She's staying!

I have owned this cast iron sculpture for over a year now.  I just love her - so beautifully executed, anatomically correct and real quality. If you look at her from behind, she has her off hind forward and the hip is lower on that side (as it would be in life) and she still has the lax foaling muscles either side of her tail.  Whoever drew and moulded this was a true craftsman with a real knowledge of horses.   It is Russian, and the original cast was made just prior to the Russian Revolution (1916 I think).   Mine dates from 1967 though, so obviously they found the moulds in a broom cupboard or something and decided to start making them again.   A few made their way to Britain, but only a few - my research shows they don't turn up in auction very often.  I didn't pay a great deal for her in auction, and she is worth a good deal more and I did toy with the idea of selling her for a while - that was the practical side of me.  Then the more esoteric side of me said s*d that, she's too lovely to sell, so she's staying.  Our new Gothic table in the hall seemed the perfect place for her.

On Monday, when I was feeling so rough, the Food Dehydrator I had ordered arrived.  It stayed in its box until Tuesday as I just didn't even feel motivated enough to open the box!  On Tuesday it got outside of its brown cardboard box and I looked briefly at the instruction "manual" which came with it, printed SO small that I had to read it in a good light and with a magnifier for some parts!  Why not just use an extra page of paper and print it a little larger - I still have VERY  good eyesight, and can still read the bottom line at the optician's, but this was ridiculously small.  It didn't tell you much anyway, so just as well I had bought the Dehydrating Bible previously . . .

Anyway, I got up early yesterday morning and cut up most of a £1 tray of cooking apples that I had bought, along with a bag of bananas, into 1/4" slices, which were then immersed in lemon juice and water for a while before draining and putting on the shelves to dry.  I have to say, it took longer than the book predicted, and despite the lemon everything turned brown, but they taste delicious, and as a first try and dehydrating I was pleased with myself.  It's a learning curve, like anything.

I was getting low on home made cider vinegar (which I use for cleaning), and so I used all the apple skins to make another batch (which will go in the airing cupboard for 3 weeks or so).  I will make Cider Vinegar for consumption when I have the apples from our own trees here.  I know they are organic and unsprayed.

When we got back from town yesterday, we were delighted to find that the paddock had been cut . . .  So were the cats!  When we came to bed it was still light, and the paddock had several cats in hunting mode - we had to smile at Ghengis hunting a vole, and in his turn, being stalked by our other tabby, Theo, who likes to try and put Ghengis in his place!!  This morning there were two Blackbirds, 2 Chaffinches, 3 Magpies and a few sparrows out there.

Thank you for all your comments on my last post.  I know that I work very hard, and always have.  My late m-in-law was a very jealous woman, who found it hard to share her sons with the women they loved, so never lost an opportunity to put us down.  Gosh - some of her comments were vitriolic in the extreme, although the most hurtful was when we visited her with our eldest daughter, when she was about 6 weeks old.  My husband K went out in the kitchen, and m-in-law pounced, "Oh," she said, "I wonder how many slitty-eyed little K's  there are out in Singapore?"  (He had been there in the Army).  I never EVER forgave her for that comment.  Mean-spirited just wasn't in it.