The Days Are All The Same Now

That's how it is in horsie-land...once ya get into a routine...it gets kind of boring.

My Honey asked me on a date. Huh...That's unusual.

We went to the local mexican restaurant...A place I L.O.V.E!!!!

You can get real Mexican food there.

I always order the Carnitas De Res...
It's skirt steak cooked stew style with peppers, onions and tomatoes. It is sooooo yummy!

We don't eat out much, so when we do, it's a real treat.

It's not like I can't cook my own mexican...

I have my chicken fajita's down to a science...


And My Honey particularly likes my hor' dourves...
Stuffed jalapenos and stuffed mushrooms don't last long around this house.

But every once in awhile...it's nice to just get o.u.t. Thanks Honey!!!

A Cozy Sunday Afternoon

We finally got a new cap on the chimney of the fireplace and immediately put it to use...
Above is the fireplace from the big living room.

Below is from the sitting room...


And then there is this mess...
My goal in the near future is to turn this wall area into a built-in bookcase.

My Honey put his cat's tree in the middle of the sitting room. I rolled my eyes at that, but it doesn't really matter until I get the bookcase done and can get those piles of books and nick-nacks put away. That will give me room to move the cat tree into the corner. I had originally thought I wanted to repeat the red/marbled look behind the bookcase, but I'm almost thinking I would rather do a chocolate sueded look. The bookcase will be knotty pine to match the kitchen cabinets. I really want to get the last few indoor projects done up before the weather gets nice outside. I have major plans for redoing the outside of the house and cannot wait to get started on those.

I Am Stylish...But A Procrastinator...

So there is fact #1 about me!

A couple of weeks ago, in2paints was kind enough to pass on this award...

And then the indubitable Mrs Mom also tagged me...

Thank you in2paints and Mrs Mom. And to in2paints, I do apologize for taking so long to get this posted. I was working on it....

There are 4 duties to perform to receive this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

Well, unfortunately I am guilty of not actively searching out 'new-to-me' blogs. I sure do like it when I find more great horse people though. It's not 15, but here's the last few people I have recently started reading (besides in2paints)...

Funder, Ranch Riding and a new blog by an 'old' blogger...Show In Style.


I also added Oregonsunshine to my blog roll, but I heard she just got it from someone else. Consider yourself double awarded OS. ;-)

Seven Things About Me....

Oh heaven's why is that hard?

I don't know. I always think of revealing things about yourself as if they are supposed to be deep and complex. And I am not...deep...or complex. So I guess that is fact #2. I do find it rather humorous that I am also a Scorpio and we are supposed to be deep and complex. How does that work?

#3-I used to be very artsy, crafty and sewed a lot. I look back now and wonder where I found all the time and the energy for that? However, I still have kept all of my 'stuff', hauled it all over creation and back and decided THIS year, I am either going to get back into some of it, or get rid of all the odds and ends of stuff that take up space. Which leads me to wonder with as many horses as I have in the program this year, how I am going to find time to do that? Oiy Vey!!!

#4-As far as I know, my grandpa (on my mom's side) and I are the only left-handed people in my family.

#5-I ran my LQ trailer into a parked dump trailer last fall and didn't tell you guys because I felt like an idiot. Oh yea, I wrecked the fender and broke out a window. My Honey was NOT happy when he saw that. :(

#6-Not having to have a j.o.b. seems like a dream come true...but...I find that I lose days and have a hard time staying on schedule. It it wasn't for horses I might be totally worthless.

#7-Hmmmm....I was on a roll....hmmmm (fingers tapping)...


(People always hate me for this one...Sorry guys)...

I am up to 6 gray hairs and I love them. There won't be any hair coloring to make them go away any time soon.

Whew...done!

Thanks again for the award ladies!!!

We Live In A Very Scary Neighborhood!

Didn't take us long to try out the new saddle. By the next day! It's just taken me a long time to get it posted-LOL.

Megan loves it!...
Although, I think her stirrups were still a little too long and she was getting cold (hence the crabby look on her face. Oh, wait, maybe it was just because she was cold and I kept making her stop to take pics-LOL). Old Turkey (pun intended) looks pretty comfortable in this picture, but I think bugging out had taken it's toll and he was tired.

OMG!

Turk is not a good ranch horse to begin with. He never did get the whole relax and cover country part. What can I say, the horse was bred to go to the track and it was a sad trick of fate that he ended up with us instead. Not that a lot of race-bred horses don't can't make good ranch horses, it just wasn't in Turk.

Getting him past our neighbor's was indeed eventful.

Apparently, s.p.o.t.t.e.d. cows are horrifying!

(At this point, you have to imagine pictures, because I wasn't about to pull out my camera and risk dropping it)

To make matter's worse, on the other side of the road, that neighbor has a monstrous pair of longhorns. I suspect the 'little' one has a horn spread of at least 6-7'. The other one is even bigger. It didn't help matters that they ran to the fence to check us out. Turk skittered from one side of the road to the other, not sure of who to be more terrified of, spotted cows or huge, horned beasties. I guess it depended on which way his head was turned.

I had better luck as I was on Spooks, the black horse. But even he was giving these unknown, possibly predatory animals the once over. And I was bareback! (I'm trying to get my legs in shape...Oww, oww, oww!)

Heaven helped the poor paint horse and he made it through that particularly scary patch. Megan was of no use to him because she was laughing her fool head off. Oiy Vey!

That giggling abruptly came to an end though when just a wee bit down the road we ran into something that absolutely terrified BOTH horses.

Killer GOATS!!!!

Neither of these horses have ever seen goats before and I swear to heaven, I thought they were both going to jump in the irrigation canal on the other side of the road to get away from them. No fear folks, Meg and I are part chicken. We have absolutely no qualms about bailing. Although, I would have hated to see Turk land upside down on top of the new saddle. That is not my idea of breaking one in!

The goats on the other hand, obviously love horses and happily ran to the fence to Blaahhh at us.

Not helping!

It was a little embarrassing because the owner of the goats was watching the whole fiasco. Thankfully, he was an intelligent man and he stopped and dropped the tree branch he had been dragging behind him. I'm pretty sure that would have been our death knell.

That was quite the experience for those two ponies. But I am happy to say, that by the time we came back and ran that little gauntlet of fear again, it was a lot less exciting. Turk was still pretty sure those spotted cows were aliens and he kept a careful eye on them to make sure they didn't get any closer than they already were. No really, it was just because they were s.p.o.t.t.e.d. that had him freaked out. We walked past 2 separate herds of normal Angus and Baldy cows and he didn't even blink. He's used to seeing those kind of cattle.

Monday, I got the chance to slap that new saddle on Moon and we went for a little trek out back. I am so tickled with how good Moon feels. I started him on Moorman's Healthy Glo (it's a balanced rice bran and flax supplement) around the first of the year and I just cannot believe how much stronger and better this horse feels. When I turn him out, he bucks and plays. Moon has NEVER bucked and played! And he is actually walking out with energy. Moon NEVER walked with energy! Whoo-Hooo for rice bran!!!

After about an hour and a half ride, this is how the saddle ended up...
Moon only moved it about an inch back, even after going up and down a few little hills in the desert behind us. That is remarkable!!! The only other saddle I have ever used on him that doesn't slide back is the roping saddle. We are golden!!

The weather has been beautiful here and I have been riding every day. I do believe the ponies are happy to be back to doing something...and back on their grain. I have a feeling this is going to be a good year with the ponies.

Crazy Squirrel

It's been a long time since I have posted anything about Scrat.
He went through an Angry Squirrel faze that had us extremely leery of doing anything with him. It got so bad that I told the fam that trying to keep a Rock Squirrel as a 'pet' just wasn't in the cards. Not having ever been around any types of squirrels before, this is all new. I figured we would have to come up with some way to acclimate him a life in the wild.
But he seems to have come out of that. I suspect it may have had something to do with his testosterone level. Ummm-Let's just say that his nickname went from Squirrel Nuts to Bull Nuts in the last couple of months!

Enjoy the antics of the squirrel. He keeps us in stitches again...

Ever Felt Like Someone Is Watching You?

You get that prickly feeling...

Then you turn your head to look...

And...

What's your problem?

Happy Anniversary

Well, this is kind of hard to explain...
I did buy a new saddle today.

See, My Honey gave me money as an Anniversary present, because I said I wanted to buy a barrel saddle that fit Moon. Obviously this is a personal item that MH would never dream of trying to purchase for me.

Sooo, since the Sharon Camarillo is going to fit Moon and all I had to do was order a more appropriate saddle pad. Which I did. My Tod Sloan is on the way. However, if that doesn't work, I am going to look into the CSI pads that SDCowgirl told me about.

Huh...So how come this little shyster is sitting in it?
Yea, well...

The other day when I went to town to look for coolers, Meg and I saw this saddle. It's a Cactus Saddlery, Ladies All Around. And it was on sale. The lady in the store didn't know what the sale price was because they (the store owners) had just gotten back from The Denver Stock Show and hadn't had time to go through and remark everything. She asked me to stop back today.

I just couldn't resist. After all, I was given the money to purchase a new saddle...r.i.g.h.t.??

The fact of the matter is, Megan and I have been wanting a roping saddle that wasn't so stinking heavy. My roping saddle is a beast and it was the only one we had that had a tree that could handle being roped in. So...now we finally have a 2nd saddle that is more appropriate for break-away roping in and we can also run barrels in. I specifically told Megan that we are going to 'share' this saddle, but to be honest, the poor kid hasn't had her own saddle since she outgrew her youth Sharon Camarillo a few years ago.

Happy Anniversary kiddo!!

One Plus One Plus One

What the heck right...If I'm going to work one fat horse, I might as work another one...
I started Bugs on the 'fatty' conditioning program too.

I've also started riding Moon and got a ride in on Turk today too. I made the official decision to switch Moon from running to the right barrel first to running to the left barrel first. So I have to make sure to work on his pattern as much as possible. He's a little confused at the moment. Moon does not like to do things differently than he always has.

We still have snow on the ground, although the temps have been around 40 for the last few days. It's just not melting much.

I had been avoiding riding Spooks and Turk because they are shod and they slip a lot more than the barefoot horses do. But it dawned on me this evening...The road is dry. Duhhh!!! There is no traffic on our road during the day and it's a 1/2 mile to the intersection. If nothing else, I can walk Turk and Spooks up and down the road for a little exercise.

The sun is still setting between these two hills...



It gets a tad farther north every few days or so. When it finally starts setting on the north side of that hill to the right...Spring will be here.

Blurring The Lines

Seems lately country music has been blurring the lines with a little hip-hop sound. Colt Ford, Sunny Ledford, The Lacs and even Luke Kaufman has a song called Rank Riders Anthem that have distinctive hip-hop overtones.

I like it.

Here's the video of one of my current favorites...It's the first song on the video...Kickin' Up Mud by The Lacs...


(Sorry, couldn't get the html adjusted, this tag looks different than I remember the others looking...But thanks for the advice.)


PS-If ya haven't heard of Luke Kaufman yet (that would be a miracle because I always seem to be the last person to hear about new music-LOL), you can listen to his music here...Luke Kaufman. I'm pretty sure Rank Riders Anthem is destined to become every bull rider's anthem. I also like 'Stuck At The Bar'...(giggles)...It reminds me of My Honey when I met him. Stuck at the bar with a stripper on his arm...LMAO! No Joke!

Mmm-Kay, been thinking about those 7 things for the blogger award in2paints gave me a few days ago. I'll have that up for the weekend. ;-)

No One Seems Real Impressed

I am back to normal folks...Thank you for all of all of the well wishes. With a few snaps, crackles and pops, the chiro has me pretty well fixed up.

I've been keeping an eye on Frosty this winter to make sure he doesn't get as obese as he did last winter and also on the lookout for any of the symptoms of Insulin Resistance. Up to a couple of weeks ago, he had been holding his own pretty well...

But in a very short amount of time, I see he is 'growing' fat globs behind his withers again and his belly is really starting to hang. I was hoping I could have held off starting on him for another month, but that is not the case.

Frosty is now up and starting a conditioning routine...


Lordy, lordy, the boy is soft. I'm starting him out on a mere 10 minutes of walking and trotting and he got a little damper than I anticipated. I wouldn't exactly call it lunging...LOL...More like charging around.

This is just sad...
(Mom, I am so not impressed with this working thing and these tiny blankets make me look ridiculous)

Those are the biggest anything I have. I think they are 80 or 82's. Totally the wrong type of sheet to cool a horse out and the necks are so huge, I had to pull them up as far as I could and pin them to keep his shoulders warm.

I went to town to see if anyone had a cooler and I bought an Irish something or other anti-sweat sheet, but no one had any fleece coolers. Now, it looks like I will have to order a couple of those.

I am getting less impressed with all of the shopping I have had to do lately. Having to update is getting pretty darned expensive.

And last but not least...
Spooks was less than impressed with having babysitting duty today. Everyone else got to come in and have their grain, but he had to wait until this evening. I kid you not...The horse pouted!

Beretta on the other hand...She had a ball playing in the snow in the big pasture. Now that's my kind of horse...a self-exercising one! LOL

I've Been Down

My back and neck tried to do me in the last couple of days and my chiropractor is out of town until Monday.
I think I am back among the land of the living. Getting older sure has turned me into a wuss. Yea well...that and the fact that it is January. The lazies are setting in!


You guys remember Garfield? Man, I used to live by this cat's mottos when I was in High School. That dry, sarcastic wit. I loved it then and I love it now.


Hopefully, I can get back to doing something useful and remotely interesting now that I gave myself a pity-party. ;-)

Powerpac Advice?

Okay guys, I have heard a lot of you talk about using the Panacur Powerpac 5-day dewormer on your horses and I need your experience...

I hear that this time of year is one of the best times to use the Powerpac to clean out Strongyles.

I usually wait for a good hard freeze and a bit of a cold spell before deworming for the winter and this year I missed getting that done in December.

Does anyone think I need to hit the horses with Ivomectrin to clean out whatever worms are present before using the Powerpac (6weeks after deworming with Ivomectrin)?

No one here should have an unusually heavy worm load, but due to observing some cocked tails, I'm sure they have bot worms and this year I really wanted to try the Powerpac to clean out encysted parasites. That seems to have been a big problem for several of our blogger friends last year, even for horses on regular deworming schedules.

I forgot to ask the vet about this the other day when I was in his office.

On The Downhill Slide

It's that time. Time to get back to work on the ponies. The first barrel race of the year is only a couple months away ya know. March 23rd!

Tried that saddle on Moon...
(Just using Meg's pad as a guide and I see I need to order a shorter length. This one is still too long on Moon)

See GL...Us western people tent our pads too. ;-)

I dunno, it fits better than anything else I have. I need to get to get new blevin's buckles for it, new stirrups and oil it so I can cinch it down and start riding it. I am hoping that it will lay better at the back after having been oiled.

Started bringing these three in for daily graining...

Moon, Spooks and Turk.

Right now, the focus is only on these three. Frosty will join the mix soon, then Bugs and finally Jet as the weather warms.

The only other two I will be bringing out for myself later this year will be big Sandy and Shooter. Beretta will go back to SD for a year.

Meg has mentioned she would like to have her blue roan back for this season. It's the first time she has mentioned competing again in a long time. I hope she wants to get back on track with the horses. I have sorely missed her company. I don't want to push, but I am really hoping that she will also take on that Boon Bar mare we have. That's a nice mare and she sure looks like she would be fun. I'd take her for myself, but 8 head is going to keep me more than busy this year.

Me, Me, Me

With everything pretty much figured out on the equine crew that I have here, I think this year...Hopefully!...I get this year to focus on myself.

After having so many problems with 2nd barrel last year, I really am going back to the drawing board.

Me!

Not Moon.

That's not to say that Moon doesn't need a lot more slow, solid patterning. He does. As does everything else I have here that is ready to start working their way into competition.

But I am going to fix most of the problem with 2nd barrel by fixing myself first.

And that doesn't involve anything to do with horses.

Instead, I'll be hitting the slopes.

Back in my 20's I learned how to snow ski and actually spent several winters doing as much as I could.

It was my second year into skiing that I figured out a very strange correlation between changing direction on the ski slope and setting a horse up to turn a barrel.

LMAO...I know! WTH right?

For some reason, I have absolutely no problem with setting a horse up to take 1st barrel nor do I have a problem changing directions to the right on the ski slope. However, changing direction going left is eechy, jerky, a bit out of control and often results in a wreck. It's about the same when I set a horse up to take the 2nd barrel.

Now, what exactly the correlation is, I can't tell you. There is something I inherently do with my hip and my shoulder going that way that doesn't make turning to the left a smooth, fluid motion. LOL-Anyone remember Zoolander? Where Zoolander confesses after losing the 'walk off' that he can only turn one direction. Bwahahaha-That's me.

Anyway, it took quite a while for me to figure out how to smooth out my left hand turns on the ski slope and after I did, I didn't have problems turning the 2nd barrel when I was competing. For a long time, I was able to hold onto that certain 'feeling' that I figured out on the slope and when setting up for a turn into 2nd barrel, but I seem to have lost it.

So it's back to the slopes to see if I can pick it up again. Besides...I have really missed skiing over the years...and it's not a bad way to get myself into riding shape again either.

Updating My Tack

My darling family blessed me with this set at Christmas...

It's going to look good on the Black Horse...
It's big and loud...just like Spooks...LOL.

When we were in Vegas, I picked these up...
They were on sale for only $20 a pair...so why pass them up?

What I really plan on getting for competition is a full set of these...
These are the Iconoclast double slings that Sue Smith turned me onto. Luckily for me, they are sold right here in town, so I can pick a set up when I am ready for them.

The biggest update I plan on doing with my tack is switching to Tod Sloan 100% wool pads...
These babies are not cheap. Heck, even cheap pads are not cheap these days. But, Megan used my brother's Tod Sloan pad for the last couple of years and I just really like the way that pad sits down on a horse's back. And it has really held up. The other day, I told my brother I would probably have to replace his pad cause I felt bad we had used his new pad so much. He surprised me by telling me that he had had that pad for a couple of years and used it a lot himself. Now I am really impressed.

For the last few years I have been using ESP pads with the navajo tops and something that Sue Smith noted when we were discussing the difficulty I have been having finding a barrel saddle that fit Moon really made me start looking at other options. I was joking about having to run barrels in my roping saddle until I could afford to buy Moon a custom saddle and Sue mentioned that part of the problem may be that my ESP pad may be too thick and it was definitely too long.

Don't get me wrong. I still love my ESP pads and won't be dumping them, but I will definitely be getting a Tod Sloan pad for Moon to start with. I want the 3/4 inch pad. Because the wool felt is of such high quality on these pads, I won't need one that is as thick as most. It just may be that the Sharon Camarillo barrel saddle that I picked up last summer might fit Moon after all. It was just a little bit off when I tried it on him with his ESP pad. A lighter, more contoured pad might just be the ticket.

I better not say that too loudly around this house though...I was promised a new barrel saddle as my anniversary present and I am hoping to find the perfect one at the Denver Stock Show this month.

(I can blab about the saddle pad to you guys though because My Honey is going to be away from his computer this weekend and won't be reading the blog-LMAO-;-)

Lost And Found

My Big Fuzz flew the coop. He's the one on the right...
Apparently he made his way back to our old house and has moved back into the garage. That was rather terrifying to hear. Since he had to cross over 80 acres of open desert and cross a very busy highway. Luckily for us (and the Big Fuzz) the people who are living in the old house are friends and are perfectly willing to let him stay. He has food and water in the garage and hopefully he stays put there until we can figure something out that will make him want to stay here at the new house.

Since BF's departure last week, his brother Duece (the white/black cat on the left in the above photo) has been dashing into the house every single time the door is opened. He has never been alone and doesn't like it AT ALL. I have been letting him stay in and so far no big cat fights and no spraying. Duece has been spending most of his time in Megan's bedroom and having him back snuggling with her at night has made Megan very happy.

This might work. If Duece gets settled in the house with the other two cats, maybe I can bring the Big Fuzz back and do the same thing with him. It might work one at a time.

And then there is this poor thing (he's really not this ugly, just wouldn't give me an decent photo ops-LOL)...
"Charlie Cat" (I had to call him something and he looks like the last cat my dad had who's name was Charlie as well) made it known this morning that he was in dire need of some groceries and maybe a new home. He is nothing but a rack of bones under that fluff...
This morning I met My Honey at the corner and stopped to visit for a second. I was returning from taking my nephew to the airport and MH was headed into town. As I was leaning out the window to talk to MH, I see this cat coming out of the ditch and heading for the vehicles. It came right between the vehicles and started meowing and rubbing on MH's car. I told MH to be careful when he pulled away so he didn't run over the cat. The poor cat was meowing very loudly and rubbing frantically on the car body. About the time, MH leans his head out the window to look down at the cat, I can tell this cat is sizing up whether he can make the jump into the open pickup window, when that cat saw MH lean his head out of the car door, he didn't even hesitate...He jumped right in the car. Obviously this poor guy was desperate and wasn't about to let a good opportunity pass him by. The second MH had his hands on him, he realized how starved the cat was and we decided to at least take him to the house and let him eat something.

Poor kitty attacked the food so we left him alone for a while to eat, drink and then get some rest. MH headed into town and strangely enough noticed a flyer with a picture of a cat that looked like the one we had just picked up. We called the number and the lady was just out to look at him. It's not her cat, so I guess we have a guest for awhile or a new cat. We'll see what Charlie Cat decides to do when he gets his belly filled up. He's neutered and extremely friendly. He was obviously someone's pet, but has been wayward for long enough to starve down. If he hadn't been starved, we never would have brought him home. I'll have Meg make some fliers to hang up just in case Charlie wasn't dumped out here, but I'm guessing from the shape he is in, he's been on his own for at least a couple of weeks and doesn't appear to be a cat comfortable with an outdoor lifestyle....as in...apparently didn't know how to hunt well enough to feed himself.

Figured Out The Barn

I think I have finally settled on a barn design (taking my cue from Bill and hand-drawing it for you-LOL)...
I have waffled back and forth all of this time trying to decide if I wanted 'just' a barn or 'just' run-in shelters attached to corrals for the horses. I think with this design, I managed to incorporate the best of both options.

For the most part, I really prefer my horses to have as much room to move around as possible. Stalling them day after day is just not my thing. However, I really appreciated having nice stalls like we did when we boarded last winter.

This way, I'll have 6 stalls, a feed room and a tack room. The overhangs will be open to as large of corrals as space will allow on each side...
If by some chance I need more individual pens, I can always section off the overhang with panels. Of course, there is still the little 2-stall barn that came with the property as well. It still needs to be repaired, but will be a handy extra space when that is done.

The new barn will go to the east of the house where I did have my riding area. I decided it was easier to put it there and take enough space out of the pasture for a full-sized arena than try to keep my little riding area and fit buildings and pens around that. It's really surprising how little room there is to build on the 5 acres that makes up 'the yard'. The shop and house are set nicely in it, but thanks to the driveway, trees and the power lines, it has made deciding what to do a little bit difficult.