feel better after the virus.

Recently I have been thinking about artistic pursuits and I have a few questions about singing if you don't mind sharing. Particularly wondered if you could share what is your approach to singing in English. Do you do it? And if yes then how do you feel about it / what is your mindset or (if any) philosophy around it?

Still keep in mind Mark Baxter but forgot your recommendation of 'the naked vocalist' which I have now unearthed from old posts.

Otherwise hope all is well!

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Viktor K
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by Viktor K »

oh you caught covid too. i have close calls all the time these days… even took care of my gf for 20 days a couple
months ago. glad you are all mended up, and sorry i know that’s not fun

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

guitarplayer wrote:
Sat Jul 16, 2022 3:11 pm
Recently I have been thinking about artistic pursuits and I have a few questions about singing if you don't mind sharing. Particularly wondered if you could share what is your approach to singing in English. Do you do it? And if yes then how do you feel about it / what is your mindset or (if any) philosophy around it?
English is one of my preferred languages for singing, actually. I do so in my solo project and in the Irish Folk groups I'm part of.

I know that my command of the English language is pretty good, but I do make mistakes, where German grammar or sentence structure comes through. There are also moments I cringe about my pronunciation on recordings - mostly in live performances - but I try to give myself some grace.
Nobody is perfect and most Germans won't notice anyway :)

IMO German is a very clunky / unwieldy language, where it is hard to express things. Which is funny, because as a nation we are very direct and like clear communication. But I struggle to express abstract concepts in German, so I stick to English.

Another consideration is that with English, there is a much larger pool of potential listeners. People do like to understand the lyrics, and most folks do speak at least some English.

If my husband wasn't adamantly against it, I'd have moved to somewhere in Britain long ago, because I like the language that much. So singing in English is probably a must for me :)

In which languages do you sing?

guitarplayer
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by guitarplayer »

Yes the pronunciation is what I struggle to not to pay not much attention to, despite the fact that people generally are happy with my singing in English. Last years I have been singing exclusively English and sometimes Spanish.

I like German from your part of the world, or more precisely Austrian German far more than the version from the north! Far more melodic. They say German is good for philosophy because one can build nice logical structures.

I shall give myself some grace too, I think! :)

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

The volksmarching thread cropped up again. I don't have anything useful to add over there, but it will never be not funny to me that I (a German) learned about this from an astrophysicist living in Chicago.

In other news, my kid recently run over a volksmarching sign with my horse. I ordered her to go back and put it up again, so far she didn't do it. Hopefully we will not be responsible for some poor hiker getting lost.

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

2022 has been a not so great year. A few things that happened, in no particular order.

The most intense event was the death of my old horse in August. The end of an era. I’ve met my husband through this horse, and he's been with us for a very long time. His death kicked off a lot of reflection regarding how everyday decisions you don't think much about can have a deep impact on the trajectory of your life. The Dr Who episode with Donna comes to mind, where she takes a left turn instead of a right turn, completely changing the faith of the universe. Of course my decisions do not have so far-reaching consequences, but I wonder where I would have ended up, had I not let myself set up for a blind date with the nephew of the blacksmith who cared for my horse's hoofs.

I miss my old gelding a lot, but it was time. He was old and sick, in the end it was an act of kindness to put him to sleep.
We almost took on 2 new boarding horses but in the end did not. Our main reason for not doing so in the last few years was the fact that my old horse was completely blind and terrified of strange horses. Turns out, our "trauma" (it's not really a trauma, but I don't know how to call it otherwise) of having horse-owners running around on our farm is still very much present. A very strong argument against turning your passion into a job. Our boarders left us in 2018 and it took me 2+ years to enjoy horses and riding again as much as I loved it before the business.

So to round out our herd we (naturally) got a new horse :) We bought another former racing horse (a Thoroughbred gelding), same age as our present one. Hopefully nothing goes wrong and these two can grow old with us and with each other.

In June I caught COVID, at my sister's wedding. It was a "mild case" (which I would not wish on my worst enemy, if I had an enemy) and unfortunately I'm still not completely well these days. I have a persistent cough and I get colds every few weeks - practically whenever I perform music/sing indoors. These are the only occasions I'm seeing larger crowds without wearing a mask. In Germany EVERYONE is sick right now, there are several respiratory viruses in circulation in addition to Covid. Its a huge mess... My vocal cords are in pretty bad shape because of the cough and colds, which is rather depressing. It's a good thing the horses need so much attention right now because I can't do much singing, recording or flute-playing. I've made myself very unpopular with my bandmates by refusing to play gigs during the winter months, but I've had enough.

Work is great. I still love my job, I'm still working 100% remote and we easily get by (plus saving some) with one full-time job between DH and me (36 hours a week combined, which is nearly FT in Germany). We could have made some extra income due to the staggering incompetence of our government (i.e. making Germany dependent on Russian natural gas). Folks with large stacks of fire wood are suddenly very popular! We only sold a little to close friends but could have sold a lot more, if we were so inclined. Three years ago we had to beg wood dealers to pick up timber that the bark-beetle had damaged, and now people beg us for wood. How quickly things change!

I did not pay much attention to money this year. Our balance keeps growing, my ETF gets fed automatically (I know, I know!), so I guess we’re good. Money feels "solved". Not in the sense that we’re FI, but in the sense that I’m trusting the systems I have implemented. I will do a spreadsheet with all account movements in January with broad categories, but mostly because I like to mess around in Excel.

shaz
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Location: Colorado, US

Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by shaz »

I'm very sorry to hear about your horse. The day I had my best horse euthanized (Dec. 18, 2005) is still the worst day of my life. Worse than a cancer diagnosis! I hope the new horse fills in some of the space in your heart and your life.

mooretrees
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by mooretrees »

Also sorry to hear about your sweet horse dying. Glad he brought you and your husband together and had a good long life.

Interesting cautionary tale about work + passions. I'm getting into beekeeping and I could see a little bit of that happening at the end of my first year of beekeeping, it suddenly got too much to work around with normal life and I didn't do as good a job as I hoped to. I'll chalk it up to newbie mistakes draining my energy and try again this coming year.

I always am happy to see your name pop up with journal updates, keep em coming!

horsewoman
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Re: Farm life and Semi-ER

Post by horsewoman »

Thank you @shaz and @moretrees for your kind words.
In the end it was equal parts grief and relief - he's been obviously very unhappy with his blindness for years, and constantly terrified, but he was relatively healthy otherwise. We often debated if it was cruel to keep him alive when he suffered so much, but you don't euthanize a healthy horse, because he seems extremely unhappy. How can you really know?
So when he got a bad hoof abscess at 27 our vet advised us to spare him the pain and long recovery period, considering everything else. He died with his head in my lap, and he's at peace now. And now I'm crying again, but it's good to remember him.

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