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Berbere is the flavor backbone of Ethiopian cooking, a cuisine built around heavily seasoned meats and stews served with a spongy flatbread.  It translates well to Southwestern cooking and we just picked up a huge bag from Pasqual's in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Berbere works as dry rub for meats, a seasoning for stews, lentils and grains — even as a tableside condiment.  As with so many traditional seasoning blends, what goes into berbere varies from chef to chef but most versions begin with a base of ground chiles, ginger, fenugreek, cumin, cloves, coriander, cardamom, black pepper and salt. The good news is that you don’t need to know squat about Ethiopian food (though it’s totally worth getting to know) to enjoy berbere. Here are some of my favorite uses: • Blend a can of tomato paste with honey, salt and as much berbere as you can handle. It makes the best barbecue sauce. • Sprinkle just a bit into the cheese sauce of your favorite mac and cheese. The smoky, spicy change will blow you away. • Use it straight up as a dry rub for baby back ribs, steaks on the grill — even for oven-roasted chicken. • Sauté minced onions and garlic with vegetable oil, stirring in berbere. Thin with more oil or with broth, buy rhinocort online. • Blend with softened butter then spread over hot-off-the-grill corn on the cob. Or add minced garlic and use for garlic bread. • Add a bit to the pot when browning meat for a beef stew. Or sprinkle just a pinch over a bowl of chicken soup. • Mix just a bit into prepared pasta sauce, or mix it directly into meatballs. • Add a bit to

Earlier this decade, Colorado and the Western States were plaqued with wild fires and, after several years of drought, hay prices skyrocketed.  It was just a few years ago that most of Colorado hay went to other states which were rampent with fires, draught and tornados, such as Kansas and Oklahoma.   But now after two years of very wet summers, hay prices should have returned to normal, but that never seems to occur.  It seems that growers and suppliers get used taking higher profit margins, in part to make up for bad years and in part from lack of consumers to demand lower prices. There are many different forms of hay, the best of which are Mountain Grass and Timothy.  Alfalfa is great for putting weight on horses and is cheap to feed but we have buying phentermine online. The most common form of hay is the small square bale, which can weigh approximately 45 to 100 pounds each.  The weight depends on how they're baled, type of hay and moisture content.  Compressed bales are also increasingly seen. We have found All-Species Vitalix (125 lb. tub for $65 in 2016) to be great for putting weight on hunt horses or polo ponies in pasture, where feeding grain or pellets is often more difficult.  Feeding a scoop a day of pellets from ProAdvantage® Grass Formula Diet Balancer by Progressive Nutrition, topped with 1/2 cup of corn oil.

Our favorite restaurant in Santa Fe is Geronimo's followed closely by Cafe Pasqual's.  Here are some of our favorite recipes from "Cooking with Cafe Pasqual's: Recipes from Santa Fe's Renowned Corner Cafe" by Katharine Kagel September 3, 2014 (Ten Speed Press).

This year's Rocky Mountain Circuit 2013 Slideshow.   

This just in from our doctor, Jack England, MD on vitamin supplements that athletes such as polo players should consider and why. Vitamin Supplements for Athletes CoQ10 liquid from Qunol Plum Creek Medical: Promoting Healthy Living Adding vitamins and supplements to your diet Probiotics ↑ Immune System Pomegranate Very strong antioxidant—with a certain type of cantaloupe reduces arterial plaque better than high dose Crestor. Vitamin C-Take at least 1000 mg. daily. Great antioxidant, your body quickly eliminates any excess so try to spread out your dose throughout the day. Decreases inflammation as good as Crestor (CRP) Vitamin E-Take 400 to 800 IU daily. This should be taken with a meal because it is fat-soluble. The synthetic form, dl-alpha-tocopherol is not good. Try to find d-alpha-tocopherol (natural) + gamma. Beta-carotene (Vitamin A)-Take up to 20,000 IU daily. Beta-carotene is the safer form; the body converts it to vitamin A as needed. B Vitamins - Take a B 50 or B 100 complex at least twice a week. These turn your urine bright yellow. This is a family of vitamins involved in many metabolic processes throughout the body. Vitamin D-3.  Has many good properties and fights against cancers and bone loss. It is excellent for the brain as well. Good for patients with depression. Multivitamin.  Look for one with minerals, natural vitamin E and beta-carotene. Men and post menopausal women should take one without iron. Selenium.  Take 100-200 mcg daily. This works well with vitamin E to prevent atherosclerosis and help prevent cancer. Coenzyme Q-10.  Take 50-100 mg a daily. Patients on lipid lowering drugs (statins) should take between 100-200 mg daily. It has great antioxidant properties and is good for heart and gum health. Grape Seed Extract and Pycnogenol.  There are no set standards

Wikihow has a very pretty and elaborate page on How to Build a Fire Edited by Michael, Jack Herrick, Lisa Radon, Ben Rubenstein and 121 others.  It reads" Lighting a fire is only half the battle. The way you build a fire - that is, how you arrange the wood - can affect how long the fire will last and the amount of heat it'll give off during that time. This article will provide an overview of how to build a fire in any setting."  It goes on for several pages, with illustrations and every possibility imaginable. Having grown up in Minnesota, I learned how to build fires from an early age.  In fact, one of my chores was to bring in firewood and to build a fire (nearly every night from about October until April), so I have made a few fires in my lifetime.  My father, being an engineer, and my step-father, being a Marine Corps Sargeant always had a few things to say about it, to put it politely. I can definitely say now, they were all wrong.  Ok, they weren't wrong, but we were living in the cave man days.  It wasn't until college that I discovered a Duraflame log.  They were great, except they cost $3.00 and they last about 15 minutes.  But they were great for starting fires.  Throw one in the fireplace, light the ends, and then throw some real fire wood on top of them.  Gone were the days of stuffing newspaper under the fireplace grate, gathering tinder, starting with small logs and building up to big ones, etc.  One Duraflame log and you could be assured that even the greenest wood would catch fire heaped on

"I See You (Theme from Avatar)" (also shortened as "I See You") is a pop ballad performed by British singer Leona Lewis. But sometimes "I see you," just means that, it is not a song but just a question--something of a koan you might say.  When you honestly offer "I can see you," it may mean nothing more than that, and horses seem to be born with that gift for honestly returning the favor, seeing us for what we are, nothing more nothing less.  If you are kind, they see that.  If you are mean, they see that too.  If you have good intentions, they see that.  If you have bad intentions, they see that too.  Sometimes we have to just look each other in the eye first before asking anything of the other and see what there is to be seen of the other, if it is all good then we can progress from there with more questions and the request for more answers.  We hope that all of us on two legs can come to see that which four-legged animals seem to take for granted.  Children also seem to have the same gift, one that is often hard to accept by adults, as the answers remain unknown until the question is honestly asked from the heart.  I find myself at the same cross-roads, as I always try to be planned out years in advance, but, perhaps for the first time, I am attempting to look at the others around me and simply state, "I see you," and I hope that they can honestly see me in return, without an answer in mind.  I hope to offer the same in return, perhaps for the