Name that stone fruit!

I need help.

Does anyone know what kind of stone fruit this is?



We received a number of them in our weekly produce box but cannot figure out what they are. I'm not adventurous enough to eat them without knowing what they are and how to tell if they are ready to eat!

June Gymkhana

Saturday was the last show for the season for our gymkhana district. I have to say that this was just not a very good season for Lorna. Sierra came down with a cough on Wednesday evening and it got worse on Thursday so we had to take her to the vet on Friday. The cough wasn't anything serious but the vet said she shouldn't be ridden for 3-4 days so her airways could have a chance to become less irritated. Of course this meant Lorna wasn't able to ride her on Saturday. She did have Missy to ride in schooling runs but she didn't receive any points towards year end awards.



Malachi had an off day, actually quite a few of our riders had an off day, but he still improved his best times on 4 events. Overall this has been a great first season for him, it's hard to believe he's only been riding for a year! Since most of his times have been in the A division (higher than the FC division he's actually in) he will be bumped up to the A division next year. His goal is to be running AA times by the middle of next season.



Missy continues to do really well. She's gained quite a bit of weight and is slowly building muscle. Lorna was able to lope her through a number of events and she was a really good girl. She's the type of horse that just really wants to please. I will be taking a few lessons on Missy over the summer so that she and I can build our confidence so we can do longer trail rides.

Lorna doesn't really have any goals for next season. I can tell that this year was really discouraging for her and I'm not sure what her plans are. Part of the problem is that it's difficult for her to watch everyone sailing through the events on these wonderfully trained horses (Malachi included) and getting these really great times while she continues to struggle with a green horse. When she rides her trainer's gymkhana horse in schooling runs she has a blast! I'm confident, if she can continue struggling through and working with Sierra, they will eventually be a really great team but it's going to take a few years to get there. I'm really hoping the next few months will see Sierra maturing so that they can progress a bit more. The most difficult thing for her right now is that she had to back off of training because Sierra was not mentally ready to go any further. I really miss seeing her smile when she rides and I haven't seen much of that over the past few months. She's considering running for Jr Queen in a small local rodeo in September. This particular competition is heavy on the riding with no modeling and only a short interview. She would be riding Amigo for the Queen run, pattern, and cow penning. If she decides to do this maybe it will give her something to focus on and look forward to.

Eggs!

We finally found our first egg yesterday! I would have taken a picture of it but by the time we found it it was crushed.

I say we finally "found" our first egg because the egg was a pretty decent size which means we've probably missed some of the really small ones. Today Lorna found a really tiny egg in the run and a medium sized egg in one of the nest boxes.



The chickens will be 21 weeks old on Wednesday so it's about the right time to start seeing eggs. We have 2 chickens that will lay blue/green eggs so I know they haven't started laying yet. The silly chickens that are laying right now don't seem to realize they are supposed to be laying in the morning, we've only found eggs in the afternoon.

On a completely different topic, our house is finally showing on the MLS. I have a really hard time being patient so I'm sure I will get some practice over the next 6 months.

Organizing and Cleaning

I've been very lax the last few months. I've cleaned the kitchen and bathroom but not much else. It's difficult to make myself do anything when the house goes back to looking dirty just an hour later. We've talked about putting the house on the market for the past few months. Where we live now is just not conducive to the way our life is going. I've mentioned before that we live up a one lane road that goes up about 2500 feet over 2 miles, towing a horse trailer down that road a couple times a week gets really old. We had talked to a real estate agent last month but gave up on the idea of putting the house on the market because we figured we owed too much.

We received a message last Thursday that the agent wanted to speak with us. It turns out he has someone looking for a home in the area we are in and the price range is right. From the description the buyer gave him it sounds like our home is exactly what he's looking for. We decided we didn't have anything to loose if we put the house on the market so we've spent the last 3 days cleaning. We aren't done yet...

I always forget how many books we have. Paul brought home boxes so we could pack them all up so there was more open space. He didn't bring home enough boxes so we just consolidated everything into 2 bookcase and took the other three out. We also moved everything around to let more light into the house. I don't know why we didn't do this sooner! The house is much more open and spacious with things moved around. Of course we had to pack up a bunch of stuff to do it so that's probably why it was so cluttered.

I still have to do some dusting and moping in the main areas of the house, but I really need to tackle my sewing area in the deck. Trying to sew, package, and store fabrics for my store have made quite a mess in that little area. Today I will be organizing and straightening it out so we can actually get to the dining room table. It's a daunting task so I'm blogging instead!

Even if we don't find a buyer I figure, at the least, I will have a clean house for a time!

Success I think...

It looks like we found a church!

I've put off posting about it because the cynical part of me kept thinking we would find some practice that would send us running. It's not the best church or the most solid, but there isn't any practice that we can't live with. We still haven't communed yet but that is due to our discomfort with the individual cups that they offer. Because of the distance (1.5 hours away) we aren't attending every week but we are attending every Divine Service that offers communion (twice a month for the "traditional" service).

Yes the church has a "contemporary" service, but we figure as long as we aren't forced to attend we can ignore that part :) Amazingly enough twice as many people come to the liturgical service as attend the other one! It's just really nice to find some place that we can be fed on a regular basis!