It seems as if everyone, at the end of August, is on vacation. So, I have rescheduled the Chicken Keeping Workshop and the Advanced Chicken Keeping Class for Sunday, September 28. The vegetable garden will be winding down, the trees changing colors, and the hens molting – a great time of year to spend a couple of hours learning more about chicken care!

Note the iced tea and baked goods in the photo – homemade cookies are always included in the tuition!

I have containers planted with flowers, a cherry tomato, some mesclun, and herbs at the back porch door. The compositions are nothing formal. I fill the pots with mostly useful plants, with full knowledge that most of what is grown there will not be harvested, which is fine. They’re pretty to look at. The herbs, especially, are fragrant, their flowers beloved by bees and butterflies, and they tolerate my erratic watering. Once in awhile I use a leave or two, or find a ripe cherry tomato. Somehow, that’s deeply satisfying.

This year I looked for a tall plant to anchor a large pot. I found an anise hyssop at the nursery, which is not something that I was familiar with. I read the tag. Tall, purple blooms, edible. I brought it home. I lucked out. This member of the mint family tolerates drought, dissuades deer, and thrives despite my lack of consistent care. The leaves are delicious. I often pluck one to chew on as I go about my chores. It’s sweet, with a light licorice flavor.

The flowers are also edible. But I’m leaving them for the bees.

Anise hyssop

There are many reasons why a person does animal training. There’s the basic, you have to get along, training: pay attention, no biting, no kicking, go where I need you to go. There’s the training for usefulness: herd the sheep, find the bad guy, guide the blind, pull this cart. There’s sport: flush the quail, go over the jump, catch the frisbee. Much of training is simply for fun: roll over, high five.

All training requires communication between the handler and the animal. Some people train for compliance: do what I say or there are serious consequences. I’d rather train for cooperation: this will be rewarding for both of us.

Although the study of behavior is a relatively new science, animal training has been going on for thousands of years. The Greek soldier, Xenophon, wrote about horsemanship in 400 BC, and the debate over how to work with the animals in our lives hasn’t stopped since then.

I don’t know what training methods Myrtle used with her horse Tony.

But I have a feeling that they were quite the team.

For the last month, I’ve been helping two friends with their horse hunting. One woman is, after a fifteen-year partnership, retiring her dressage horse. The other friend is a novice who is looking for a beginner-safe horse to teach her how to ride, Although one is experienced and one is not, I’m looking for similar qualities in both of their mounts.

No horse is truly ‘bomb-proof” and “no spook.” Even Tonka startles and shies. (It turns out that he doesn’t have much experience with wetlands. A frog plunking into the muck as we ride by is cause for alarm!) Some horses are temperamentally naturally nervous, others, due to their histories, have learned to be fearful. Such horses can be trained to be calmer and less reactive, but neither of these riders are in a position to do that. They need sane horses that settle easily and are willing and trusting and pay attention to their riders.

I’m looking for an attitude like this.

I’m not a Western rider. I’m fascinated, but totally in the dark, about the gear on this horse. If anyone has insight about what work he is rigged up to do, and where he might have done it, please let me know.

Most of the photos in my collection are from the first two decades of the twentieth century, which is the era of history that I am most fascinated by. But, once in awhile, an image is so true to it’s time, and so aesthetically of the moment, that I can’t resist. This is one such photograph.

Goats on the wallpaper! An oh-so modern cabinet and on-trend bowl. The best part? A cat that matches, and, I do think she knows it.