Category: Horse

Water Woes

updates and setbacks

First some updates

  • Hand/wrist update: After a second round of steroids and occupational hand therapy we decided I need to have the carpel tunnel surgery. The question now is timing. I’m not allowed to lift more than 10 pounds for 3-4 months and with horse chores that is going to be a challenge. Particularly for someone like me who can’t seem to recognize my body’s limits (see this post for a prime example). This means Nate will have to do most (all?) the horse chores for 3-4 months, so it has to be a time that is compatible with both our jobs, which right now looks like late spring or early summer.
  • Barn update: Hansen Pole Buildings sells just the materials to build a pole barn and I have been getting quotes for them for the roughly the same building since 2019 which has been an interesting way to track how insane prices have been the last few years. In 2019 we got a quote for x dollars, in 2020 the cost was 3*x , in 2021 it was 5*x, and now, it’s only 1.5*x! We might actually be able to afford this barn! There are still lots of other things we need numbers for, like labor and foundation work, but before this the cost of  materials alone exceeded our budget and now the materials are at least within our budget so there is a small ray of hope.
  • Mental health update: Overall I am doing better, but this week demonstrated that I’m still not fully back to where I would like to be. I was slightly busier this week than the previous two weeks and those fairly minor tasks used way more mental and emotional energy than they would have in the past so I didn’t get nearly as much done this week as I had planned (and would have been able to do in the past). That being said, I am still doing better than I was at the end of December/early January and am heading in the right direction. I am also trying to get my sleep back to a solid uninterrupted eight hours every night, which will hopefully help with everything. I don’t have insomnia, but I wake up several times a night every night. I usually fall back to sleep quickly but if it happens too close to my normal wakeup time it takes me much longer to fall back asleep and then when my alarm does go off, I feel like I didn’t get any sleep at all. I’m trying to be better about wearing my blue-light blocking glasses at night and attempting to end all screen time by 9:00 PM. Hopefully this will help get me sleeping through the night again and sleeping better helps with everything else.

Now the water woes.

We placed the water tank where it is so we could use the spigot on the front of the house to fill it and plug the tank heater into the outlet on the porch. We know spigots and water and freezing temperatures don’t always mix well so we have an expandable hose that we hook up and unhook every time we have to fill the tank and we shut the water off to the spigot inside the house every time. When they built our house the siding people did not place the framed cutout around the spigot correctly and the spigot is too close to the frame making it extremely difficult to get a hose on or off in the best of weather. Nate and I thought it would be better if we put a quick-disconnect hose attachment on it to get the hose on and off more easily while wearing winter gear. It had been working relatively well, though once we had to use the hairdryer to thaw the quick-disconnect piece. The same thing seemed to have happened this week. I used the hairdryer to get it warm enough that the quick-disconnect moved again then attached the hose, turned the water on and…. water came out of all parts of the spigot. Water everywhere in negative everything degree weather is not good. We got that water all turned off and started trouble shooting. We could try the spigot on the back of the house, but we would need to use our two long hoses. The long hoses did not like negative everything degree weather and refused to uncoil. After what felt like hours wrestling with uncooperative hoses I finally got them all hooked up (or so I thought) and turned on the water. I had to go into the house to turn the water on to the spigot and saw water shooting out from everywhere as soon as I stepped outside so I immediately ran back in and tuned the water off to the spigot and assumed I simply hadn’t gotten the hose attached correctly in this stupid weather and decided I needed to get a hose that could handle the cold and another quick-disconnect attachment. After a trip to Fleet Farm for a new 150-foot super special winter proof hose (that discount comes in super handy!) and another quick-disconnect we hooked everything up again, ran the hose from the back of the house out to the water (the new hose is FAR more cooperative in this weather), turned the water on and…. water came out of all parts of the spigot. Insert your expletive of choice.

The girls of course need water, so we’ve been hauling buckets of water to the water tank every day. Though annoying, this option works fine for Leeloo, it doesn’t work for picky miss Juniper. Juniper demonstrated in that previous terrible cold snap that she doesn’t like the taste of the water from inside the house. We got her to drink that time by adding molasses to her water, but I’m not dumping molasses into all of their drinking water, also having PPID means added sugar isn’t good for her (added sugar isn’t good for any of us!). This time I tried some apple cider vinegar and that seems to be working, which is good, but I don’t want to pour that into our already rusty and not in great condition water tank either. The result is that we’ve been hauling individual buckets of water out to Juniper, which means we’re also hauling individual buckets of water out to Leeloo because if Juniper gets something Leeloo wants it too. Leeloo drinks at a normal rate of speed for a horse and usually downs her bucket very quickly.

Here is a video of Leeloo drinking (which also involves a certain amount of playing):

Juniper, of course, takes forever to drink. FOREVER. You would think we could just leave it there for her to finish in her own sweet time but Leeloo, having finished her water ages ago, gets bored and decides Juniper’s bucket looks like a great toy and will promptly dumps the water out everywhere and start playing with the bucket unless we stand there and guard it.

Remind me again why I wanted to have my horse at home with me?!

Here is a video of Juniper drinking and if you turn the sound on you can hear my conversation with Leeloo as I try to keep her distracted.

We have contacted a plumber who can come out next Tuesday and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that (a) we didn’t do any actual damage to the house and (b) he can figure out some sort of winter solution so we can stop with the buckets.

Hoping that next year we have a barn with winter safe water supplies!

Time for a Change?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I haven’t talked much about my full time job; I’ve been teaching math at a post-secondary two-year school in Minnesota since 2005 and for much of that time I have found my job to be highly rewarding. I felt like I was doing good work and making the world a better place by helping students open the doors that a solid math education offers. Unfortunately, I haven’t been feeling that way the last few years. This last year in particular I feel like my desire to provide a solid math education is now directly at odds with what those in charge want and what many of my students want, which is to just get people to and through my classes, learning need not apply. I should add that by the end of the semester many of my students start to see the value in understanding mathematics, but they don’t often feel that way in the beginning and they can be very vocal about it. I have spent untold hours of my time and untold amounts of my mental and emotional energy fighting back against the forces that want to take the learning out of education and I’m tired. I’m not sure I want to spend what is rest of my working life fighting this fight.

I have a degree in mathematics so there are a lot of other job options out there, but throughout my searching I haven’t found anything that I actually want to do or that gives back to our world or our society in some way. Most of the positions I’ve seen feel like made-up busy work for companies that not only don’t make our world better, but are actively destroying our planet, exploiting their employees, communities, and customers, and in general are everything that is wrong with the world today. I don’t want to spend the rest of my working life caught in the crushing wheels of late stage capitalism.

So what DO I want to do… that is the question I have been pondering for months now. As I said in this post, dreaming about what I would all do if we won the Mega Millions really got me thinking. Up until maybe three years ago, if we were talking about winning a lottery or getting a giant inheritance or something, I said I would stop teaching full time, but I would still want to teach part time because I really do like teaching and I think I’m pretty good at it. This year, when thinking about the Mega Millions, my very first thought was to quit my current soul-destroying job and become a full-time rancher/farmer. Not the giant fifty-stall horse breeding barn of my teenage dreams, but something involving healthy food production that improves the land we are on instead of exploiting it and actively tries to heal our planet instead of destroying it. I want to be a regenerative farmer with a small side business breeding and raising quality horses. 

You may be thinking – wait a minute, in this last post you were saying that you weren’t sure you could ever afford to have even your realistic Plan A horse farm, how the h*** are you affording the start-up costs to begin regenerative farming? That of course is the question I have been obsessing over for a while now and I may have some ideas …

Now here is a video of Leeloo and Juniper being extra frisky before breakfast. 

 

Dream vs. Reality

Who will win?

When the Mega Millions was over a billion dollars the mathematician in me who understands that lotteries are just a tax on people who don’t understand statistics lost out to the dreamer in me who could not help but think of what we could do with that much money! Here is just part of the list I started thinking of:

  • Build the barn and arena I really want 
  • Finish the basement 
  • Finish and pave the driveway 
  • Plant native prairie-based pasture and hay field
  • Put in the fence for the permanent paddock paradise track system
  • Find that third mare (and a donkey, and maybe a gelding)
  • Get a tractor and all the hay making equipment
  • Get an electric pick-up truck
  • Get a horse trailer
  • Build hay and equipment storage buildings
  • Plant more trees

We of course did not win the Mega Millions, which the mathematician in me knew we wouldn’t but the dreamer in me could not help but be disappointed. However, having started really listing all the things that I would like to fulfil my life long dream of having a horse farm I have been facing the reality that without something bordering on the miraculous (like getting picked up as a reality show on the Magnolia Network) or inventing a time machine and getting things done before 2020 (stupid pandemic messing up the stupid economy) that despite having a full time job and working three separate side gigs I don’t think it will happen and I’m not okay with it. This winter has really hammered home that we need to have some sort of indoor space where we can get out of the weather; I know other people have horses in cold climates without any indoor space but I am not those people. I don’t know if I can be happy with only ever having the Plan B version of this dream when my realistic Plan A is already a reality checked version of my ideal Plan A which itself is a massive (and practical) step down from high school Sara’s dream (see drawing below which includes a 50-stall barn, a 100’ x 150’ indoor riding arena, a 100’ x 140’ outdoor riding arena, and a pretty small house – at least teenage Sara and adult Sara still have the same priorities even if teenage Sara had way more energy). As I said in this post, I know this entire thing is a big giant want and that I am lucky and privileged beyond words to even have what we do have, but my heart is just not having it and I’m struggling right now being reasonable when I see other people getting their impractical and expensive dreams and I’m working my a** off and still unable to reach mine.

I’m not giving up on realistic Plan A yet. I am currently waiting on numbers from a few builders, since lumber prices have finally started to come down, and I’ve discovered a site that sells clearance steel buildings and I’m monitoring that regularly, but it has been a struggle to stay hopeful.

 

p.s. this post was written by an actual human and not an AI, you can tell because of all the run on sentences. 

 

Updates

I miss potatoes

The various efforts for improving my mental health have been starting to pay off, I think. Nothing transformational, but small improvements in overall mood and ability to motivate myself to do things that aren’t sitting + something to distract my brain.

I’ve been officially eating what I would call a Whole30 + AIP elements diet for a week now and realized several things:

  • I had let way more sugar back into my diet than I realized. The sugar cravings are hitting me hard. HARD. I haven’t struggled this much since we first started following the paleo diet back in 2011.
  • Combining elements of Whole30 + AIP is making this far more challenging than doing either one alone. Doing that PLUS trying to aim for more omega 3’s versus omega 6’s is not happening. I’ve decided to focus on the Whole30 + AIP thing for 30 days and then we’ll try reincorporating some of the eliminated foods and see how I do. Once that process is finished and I have a better handle on cravings, and a wider base of things to eat, I’ll refocus on the omega 3’s versus omega 6’s. 
  • I need to find some low-sugar carbs that I actually like that are easier to make. My favorite low-sugar carb is the potato and I’m currently avoiding nightshades so that means no potatoes for now; they will be the first (or maybe second) thing I reintroduce when my 30 days are up – dark chocolate  is the alternative option for first reintroduction. My other preferred non-sugar carbs are plantains and cassava (yucca) but they are not as easy or convenient (at least for me) as things like squash or pumpkin or sweet potatoes that you can find peeled, sliced, canned, frozen, etc.
  • I am having a hard time eating enough at meals to actually stay full until the next meal. Mostly because I get sick of veggies real fast and I limit my protein servings because protein things cost too much money. If I can get a handle on finding low-sugar carbs that should help with this one.

I have found a few preparations for those other low-sugar carbs that I have actually enjoyed, at least more than I have enjoyed previous efforts. They were inspired by a cran-apple slaw we made. The pre-cut bags of slaw veggies (regular coleslaw veggies, broccoli slaw, kale slaw, etc.) are super convenient and there is a pre-made slaw dressing (Sweet and Sassy dressing by Salad Girl) that both Nate and I really like and together they make for a very easy side-dish. That being said anything gets boring after a while, so in an effort to change things up I tried adding thawed frozen cranberries and sliced apples (it was very tasty and nice change of pace). I had some extra of each afterwards as well as leftover cooked diced sweet potato from breakfast and decided to try combining them all and heating them up and it was actually pretty tasty. I was then inspired to try that same cran-apple combo with frozen diced butternut squash and shallot. Again good, though I liked the sweet potato version better. Here is my not very well thought out “recipe”

Cran-Apple Sweet Potatoes

  • Cooked diced sweet potato (1/2 cup ish)
  • Chopped up apple (1/4 to 1/2 an apple depending on size of said apple)
  • An amount of fresh or frozen cranberries – I really should measure things – maybe 1/3 cup?
  • Dice up small shallot
  • Grass-fed ghee or butter (an amount – start with ½ tablespoon… maybe)
  • Salt (an amount)

Heat everything up in a pan until everything is the temperature and texture you want it to be.

I did warn you it wasn’t very well thought out.

If you want to try the version with the frozen butternut squash I would recommend heating the apples, cranberries, shallots, ghee, and some salt for a while first to let them caramelize and brown a bit before adding the squash.

One other thing I tried that I kind of liked was combining leftover canned pumpkin with no-sugar-added applesauce – it was… good is a stretch, let’s go with not bad.

Pumpkin Applesauce “Pie Filling” Treat

  • Equal parts canned pumpkin and no-sugar-added applesauce
  • Cinnamon (an amount – be a little careful, cinnamon is one of the few spices I have actually managed to add too much of so I tend to add some, taste it, add some more taste it, until I’m happy. You can always add more, you can’t take it out!)
  • Nutmeg or mace (an amount – again add some, taste, add some more)
  • Grass-fed ghee
  • Salt

Heat everything in a pan until you are happy with the temperature and then eat it and try to tell yourself this is like eating pumpkin pie.

Clearly this will never be a recipe blog – to really hammer that home, enjoy a video of Leeloo doing this weird thing with her tongue at breakfast.

She does this every few days but it doesn’t ever stop her from finishing her meal. I’ll be asking the vet about it the next time I have need to contact them, but everything else about her behavior is normal and we had her teeth checked this fall so I don’t feel compelled to pay a vet bill just yet. 

Here she is letting me know that if Juniper doesn’t want to finish her breakfast, she would be happy to finish it for her.

Three-Act Play

Mine

The website was and still is having some technical difficulties (biggest issue was resolved, but now the videos are not embedding themselves without a time-consuming work around…) but that left no time for writing a post so instead enjoy our first production. It is a three-act play with the working tile of “Mine.”

Act I

Act II

Act III

Before you go feeling too bad for Juniper she has had plenty of chances since then to play with the toy and finds it to be far too much work to get the treats out. It is much easier to follow Leeloo at a safe distance and eat all the treats she doesn’t get being too occupied with the toy itself.

Stupid Depression

there is always tomorrow

My whatever the hell is going on with my mental health took a turn into zero motivation to do anything at all land and I wasn’t able to get a decent post together. So instead enjoy this video of Juniper trying to figure out how to get the treats out of the treat d20. Nate made the mistake of shaking out some of the leftover bits in front of her, so now she’s aware there are treats in it but hasn’t quite figured out how to get them out on her own. She isn’t as orally fixated as Leeloo, or as bored or as curious as Leeloo, so I’m not sure she will play with it long enough to ever really figure it out.

 

Videos from 2022

I have been working on a side gig (in addition to the Fleet Farm job) with a friend for some extra money (that barn will not pay for itself!). The other people who were supposed to be working on the project with us have all fallen through so we have been pretty slammed getting everything done which has left no time for a post. So instead enjoy some video highlights from 2022 (plus a bonus video from Jan 1 2023). 

Was not expecting that reaction to the hay boxes. They are old news now though.

You cannot beat breakfast in bed! 

Juniper is a very food motivated horse and she makes this sound not only for breakfast but for “fresh” hay too. Though she is not always eager to leave the shelters to come get her food.

Leeloo loves to help with chores. Here she’s helping me put the hay out. So helpful she is.

Leeloo is a very busy horse so we put together this toy to keep her busy. She didn’t seem to play with it much after this first introdcution but a few weeks later we found it utterly destroyed. Hence moving on to the new toy.

Here Leeloo is demonstrating why getting the haybox lids made is a priority. Stop wasting the hay!

Another napping video – I love the big stretch and sigh.

Sometimes Juniper decides she’s done with breakfast a little early and goes looking for grass under the snow – not sure what she finds but she keeps on looking.

Leeloo also gets excited for breakfast. Now that the snow is deeper she tends to canter up – higher speeds make it easier to plow through snow apparently.

Everything is a toy for Leeloo, even her water. We were bringing them water during the ridiculous cold and blowing snow days since some of the drifts were taller than Juniper. 

Here is Leeloo enjoying her new toy – she loves this thing!

And bonus video from Jan 1 – 2023

Leeloo playing with something that is not a toy because Leeloo likes to play with everything. At one of our previous barns someone asked if they could let Leeloo and their horse run around in the arena unattended and I said no – this is why! 

There are more videos on our YouTube Channel. I’m going to try to upload a new video every Wednesday – we’ll see if that actually happens. I’m still using YouTube to post videos because as far as I know (and I don’t know much) they are one of the few platforms that actually make it pretty easy for content creators to get some share of the ad revenue and as I said above, that barn isn’t paying for itself, so I need every penny I can get!

 

2023 – Here We Come

a variety pack of goals and plans for the year

As I was writing this in my head it was quickly turning into a monstrously long and somewhat overwhelming post – so instead of detailing all of the goals and plans we have for the year I’m going to briefly outline them here and then write a few additional posts with more details about some of the bigger and/or more involved goals and plans.

Here are the things we will be focusing on for 2023:

  • Get that barn! As I said in one of the very first posts, I am an indoor cat with an outdoor hobby. This recent extreme cold snap has also convinced Nate that getting the barn built should indeed be priority number one. Luckily the cost of building materials is finally starting to come down so I am hopeful that 2023 will be the year of our barn!
  • Find that third horse. Leeloo and Juniper still make it clear every day that they would really, really, like a third horse. It is not that they spend all day fighting, they just clearly do not like each other and would rather be with pretty much anyone else. I also want a horse I can reliably ride; Leeloo’s lameness is better but it’s hard to know how much better without a decent place to work her. And then there are the future foals. I want to have at least one more foal, hopefully more than one, and I need a mare worth breeding for that to happen.
  • Get the hay field and pastures planted. I still very much want to be able to make our own hay. There is more to it then planting the appropriate grass, but that is step one and I’m hoping we can get that done this year. I also really would like to stop spraying toxins and poisons onto the land we live on and into the water we drink, which means we need to stop leasing it out for traditional agricultural use.
  • Continue the many projects around our current Plan B horse operation:
    • Finish and install the hay box lids for the existing hay boxes
    • Build another six hay boxes and lids
    • Clear out the second stall in the “barn” shelter and find something to block the wind
    • Get some cameras and lights set up around the horse areas
    • Is that it?! There must be more…
  • Get a handle on my mental health. I have been dealing with depression, anxiety, (and maybe ADHD?) since college and I have mostly been able to manage it with lifestyle choices, but this past year has been extra challenging for me and I need to get it back under control.
  • Get a handle on my physical health. My biggest fear in starting this adventure was that my body would not handle the extra physical strain and I was right to be concerned. My back, neck, shoulders, and wrists have not been doing well and I need to find some solution so this adventure can continue.
  • Figure out the purpose and goals of this website. Why did I create this site? Why am I writing these blog posts? What exactly am I hoping to achieve with these efforts?

I have been thinking about many of these things for a while. For some I already have clear steps in mind, others still need a lot more thought. I however am going to be keeping a new mantra in mind for this year. It came to me while cleaning out the shelters after that ridiculous cold snap and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the mess. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just better. 

No matter what happens I am hopeful that 2023 will be a good year – not perfect, but better!

Where Did The Year Go

2022 – Year-End Recap

I was starting to write a “goals for next year” post and was feeling a bit disheartened by all the things I had wanted to get done this year but haven’t gotten to yet and decided that it would be good for my mental health to take some time to reflect on the many things we did accomplish this year.

Just the decision to bring Leeloo home without having the full barn setup that I had been dreaming of was a big deal. There were many conversations with many people, and a lot of thinking about goals for myself and for Leeloo, before we even got to the starting gate. That process was the main focus of these posts:

Then there was putting the fence up and electrifying it, which took the whole summer. I understand now why people are willing to pay an extra $30,000+ to have a fence installed. The entire fence process is detailed in these posts: (Fence Part 1, Fence Part 2, Fence Part 3, Fence Part 4, Fence Part 5, Fence Part 6, Fence Part 7, Fence Part 8) and I need to remind myself how much work that was or I start feeling like we should have gotten more done over the summer.

Getting the first two shelters, anchoring them, starting to build the third shelter, then deciding that building it just wasn’t going to happen, was also more work and stress than I imagined. It is obvious now that we never could have built them ourselves, we just don’t have those skills yet, but that wasn’t always easy for me to accept. I am very happy now that we opted to buy them already constructed and that for the third one we went with the company that anchors them for you. The drama around the shelters was discussed in these posts: Give Me Shelter – Part 1 and Part 2, Second Interlude, So Much to Do, Mish Mash, Know When to Fold Them,  Hayshed – Delivered.

Finding and installing the round pen wasn’t part of the original plan but I am so glad we have it! We haven’t gotten to use it for its intended purpose very often but, it was so very helpful when we brought the girls home and has been very handy many times since then; including helping to separate Leeloo and Juniper each morning during feeding time. Though we are currently having some issues with Juniper turning into a picky eater; if it isn’t one thing it’s another. We discuss the round pen in Gate Expectations and the Fifth Interlude.

HAY! I had been a little worried about getting decent hay for a price we could afford. One of my long-term goals is to have our own hay field and I still feel that way, finding quality hay has been a challenge particularly since we also need it delivered. Luckily we were able to find a variety of hay for this year, including several different people who would deliver, though the quality has been all over the place. The girls like the most expensive hay best (of course) but now that we finally have some hay nets and some haybox lids they at least can’t toss it all over the ground and waste it (I’m looking at you Leeloo).  Hay post – Fourth Interlude.

Then there was finding Juniper – I didn’t talk much about that process on the website but it took a while for us to find the right pony, even when her only job is to keep Leeloo company, well and be cute of course. Finding that next mare, who will be the cornerstone of whatever comes next for us, is going to take much, much longer (Looking For a Baby Maker) – but now we’re starting to get into future goals and that is for the next post.

The ultimate goal of all of this work was to bring Leeloo and Juniper (once we found her) home, which we did! I sometimes forget what an accomplishment that is – it is the culmination of decades of dreaming. Here are the posts about bringing them home and the fun that has been: Coming Home, First Two Weeks, Sugar is Evil, Copy Paste, She’s Lucky She’s Cute, First Real Snow, Work Harder Not Smarter, Winter Woe-nderland.

One of the things I feel the biggest sense of accomplishment about (now that it is over) was something that we hadn’t planned for at all; dealing with Juniper’s eye infection. That was a huge, huge deal, both in terms of time and money, and I am so very, very, happy we were able to heal it (First Two Weeks, The Joys of Medicating Ponies, Mish Mash, Copy Paste, Juniper Eye Update). There was a very real chance she could have lost that eye and we saved it!

Though we weren’t able to build any shelters, we did get several building projects done including the six hay boxes (First Two Weeks, Projects Galore, Hay Contained) and the three compost bays (How to Make Compost Bays). The lids for the hay boxes are so close to being all done and hopefully we’ll get a chance to finish installing them during this “warm” period.

We’re once again getting into future goals but taking time to look back over this year has done what I had hoped, reset my perspective on what we all accomplished in the last few months and made me feel better. We got a ton done, pushed ourselves way, WAY, out of our comfort zones, and, more often than not, accomplished what we set out to do (even if it almost always took longer and cost more than expected).

One other huge accomplishment that I haven’t written about was getting this website up and running. I have never done anything even remotely like this and every aspect of this website has been a learning experience and has been the cause of a lot of swearing and a lot of crying, mostly in the beginning – the website hasn’t made me cry in weeks. I am very happy with how it has turned out and am really proud of myself.

Looking forward to another year of adventures. And of course Leeloo will be there to help:

 

Merry Christmas

We had hoped to get a holiday card out this year but that didn’t happen (unsurprisingly). So instead enjoy the card from a few years ago. The photo was taken at Leeloo’s previous boarding barn by our friend.

Hopefully we’ll have enough spare time next year to get a card done.

We did however get some videos of Leeloo and Juniper enjoying their Christmas presents. 

Here is Leeloo playing with hers:

 

The treat ball toy was a recommendation from a friend. It took a little practice to figure out what treats she could actually get to come out but we came up with a combination that seems to be working. A mix of oats (to fill in the space around the opening where everything was getting stuck), timothy grass pellets, alfalfa pellets, and cut up apples and/or carrots. This thing keeps Leeloo very occupied for at least a little while every day, which is great.

Here is Juniper enjoying her Christmas present:

 

Juniper’s present is Leeloo being occupied for at least a little while every day.