Finish the sentence……

I took a walk out thru the pasture today to check out the grass.  The field has been so over grazed for so long that although the grass is growing in, it’s not ready for the horses yet, I figure in another couple weeks I’ll be ok to turn them out on it, but for right now, I’m going to hold off – this is something I have trouble with and part of the reason it’s been so over grazed – I have had problems in years past keeping a hay source past the end of April but my wonderful hay lady informed me she still has over 3000 squares and that I shouldn’t worry about hay!!  YAY!  Anyway, so with a steady hay source, it’s not an urgent need to get them out on grass so ….we wait!

But the point here was – I was walking back thru Buddy’s pen, and he was following me.  I stop, he stops. I walk, he walks.  I turn, he turns.  He and I have a connection that I haven’t had with any horse other than Buck.  It is kind of bittersweet for me but it led me to start questioning what is different for me with Buddy than with all the others that I haven’t been able to connect with since Buck.  Buddy and I have a partnership very similar to what Buck and I had.  He trusts me, I trust him and we’re happy….the key to that seems to be understanding.  I understand that he is a youngster and wants to please me but may still get scared and he seems to understand that I’m a “fraidy cat” and takes pretty good care of me.

So – finish this sentence…….Partnership with my horse means…...?  What? 

“Sir Preston”

I’m not a cat person….in fact, I swore I wouldn’t have any more cats.  We already have 2, Spaz the 11 year old grumpy brat that Vince got for me right after we were married and Kitty the who knows how old monster cat that someone dumped in our garage a year ago.  I especially swore I would never have a long haired cat.

Friday evening I went to my ex-sister in laws house with my brother to drop the kids off, she was telling me about a cat she was given that beats up her other cat and her 2 kittens so she was looking for a new home for him.  I asked to see him, fully expecting to dislike him simply because of his long hair.  You see, Preston is a Persian.  A 6 year old, neutered, lovable, cuddlable, dog-like cat!  He adores attention of any sort, if you look at him and say his name he purrs!  He has that smoosh face and the runny eyes, Vince says he looks like Oscar the Grouch. 

ANYWAY!  My ex-SIL and I talked and we decided I’d take him and see how he gets along with my cats and Ginger – if it doesn’t work out she’ll take him back until she can find him another home, but I have to say, this cat is the coolest.  I’m still getting used to the hair, and another concern was Ethan’s asthma and my allergies but both of us are doing just fine with him. 

It also occurred to me that his name is really “pressed in” ha ha very funny….he reminds me of the Fancy Feast cat and is just too regal for such a name so he’s “Preston” although I do keep catching myself calling him “Winston” LOL  As I type, he’s laying behind my head on the back of my chair.  He rocks and although he’s a high maintenance cat (brushing the fur and cleaning the eyes) he’s a keeper.  There has been some growling and boundaries have been set as to who gets to sleep where but for the most part it seems to be peaceful with a “you leave me alone I’ll leave you alone” attitude.  I don’t have any pictures of him yet, but I will get some VERY soon…..oh btw, he has the neatest blue eyes! 

Lysh 1 – Fear 0

Ok, so I’ll try to make this a not too long update!  I really need to be more regular about writing on here but I haven’t been feeling all that great for a while now.  First on that, Dr says CT is clear, YAY I DO have a brain.  He says the headaches, dizziness etc that I was having trouble with are all from the concussion and could take up to a month to go away….maybe more.  The good news there is, the headaches have lessened and for the most part, the dizziness is gone!!  The anxiety meds he put me on are working, after a full on anxiety attack I decided it was time to do something about it…that is NOT fun. 

Louie is still here and we are working on some respect issues.  I had a long talk with his owner, she wants him to be here with me and asked that I keep trying as long as I’m comfortable with him….so, we’re going back to very very basics.  Lunging and ground manners.  He works very well on the lungeline although he did show me his butt the other day and kick out, he quickly learned that would NOT be tolerated and hasn’t done it again.  I do think he has some pain issues with his back so I’m going to try some massage work with him and look into a chiropractor appointment for him.

Lucy and Rowdy are basically hanging out being pasture pets although Rowdy is working on leading manners, he’s been rushing me and pressure on his nose has been met with arching his neck and half rearing as he blows by….so we’re working on that he still looks like a wooly beast too.  Lucy is being started with some regular lunge work and saddling.  I have someone who thinks she might like to lease her for the summer so we’ll see how that works out.

Now for the biggest news!  Buddy and I are doing tremendously together.  I love this horse more and more with every passing day.  I took him to the vet on Monday, although he didn’t want to get on the trailer to go, he wasn’t bad just testing me to see how far he could push I think.  He was a bit fidgety when we first walked into Dr Tanja’s barn, but he settled down and was a good boy for her.  Her S.O. complimented him and said he was a real nice looking horse which made me happy.  He got his Coggins drawn, and after much discussion he got his EWTWNV, Rabies, Flu and Rhino vaccines.  I have never given WNV, have heard too many bad things mainly in regards to breeding animals and it wasn’t a risk I wanted to take when we were breeding but Dr Tanja feels it is necessary and I am of the frame of mind that if the vet/farrier thinks it is necessary then that is what I do.  This was my first visit with Dr Tanja and I have to say, I love her and hope she never leaves the area, at least not while I’m still here!!  We discussed in depth having Rowdy gelded which will happen very soon.  I will also be having everyone elses vaccines updated in the next couple weeks.  Buddy was good getting back on the trailer, and stood quietly while I took care of the bill and Dr Tanja and I had a long conversation.  He rode home quietly and although he did get a bit sore he was no worse for the wear as far as the shots went!  Dr Tanja gave me the go ahead (and much encouragement) to ride him on a regular basis, she said studies have show that consistent, easy work from 2 1/2 years old on has proven to be the best thing for good, substantial bone growth.  She said it would benefit him to be worked 5-6 days a week – 4 to 5 days of light work with 1 to 2 days of heavier work.  YAY!! 

So now for the fear count that is the title of this post!  I am working thru my fear issues a little at a time, working consistently with these guys is helping with that, although the thought of actually getting on Louie still makes me feel a bit panicky.  Tonight was a work night for Buddy.  He was a bit goofy about me getting on, I don’t have a mounting block so I use a bucket….always have at least as long as I’ve been riding him.  Well he was convinced that the bucket was going to eat him!  so after he jerked me off the bucket acting like a goober I went to work convincing him that the bucket wouldn’t kill him.  After that session he stood still and let me on him no problem.  Earlier this week, Vince helped me change my round pen (which I’d used maybe twice in the last 6 months) into a 60x75 square pen so that is where we worked tonight.  The footing is a bit sloppy after the mucky nasty rain yesterday so we were just mainly walking although we did trot a little.  At one point, he would not walk along the back fence without turning his head to the inside and trying to walk towards the gate…..he was ONLY doing it when we went Clockwise so I started working him just on that stretch, circling in the corners and going right back to “the rail” back and forth.  Just as I was getting him settled down finally and not fighting me to the inside, I had him too close to the fence and got my foot/stirrup caught on one of the posts….his head came up and he flew sideways.  My foot came out of the stirrup and in compensating for the lack of stirrup I almost threw myself off of his right shoulder!  But when I said WHOA he stopped and let me collect my stirrup, gather up the reins and then we went about our lesson.  YAY ME!  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get scared, it scared me but I didn’t lose it – and yes I know this is a very little incident but this is an incident that would have sent me over the edge a few weeks ago!

A long 12 days…long update

When I posted last I’d just cracked myself in the head with the post pounder.  Vince left for work the next day, and I was recovering just fine.  Dizzy and headaches but nothing too serious.  Since the holiday swap, instead of having pretty even paychecks, he gets one for 12 days and 1 for 2 – talk about a budgeting nightmare!!  At least where I’m concerned!  So we get our bills paid with the big check, and the small one pays the jeep, gets him home and gives me grocery/hay money for the 2 weeks until the big check….only this time, something was messed up in the payroll department and he only got paid for one day – so enough to pay the jeep and get him home……but no grocery/hay money for me!  YIKES!  He has been trying to straighten that out – but as of yet, still no check – at least he gets paid in a couple days!! 

So, with the pay mess, and my dizziness/headaches it was a L O N G vacation for me with the kids.  On Wednesday or Thursday, I took Louie for a nice ride – our first real “road ride” and things went fabulously!  My anxiety/fear didn’t get the better of us and I was very hopeful for a fantastic summer with him.  On Saturday, Louie and I set off for a quick loop over near the Lodge.  The wind was blowing and I wasn’t sure how it would go but we headed out anyway.  Things were going FANTASTICALLY, the wind was blowing the trash at the house on top of the hill that the car drove thru last summer, and other then a little snort, he couldn’t have cared.  There were LOTS of cars that passed and his “goosiness” from the first road ride was gone.  He seemed alert, happy, forward and eager to get out there and GO SOMEWHERE and so was I!  We got passed the scary guardrail and the culvert that pours water, passed the dam and pumphouse and headed down the camp road.  I took him to the water to see if he wanted a drink or to splash….he was afraid of his reflection LOL so we proceeded down the trail and I figured I’d tackle the water another day.  We got about 2/3rds of the way down the camp road when a rooster crowed and our great ride when to hell in a handbasket!!

He was NOT going to go any further.  I tried circling, I tried backing.  I even tried just letting him stand there a minute or two and THAT didn’t work.  So I went with plan B – go back the way we’d come and take the main road into the lodge, explore those trails and then head back this camp road so he was approaching it from another angle and maybe would be better…..except when we got to the end of the road, his head came up, his pace picked up and he stopped listening to me.  I circled him once and got him to stop.  We stood for a minute and then I asked him to go to the right towards the lodge.  He spun a circle and we almost fell over.  (keep in mind I’m still dizzy anyway!) I got him stopped and asked him to go back down the camp road, he spun a tight circle and tried to rip the reins from my hand and I decided I couldn’t fight him – not there and then, I didn’t feel safe.  Once we started towards home he was very forward but not trying to jerk me out of the saddle anymore so I thought “ok just something to work on” – until we met a car, there were kids yelling and running on our right, a car and a truck in front of us and the steep bank and pumphouse on our left…..talk about terrifying for me!  I’m on a horse that will NOT stop not even for a minute, he’s dancing side to side, there are cars coming and I can’t get him stopped so I can get down, I can’t get out of the road……I had these images going thru my head of all the bad things that could happen…..I pulled tighter on the left rein, kicked my feet out of the stirrups and bailed.  The cars weren’t going to give me a single second to get him under control and sped past and he was so wound up that he was walking on me and dragging me towards home.  By the time we got home I was so wound up it wasn’t funny – I yelled at Tosh and Dan and my kids and just wanted to scream.

On Sunday, I decided it was a good idea to take Buddy out for our first real trail ride BUT he’s never been on the road and that’s not something I wanted to tackle alone so I loaded him up and took him to the Wildlands.  He loaded like the champ that he is, was a bit fidgety until we got going but nothing serious.  When we got there, there was only one other car in the parking lot so parking was a snap, I got parked, unloaded him and walked him around a minute to try to get a handle on his “mood”.  He was alert but not nervous so we went to the trailer and I tied him and set to tacking him up (I’d brushed him before we left the house) – he was great for being in a new place and our first trip out together and he was ALONE!  I got him all tacked and we walked around the gate to find a place to get on.  At the rock I wanted to use to get on he was being blowy and snorty and I admittedly got a little nervous and decided to walk for a minute.  We headed off down the road and I found a stump that was easily accessible and safe for him to go completely around.  Now mounting is my bad spot, we all know this by now.  It took me a minute, but I got up there and off we went.  He was very very forward but responsive to me and other than whinny a steady stream, he was great!  We stayed on the main road as I’d forgotten the map that I’d printed off and had forgotten to check the box at the gate to see if there were any in there.  There was one spot on the trail where the wind was blowing a tree just right that he was convinced there might be a pony eating monster, but other than stopping dead in his tracks he had NO real spook.  I just kept talking to him and he relaxed and on we went.  When we were getting towards the point where I was thinking we’d turn around, we came upon some HUGE, and I mean HORRIFYINGLY HUGE PONY EATING MONSTERS!!  LOL At least Buddy thought so!  In reality, they were two decent sized boulders that mark either side of a branch road…..I didn’t have the heart to tell Buddy as he was side stepping and snorting to the far right of the road that there was an even bigger boulder just inside the tree line!!  That time it took a little convincing but he finally walked forward.  He was so busy worrying about the monsters though, he never noticed when we walked over a bridge!  We got to the far side and turned around.  Stood still a few minutes and then started our climb home.  When we got back to the gate, I got off and walked him to the trailer to untack.  He was a sweat covered mess but he still had plenty of energy.  I called my mom to let her know I was still alive and would be heading home soon, and took him for a small walk to see if he wanted to roll.  He didn’t, so we walked back to the trailer and he hopped right on and we came home.  It was a great day – and we both had a blast!!

**I started this blog  TWO WEEKS ago and just finished typing it now…..sorry about that cause now I’m going to do another one that will probably be long too!!

Karma, Stupidity and Concussions

Monday was my birthday, my 30th birthday *sigh*.  But, as most everyone knows, birthdays on a farm, even one as small as mine are just another day – there’s stuff to be done!  So!  Vince went to pick the 2 older boys up from a sleepover party and I went to work moving some fence to keep the horses out of the belly deep mud.  I was using the steel T-post pounder which in general is a safe thing to do, loud but not dangerous.  Unless your name is Alysha.  I was pounding in the second post, it wasn’t going in despite my pounding and yes, I was getting frustrated – I looked up and away when I heard a car coming around the corner and wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.  I slammed the pounder onto the post but it was at an angle so it caught the top of the post and the pounder came backwards…..right onto the top of my head. 

I dropped the pounder, hit my knees with a string of not so nice things coming from my mouth at the top of my lungs, bawling my eyes out as the blood poured down my face.  I couldn’t see straight, I thought I heard the blood rushing in my ears but that turned out to be Lucy wuffling in my ear.  Anyway, the car I’d looked up and seen thank heavens was Vince and the kids coming home, Vince came in behind me and Ethan jumped the stock fence and came to the front.  I asked Ethan to go get me paper towels quickly and Vince not realizing that I’d asked Ethan tried to get James to go get papertowels….James though was too engrossed in his video game to even realize anything was amiss!!  Ken just kept trying to hold my hand.  Vince helped me to my feet, and I left the pasture to sit for a minute and try to gather my wits.  I got myself in the house to try to clean up my face some, I had blood in my eye – Vince pounded in the posts for me and then came in to help me clean up and inspect the cut. 

Turns out the cut was VERY small but my lord it bled.  It bled more than the back of my head did when I fell of Doc and THAT cut needed 10 staples for heaven sake!!  We finally got the bleeding stopped, and I’m feeling better but I’m dealing with the dizziness, headaches and nausea that’s typical for concussion type injuries.  From what I’ve read, due to my prior concussion, it could very well take me longer to heal this time around so even though the injury was less severe the effects could hang around longer.  :(  I never do things half way!!

Now for the karma part of the story.  Last fall, I asked Vince to put in a post for me where the fence was sagging.  He was driving the post into the frozen ground and went to give it some extra oomph and somehow he did the SAME THING I did…..only, at first I hadn’t realized what he’d done and I LAUGHED AT HIM!!!  SO!  Later, after I’d stopped sobbing and the bleeding had stopped – I leaned on him and said “it really really hurts”…..his response?  “It’s not so funny when it happens to you huh?”

OH!  I almost forgot the best part.  As I was sitting on the bed crying and holding a wad of papertowels on my head, he sent the boys to the jeep for their “stuff” – I had to close my eyes and opened them to a dozen roses, my hunting/fishing license (I’d asked for that for my birthday) and a nice book on raising beef cattle.  Happy Birthday :) 

Busy Day!!

Today is James’ 10th birthday.  *sigh* Nothing makes a mom feel older then having her oldest child hit the double digits.  I did tell him that I will not be turning 30 on Monday therefore he has to stay 9.  He didn’t like that.

Ethan has been having a hard time at school and we finally got some of the story from him last night after getting bits and pieces from Shawn.  I told E that I’d call his teacher today but before I had a chance to she was calling me.  See, Ethan is being bullied at school.  This has made him an emotional wreck.  So I spoke with his teacher about it and she thanked me and promised to speak with the teachers of the student(s) involved.  Crisis solved….right?  WRONG!  I got a phone call (that I missed) from the school nurse just after lunch time.  The message she left said that E had gotten hurt on the playground and was ok, but that she wanted to speak with me.  So I returned her call, only to find that she wasn’t there.  The secretary transferred me to E’s teacher though.  Apparently while on the playground, some of the kids were out of the teachers sight (down a hill or something?) and E got kicked in what he calls his “wrongspot”.  The solution?  E was told to stay by the teacher at recess and not to go play out of the teachers sight.  Excuse me?  What is wrong with this picture?  HE gets kicked and harassed and HE is the one who has to stay by the teacher???  Grammy got more of the story out of him tonight and tomorrow Grammy and Daddy are going to talk to the Principal.  *sigh* it’s never ending.

NOW!  Trailer progress.  I got the rest of the sanding pads that I needed this morning and got the entire inside of the trailer sanded.  I started in on the primer only to discover that one can didn’t go NEARLY as far as I thought it would.  Back to the hardware store I went to get FOUR more cans – I think in total I ended up using only 3 total so I have some extra BUT it’ll go to good use on the outside.  I ended up with plenty of it on my face, in my ears……I’ve got a lot of it up my nose.  *sigh*  I was asked more than once if I’d been tanning lately!! 

 

Dad is going to do the white tomorrow when he gets home from work.  I’m getting super excited!!

We had a small birthday dinner for James at mom and dads.  Vince and I bought him his first gun as his gift from us and figured that letting him have it tonight was best as opposed to Saturday with about 20 kids running around!!!  We had a good evening and I got some cute pictures which I’ll try to post tomorrow.  I dug the old homemade stilts out of the barn and practically broke my ankle trying to use them.  Dan (with his still screwed up ankle) got on the stupid things and although he did a couple of Goofy’s moves, he did a great job walking on them.  Then of course, competitive nature won out and he and dad bet $3 on who could go the farthest.  Dad won so Dan decided it was double or nothing LOL  Dan STILL lost.  Anyway, like I said, I do have some pictures and will try to post them tomorrow – tonight I’m exhausted and ready to just fall dead asleep.

Horse Trailer Transformation

When I get something in my head, I tend to have a one track mind.  I had a not great trailering experience a month or so ago and made the “decision” that I needed a different trailer.  I listed my trailer for sale and started looking for another one.  Everything I found in my price range either needed a lot of work, the seller responded well until it came time for me to actually go SEE the stupid thing and then disappeared or someone responded to my wanted ad with exactly what I wanted – we even discussed my going to see/buy the trailer and the seller just POOF vanished.  No response to emails or phone calls!!!  I even drove TWO HOURS in the snow to see one horse trailer that the seller neglected to mention was in hicksville USA and didn’t give me a phone number – I got lost, frustrated and ticked off and finally gave up and came home!!  SO!!  In all of this, I’ve also had my trailer for sale – had some interest but for the most part nothing serious.  I did have one person that was going to come with cash to buy it, but because I’d just driven FOUR HOURS only to not find the trailer I was going to buy, I backed out and explained that I just couldn’t be trailer-less.  The person was very understanding. 

Anyway!!  There is a point in all of this rambling!!  Thru all of this trailer “shopping”, I keep coming back to the fact that I LOVE my trailer.  Yes it’s old.  Yes it needs some work, but it hauls nicely, I can back it and maneuver it with great ease – I just love this stupid thing.  SO!  We all put our heads together and decided that we’d replace the floor in it, throw some paint on it and call it good.  Great?!  Well…..with anything that’s 27 years old, there’s going to be problems.  The biggest one on this trailer is that the back piece that the ramp is welded too was rusting thru.  I was assured that it wasn’t as bad as it looked and an “easy fix”.  By now I should know that my idea of an easy fix and certain other male members of my family have different ideas on what an “easy fix” is…..

Here are some before pictures of my trailer –

These just show the basics of course.  You can see it needs paint but nothing majorly wrong.  The escape door handle is taped shut as you can see in the first picture – that’s already fixed.  Vince drilled out the rivets and took the handle off.  He fixed the pin and then re-riveted the handle on again.  Good as new.

So now for the “good stuff”…..not really good per-say but this is what needed to be fixed.

The bad floor boards can be seen here and vaguely the bad spots in the metal.

This one was taken right after the boards came out – Once the boards were out, we realized there was more rot on this beam than we’d realized.

We had “tested” the floor, on several occasions really – and the boards although they LOOKED crappy, seemed solid.  When we started pulling boards out though – the back most parts of the boards were awful.  The board on the left-most side disintegrated (basically) when I whacked it with the hammer accidentally while trying to get the small piece of angle iron off that was there.  The right side was worse!!  When Vince leaned on the drill to try to remove a screw, the drill went right thru the board!!!  YIKES!!

Here is the repair job that Dan did on Saturday.  I took my camera to the garage with us, but forgot to take pictures of the job in progress!!  :(

 Yesterday afternoon, I spent putting a nice coat of rust inhibiting primer on the floor beams and supports.  On one of our many trips to Lowes this weekend, we bought the floor boards to put down.  We were planning to use rough cut hemlock boards from a sawmill, however, upon closer inspection of the layout of this trailer – it would have been extremely difficult if not nearly impossible to get rough cut lumber in here – it just wouldn’t have worked easily and without much “dove tailing” and “cramming” – so I made the command decision to just use pressure treated planks instead.  I made the mistake of letting Dan and Vince do the math and we ended up a board short – with further math “junk” we made the decision to get one more 2x8 when we took back the broken 2x10.  So this afternoon, we started on the floor.

 

Ethan supervising

Even my dad got in on the action – he needs Vince’s help getting a barn done for his new calves before they get here so he’s hurrying Vince along in this trailer process.  Dad wants to paint his truck this summer, so he’s volunteered his time and air compressor/painting stuff to “practice” on my trailer.  Once we got the floor in, we got some sanding done too!!  Dad says if the sanding is done tomorrow evening, he’ll get the inside painted for me!! 

And finally – this was my barn help for the evening.  Tosh and Keags came over to visit Skippy – Keags fed the babies and then went to work on stalls!!! 

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates – I’ll try to keep up from here on out so that I don’t have mile long blogs after this one!!