Todays happy news consists of a very important announcement.
My favorite natural products shop has Green & Blacks organics on special offer!
Make me happy! 
Also, my car passed its yearly healthcheck, even if I didn’t need to go anywhere today, I feel a keen hollow feeling if it isn’t ready and waiting for me
Tarq is very fat and happy.
There is a beautiful full moon out tonight.
Ok, I am very, very sorry to have maybe raised expectations with me wanting to go to New York, which turned out to be a dead duck.
However, I will really be going to Houston. Not for fun but to be with, and hopefully be of some help, to somebody I care about very much. And I if I can go in time to be able to go to the big rodeo a few times that would be very good. I do want to see if I can do something for my saddlery business as well, meet up with saddlers to see if anybody can make me westernsaddles to fit European horses.
But I will need a place to stay, so a cheap hotel. there must be cheaper hotels? What about all those dodgy run-down motels one always sees in American movies? All I get over the internet are like mega-chique fifteen star hotels! And with the rodeo going on it will be difficult. I don’t need anything, just a bed and a chair.
So this is for real, as soon as I can be sure I will have somewhere to stay, I will get my ticket.
No dead duck this time…
So please, anybody in or around Houston, give me a tip!
And I found him again.
I have been very worried, Simsalabim has not shown up for two days! And that has never happened before! Simsalabim skipping meals? There must be something very wrong! I was on the point of making leaflets and start distributing them, when I had a brainwave… I have been in my garage two days ago, I did make sure I called the cats as I wanted to close the door, and yes: Kira came trotting out, she always comes to inspect the garage if I go there. But I hadn’t noticed Simsalabim coming too. And I waited and no other cats, so I closed the door.
You can imagine by now, that when I had my brainwave, and went to the garage late at night, after a few seconds a wholly distraught Simsalabim came jumping out!
He is soooo happy to be back! Safely in my arms….
I hope this will be a lesson for him….
We have had a lovely exiting and at times very scary ride today! Mostly because our gentlemen sniffed the air this morning and realised, it is Spring!
It really is Spring. The air smells different, there is birdsong in the morning, the first spring flowers, like snowdrops and crocusses are flaunting their delicate colours… Everything proclaims: Spring has come.
And our gentlemen were loaded with high-explosives today! Even the sedate Billy pranced like a Grand-Prix dressage horse and couldn’t keep from trying to take off in a beautiful trot.
So why is this post called ”Jan, hero of the sheep”?
because my riding-buddie Jan has rescued another sheep today, bringing his total number of rescued sheep up to 3!
If a sheep for some reason rolls on it’s back, and there happens to be a small indentation, it’s stuck, and will die! Believe it or not, a lot of sheep die this way! Last year, Jan jumped a pretty broad ditch and rescued a sheep which was stuck on it’s back. Today, we noticed what we thought was a dead sheep, on it’s back, pretty far away, but then we saw it’s legs moving!
We decided that Jan would have to rescue it, and rode back to find a gate. The hero jumped the gate,
Walked across the field to the down sheep…
And started photographing it!
Meanwhile the sheep was getting pretty fed up about not getting saved, but eventually Jan managed to get himself to do the actual rescue, and rolled the sheep on her feet.
She gave Jan a long grateful look and said goodbye before going on to her business.
So as this rescuing of sheep seems to be a regular returning pasttime, we have decided to celebrate it every year by organising a special ”Sheep-picknick-ride”!
The hero returns!
I’ve spend all Saturday giving a demonstration leather craft.
It was at a fair on a museum farm.
Making pancakes in regional dress
Me demonstrating, I was in a tent with the ladies of the side-saddle-association, it was a bit dark.
And cooooold! I still had a good time.
I found a lump on Zora’s belly four days ago. It’s a tumor, and it has been operated on today.
It all went well and Zora has just returned home. She is still groggy but doing well.
The lump has been send to the laboratory to be checked if its benign or not.
So, imagine I’m going to New York, do I have any visitors who can recommend me a good (not expensive) hotel in a handy area? I’ve never been to New York before!
My favorite weeping willow tree has been cut down…
Time for me to move away perhaps…
was made by a photographer friend of mine. It features her horse, the bald American Eagle, and me, all tramping through a field.
©millie
The bald American Eagle, for those who haven’t seen it yet. Was an apprentice-project on a vintage tree. It’s basically an old-school eight-string saddle, with a hardly noticable mad-Aafke twist in the carving, making it look a bit like an American Eagle….. 
A new British research project has shown that cows with names, and which are treated on a more ”personal” level will produce more milk. We have many cows in the Netherlands, but they all have names so such research could not be carried out here. Dutch cows typically have very old fashioned names, or names of queens. Beatrix is a firm #11 on the list of most popular names for cows.
Traditionally the cows have family-names, a calf is named after her mother, so if the mother is Bertha 85, her daughter would be Bertha 86. (boy-cows are a disappointment )
The preferred colour for cows is Black and White, with more black than white. Brown (red) cows give the same amount of milk, but the farmers always preferred the black ones, so red cows are very rare. Meat-cows on the other hand are predominantly red. I remember when we were travelling in the car to our grandparents, who lived far, far away, in the middle of the Netherlands, it was a great novely for us children to see the red cows instead of the black ones from the North.
The really stupid controversial decision by our stupid greedy spineless ill-informed politicians to kill all lifestock in Foot-and-mouth infected areas was a disaster for many farmers. Our moronic politicians may believe a cow is only a money making machine to a farmer, but the truth is that lifestock is part of the family for many generations. And although they have to make money for the farmers, they are also loved. Lifestock is inherited, and improved, and the farmers know everything about the background of animals whose generations have lived next to their own. A cow brought form another farmer is not really ”their” cow. The life-stock was replaced, but those cows weren’t ”their” cows, they were not the cows bred from stock bred by their fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grand fathers. These cows, and sheep were strangers. And the cows and sheep that were killed were loved and appreciated. Pity our politicians can’t understand that.
Dutch milking cows are the best in the world, , not only does a Dutch cow give a lot of milk, they do so for a very long time. A dutch milk cow can give over 100.000 liters of milk throughout her life. A cow can become a ‘’star” cow if she gives a lot of milk, over many years, while keeping her good looks and health.
This is a show-cow with all the features to make her a star-cow in the future.
Just for fun: Sports cow doing some formation jumping!
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