On the July 4th holiday, Laura and Julia went horseback riding in the morning. I had hurt my back at work, so I stayed home. They had been gone for a while, when Laura called me and explained that Cleo had a serious cut in her leg and I should call the vet while they […]

Auf Deutsch hier … During spring break we took Wally and Cleo on their first over night trip with us. We loaded  them on their trailer and hauled them 100 miles South, to a horse farm near Southern Pines. The weather was great – dry and sunny and in the 60s – so not too […]

This winter has been really mild here in North Carolina, but last night we did get a 1/2 inch of snow.  The ground was pretty warm after a mid-50s day, and so this morning there is no snow on the roads. Even so, there were some accidents and schools are on a 2-hr delay. We […]

Today we loaded our horses into our new trailer and went horseback riding at Cedarrock Park near Burlington. Saturday, I spent several hours fixing the electrical on the trailer. The wires in the hookup were connected in weird places, one of the brakes wasn’t working, and one of the taillights was connected in reverse. The […]

Today we drove to Roxboro and bought this horse trailer. Finally we’re properly mobile with the horses and can take them places. There are a number of parks in the area that have horse trails. Also some of the stables around here have trails that are open to the public for a small fee. We’re […]

This horse is CRAZY! He’s a KILLER!! Seriously … a couple of weeks ago Wally attacked me and Laura. He tried to kick me, backing up to me and kicking in my direction and then he bit Laura! But why? Usually he’s a gentle soul, always trying to please. Sometimes he can be stubborn. But […]

Today we bought our new truck – a 1998 Dodge Ram 2500 with a 5.9 liter Cummins 12-valve Diesel engine with 138,575 miles. This is a much better ride than the Ford – not just a “farm truck.” Better handling, more comfy interior … well suited for longer drives. And with the powerful Cummins Diesel […]

[DEUTSCH weiter unten … ] Saturday, we took Wally and Cleo out on a road-trip for the first time. We borrowed the truck and trailer from friends of ours. We wanted to check out the truck’s towing prowess as we were planning to buy it. We had done a test-run the previous weekend and loaded […]

kalunkalunkalunk …. That’s what that truck said on Sunday. I knew it was a bad sound. Expensive. The sound of money down the drain. Well … this is the 1″x2″  hole where 5 grand of my hard-earned cash disappeared Sunday morning. My mechanic says it was a connecting rod that broke and punched that hole […]

We’re now about 6 months into our horse-ownership adventure and today we did our first real trail riding adventure with Wally and Cleo. We’ve been riding them in and around the pasture. We built a small trail through the woods for riding, and we’ve taken them around the neighborhood.  But today we went a bit […]

Yes, horses like to eat hay, but my god – these guys EAT HAY! Lots of it! Each of our horses can eat several hundred pounds of hay a week. We have had a pretty cold winter, so far, and so they eat even more than they usually would because when it’s cold their metabolism […]

We uploaded some videos of the Wally and Cleo to Laura’s YouTube channel. I shot this one on Dec. 26 after the snowstorm. Cleo was very excited about the snow. This might be the first time she experienced a real snowfall because she lived at the coast for most of her life. Wir haben ein […]

Boy – what a surprise that year had in store for us! Perhaps the greatest change in lifestyle for Laura an me since we had children … and a much bigger surprise than the children! Of course I am talking about our horses, Waldo and Cleo. While building our horsefarm and figuring out the ins […]

This morning we woke up to 3 inches of snow, after a fairly warm Christmas eve. The snow is wet and sticky. Wally and Cleo kept their faces mostly in their favorite hayroll. But in the morning, for a while Cleo was prancing around, bucking and rearing and shaking her head at the snow.

Once again, the longest night of the year is upon us. On Dec 21, daylight lasted only 9 hours 42 Minutes here in NC, 8 hours 22 Min in Freiburg, Germany, 4 hours 7 Min in Reykjavik, Iceland. In the old days, when people did not really understand how our solar system works, they worried […]

Today, we had our first snow this winter. The weather report called for some flurries tonight, but instead we had about a 1/2 inch of snow this afternoon.  I went out around 5:00 to see if I could get to the grocery store, but even Guess Rd. was totally covered, and so I turned around. […]

If you have read my posts over the summer, you’ll know that we pretty much spent our summer vacation building a 1200 foot (400 M) pasture fence. Well, Google Earth noticed too, and took some great pictures of our work – from space! Google hat vor Kurzem die Satelitenphotos von unserer Gegend erneuert und mir […]

Sunday afternoon we went Trick-or-treating in the neighborhood with some friends and with Waldo and Cleo.The horses behaved themselves as much as can be expected. The cars and dogs did not bother them much, but Cleo did not like the stop signs. After 1 1/2 hours it started getting dark and and they had had […]

(Deutsch weiter unten) Cleo and Wally have been living with us now for 2 months and, I dare say, our horse-farm project is going really well. Laura has put a huge effort into training and care, to get our two new family members into top form. She (and Julia and Gaylen) have worked hard to […]

… or horse manure, to be precise, is a wonderful thing.That’s because the biodiesel production process produces also a significant amount of glycerol that needs to be disposed of (circa 10 Gallons per 50-gallon batch of biodiesel). For years I have taken the stuff to various horse farms in the area and blended it into […]