Just for fun...

I decided to do this personality test.

You Are An ISTJ

The Duty Fulfiller You are responsible, reliable, and hardworking - you get the job done. You prefer productive hobbies, like woodworking or knitting. Quiet and serious, you are well prepared for whatever life hands you. Conservative and down-to-earth, you hardly ever do anything crazy. In love, you are loyal and honest. If you commit yourself to someone, then you're fully committed. For you, love is something that happens naturally. And you don't need romantic gestures to feel loved. At work, you remember details well and are happy to take on any responsibility. You would make a great business executive, accountant, or lawyer. How you see yourself: Decisive, stable, and dependable When other people don't get you, they see you as: Boring, conservative, and egotistical

What's Your Personality Type?

It's loosely based on Myers-Briggs from what I can see, but not the full version of the test. I'm usually an INTJ, rather than an ISTJ, but the N may come from a question (or a dozen) that isn't in this version of the test.

I do knit, but I read everything that comes my way, and I'm pretty firmly in the liberal, rather than conservative, part of the political spectrum. Down-to-earth? Well, yes. I believe in recycling, reusing, repurposing and reducing waste. I'm honest and generally straightforward, although I have become slightly more tactful as I matured. I don't wear fussy clothing or collect fripperies, and running shoes, Birks or steel toes are my preferred footwear for all occasions.

Some people may see me as boring - or bored - but its situationally dependent. If you met me at a sports event (hockey, baseball, etc.), I would be bored, but at horse event, I'm an eager participant even if I'm the photographer. If I'm talking about something that you're not interested in, such as books or horses or riding or knitting or my work as a writer, then you may find me boring. :)

My work ethic is good, and I'm definitely reliable - but I like my erratic work schedule and working from home. I like challenges in my work, and learning something new helps keep it fresh (and me interested). I know that I do what I do well - and my clients/employers appreciate my abilities.

The egotistical part doesn't really fit as far as I can tell, but then again, sometimes people tell me that I appear aloof in social gatherings. It's not because I think I'm better (or bored), it's because I'm unsure how to behave in that particular situation. In the past year or so, I am pushing past my comfort zone and working hard at becoming a more social (sociable?) person, and making an effort to meet new people rather than being shy and retiring, and waiting for the world to find me.

June is almost over - where did the time go?

Time for an update.



Baby and Sheba have gone off to horse heaven where the grass is always green. We donated the foal's body to Kemptville College (associated with Guelph University) for research purposes, and the results are absolutely fascinating to the various pathologists.

Baby will be the basis for at least one thesis, several papers, and even more research. No one has ever seen a defect such as what was wrong with her eyes. Morbid it may sound, but I'm glad that Sheba's last foal, even though we couldn't keep her alive, will live on in the annals of veterinary medicine.





On to more pleasant things now. All the other horses, dogs, cats and birds are fine. Queenie and Shadow are heading off tomorrow to be bred to a couple of stallions in Smiths Falls. Hopefully, they'll give us some fine foals next year. We'll have to wait eleven months to find out, though.
















The "rat bastards", to quote the Yarn Harlot, are thriving around my neighbourhood. One was lurking at the edge of my neighbour's fence, trying to look innocent.

The other was gathering pinecones under one of my trees.

We have black, grey and red squirrels, and even some really cute chipmunks.

Some of the neighbours think that they're all cute and feed them peanuts and sunflower seeds. I don't feed them, but I do share my dog's fur with all the birds and beasties in the neighbourhood. My dog sheds a lot of hair even though she's little - and she sheds it year-round.

The flowers are blooming in my yard and my neighbour's. I managed to get some good photos of my clematis and the other seasonal flowers over the last month. Bear with me as I show you.
































That's enough for now. All that I've been knitting is dishcloths - I think I have 20+ now, some plain, others in various patterns. I'll put them all together and take a picture.

Sad days

This should be a happy day. It's not.


My mare, Sheba, had her foal yesterday. It's a filly, a sweet little thing, but she was born with a serious, uncorrectable birth defect: She has no eyes. Everything else is perfect - cute little ears, 4 sturdy legs, a curly mane and finely formed body, but she has no eyes. There may be tiny eyebuds deep in her eye sockets, but no eyes.


She has eye lashes and eyelids, but no eyes. The medical term for this is anophthalmia (no eyes) or microphthalmia (eyebuds of various sizes), and it's very, very rare in horses.


Since she could never be a productive horse - or even be turned out in a strange paddock with other horses - the vet recommends that she be put down. Since this is my daughter's foal from my horse, it's a tough decision that has to be made soon.

























Baby is only a few hours old in these pictures.


Sheba is her mom. She's got a bell on her halter to help baby find her in the stall.

Happy May Day!

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I do know where the birdies is!

Cardinals frolic in the grass early in the morning.












Plants reawaken in the warmth of the spring sun, and flowers begin to bloom. Crocuses and daffodils and spring violets abound.










I love spring and new beginnings! The weather is perfect, too. Not cold enough that I need to turn the heat on, and not hot enough for the air conditioner - wonderful!

Today I am participating in Blogging Against Disablism Day. Disablism is discrimination based on a disability of any sort. Read more by clicking on the graphic link below.



Several members of my family deal with disabilities ranging from hypermobility (not as much fun as it sounds like it should be) to rheumatoid arthritis to learning difficulties to environmental hypersensitivity. Discrimination takes many forms - sometimes it's failure to provide reasonable access to wheelchair-bound patrons by planning new construction properly; at other times it's a patronizing attitude.

Unless you take a minute to put yourself in another's shoes or perhaps their wheelchair, an able-bodied person may not understand the obstacles. A narrow doorway or a doorsill can become an insurmountable obstacle to a person with mobility impairments. Fragranced candles, potpourri, or deodorizer may trigger a major asthma attack in a chemically sensitive person. Tiny knobs or lids and handles that need to be turned or twisted can stop an arthritic person by making it too difficult for them to open a door, jar or chest.

Think before you design and build - there are lots of ways to make life easier and more accessible to everyone!

Sunny days!

Hurray! A few days of sun with no rain or snow, and the muck at the farm is starting to dry up a bit. The birds are back - mallards are swimming in the big ditch and nesting on the bank.



There are frogs clucking and chirping and honking all around. Different frogs sound off at different times during the day. This one was staking his claim to a section of mud near the pasture. DD scooped him up to show me. He's a Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica) according to the Natural Resources Canada website (http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/glfc-amphibians).


We see lots of different snakes, frogs and toads around the farm - most commonly garter snakes, but the occasional Brown Snake, too.

DD rode Charlie out in the sand ring for the first time this spring - it's finally dry enough. Charlie is going to make a wonderful child a great hunter horse someday. He is a willing worker and loves to be praised when he pleases you.

Charlie loves Elmo, a big Golden Retriever cross, at the arena down the road. Charlie grooms him all over if given a chance.

I finished my first pair of socks and another pair of mittens for the Snowsuit Fund. I used Patons Classic Wool on 2.25 mm needles and adapted the Suzi Knits Basic Free Sock Pattern to suit my knitting style and size. I use oddments of acrylic or wool to make the mittens - it's a great way to clear out part of my stash and benefit someone else at the same time. The mitt pattern is one that my Granny taught me 30+ years ago - basic mitts on four needles.












Syra, my dog, spends her days on the couch, curled up with an afghan.

Jerry, Grace and Will enjoy the sun from their cages. The wet-looking bird is Grace, he likes to bathe in his water dish. Willy is camera shy and hid behind the edge of the towel. Jerry is a the one with the band on his leg. Since he is banded, we know he was born in 2000. I don't know how old Will and Grace are as they didn't come with bands - and since they're rescued cockatiels - I don't know much about their history. All three came to me through a friend just over three years ago. They were not imprinted or handled properly when they were young, so they're not very friendly.













My African violets are starting to bloom, too, now that the Christmas catus flowers are finished.




Spring is wonderful - I enjoy discovering all the new and renewed life!

Visual DNA...

I found an interesting site with a sort of personality test based on images. Mine seems to be pretty accurate.


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Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

There were no horses in the selections, though. :-)

This morning I shredded a bag of old confidential papers with my cross-cut shredder. We use the shredded paper in the horses' bedding, mixed with shavings. If anyone really wants to reconstruct one of my old credit card bills, they're going to have to work for it. I took the bag out to the farm, along with some Freecycle stuff that I picked up for DD and DSIL - a briefcase, car radio, and a baby monitor.

DSIL wanted a briefcase for work stuff - and since it'll be covered in diesel and oil in no time, Freecycle was the way to go. The car radio will be installed in the tractor, and the baby monitor will help my DD keep an ear open for problems in the barn both now while Queenie is on stall rest (2 weeks for a sore foot) and later when Sheba is closer to foaling.

I also brought out two large bags of bran and a container of molasses - the horses all enjoy a warm bran mash as a special treat once in a while. It'll make a nice change for Queenie, too, as she gets powdered bute (aspirin for horses) twice a day while she's inside to try to reduce the inflammation in her foot. Horse bute has a strange strawberry smell - some horses love it, others hate it. Luckily, Queenie likes the taste.

Since Queenie is in all the time, Sheba and Reba get to trade off time inside to keep Queenie company. Bart the cat is spending extra time in the barn as he likes to be rubbed by Queenie - she strokes him all over with her muzzle - and will curl up with her when she lies down to sleep.

Today was cool, but mostly dry. The forecast for tomorrow is rain, turning to snow overnight. Just what we need: more wet stuff. DD and DSIL spend time every day digging ditches to drain the water from the road and the fields as it is - this isn't going to help them any. At least the water level in the main ditches is starting to drop and the farm's ditches are running again.

Good Friday

I have work to do, but I don't feel like working. It's far more fun to play with photos and write new text for my blog.

Here are a couple of photos of a cardinal that was singing in my hedge on Wednesday. I thought I could capture him through the window, but the flash went off and showed me that my windows need some serious scrubbing on the outside. If it wasn't fogged by the flash, it would have been a terrific picture.

After trying a couple from inside, I went out. Unfortunately, the cardinal didn't want to be on the same side of the hedge as I was, so there are branches in the way. The children were making lots of noise as they left the school across the street, so the cardinal didn't stick around for more pictures.

Sometimes we have several pairs nesting around the area over the summer - they're always a pleasant surprise when you see them at the feeder or in the hedge.

My Christmas cactus bloomed again in March. This picture was taken on March 31, 2007. The flash didn't go off, so the light is really yellow as it's reflecting from the yellow lamp and its yellow shade. I am really pleased with the blooms - until this one, I hadn't had any success with flowers on them. I had a bloom at Christmas, too.

This Christmas cactus was a gift from a friend who has since moved far away. He rooted a number of bits from his original plant and gave them away before he left for Halifax. Plants in my house survive on benign neglect - sometimes I don't water them until they look limp, and then I dump leftover tea in their pots. The African violets seem to like that treatment, as does my spider plant, but I wasn't sure it would work for a Christmas cactus.

Today is Good Friday - a paid day off for me. Yay!

It's cold and gloomy out, though, so I stayed home and did chores. It would have been a perfect day to spend in lounging and playing in bed with a significant other, but it's just not as much fun with the dog. On the other hand, the laundry is all done, the sheets changed, and my living room and guest bathroom tidied. For this evening's excitement, I think I'll run the dishwasher.

Tomorrow, I'm heading out to the farm for an Easter egg hunt. I think it'll be in the house - the forecast isn't any better for tomorrow than it was for today. Sunday will be a family dinner at my parents' place - dinner starts at 5 pm.

My horses all got their annual shots and Coggins test done on Wednesday. The vet says Sheba looks really well for this stage of her pregnancy. Only 40 days or so left before we find out if its a filly (girl) or a colt (boy). I really don't care either way as long as it's healthy. This foal belongs to my daughter, not me, so I'll have to try really hard not to get too attached.

Tinkerbelle (aka Tink) is recovering nicely from her surgery. Her stitches are starting to dissolve now and she's almost ready to start running around in the mud again. For a very active dog, she's been very good about the restrictions my daughter imposed. I'm sure that having an older, calmer dog around (Daisy) helped. Tink is very good about going in her crate and settles right down.

Someday she may be able to be loose in the house when there's no one home, but not right now. She is still testing all the limits of "house dog" behaviour. She sure does love to cuddle on the couch!

April Fools Day!

I started the morning off on the computer, chatting with a friend in New Brunswick. We've never met, but we share a love of horses and music - and can always find things to chat about for an hour or two. A half a dozen blog entries (comments on other people's blogs, not mine) later, it was time to head out for brunch with a fun bunch of friends.

When I was at the farm yesterday, I took some new pictures of the horses. I played with the settings on my camera to get some higher resolution photos that can be printed larger than 5 x 7. The sun caused a few sunspots on the images, so they're not as good as I hoped, but they're certainly much more detailed than the "standard" setting.

I took a bunch of pictures of Charlie:









and some of Ti-Buck and Sneakers playing "stallion games":








Then some of Queenie:









Sheba looks really pregnant now. The vet says that she appears to be doing just fine and everything is on schedule and developing properly.


You can really see her bad knee in the larger photo. It doesn't seem to bother her too much as long as it's not too muddy. Poor Sheba - we don't know how or when she injured it, but it'll never get better (although it is less swollen and painful than it was 3 years ago when we kept her in Smiths Falls).



S'Heir, Sheba's foal from 4 years ago, was busy looking cute for the camera. She is started at walk and trot now, and is really proud that she's a "big girl" and gets to be ridden. Sheba's new foal will be S'Heir's half sibling - S'Heir's sire is The Royal Heir. The new foal's sire is AA Decadence.

If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll post the pictures of my Christmas cactus that decided to bloom again for Easter. It's got spectacular flowers.

That's enough for today - time to do something else (like housework)!