Lot's going on! :)

The past weekend was very nice, the Natural Balance Hoof Care Clinic with hands on work was fantastic!

I took a couple of nice pictures and learned a LOT!

My farrier was there too and we will take the new skills and information to another level on Sunday.

She (the farrier) will come and we'll trim our boys hoofs the NB way.

Exciting!

I am planning a post on the whole Subject, want to explain what NB is about and why it makes sense for me.

It will be dividing the post in several parts I guess, it is just so much information...

But it's gonna take time.

:))

We have a new guest horse in our stable, a young, cocky stallion.

Having another horse in the stable is turning the routines a bit up and down for a couple of days, also for our boys.

Especially Midas is having a very close eye on this young "man", it is not nice to have competition in the house.

Especially when that young stupie is on his hind feet a lot, entering the stable like

"I will take over from here fellas!!!!!!!"...

:)

HAHA!

Well, gotta go, have an appointment in town in half an hour...

Have a great day everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*

Why are animals so fascinating for us humans?

Why do we humans "keep" pets?

Why do we appreciate the company of our animals so much?

Why do a lot of people even favor the company of an animal over the company of another human being?

Animals give comfort.

Touching them makes us happy.

Animals give trust (if treated well) and UNCONDITIONAL love.

Animals depend on us, they NEED us, we have SOMEONE who NEEDS us ALWAYS.

SOMEONE who doesn't expect anything from us.

...Only food and attention...

There has always been that one question amongst pet lovers...

"Are you more of a "cat" person or a "dog" person..?"

It is an interesting question indeed.

"Dog" people are somehow different from "cat" people, aren't they..?

Then you have the "horse" person.

Or the "reptile" person, the "bird" person and the "rat" person...

Amongst the "dog" people you have the ..

"Sheperd" person, the "Labrador" person, the "Dackel" person or the "Chihuahua" person...

Amongst the "horse" people you have the....

"Quarter Horse" person, the "Arabian" person, the "Mustang" person, the "Coldblood" person, the "Pony" person and the "Mule" person...

WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU????? :))

WHICH QUALITY DO YOU APPRECIATE MOST IN YOUR ANIMAL(s)?

I guess I was always a "horse" person, as well as a "dog" person...

Since a couple of years I am also a "cat" person.

I really appreciate our animals honesty, they ALWAYS tell you right away if they are okay with something or not.

I appreciate their patience with us humans.

I appreciate their loyalty and never ending love.

What I appreciate most is that they try to teach us how to be present every single day.

They try to show us the way to "happiness", to "simpleness".

They try to lead the way and all we gotta do is follow.

I think most humans are having a hard time to be present these days, I would even say that most humans

don't even know what "being present" is,

how "being present" feels like.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT... ;-)

A majority of people don't even think about a subject like that.

They are not even aware of the fact that they are not PRESENT.

I call them "hunters".

They hunt for all kinds of things like money, beauty, power, success, love and happiness...

I think everyone has a point in his life where she or he will ask him- or herself, what it really is that matters...

What it really is that lets you find happiness.

But what is happiness, how does it really feel?

I mean that happiness that is unconditional, that happiness that comes from deep inside yourself.

That place of happiness where you are not hunting anymore, not for money, not for succcess or beauty, not for love...

Animals are no "hunters".

Animals are happiness.

:))

Standing People

Here are some more photos of that same tree I was talking about in my pervious post...

In the native american language trees are often called "standing people".

I really love that expression.

I know that trees have souls!

I even believe that this particular tree has one, and even though the tree seems to be "dead" I strongly believe it's soul is still present.

The patterns on his "body" remind me of the lines of my own hand. Of everyones hand, of fingerprints.

We humans are the walking people, the thinking people.

We think we know it all...

And we wish we could feel our roots to mother earth as much and as strong as this tree...

***

A bit of everything

Past weekend we had rain.

Nature loves rain, so do I.

At least when it doesn't last too long.

It was a soft and steady rain last Saturday, the straw bales were sitting there in that field.

Stagnation in the farmers summer routine.

Only for a day.

The last couple of days we had quite nice weather.

While other parts of europe "suffer" from high temperatures and heavy thunder storms, everything here is nice and quiet.

Cleo took me for a nice walk into the nature reserve yesterday.

I had my small camera with me and took just a few pictures.

Cleo first!!!

Cleo and I were standing under a very old tree (watching rabbits and cows), don't know what kind of tree though.

A dead tree...

So it seems on the outside, but I am sure inside that tree is a lot going on.

Decay.

One life form seems to end and offers another life form the chance to live.

Bugs, worms and so on...

The food chain goes on and goes on.

In nature life never really seems to end.

:))

The sky was great yesterday.

I just took another couple of pictures of the landscape and clouds.

The heard of cows, that live on the nature reserve, are always busy eating, sleeping and wandering back and forth to the water places, sometimes making lots of noise.

Mooooo! Moooooooooo!

Weekend is near.

Natural Balance Hoof Care Clinic!!!

Yuhuuuu!

:))

Fast or slow, what is better...

We humans move fast these days...

We drive fast cars, we have hay balers with automatic stacker machines...

We cruise through cyberspace with high bandwith and eat fast food...

We walk fast, we talk fast, we think fast and we love fast...

We want to make fast money and we even drive the lawn mower in fast gear...

;-)

But everything in Universe, everthing in Nature takes it's time.

It takes a certain time to grow a plant before you can harvest it.

It takes a certain time for the sun to rise and set.

It takes certain time for a bird to raise it's young till the day they can fly.

It takes a certain time for the seasons to change.

Everthing takes it's time, has it's life span.

When I look around me I see that nothing in Nature is in a hurry.

Look at the life of a stag beetle (Hirschkäfer)...

After 3 to 8 years!!! being a grub, sitting in and eating "dirt", it finally becomes a beetle.

It crawls and flys.

Then, after only 30 days it dies...

And still it doesn't seem to be in a hurry while it IS a beetle.

These snails (there seem to be thousands around our farm) are not in a hurry either.

They just seem to do their thing, whatever that is.

They are only moving around when it's humid and raining.

When it's dry they just "stay" in their houses and sit somewhere.

They patiently wait.

And when it rains they are still not in a hurry.

And that will never change.

We humans NEED to change.

We NEED to have more and we NEED to have it fast.

So we learn how to get "there" FAST.

I wish I were a snail.

(One with a house on the back... you just never know!!)

;-))

Snail - teach me how to find my unique and natural pace...

Automatic Stacking

There's a first time for everything.

I grew up on a farm, worked with farming equipement myself, the bigger the better!

:))

The barley straw in front of our house got baled today.

I've never seen a machine before that stacks the bales right out of the press.

The machine collects 4 bales and drops them on the ground, the driver doesn't even have to stop...

Cool! Never seen that before! :)

:))

Today's been nice again.

We got all the grass mowed around the house and stable.

Our landlords had a lawn mower tractor in their shed and we are now allowed to use it.

It' looks kinda worn out but it works like a charm.

*happy*

Tomorrow we'll visit a friend in Tomelilla, a city about 1 hour south of here.

We also need to run to the feed store to get some Himalaya Salt for our boys. They love it so much and it's good for them.

Other then that we don't have much news to tell.

That's how boring farm life can be... ;-))

**

New Friends - they live at a WOW Place!

We left home 12am sharp.

After making sure the horses were fed and happy in their (big) stalls...

The picknick basket filled with water, canned pineapple, sandwiches and food for Cleo.

The drive was wonderful, the weather a charm.

By Växjö, about 2 hours from home, we took a "pit stop" and gave Cleo her late lunch.

Then we continued up north about 30 more km.

We just needed to make one phone call to our friend - we were not lost, but we had just taken the last turn one road sign too early.

But that didn't matter, we were still good, just that we would come from the other direction.

Just the moment we pulled up to our new friends driveway it started raining...

Luckily not for long.

The welcome was warm and the coffee just right.

Apfelstrudel with whipped cream - vanilla flavoured.

Really delicious!

:)))))

After the coffee we got the grand tour of the property.

The house, big old barn, the guest house, the stable, the horses, the lake and the earth cellar.

The first part of the tour was given by our new friend (and her adorable dog Bessy), but when our friends husband came home, they continued to show us around together.

After that we went back in and they fixed us a delicious dinner!

Such nice people!!!

(AND THEY SPEAK GERMAN! - They moved to Sweden a long time ago though, more or less)

We had a wonderful afternoon and evening and left for home around 9pm.

Our (silly) navigation system "took us" home on a different route, but we didn't see much anyways cause it gets dark quite early already.

Back home around 11pm, we checked on our boys, gave them some more hay and filled up the water buckets.

After getting in the house, we didn't stay up much longer.

It was time for a good night sleep...

Here a series of photos from our lovely afternoon in Nöbbele:

Here you see the farm, it's situated right at one of the many lakes in the area.

The drive up there was really nice.

That's their house, SO NICE!

The old bakehouse, now tool shed.

A VERY old barn.

The barn will be renovated some...

Some impressions from inside the barn...

Still inside of the barn...

One of the windows of the summer guest cabin/house. The bench looks very inviting to sit down and watch the birds and horses.

The lake is full with water lilies. (A delicacy for moose!)

It's not a very deep lake. We were told that during a famine a long long time ago, people used to drain the lake and used the land to plant extra grain to feed their families.

After the famine was over, the area got flooded again.

So interesting!

We met the horses Memory (26yrs old Nordsvensk Coldblood mare), Winston ( i think Nordsvensk Mix) and...

Milton (Irish Tinker)

View from the lake/pastures back to the house/farm.

One of their cats, sorry, his name didn't stick with me..

18 months old "Bessy" - or "Bessie" - or ??? ;-) (Fauve de Bretagne - if I got it right)

An old mowing machine serving as a jardinière.

And at last we were shown the old earth cellar, currently occupied by many many spiders...

and their brood, still in silk cocoons.

Kinda creepy, just hanging 10 cm over your head! Brrrr....

***

The tour is now over... Thank you for your attention!

Please come back...

:))

The area north of Växjö is really very attractive, who knows, maybe we'll live there some day...

we are absolutely considering it!

;-)