This Bites

Literally...


One of the horses got a good taste of Moon's back.

Unfortunately I only found this when I gave Moon a bath before we were headed to a barrel racing. I did not notice it when I caught horses up in the morning...

Probably because Moon and everyone else was covered in mud. The boys do like their mud baths-LOL. I leave the mud on unless I am going to ride because it helps against the nats. I have been lucky as I do not have a lot of flies, the mosquitoes are minimal(considering the irrigation), but the nats? OMG, they are terrible. I have been keeping Swat around every one's ears, under their eyes, on their sheaths and chests.

No way was I going to be able to run barrels on him last night and maybe not even this weekend. He had some swelling around the teeth scrapes and was very sensitive. I hosed him off for quite a while and covered his wounds with Crest toothpaste.

Did ya all know that one?

Crest, original formula toothpaste is a great scrape antiseptic and dressing. When it dries it forms a nice crusty cover, keeps the scrape clean, bugs off and helps the hair to grow back in quicker.

Anyway, I think Turk was the responsible party...

(LOL-Look how tiny my barrel saddle looks on him)

I thought Moon and Turk had come to an understanding, but apparently not. Guess I will not be turning those two together again.

I was disappointed not to get to run. I think I have my barrel horse back. The last few rides, Moon has been quite nice. We are back to being able to lope the pattern...bareback and with a halter. Moon is over his herky-jerky, charging into and around the barrels.

It's unfortunate that the bite marks are the entire length of his back as I will not even be able to jump on him bareback and tootle around.

Oh well, it's not like I don't have others that need some time. Frosty can always use being 'camped on' and after watching Turk in the pasture for a few days and then the way he acts when I am leading or handling him and...

I think he actually needs to be rode some. Whenever I am leading or moving Turk around, he limps and walks soooooo slowly. Like it's a huge and painful effort to even put one foot in front of the other. When he is in the pasture however, he manages to move just fine. Barely a bobble.

Huh?????

So I saddled him up, got on and let him walk. Oh my heavens. He limped and hobbled along. But I decided I wasn't buying it. He had just loped the entire length of the pasture without a single break in stride. What the heck right?

Instead of just letting him hobble along, I picked him up into a working walk and started working on some slight bending and flexing. Just enough to encourage him to reach up under himself with his inside hind leg and to stretch his shoulders. Lo and behold...other than the occasional bobble, he started moving pretty decently.

I do believe that his bobbles are because he still has too much heel on his injured foot and it breaks over too quickly. We will continue to work on that. Mrs Mom has been a tremendous help.

Turk has just moved off of the injured/reserve list. He is not going to be able to handle hard riding until we get those feet more in line, but he will certainly benefit from bending/flexing, working on suppleness and getting him to use his back properly again. He's as stiff as a board. I can also feel him pushing into my left leg regardless of the direction we are traveling. I don't think he finds it very comfortable traveling with a straight body. Fifteen to 30 minutes a day of a working walk, a little trotting and working on suppleness will hopefully make a big difference.

Getting him right is not just about his feet. It's about his whole body. We'll just keep working on it and hopefully have something in the end.

The Worst Part About Re-Doing Houses

I've started working on the inside of the new house...

Unfortunately, I realized that I was never going to accomplish everything I wanted to around the yard in just one year. LOL-Big visions...not enough time.

Besides, the sooner I get the house done, the sooner we can move in and the easier it will be to keep working on the seemingly endless list of projects I want to do. ;-)

Two of the bedrooms still had popcorn ceilings. Well, since the rest of the house has a stucco look finish on the walls and ceilings, I decided to scrape the popcorn off the ceilings and finish these rooms out to look like the rest of the house...


It's a nasty, dirty job...


When I started to prime over this little bit of border in the master bath, I found out the little figures were actually decals so they had to be scraped off...


I did get the base coat on the master bedroom walls....
I finished trimming it out after this picture.

My Honey prefers cool to neutral color tones, so it took a bit of work to find colors that I could live with and that I knew he would like. The bedroom is kind of My Honey's oasis, so I have always tried to make sure that it is someplace he finds comfortable. But I cannot resist the temptation to do some fancy paintwork to really bring out the lovely texture on the walls...so this is just the beginning step.

I like this light neutral khaki base color and picked out a couple of other complemenary colors to do some tone on tone work. I kind of panicked when I opened one of the colors to mix it with glaze and it looked like baby poop. However, luckily it looks pretty good on the walls. I'm still trying to figure out which technique I like best, but will make sure to post finished pics.

About all I have to do is get everything painted, the kitchen floor refinished and new shades ordered and installed. The only other things that need done is the plumber has to do a few things and the electricians have to come back and do a few more things...and we will be ready to move in. Hopefully by the end of this month???

My Honey's only request...that everything be DONE before hand. While I do not mind living in a remodel zone...it drives him nuts.

A Few Days Off And Happy 4th Of July

I have been so busy with yardwork at the new place that I gave the horses a few days off.

They are enjoying the fruits of my hard work on the irrigation...
Seems a shame to have worked this hard to get the whole pasture to irrigate and we'll simply end up tearing it up next spring and replanting. But I sure have learned a lot about irrigating-LOL.

Come Monday, this guy will go back to work...
Who me? Naw, I much prefer the life of pasture ornament.

We have a barrel racing next Thursday. Moon has been doing much better on his pattern, so hopefully we can sneek a smooth run in and be back on track.

Frosty has been doing well...
No more major blow-ups. Whew! I don't think I could take being pile-drived by this big guy on a regular basis. I know his belly still looks big in this picture and we do have more work to do to get that pulled up, but my goodness he is looking and moving soooo much better. He's also starting to lope the barrel pattern. I do believe there is a barrel horse to be made here. He's sure enough bred for it. I'm just kind of leary of asking him to really run because I'm a bit afraid that he may turn the barrel and break in half coming out of it. Once we get past that, I think he is going to really nice. :)

I'm quite astounded at how this horse is shaping up...
Jet...aka-Legs...aka..That Thoroughbred Colt...is really turning into a mouthwatering prospect...
Jet really isn't a TB. He's registered QH...not even Appendix. But boy howdy, does he show every inch of his TB running blood or what? I need to stick him, but I'm pretty confident he is at least 16.2HH. He towers over Rip(Megan's blue roan) and I sticked Rip at 15.3HH. Anyway, he's much, MUCH taller than I really like my horses to be. However, he is getting to be so darn well-balanced and nicely put together that I will forgive him his exaggerated height.

Anyway, I still haven't gotten him started under saddle, but being busy with so many other projects, I have kind of held off until I can keep going with him when I do start working with him...other than the normal daily catching, grooming, etc. He sure is proving to be a nice, willing horse to work with. He's not flighty or spooky about anything really. He much prefers to stop and stare at anything new until he figures it out, then it's almost like he shrugs his shoulders, says "Oh, okay" and moves on. I am looking forward to getting him riding though...can't you just see this guy kicking butt in a HUS class?

Me too. Next year! That's our plans. And I may start him lightly over fences as well. He'll be a 6y/o, so plenty mature for that. He'll also start barrel horse training. I don't know if he can turn, but I know he can run.


I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday weekend. We don't have much planned...except working around the places and getting in a motorcycle ride. My Honey actually has the weekend off! Whooo-Hoooo!!!! Poor guy has worked 21 days straight.

Happy 4th everyone and God Bless all of the men and women who have fought and died for our Independence!!!!!!