One of the daughters found herself in a pickle

One of our kids had a crisis last week. She was moving a couple of horses from one pasture to another when things kind of went south. 

She had a yearling, named Posy, and a 4-year-old gelding both haltered and led them without incident from a pasture in the field to a pasture closer to the house where she could catch them easier to work with them. Everything went well until she turned the yearling loose so she could lead the gelding to the water tank so he knew where the water was. 

A little background, she had moved a fence and a lot of her fences are electric tape for ease of movement. The filly had been on both sides of the fence before, but the fence had moved. She apparently didn’t see the fence and literally trotted up to it and slipped right between the wires. She apparently hit it so fast that she didn’t even get shocked. But she was now out. Completely and totally out. She could go anywhere on the place and even if she took off make it to the county road. 

She called me just a little exasperated. See the gelding was not good when left alone. He didn’t like to be out of sight of his little friend. So he is having a fit, the closest gate is on the other end of the pasture and Posy is cool as a cucumber and just cropping on the fresh alfalfa in another field. 

I was already going down the county road so it was a short hop over to her place to help her with her crisis. I grabbed a piece of baler twine, caught the filly and led her over to when Angie and the gelding were, Angie handed me the filly’s halter and after putting it on, we just led them down to the gate with her on one side of the fence and Posy and I on the other. We got them into the new pasture and all was well.

I heard once that life is a series of crises interspersed with long periods of boredom. I can attest to that, especially on a farm. Things will go along quietly for days, weeks, even months and all of a sudden everything goes crazy, the tractors break down at the most inopportune time, the cows won’t stay where they belong, the controlled burn suddenly becomes uncontrolled, the horses do crazy things and either get out of get hurt. I am sure people who live in town have a similar amount of crises. It is just life. 

My garden is almost all in, the plants are looking good, hopefully I can keep the chickens out or I will have my own crisis. 

Low carb German potato-like salad

1 ½ pounds cauliflower

12 oz, thick cut bacon

½ cup chopped shallots or mild red onion

½ cup thinly sliced green onion

Sea salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoon bacon fat (reserved from frying the bacon)

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons stone-ground mustard

Dice bacon and fry until crisp. Turn off heat, remove bacon to drain on paper towels. Cut cauliflower into bite-sized pieces and steam until tender. Drain cauliflower. Remove all but one tablespoon of bacon fat from the pan, save two tablespoons for the dressing. Heat the one tablespoon until hot and add shallots, sauté until they are fragrant and starting to brown, remove from skillet and put with the bacon. Add the other two tablespoons fat, the red wine vinegar and the mustard to the pan, cook, stirring until it almost starts to boil. Add the cauliflower to the ban and cook 3-4 minutes turning over several times until the cauliflower is well coated with dressing. Turn off the heat, add bacon and shallots and stir gently. Stir in green onions and season to taste.