Lil Miss has taken several photos of her growing garden and we wanted to share them with you to inspire you in your own gardening endeavors. If you are concerned that you are too late for a garden, don't be discouraged...there is always something you can do! There is still plenty of time to plant and plan for an abundant harvest. In the past, Mom has direct seeded zucchini plants in July and still gotten more produce then purchased starts planted in June. You can do it!
 Dixie, having one shoe removed, is quite curious about what will happen to the next! Oh - and she smells other horses on those chaps! As with all our animals, natural care and feeding is our goal; so for Dixie we have been learning more about the movement to model our domestic horse hooves after the wild mustangs, as well as keeping the horses in the type of movement they've been designed for. Words like "Mustang Roll" (referring to the hooves) and "Paddock Paradise" (referring to the best horse environment) make so much sense - as other words new to us years ago: "Multi-species Grazing" and "Hugelkultur".
We learned while a local farrier worked on a friends' horse, getting to ask questions while we watched him shape new horse shoes with his traveling forge and anvil. (Praise the Lord for these AWESOME learning opportunities!) We also studied the hooves of horses we were working with (Aren't these toes too long? What are these ridges?), we've watched documentaries on wild Mustangs, videos of hoof trimming styles and have seen there are many different approaches to the perceived 'perfect' hoof. What serves the horse best, as we have come to understand, is the model of those living most like they were designed (His way is perfect); therefore we sought a hoof trimmer that could help us enable Dixie's hoof healing, building her hoof strength, traction and movement, which = soundness. We have spent several weeks with our friend learning natural care, groundwork and enjoying some light riding...but she suggested we visit her trainer and see if we might learn even more.  Jr. Farmer is enjoying his 'work' Going from a casual environment that all of us can enjoy together, to a more structured setting was only appealing for two of the 'gang' and because she only had two lesson horses for really young riders, Mom wasn't able to participate either. (Insert 'boo-hoo' emoticon here.)
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