Honest Scrap Award

 Rocky Mountain Yankee presented me with the Honest Scrap Award.  Thanks!!  

RMY is a SAHM to a beautiful 3 year old little girl and has a 2 year old appaloosa mare named Rosie.  RMY is also my very best friend in the world and very much more like a sister to me.

The Honest Scrap Award comes with a few fun rules that recipients must follow:

1. Recognize your award presenter and link back to their blog in your post.
2. List 10 honest things about yourself.
3. Present this award to 10 admirable bloggers and link to their blogs.
4. Leave a comment on your recipients' blogs to let them know to visit your post to retrieve their award.

Ok, here goes….

1.  I honestly have no clue what color my hair REALLY is – it’s been bleached, dyed, streaked, sun-in’d, etc more times than I can count

2.  I hate housework and am a very sloppy person.

3.  I am a pack rat – I have a tote full of horse magazines from the 90’s and probably still have some from the 80’s as well!!

4.  I am slightly allergic to alcohol.  Half of a seagrams wine cooler and my face breaks out and I get hot and itchy!

5.  Horses are my life, my passion – what I live for.

6.  In recent months I’ve learned that less is more – just because I love horses doesn’t mean I need to have 10!

7.  I struggled with a pretty serious depression over the course of the last 19 months since I lost Buck (and Star).  Getting better but still struggling.

8.  I am TERRIFIED at the idea of starting college in the fall.

9.  I HATE talking on the telephone, to anyone other than RMY anyway!

10.  I love my truck and I HATE letting anyone else drive it!

Wow!  That wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d imagined it would be!  Now it's your turn!  Since RMY and I read a lot of the same blogs, finding different ones than hers is going to be tricky but I’ll try!!  Ok so there’s only 5 but they’re good ones! 

1. Amys Training Diary
2. Of Horses and Men
3. Saving Faith
4. Success In The Show Pen
5. Diary of the Overanxious Horse Owner

Rowdy had a bad day.

Today my poor little Rowdy had a bad day.  For the last week and a half or so I’ve been letting Rowdy and Buddy graze on the lawn because our mower is broken and I have a hay field in my front yard! (not to mention I hate mowing grass).  Well for the entire time that they’ve been out there, our yard cart has been sitting in the same exact spot.  Today I spent the majority of the day in the barn cleaning and reorganizing things, I was sitting in the barn messing with one of the gate latches and the kids were playing as usual.  I heard this “funny” noise but didn’t think much of it until one of the kids came running, SCREAMING “MOM ROWDY YOU HAVE TO COME”  So I go running, thinking that he got out or something.  I’m not sure what happened, but he ran into the edge of the garden cart hard enough to move the damn thing!!! 

At first glance I was thinking it was just a scrape….and then I got closer!  The edge of the cart actually skun a section of his side.  When I tried to lift the skin to see how bad it was, there was a hole in the “meat” – YIKES!!  I yelled for Vince and grabbed his halter.  He didn’t want to move at first, and then followed me like the good kid he is.  I put him on the cross ties and Vince stood with him while I made a mad dash for the house to get the vets number – I MUST remember to program it into my cell phone!!

Here is what it looked like before the vet visit.

The vet got here about an hour and a half after I called and took a look.  Rowdy was being a bit of a twirp and Dr T decided that he was named appropriately.  She sedated him and got started cleaning it out.  She was a bit worried about a hole thru the actual chest cavity, fortunately it doesn’t look like that is the case so she finished cleaning it up and got busy stitching.  She feels that he will heal with little to no trouble.  She gave me instructions on drainage and what to look for as far as problems go, and left me with antibiotics.

Here is the after picture:

And here is his poor pathetic face just after Dr T left.

What a week!!

Wow what a week it’s been!  Things are about back to normal after the fire, we passed the Fire Chief and Code Enforcement Officer’s inspection and were given the ok to move back in officially.  It’s been an exhausting week and I’m glad it’s over!!

The weekend before the fire, Tosh and I took Skippy and Buddy over to the Wildlands and had an AWESOME ride!!  All of the horses had pedicures the Friday before and Skippy also had her shots that same Friday as well so Tosh and I were just itching to get out and just RIDE! 

Tosh had never been over there so I don’t think she knew what to expect, but I also think she was pleasantly surprised!  We headed down the main road at about 9:20am, and decided to take the first road off to the right that we came across – unfortunately I don’t have my map in front of me so I can’t give the names!!  Anyway, Buddy was convinced that the barrier that we had to walk around was going to eat him but aside from that, he was his good “old” reliable self.  When we rounded the first turn the trail went practically straight up!!  I figured it would go up and level off, so we headed up…to our surprise it went up and up and up some more!  Poor Skippy was huffing and puffing and we were joking about her having a heart attack.  We took it easy, continued up but basically just let the horses pick their pace and when they wanted to stop we let them.  I saw a couple snakes and Tosh was convinced that there was a growling monster that was going to come after us at one point!  It was kind of funny!! 

We got to the top of the trail and started back down, the trail had been basically a wide road of sorts, but it headed into the trees and we were thankful for the shade but a little apprehensive about losing the trail until we realized that it was all marked *duh*  Buddy was great at navigating the trees/rocks/mud and had no problems at all being the leader.  Skippy has a very slow lazy walk where Buddy has a ground eating walk so we kept ditching poor Skippy and Tosh.  We came across one muddy spot that Buddy wasn’t sure he liked but he got over it with a little convincing.  The water we came to though was another story.  The doof was having NO part of crossing the water, not being bad really just planted his feet – his hind feet were walking but his front feet were planted firm, at one point I thought for sure we were going to just topple over because it seemed like all four feet were in one set of tracks!  Skippy didn’t want to cross either so Tosh ended up getting down, I would have gotten down but Tosh volunteered first knowing how much anxiety I have about the whole mounting process!  So she got Skip across seriously this “water crossing” was a trickle of water on some rocks – NOTHING major.  Buddy however wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t going to be swept away by some raging rapids or something and I swear the horse walked on his hind legs several steps and then he LAUNCHED us across the stream!  I was NOT prepared for it and in the jostling my horn bag came off the horn and landed on the ground, which Buddy promptly stomped on….how he didn’t break my camera or my phone is beyond me – he stepped directly on the pocket that they were in!!

This was taken right after we got thru the raging rapids (hahahaha).  Yes, Tosh is a dork.  :)  She readjusted her girth some and we let the horses eat for a minute or two and then headed on down the trail.  We got to the bottom and had a decision to make, go left and head back to the gate and our trailer or go right and go down to the other gate and THEN go back the main road back to the trailer.  We decided that the horses were doing very well, both had gotten a little sweaty going up that trail but had cooled off again coming thru the woods and both were happy so we decided to head to the right.  I wanted to check out the parking at that gate anyway since it’s closer to my house but the parking area is very small.  The only other time I’ve seen it was with Zephyrs Mom in March with a million feet of snow on the ground LOL

Tosh and I had a blast talking about old times and growing up and how we DEFINITELY needed to do this more often.  When we walked thru one of the LifeFlight Helicopter Landing areas, we scared a deer and got to watch it jump away.  Neither horse cared about it, Buddy did kind of hesitate a minute and then just continued on!  I also joked about it being great that Life Flight would be able to land and rescue me when I got splattered on the ground!!  We made it to the gate, scoped out the parking lot and then headed back.  At one point, we branched off onto another side road to take some pics of the view.  When we walked up the little road, there was another vehicle barrier so we were just going to go around, Buddy had other ideas.  He’d been certain that the first barrier was going to eat him, this one however, was just a hurdle to walk over.  He truly is a dream horse for me.  I find myself comparing him to Buck constantly which I know isn’t the best thing to do but I can’t help myself! 

 

When we got back out on the main road, I thought I heard another horse whinny but wasn’t sure.  Tosh was certain it was that creature that she was sure was somewhere in the woods coming after us!  Buddy started whinnying and we were wondering what he was so worked up over thinking he was being foolish and was whinnying at his own scent….but then I heard the whinny again.  This time I was certain that it was another horse and we were wondering where they were.  About 5 minutes later I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a beautiful bay coming up behind us.  When we all eventually caught up together, we had nice off and on conversation.  I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember the lady’s name, but I do remember that this was their first solo outing and that her mare is blind in her left eye – it didn’t slow her down at all! 

We kind of rode together but not really the rest of the way out – Buddy handled the bridge just fine and even was fine about the “pony eating rocks” that he’d been terrified of on our last ride over there!  We got off and loosened girths and got the horrible helmets off our heads and walked out.  We rode for about 4 hours that day and had a wonderful time!!  The horses did fabulously and neither of us can wait to do it again!! 

I had been wanting to show Buddy this summer but have decided that the best thing for both Bud and I is to do lots of trail riding and just having fun for now.  I’m in no hurry and definitely don’t want to push him too hard.  He is such a dream to have and he is so very loving. 

This evening I got on him for the first time since our wildlands ride and he was so good.  I had him all saddled and had gone to grab his boots, he was standing tied to the trailer and when I came out of the barn I literally ran into my dad!  He’d come down to check out my garden so I left Buddy tied, after all it won’t kill him to stand patiently!!  He stood like a champion NO pawing while dad and I walked to the garden and scoped it out and discussed what I need to do as far as fertilizer and pea fence and such.  When we were done with that, we stopped and chatted with a very chatted “Moo” – who was highly ticked that his dinner was not yet in his dish and then Dad went home and I went back to finish what I’d started with Buddy.  Of course, by this point, it was about bed time for the kids and I wasn’t feeling all that great so I wasn’t sure I really WANTED to get on but he was all saddled, and booted and ready so I decided what the heck!  I needed to try out my new stirrups anyway so even just a quick spin was better than nothing!! 

I took his halter off and he decided to be a bugger and he went backwards, I had the reins around his neck so still had him so he couldn’t get away but he tried.  I got his bridle on, and for the first time I put my foot in the stirrup from the ground and swung myself up/on without hesitation or anxiety!!  YAY!!  We rode at a walk just in the driveway, we ventured out into the road and then trotted up the driveway and then back down the drive and up the road to moms driveway and back down past the driveway and across the road and back to the house.  Nothing major but these are all major hurdles for me!  His transitions are getting so much better even with limited work and with just a little reminding, his backing is getting better.  I’m trying to get him to “Whoa” from just my voice/seat but so far I still need my hands as well.  I’m sure it will come in time and in the mean time he still has brakes just not VOICE ones!!  When we were all done, I got down, loosened his girth and while I was taking his boots off, he was nuzzling my head.  I think he loves me as much as I love him!  I had his saddle all unfastened, his boots off and just said “c’mon” and he followed me into the barn and stood nicely while I put it all away, I led him into his tall and he tipped his head into me for me to take the bridle off and then was patient for dinner.  I think he likes to work – I do believe I’ve found what I’ve been looking for.

Ok, enough babbling from me for tonight!!! I’m going to include some more pictures here as well :)  enjoy!!

 

Fencing Comparisons

A couple of recent conversations with friends and my own personal fencing issues sent me on a quest to research different fencing products.  Growing up, we had a combination of smooth metal electric wire and barbed wire.  (go ahead, gasp, I can hear it already)  Aside from ONE injury in which Buck for some unknown reason tried to jump INTO the trees (no joke, he jumped into a thick wood line) and landed on top of the barbed wire, 3 strands no less) and cut both front pasterns, injuries that looked horrid but he recovered fully from with no issues whatsoever, he was fine.  The wire of course, did not break – but anyway, aside from that one injury we never had any issues.  With that said, we had a relatively HUGE pasture, well 2 large pastures, only had 2 horses and a couple cows.

After a couple conversations with Zephyrs Mom and Rocky Mountain Yankee I started looking at different fencing options for my field now.  Due to neighbor issues and family crap, my pasture space has changed and that leaves me with some issues fence wise.  Add to that a neighbor/relative who insists on screwing with my fence and I’m at the end of my rope.  In years past, I’ve used electric rope, electric tape and regular metal wire.  All have had pluses and all have had minuses.  Right now, my fencing is a concoction of all of the above!! 

ZM and I were talking about the risks of Z getting hurt in the field that is to be his summer pasture this year with metal wire.  Now we are talking about regular tensile electric fence wire, not high tensile wire or barbed wire.  My argument was that it breaks easily, almost too easily in my opinion and she was afraid that it being metal wire it would slice him.  RMY and I were talking about childhood fencing and she pointed out that she never had an issue with it with her horses when we were kids.

Which brings me to this – I am not picking any one brand, just a sampling of different ropes, wires and tapes.

2” Mega Poly Tape – this particular one has a breaking point of 790lbs. 

 2” Mega Reinforced Tape – this is the same as above but has more wires in it – it’s breaking strength is 1045lbs.

                           

Standard 1/4” Rope – breaking strength is 850lbs.

Electric Fence Wire – breaking strength…..125-145lbs!!!  This actually shocked me. (haha right?)

Now what does all of this mean?  Nothing really!  BUT!  Personally, I will still continue to use the standard, metal electric fence wire.  It’s break strength is so much lower that I personally feel that the risk of injury (from running thru the fence at least) is lower simply because it is going to break a LOT faster than those poly ropes/tapes/wires. 

Now please – this is all just MY PERSONAL OPINION on what I personally want to use – what each person uses is their own business but I found this to be interesting information and wanted to share it. 

FIRE!!

Fire has always been one of my biggest fears.  On Monday that fear came to life for me.  I was sitting here in the middle of the afternoon, had just started a load of laundry to wash and smelled something hot.  I had just used the tea kettle on the stove so I thought that it was just something on the burner.  I dismissed the smell until it didn’t go away – and as I was getting more concerned, the power started flashing thru-out the house and I heard a funny noise.

I got up and went to towards the washing machine and heard the sound of electrical arching – I hate that sound.  I was stupidly wondering why the hell a breaker hadn’t popped when whatever it was shorted, and then realized I should probably do something other than stand in a panic!!  I grabbed the main breaker switch and flipped it off but the noise continued and I freaked the rest of the way out!  I grabbed the dog and ran for my mom’s house.

I called 911 from moms and then ran home again to move my truck and my brothers car.  Waiting for the fire department was horrible.  Because we live in a trailer, 2 towns responded – as most people know, when trailers catch fire, they GO!  Thankfully in our case there were a couple of things in our favor. 

#1 I thru the main breaker almost immediately

#2 the source of the fire was electrical and those electrical wires were not against the floor of the trailer, they were laying on the cement pad under the trailer.

Here are a couple of pictures - 

Apparently what happened was, before we moved in, my grandmother had an addition built on the back side of the trailer.  The people who did it were morons anyway due to various other things that they screwed up when they did other work.  Anyway – for one reason or another, the house did not have a proper (or “up to code”) vent for the dryer.  The vent was a plastic hose that was blowing directly onto our water holding tank.  The dryer has also for all of these years been blowing on the electrical wires which dried them out to the point that the main electrical wire melted thru and caught fire. 

Thankfully the damage isn’t that bad and we have a great electrician who happened to have just spent the weekend camping with Vince, Dad, Uncle Doug and Grampy Al!!  He was here yesterday afternoon and we got it all put back together! 

HOWEVER!  Because of a couple of code violations (the dryer vent for one) we have to have an inspection by the code enforcement officer before we can officially move back in.  We have to have hard wired smoke detectors, which were originally in here, but they were so SUPER sensitive that at some point not long after we moved in I took them down and now I can not locate them.  We DO have battery powered ones but apparently that’s not good enough so we have to fix that, the dryer has to be vented properly and we had to have an “illegal” wiring job fixed – that part has already been fixed and we’ve bought the proper vent for the dryer and will get new smoke detectors tomorrow. 

We are taking this opportunity to completely clean out the house and try to have a “fresh start” – I’ve been attacking each room with bleach and spic n span!  Nothing like a very thorough spring cleaning right?  Hopefully we can have everything together by Friday so we can get the C.E.O. out here and we can move back in.  For now, we’re living in a camper trailer in the driveway!  :)

Farrier today

I’ve had a difficult time finding a reliable farrier who shows up as planned, doesn’t have some crazy “contract” – I spoke with one gentleman who’s prices were steep in my opinion, but he’d been highly recommended so I was willing to pay double most others rates and then he informs me of his 4 week trim requirement and if you want your horse done further apart, you have to pay $10/week until he gets here!  Um yeah, even in summer on great grass my horses have NEVER had to be done more than 6 weeks apart – but he assures me when he comes for our first appointment that he’ll explain why it’s necessary to do it on a 4 week schedule.  I’m sorry – I just got an “off” vibe from the whole conversation. 

Oops off on a tangent there!  So between reliability issues, “contract” issues, distance issues and just in general getting a farrier to RESPOND to my contact tries has left me feeling VERY frustrated.

I was put in contact with a nice lady who I’m told does great work and her rates are very reasonable and we were able to make an appointment for today!  Tosh is having Skip vetted this am and then will be over so Skippy can be done too!! 

On another note, in discussing different fencing types with a friend I did some research and was a little surprised but what I found – I really want to do a blog about the info I found in case it could help anyone else!!  Not that that many people read this thing LOL!  I also need to do some comparison pics of Rowdy and Buddy – I’ve switched their feed and I just opened up the back pasture on Wednesday – want to do some “now” “later” photos.  Rowdy is also doing the Purina Feed Challenge – if he blooms the way Buddy did we’ll be in great shape!!! 

Happy Dance!!

This may be a stupid thing to be so excited about but I can’t help myself!!  I have been debating going to a horse show next Sunday…..do Halter and showmanship and the western walk/trot classes.  Problem…..I haven’t actually INTENTIONALLY trotted on Buddy!!!  The ground is so sloppy in my little “ring” that I just haven’t wanted to push it…..course, I haven’t even RIDDEN in a week or more so was thinking that I wouldn’t bother with the show…

Until today.  I got my show bridle in the mail from Meg today which just added to my “show fever” and I decided to suck it up and get on him and see what happens.  He is by no means the rambunctious sort, he’s pretty laid back and lazy mostly but he hasn’t been ridden and I was having a case of the “nerves” (surprise surprise right?) so I lunged him first – it would almost be more comforting sometimes if he’d explode and act like a fool on the line but NOOOOOO not Buddy.  Buddy walks and trots like he’s told.  He’ll lope too if I ask him enough but he’s perfectly happy to walk.  *sigh*  Today we had NO fight over the bucket.  I walked over, set it down, climbed up on it and climbed into the saddle.  No ifs ands or buts about it he couldn’t have cared any less.  That’s one hurdle we’re getting pretty good with thankfully.  So we walked off and did a few serpentines and circles in both directions, I asked for a trot and got NOTHING. 

My stirrups were uneven and it was throwing me off balance so I stopped him and fixed my stirrups FROM HIS BACK with the reins just laid across his neck!!!  This boy is fantastic for a 3 year old!!  So level headed.  I walked him a few more minutes with my stirrups in the better position and asked for a trot again….still nothing so I stopped him and asked him to back up.  NOTHING.  I don’t know if it was the different bit or if he was just having a ……moment LOL.  (I realized when trying to set up my new headstall that the bit attachment wouldn’t work with my Myler full cheek snaffle so switched him to a copper rollered D ring)

So I realized just how much work we had ahead of us.  *sigh*  We did a few more walk/whoa transitions with me asking for him to back and by the 3rd transition he was backing very easily and relaxedly (is that a word?? LOL)  I asked him to walk off again and in the driest, least mud sucky part of the pen asked for a trot – he did it and once he got going, he relaxed and did VERY well.  We’re going to keep working on it but I’m happy!!

After a few more times around the pen, we headed out across the field to the short woods trail that goes up around back of my parents property.  There’s a board and bucket at the opening of the trail and he was convinced it was going to eat him.  He was so worried about that that he didn’t notice the downed tree branch he was about to step on so when the “fingers” of it touched him he kind of jumped and snorted but he did well and kept on going.  I hit a branch with my head and it broke off and hit his butt – he jumped a little but kept on going.  There are a lot of low hanging trees from all the heavy snow/ice this winter – I meant to ask dad about that because I figured that they would have straightened back up again but maybe not.  When we got to the top field at dads I was a bit nervous because there are some tires, an ice shack and a boat that are on the edge of the one field and for some reason EVERY horse is spooky in that area – even BUCK was!!  He was ok until a bird flew up and he kind of spun out from under me but I didn’t fall.  My right foot came out of the stirrup and I slid left a little but when I said Whoa he did and then we continued on. 

We went and visited with my dad for a minute and even dad said he was a nice horse – anyone who knows him knows that although he bought Buck for me and never complained about hauling my ass to a horse show all thru school, he has a low opinion of horses and given my recent LONG list of injuries that are horse related, he keeps harping on me to find just ONE good one that can be trusted and that won’t kill me……he never hesitates to tell me that the horse I’m on is a nutbag but he said that Buddy’s a “good one”.  Now don’t anyone ask him if he said that, we all know that he’ll DENY DENY DENY!!  LOL