Sunday, April 27

Hello farmers. Welcome to Halcanada, I see he joined our happy little group while I was gone playing horse games. Hal, I think you could find the answer to your zone question at a local nursery or possibly by comparing your temperatures to the information listed for any plant in the plants database on this site. That sure is a lot of hogs you have.
Jewell, if you have room for rhubarb I can send you some this fall or next spring just for postage. It's too late for this year but pick out a spot and when it goes to sleep I will be glad to dig and send you some.
EvaMae, I am sure I have 2 different kinds of rhubarb, an old thin stalk variety and the new stuff which has thicker stalks but they are also much reder and the leaves are huge. My starts came from an old crowded plant and the lady said it had the biggest stems she had ever seen. I think it is called Canada Red, or maybe Crimson. Gurneys used to carry one like it and I ordered 2 starts but they were 3 inch root sections and never even came out of the ground! I buried them and never saw any sign of them. Grrr.
I got home early today from my weekend ride, it was fairly close to home and I got an early start just after daylight this morning. Breezy carried me 75 miles and did wonderfully, we finished 7th and did the whole thing in the daylight. Right now he is snoozing in the sun after having a good vigorous roll in the dirt, in fact it felt so good he rolled 3 times. My ride gave us a real variety of weather. Friday night it rained and was still raining lightly when we rode out of camp at 6:30 Saturday morning. We climbed up to about 2000 ft higher than the camp, I am guessing we got to something near 5000 ft, and got into falling snow for a few miles, then back into rain then just cloudy, and finally sun. Mid afternoon we got back into bad weather, some hail and then snow for several more miles, all with a brisk wind, then more sun to dry us out. We finished at 7:15pm just before the sun went down. We were in 7th place out of 12 starters, a bit faster than our normal pace. The ride had 25, 50 and 75 mile distances plus a 12 mile trail ride. A few riders looked at the weather and the prospect of riding in the rain and packed up and just went home. I took my camera but didn't take any pictures, it's just too bulky and not very convenient to carry a camera with rain gear which is akward but does keep me sort of dry. I use that raincoat about once a year, so homefully that is out of the way for the season. I need to spray it with scotchguard again, it gets leaky.
Tonight we are invited out for dinner for elk steaks, oh boy, that's great stuff and I love not having to cook.
Meanwhile I need to clean myself up, and also clean the horse up, and unpack the trailer.
Have a great day everyone, count your blessings.