Horsing Around

Good morning, my friends. It’s our last morning in Kentucky. We’ll be heading due west when we get underway, crossing back into Illinois (and into the central time zone), and then backtracking a little bit to a COE (Corps of Engineers) park for the night. From there, we'll move on to Missouri the next day. It’s going to be a lot of driving over the next couple of days. It’ll be a good test for my seat cushion. My hip is doing better. I thought I felt a little twinge yesterday while we were out, and so I took a dose of naproxen. It feels fine while I’m sitting here.

So let’s talk about horses, shall we? No, that is not a horse. It’s Smitty. Please. Where are your manners? 

Sadie was soaking up the morning sunshine after a frightful night of rain.

We took off fairly early (for us) to make our way to the Spendthrift Farm. I’ve tried to get the picture below several times. This barn is just about a mile from where we’re staying. It’s a rustic barn with a quilt block. There’s a very small window where I can get the whole barn and quilt block, but there’s no place to stop on that narrow road. We finally drove down the road when there were no other cars behind us. Mike stopped, and I stepped out onto the truck's running board for this shot. It isn’t ideal, but it’s the best I could do.

Driving on, there are lots of barns around Lexington. It’s no wonder Lexington is known as the horse capital of the world. 

And it is lovely here. You have to see the endless acres of green grass and wood fences to appreciate the beauty. It reminds me a little of Ireland. 

Substitute wood fences and horses for the stone walls and sheep, and you’ve got it. Here's another picture.

 

Here's another with some horses off in the distance. It seems like an idyllic place to be a horse.

Ah…here we are. We had a friendly exchange with a man posted at the gate.

He told us to head down this driveway and take the left fork.

This sign confused us. With Mike in the truck, wouldn’t you think they’d want us to go to the right?

Parking at the visitor center, we went inside. Inlaid in the floor were the winnings of the 2020 Kentucky Derby by their horse, Authentic.

Here's the Kentucky Derby trophy.

On one of the tables were these plaques listing all the winning horses from just one sire, "Into Mischief."

These pillows were stationed around. I see a quilt block in that emblem.

After watching a couple of short videos about the history of Spendthrift Farm, we boarded this shuttle for a ride around the place.

As we drove off, we saw just one of an army of mowers who keep the grass cut to a suitable length.

Here's one of many barns we saw at just this one farm.

Below is a stallion named "Flasher." He doesn't get to breed, but he gets to flirt with all the mares. Observing how the mares respond to him gives an indication whether they are ready to be bred. And simply being with Flasher puts mares "in the mood." Poor Flasher. It must be a frustrating life.

Moving on, we came to a paddock with some mares and their foals. These foals were born around January.

This is one of the mares. Can you see how her nose bends to her left? This happened in utero because she had a leg over her nose that caused it to crook to the side. She was the sweetest thing. Very friendly.

The mare below starts life the same dark brown of the other horses. As she gets older, she begins to lose the dark color. Eventually, she will be completely white.

I took this picture so you could see how the fences are chewed. This is done by the foals. Like babies, they are teething. They explore their environment with their teeth.

Here's a frisky colt chewing at the fence as I took his picture.

Here's another foal born two months ago. He was a little shy.

Eventually he came up to the fence.

We had a good nose and ear scratching session.

Do you see the foal on the right side of the image below? He's flat in the grass. We saw several napping like this. It looks like a comfy place to lie down.

These were some of my favorite horses on the tour. 

Smallish. 

It must be hard finding an appropriate saddle.

Looking off in the distance, we could see another barn.

These are two of their winning stallions. They are retired now and will spend their days wooing the mares. Their names are posted on the fence.

Here's another barn complex.

This next stallion is "Goldencents." He's the sire of this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Mystik Dan. He's getting special treatment these days. Our tour guide told us that the Derby was barely finished when they started getting emails from horse people asking if there were any slots open on his breeding schedule. It costs $250,000 to breed a mare with one of their stallions. Sometimes mares travel as far as South America or Australia to be bred at this farm.

We enjoyed our tour very much. The gift shop was open when we returned to the visitor center, and I picked up this small refrigerator magnet.

Okay, so we have a long drive today. I don't have a lot of time to chat. You understand, don't you? When we meet again, we'll be in Illinois. Fingers crossed we don't encounter any more bad weather as we pass through Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas on our way home. We'll breathe a little easier when we reach Colorado in about 12 days. 

A Kitchen Day

Good morning, my friends. We had another relaxing day. It was Mike's birthday, and so I made him his beloved Eggs Benedict for breakfast. After breakfast, I went to work making a small dessert for our birthday dinner celebration. I tried a recipe for Lemon Pudding Cakes for Two. I happen to love pudding cake of any kind. Since I had everything I needed on hand, it was an easy choice. They had to bake for 45 minutes. When they came from the oven, they looked like this:

So I set those aside for later. The weather has been crazy here. We've had some major thunder and lightning storms. Occasionally, we get a big gust of wind, but so far, nothing too scary. It was nice most of the day, and so I went for another stroll around the pond early in the afternoon. We've really enjoyed the avian wildlife here. These ducks were having a meet and greet on the basketball court.

As I walked to the far side of the pond, this tri-color blackbird flew overhead. We have red-wing blackbirds in Oregon, but this might be the first time I've seen a tri-color.

It's private property on the far side of the pond, and so I can walk only so far before having to turn around and head back. As I made my way back to the RV, I noticed these two abandoned goose eggs. If you've never seen a goose egg, they are about three times the size of a chicken egg.

We relaxed for most of the day. Mike started our prime rib on his Traeger, and we waited for that to be done. I'd already made our green bean side dish the day before. I just needed to heat up the frozen leftover gravy I'd brought from home and to make some mashed potatoes. It was a pretty easy meal. When it was served up, it looked like this. 

I like pepper jelly with prime rib, and I'd remembered to bring some cranberry pepper jelly from home.  Mmm, mmm, mmm. And there are leftovers for another meal.

After dinner we sat outside for a bit enjoying the golden hour over the pond.

It was early evening when we were jolted out of our relaxed reverie by our weather radio alerting us LOUDLY that we were under a tornado watch. (Holy sh!t!) Some of you are used to this, but we Oregonians-in-Kentucky are not. We were advised the tornado watch would continue until 3:00 a.m. Also, we received a text from the RV park, and notification from our weather apps. Neither of us has ever had to worry about tornados. 

My friend Kate in Oklahoma mentioned some tornado tips the other day. She's been under tornado watch/warnings over the past several days. We were notified by the RV park where the shelters are (walking distance), and so we put out shoes, socks, and clothing before we went to bed last night. Kitty kennels are in easy reach. Wallets and identification are where we won’t forget them. I was very happy when I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and found myself still alive and the RV still intact and upright. 

The forecast from last night was for increased risk of tornadoes and large hail tonight. So far our weather apps show a flood watch, but nothing about tornadoes. (We’re not worried about flooding where we are.) We can’t really leave here without either driving straight into it or else having it follow us. Hopefully, the danger has passed. We’ll see how the day goes. It's our day to tour the horse farm, and that will be around 11:00 a.m. until noon. We're showing good weather during that part of the day, but more lightning and thunder for tonight. It makes sense for us to stay put where the shelters are a short distance away. If we don't need them, all the better. In either case, we'll be heading west tomorrow and hoping for improved weather as we pass through Missouri and Kansas. It'll be a relief to reach Colorado in a week or so.

So with all the excitement, those pudding cakes were a nice distraction. I added some whipped cream and a couple of blueberries.

When you cut into them, they're cake on top, pudding on the bottom. Yum.

Okay, so it's time for me to get going. We need breakfast, and then we'll be heading out to the horse farm. I'm looking forward to seeing some foals today.