Silly Thoughts and Things

Hey all, well here I am sitting having my morning coffee waiting for hubby to make the move to getting out of bed so thought I would share my silly thoughts for today... (Ok just some of them)

Do you have pet names for your animals or is it just me?

K, I will share some of my very hard to explain names and see what you think.

Link the big red horse I call him Spider , Inky or Duffus

Prettygirl has a variety of pet names. For those days I am riding her and she is behaving very bad I call her Hellbitch named after Newt's mare on the series Lonesome Dove. The ones I use the most are Miss Attitude or Purty.

Mystery is Spridle (definitely can't explain that one and don't think it is even a word)

Copper is mostly the Queen Mother or the Boss

Sammy gets a variety of names as well and what made me think of this was the silly names I was muttering to him as he is keeping me company this morning.
Let me see, Nammers, Grumpy gus, Kittymeow, Piffyboy



Sammers

Mixer gets the name Hommernosky (again don't ask me why)

Mojo we call Jet or Spinny

Shiloh is Grandma, or Old Lady

And this is the weirdest, I have a pet name for my favourite Chicken, Petricia, she is the one that wants to be picked up every day and follows me around until I do so then she fluffs up her feathers and marches so proudly back to the group.

OK enough with the names but would love to hear other favourite pet names.


Hubby and Son came home with no fish but seems like they had a good father and son bonding trip. Youngest son and daughter in law are basking in Hawaii and having a great time so a nice break for them.

Yesterday we started the day out really positively to get those trusses built but ended up having company all day so didn't get anything done.

First the grand kids called to share their weekly activities (which we really enjoy) so talked to them for about an hour, then went to head out when the phone rang again and it was our neighbour who finally had a day off and was going to come do the horses hooves for us. Sure can't pass that up as he is so busy you have to take it when you get it and they were all due. They were all really good for their feet except of course our little girl Mystery, Spridle or Ivory as my neighbour calls her. He always gives her a chance to lift those back feet but she still will not do it so she has to be roped and dropped to the ground in order to do them safely, then when it is all over and we let her up she starts chewing and licking so I really think she knows it is for her own good. Silly pony.
Then we had to go in to the house for his traditional warm up coffee (ha ha, he drinks Whiskey and orange juice!, yuk) and visited with him for a bit. He left and we grabbed a quick bite to eat and the phone rang again and it was my girlfriend and husband passing by on their way home from the CFR in Edmonton wanting to stop in for a coffee. By the time they left it was 3:30 and our ambition level for setting up was gone and besides it takes so long to set up and with it getting dark so early now we decided to start fresh today.... Here we are bright and early 9:45 AM . What are the chances we are going to get allot done?

Anyway will leave you now and go give a subtle hint to get out of bed.
Chow for now

Ok I am So NOT ready for this!

Well I am so not ready for the scene that greeted us when we opened the curtains this morning!







I fed the horses and they were so happy to see those oats. You would think they are starving poor things. The chickens are not at all impressed and haven't come out of their little house at all. I am hoping this crap will melt but I don't know. It is supposed to be dropping down to -13 tonight so it doesn't look to hopeful for the melting idea.

It was nice walking though and thought it was very pretty once I got over the disgust of having to haul water and shovel the decks off. Guess I was secretly (or not so secretly) hoping that we would have a snow free winter.. As if!

My hubby and son took off to BC fishing for the week and just phoned from Hinton to say that the highway is really terrible and for me not to go anywhere today. I had planned on making a dump run today but guess I will just stay put and get some computer work done. I hope they drive really careful and once they get to the BC side that the weather smartens up for them.

Well I have shocked myself with posting twice in the past couple of days, Go Barb!.... pat myself on the back... ha ha.
Take care all and hope that next time I post we will be experiencing nice green grass, sigh, wishful aren't I ?

Still alive and well

Hey all!, well wonders never cease and here I am.

I ended up with that awful cold for over a month and am finally feeling so much better.

Well not too much new at the ranch, I have been working lots of hours this month so haven't had too much time to do the blog thing.


I got to go on a couple of cattle runs and spent two days helping treat cows, which involved fairly long days. We started at 9 in the morning on the first day and didn't finish until almost seven. Then instead of taking Prettygirl home I let her have a sleep over in Al's nice warm barn as we were going to start early the next morning. She had worked up a really good sweat working all day so it was nice to be able to put her inside out of the wind and cold, I am now so anxious to have ours done.

The next day we started at around 9:30 and were finished by two in the afternoon which was nice cause I was fairly stiff from the day before. That first day we did two really big herds which involved moving them from one pasture down a road and into a large corral, where they were all sorted and counted (that was my job) and then treated for parasites as well as any other medical procedures as required. Then they had to be moved back to the pasture and then went to get the next herd and the same process took place. I must say I was impressed how they have it down to a fine art of sorting and treating and both days were really fun. All in all I think I spent about five hours in the saddle the first day and the second probably two. Prettygirl sure did well and made me so proud of her, she has come a long way since we first started out together.

The barn is progressing really slow, we got the framing done and now have to start building trusses. Hubby has been away from home every week so far and only home on the weekends and not even the whole weekend so everything has reached as standstill for awhile. If the weather holds we may be able to start on the first truss tomorrow but tonight we had some fluffy flakes so we might wake up to a white ground tomorrow. I am so not ready for winter and am dreading it so much. This morning I had to haul water to the horses for the first time, usually I wait until it warms up during the day and use the hose but today it was frozen too hard and they were out of water.

Halloween night I ended up having only three little goblins (my neighbours kids) come for a visit so they got a full bag as I purchased so much candy. I love seeing the little kids out for Halloween, they are so cute. My grand kids called and they were having so much fun and the little guy was just so excited to be able to tell me about the loot he had hauled in.




Well will finish up with a few pictures I have taken in the last little while.
Take care all, bye for now.











This is where we are at right now.






We let the horses out in the main yard to eat the grass, they lasted about an hour then started getting into trouble so had to go back to the pasture..








Unhappy about being kicked out and back to the pasture.







This is my handsome boy Link.




Prettygirl having a bad hair day!





This is Copper the Queen of the herd.









Couldn't get a picture of Mystery by herself but will try again this weekend.

Sicky Season

My niece with the Chickens....

Hi there, things have been really busy around here for the past few weeks. My niece came and spent a few days with us and we put her to work. Her job was to gather the eggs daily.

We are building a hay shed/horse shelter and our youngest son and daughter in law came to help get it started on the long weekend. They brought our grand puppy (Oscar) whom we hadn't met yet. Talk about a cutie pie, he is a Havanese .

The dogs were fairly interested in him all except Mixer who really wanted to ignore him. Of course this was just an invite for little Oscar to keep bugging him. It was a great weekend and Steve was such a big help getting the ground leveled and the posts put in. Hubby's brother showed up in the nick of time with his service truck which has a hydraulic lift attached so they were able to sling the posts up and in the holes. (Really don't know what we would have done had he not showed up)

Last Saturday we went to our friends wedding, which was just beautiful and was held on her dad's ranch which has a river running through the property. The bride was gorgeous and she and her Dad showed up in full wedding dress riding their horses. We could only stay for the wedding as my friends from Kelowna had said they would be arriving for a visit so we rushed on home and waited and waited. Well by seven I was starting to get a bit worried when they didn't show up so called and here they had decided to go right though and stop on the way back!. Was a bit choked to say the least.

On Sunday I went to our final Gymkhana and Prettygirl did very well especially seeing that I hadn't ridden her in over three weeks. We had a good day and had the wind up bbq so it is all done for this year.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I was busy with work and by Wednesday I had a sore throat and by Thursday it had developed into a full blown flu/cold and spent most of the day in bed. Now hubby has ended up with it as well so needless to say nothing is getting done this weekend. Shame cause the weather has been so nice and could be getting the building strapped. Oh well it happens right!.

Anyway I have to run here and get stuff done today, can't baby myself forever. Take care all.

Starting the ground work

Getting a crash course in how the lift works

Hey

Couldn't think of a better title and if I don't before the end of this post I will just leave it.

K First thing I was going to say was all my good intentions of keeping this blog up to date has fallen by the wayside.

We have had company since July pretty much every week and it has been hectic busy. My friend from Manitoba came twice on her way to and from the Yukon so that was really good to spend some time catching up.
My sister and niece were here, my son and his family (twice) and hubbies friend came for a weekend so all in all the sheets have been washed and put back on so much they are starting to show signs of wear. Maybe will have to break down and buy a couple more sets!

The same weekend hubbies friend was here I was invited to go on a cattle move so we saddled up bright and early and headed out (before the bugs got to bad). Prettygirl did very well and we had a good ride. When we were done I headed for home and they stayed behind to treat cows. Half way home I noticed that the saddle was sort of leaning to the right and should have stopped at Jill's to fix it but thought I could make it home. We rounded the corner from Jill's road to my road and usually I ride her up on the road but this time decided to stay in the ditch. Well as we rounded the corner she spooked at something, we stopped and I couldn't see anything so kind of encouraged her to go forward, as I did that she spooked again and kind of reared and jumped and her body went one way and I felt myself grasping for anything to hang on to but ended up getting dumped. I landed so hard my hat ended up over by the fence, and she was pretty jumpy beside me. I managed to jump up right away but not in enough time to grab the reins, so she just starting walking down the road heading for home. I grabbed my hat and took off after her and heard a truck barreling down the road behind me, so I put out my hand to slow him down. He went on by, stopped and went up and caught Prettygirl and led her to me. It was one of our other neighbors who spends a lot of time with horses. Well meanwhile I see Nick rushing across the lawn with his friend trailing along behind him. He said he had got up for something when he saw a vehicle slow down so he was watching and then saw Prettygirl without a rider and said to his friend "oh oh this doesn't look good". Talk about embarrassed and a good lesson to always listen to your first instincts and tighten that saddle when you first feel it slipping. The next day I took her to Gymkhana and I was kind of a bit nervous but she did really well and did every event well, so my faith was renewed.

We have been working on getting the old corral all torn down and replaced with brand new posts and planks so it is looking good. Hubby took the remaining trees down before the wind did it for us and what a mess to clean up now. Next weekend I think we are going to try and rent something to knock the stumps over and then will be able to use it again for working with the horses. It is too dangerous right now with all the stumps sticking up.


A few weeks ago we were heading into town to pick up some lumber for the corrals and we ran into a horrendous storm packing large hail, when we left home it was sunny and nice so of course I had left all the windows open. It was so bad that you couldn't see too far in front and people were pulling off to the side of the road to try and wait it out. We carried on slowly towards town and when we got there I called my neighbour who ran down and shut all the windows in the house. When we got home there was about two inches of hail all over the ground, the garden was devastated looking.
We ended up loosing most of it but I feel so bad for the neighbours who lost all their grain crops and one other neighbour had her garden completely wiped out, the siding riped from her house and the air conditioning unit torn from the motor home. So all in all I have nothing to complain about.
Our eldest son called in the same week and they had hail the size of baseballs and his truck was a complete right off. The sun roof gone, the front windshield gone and not one square inch untouched by dents. The weather has turned really nasty now and summer unfortunately seems to be gone.


My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on the 12th of August and we had a bit of a reunion in Rosedale, B.C. at the same time. The first time in over 25 years that all of us have been together at the same time. We made Mom and Dad a slide show of the past 50 years, my sister did a poem for them and one of my brothers sang "the wedding song" by Paul Stookie of Peter/Paul/Mary, so all in all very emotional weekend. My Mom's brother who had said he couldn't make it showed up and just kind of joined in and when Mom saw him she was so surprised.

Brian was over on Sunday to do the horses hooves and when we were done we came in for lunch, while we were sitting there Brian said " the chickens are out", of course I thought, yeah I know they are out in there yard. We didn't say anything so he said again with a bit more intensitiy " the chickens are OUT!" That got our attention and we scrambled out there thinking that I must have left a gate open. We managed to round them all up and get them back in the yard and realized that there was a big hole in the chicken wire on the far side so obviously something had tried getting in there. Possibly a fox or coyote so now we have to redo it all using heavier wire. Another weekend project.

I started draining the pool in hopes that the weather will change and we will get some more summer. I think the geese are gathering and they are starting to think about moving on. Sure hearing them a lot lately anyway.

Well I will sign off for now. Welcome to my youngest sis pbtrmaloney

Visit her site to see some pictures of the family gathering and take care all.

Just a quick hello

Well I am making myself a promise that by the weekend I will have a new post on here.

It has been a hectic crazy month


Some things I will promise to update you on:

1: Company galore

2: Being dumped by my pretty horse

3: Horse Corrals

4: 50th Wedding Anniversary

5: Mom's birthday

6: Anything else that springs to mind before the post..... see ya soon

Break out Artists

Well I have been meaning to sit at this computer and get some updates done but it has been so hot. We are really not used to having heat in the high 20's early 30's and I seem to not handle it very well at all. 20 -24 is ideal for me but I keep thinking back to that crappy cold winter we had and remember longing for some heat so I won't complain.....(much)!

The other night just before bed I looked out the window to make sure the chickens had all gone to bed and suddenly realized that all four horses were together. I went out right away to see how they managed that and here they must have been rubbing up against the corral fence and knocked a big section over. Well it was pretty dark by then so had to drag it all off to the side just to make it safe for them. In the morning we realized that we would have to buy a bunch of posts and redo the whole corral as it is very old and most of the posts are starting to rot.

The front pasture has no shelter so therefore we had to leave them together as they need somewhere to get out of the sun and bugs. So yesterday we decided to build a shelter in the front pasture so that we could separate them again, so in the +32 weather we put up the frame. By the end of the day we were so heat exhausted that we decided to leave putting on the tin until today and cleaned up and turned the horses back out so they could investigate it.

Just before bed last night I looked out again and the sky was being lit up by an electrical storm which was getting really close. I was just about to turn away when a big one hit and lit up the whole back yard exposing four horses cruising around the back yard by the pool!. Great, so out I went and sure enough silly me had forgot to shut the corral gate and they were happily munching on all that green grass. Luckily they followed me out to where they were supposed to be so gave them grain as a treat and headed back in the house. I was in about twenty minutes when the storm arrived and talk about a light show. Dry lightening for about 20 minutes and then a huge wind bringing rain. Had to get up and shut all the windows therefore making the house even more stuffy so laid there and waited until it passed and got up again to open the windows. I think it was close to 3 in the morning by then, but seeing that we had two power outages I am not really sure of the time. Meanwhile Shiloh lay shivering on the bed beside me and Sammy lay curled up by my neck. Lovely if you are cold but when you are so hot already it kind of gives you a claustrophobic feeling but didn't have the heart to kick Shiloh off the bed. Don't know why she has suddenly developed such a fear of thunder, she has been fine all these years but just in the last year she is frightened beyond belief.

Anyway to make a long story short all is well here this morning and did manage to get a few hours sleep so will sign off and tackle another day at the ranch. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.... Stay cool.

Friday night update

Well here we are at the end of another week and this one flew by.

We had a great July 1st long weekend and then hubby left on Tuesday morning to head off to Lethbridge and my sister and niece came for a visit. My sister had to go back on Wednesday morning for an appointment so she left my niece here for a couple of days. It was in the high 20's early 30's all week and tonight had some showers so has cooled off nice. My niece was such a huge help and we enjoyed working for awhile then lounging by the pool reading. She really reminds me of myself when I was her age, she just turned 10. She is a real animal lover and loves reading and I loved having her here.

Lilly collecting eggs, one of her daily chores while she was here visiting.


Lilly and Mojo down by the pond.

I had promised her that I would saddle up Copper and Prettygirl and take her for a ride so yesterday morning headed out fairly early so we could beat the heat and caught Prettygirl with no trouble at all, tied her up and went back in to get Copper. She took one look at that halter and headed off in the opposite direction. Well the game began and I had to follow her around for over three hours before she finally gave up and let me walk up to her. By then the temperatures had reached 28 Celsius and we were both dripping wet. Talk about a stubborn girl, I couldn't believe how much stamina she had and I kept telling her that I wasn't giving up so she should but at one point I did consider giving it up. Thank God for Lilly, she kept running to the house and getting me large glasses of water and passed them in on one of my many trips around the corral. I am just hoping that from now on Copper will realize that I might be more stubborn than she is.

Well by the time I did catch her I was so heated up and exhausted that I just tied her up in the shelter where it was cool and saddled Prettygirl up and took Lilly for a short ride then headed in for lunch. I of course was stupid enough to start chasing this horse with crappy shoes so ended up with pretty sore feet. I had the same go around with Prettygirl when I first started riding her but the most time I ever had to spend chasing her around was just over an hour.
The rest of the afternoon we spent sitting in the shade, dipping in the pool and reading. Lilly read a whole book while I alternated between reading and snoozing.

Hubby got home late last night from Lethbridge and it was in the high thirties and his room wasn't properly air conditioned so he decided to drive home at the end of the day. By the time we ended up going to bed it was still so hot in the house that sleeping was impossible so watched one of my favouite movies, "What about Bob". I love that show it makes me laugh every time I watch it.

This morning I cleaned out the horse shelter and gave them fresh straw while hubby made a dump run and then for the rest of the day we just hung out by the pool and had a real lazy day. A person needs those sometimes.

This handsome little guy was born a week ago, his name is Pepper and they are hoping he will be turn out to be a blue roan. He is our neighbors little foal and they invited us over to meet him. He comes right up to you and loves to be scratched so friendly for a baby and Lilly was excited to be able to pat him.

Anyway take care all have a great weekend.

Sort of a catch up post

Well I must apologise for not keeping this blog up to date. I had such great intentions but somehow never made the time to sit down and update, then it seemed so much time passed that I contemplated giving it up. I did have a nice note from the fifth floor wondering what had happened to me. Anyway I really don't have any good excuses except that I have been really busy with work at work and work at home.

Well let me see.....

First a Mixer update, he didn't end up healing all that well and he still has an open area that he keeps licking and now has a large lump on his front elbow. He got very sick as well and was bleeding from the nose so took him into the vet and they did all kinds of tests but couldn't find anything. They said it was more then likely a tumor growing in his nose but to test for it we would have to take him to Edmonton and this would cost a whole bunch of money and then maybe they wouldn't be able to do anything anyway.
This was right around the time with the poisoned dog food and I had switched him to Science Diet (Diet food) about a month prior to the bleeding nose , so I took him off it just in case. After about a week the bleeding seemed to stop so I still don't know if it was the food or just one big coincidence. Anyway I keep thinking that each day we have with him is a bonus. The vet did try to prepare me.

I have been going on a few cattle runs with Prettygirl and have started working with Copper when I get the chance. I took them to a Gymkhana last Sunday and Prettygirl did all the events really well and made me proud of her. When we were done I took Copper into the arena to introduce her to the equipment and she seemed fairly steady.







Our eldest son and I took Prettygirl and Copper out for a ride and he did awesome with Copper. She didn't want to go at first but he was patient and kept turning her in the direction we wanted to go and eventually she went and we had a nice ride. It really doesn't help having Link crying like a big baby and calling her. She gets so torn and really wants to go back to Link. We did separate the horses about two months ago and Link is with Mystery and Copper and Prettygirl are together. We have to cross fence though so they won't be able to visit over the fence as it is still like they are together.

I finally got my garden planted and it is up but now the weeds have really grown so we are going to have to til it soon maybe tomorrow if it stays dry. We have had so much rain in the last while that the ground is saturated.

Our grand kids have been here to visit twice now and talk about a busy three year old. We babysat for a weekend and by the end of it I was ready to pass them back to their parents.... The three year old is scared of Nothing and wanted to ride the horse by himself, was running around on his brother's quad (even though his feet don't touch the bottom).





Anyway I also had a birthday in June and now am a whole year older, some days I feel more then my 49 and others I feel like I am still a teenager... as if!
I got a wonderful Mother's Day, Birthday, Christmas and any other occasions gift. A Ride On Lawn Mower! Man talk about saving time. What used to take me three days of about 6-8 hours each day I can do in one day now!. It is a 27 horse power with a 52 inch cutting deck so a real time saver. Now I don't groan every time I see the grass growing.




Yesterday we started expanding the chicken yard and of course ran out of chicken wire so had to make a trip to Spruce Grove to pick some up. Not too many places open on Canada Day but good old Home Depot was. When we got home we finished it off and the chickens are happy campers.

Anyway I will post a few pictures and try to post more often.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention my neighbour that has the miniature horses has a new baby. Hesa is the dad and Trixie is the Mom. Hesa is only two and Don didn't think that he would be able to produce yet but he sure fooled everyone. The new baby's name is Paddy.

Sunday updates

Just some quick updates:

Mixer is doing well and has almost healed up!, Four tubes of polysporin later but it is about the size of a quarter now and still flushing it twice daily but at least it has shown big improvement.'

We have been having major problems with the router we bought, it kept dropping the Internet connection and I would have to go unplug it and then wait then plug it back in. It would work for awhile then it would go off again so finally took it back and exchanged it for a different one. We now have a wbr-2310. It worked for a couple of days then started doing the same thing. I downloaded the latest firmware last night and then the situation seemed to get worse. Finally I rebooted everything and so far so good. I have had it on all day and it only dropped me once, but I was moving my machine from one location to another so maybe it just lost the signal for a bit. I won't brag yet though as I am keeping my fingers crossed that the problems don't begin again.

Right now I am sitting on my comfy chair typing away as happy as a clam.

We had spring for about two days, it was melting like crazy and then today that came to a sudden stop. It has been snowing off and on all day which is rather disappointing to say the least. Oh well can't do too much about it so we have been hibernating all day inside and put a bookshelf together and reorganized a few rooms.


Think my grandsons are going to come for Easter weekend so will have to try and arrange another Easter egg hunt. I was hoping we could do it outside but don't think that is going to happen if the weather report is right for the rest of the week..

Anyway that is all the news from the ranch for now. Happy Easter if I don't get back to blogging before then.

Friday night update

Well what a week!

On Saturday (a week ago tomorrow) I noticed Mixer's incision getting infected. On Sunday I called the vet as it was really quite swollen and was oozing a bit. They told me to bring him in on Monday and by then it was really swollen and the stitches were starting to separate. They gave him ten days of penicillin and a cone to wear. That night I put the cone on him and by morning he had thrashed around so much that the two stitches in the middle stitches had broken and exposed quite a large area. I talked to the clinic again and they told me to keep it clean and to keep putting polysporin on it as they can't re-stitch. So I am still cleaning it a few times a day and we have already gone through two full tubes of polysporin.

Now I am going to complain for a few minutes.

I wish I would have been better informed before letting them do this surgery on him. Apparently because he is hypothyroid healing is delayed! And for the size of his incision I think there should have been several more stitches then the six they used to close a 6 inch cut! Anyway not much I can do now except watch him slowly heal and swear that if I have to deal with something like this again I will make sure I ask a lot more questions. Also I learned that if you are going to have major surgery done on your pet make sure your favourite vet is going to be the one to do it. Our Vet recommended that he have the lump removed but then went on maternity leave.

I have also had the flu all week and just started feeling better yesterday.

That was my vent for now.

On a lighter note we got our Internet satellite hooked up on Tuesday and oh so nice! I don't think I could possibly ever go back to dial up after this. All three of our computers are hooked up now and must say it has relieved so much stress with hubby trying to work from home as well.

As an example it took him over an hour to send one power point presentation he had done via dial up and using the satellite it took just four minutes. Talk about a huge difference.

Well it is Friday night and I am pooped so am going to go stretch out on my chair and watch TV (maybe with my eyes closed). Have a great weekend all.

Oh yeah the weather has turned really nasty and we are supposed to get some ice rain tonight, yeah!

Spring? I sure hope so

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here for the past few days and starting to melt like crazy. It is going to take quite awhile though as we have so much snow to try and get rid of.

Our eldest son was down for a few days and father and son took a trip to Valemount snowmobiling for a few days, (bonding time). They had an awesome time and will add a couple of those pictures. Scenery was breathtaking and next year they promise that I will get to go as well.








Since I posted last hubby has started a new job and is working from home now so we had to rearrange the bedroom to set him up an office area. For the first week he worked from the kitchen table. He will be home some weeks and on the road for others so will be nice for him not to have to drive 100k round trip to go to work each day.
One of the good things that will come out of him working from home is that we are going to "bite the bullet" and get satellite Internet installed. Yeah!! Tuesday is supposed to be the big day. His company bought him an air card for his lap top but half the time it doesn't get a full strength signal and he would have to hook up using my dial up, so that meant my Internet was tied up and so was the phone line. Now remember we are talking about someone that spends a lot of time on the Internet so for me to be hang around waiting for him to be done so I could go on was awful. I was actually starting to bite my nails and pace!....

Mixer dude had surgery on Monday to have a lump removed. It was about the size of a quarter but the cut ended up being about 5 inches long. He was really brave and having to keep him quiet has been tough, he really wants to come out walking but I leave him at home with a bone to chew on. I am always amazed at how fast animals bounce back from surgery. I was going to show a close up picture but decided to spare you the details.



This afternoon Hubby and I saddled up Prettygirl and Copper and went to go for a ride, well they were not impressed with having to leave Link. He was calling them and racing up and down the fence which really got the girls fired up. We finally called it quits after fighting with them and as it is fairly slippery outside with all the melting we decided to separate and get them over the herd bound attitudes they all have. Link and Mystery are now in one pen and Prettygirl and Copper in the other with the corral in between them. Link was really choked about it all and kept kicking running and pacing up and down the fence. Things have finally settled down now and they are all settled in to eating hay. It will probably take a few weeks for them to actually accept it.

Well I will sign off for now and get these pictures uploaded. Take care all.

Enough is enough!

Well let me begin this post with last night's team penning fun.

I got invited to join my neighbor in team penning last night and told her that I couldn't go until I bought Prettygirl a blanket to keep her warm and to dry her off afterwards.
She said she would go with me to purchase one as I had no clue of what to get. I ended up with a really nice canvas one and good thing Donna was with me as I hadn't measured properly and would have ended up with one way to small for her.

Donna came to pick me up at 6:00 so that we would have time to warm up the horses as I haven't ridden Prettygirl in a few weeks. The fun began trying to load her in the trailer, she didn't want to go but we finally got her in there. Donna's two geldings were already in there and normally Prettgirl is such a floozy and loves the boys but not last night. During the whole five minute ride to the arena we could feel the trailer rocking and knew that she was acting up back there but we didn't want to risk stopping.

We got to the arena and opened the door to discover that she had cut her back leg. Not really bad, just a nick but of course there was blood and she had worked herself up into a lather (you would have thought she had been worked really hard). The quiet time I was hoping for to warm her up and settle her down didn't happen as the place was already alive with riders and all the good hitching spots were taken.

After riding for a few minutes I realized that my cinch wasn't quite tight enough so got off and was about to tighten it when that little twit stuck her foot up and caught it through the reins!!

Well panic immediately set in and she started jumping, rearing, kicking and bucking and I couldn't hold her so had to let her go. She ran across the arena in a full blown panic and finally came to a stop in a corner where I was able to catch up to her. She now had the lead rope wrapped around her leg but luckily the rein had broken and had released the pressure on her mouth. I am just so thankful no one was in her path and that she didn't cause the rest of the horses to panic. Well talk about being embarrassed.

Now the story gets better!

I tied her in the alley way quite a distance from any other horse and ran out to Donna's truck to borrow her reins, when I got back the guy next to me was trying to saddle his horse who was quite agitated. He said to his horse" what is your problem" and a guys voice answered down the row, "that paint mare just up and booted him with both feet".... Do you think there was any other paint mares in the building?"... No of course not, it was my problem girl.

Well we bravely continued on... Does the story end there? No! of course not.

Out we went for our turn to pen three innocent little calves. My team mates did a grand job of cutting them out and sending them down to the other end while I tried to get my little ball of nerves under control and in doing so ended up chasing the calves (quite by accident) back down to the herd.

Once again a red face!

The next run I thought I would stay back out of the way and just try and keep the ones they chased down behind the line. Simple task right? Nope, of course not.

Once again the calves were on to us and just slipped right on by and back to the herd. Now in all fairness to Prettygirl, most of this was my fault. All the previous events had rattled me to the point I had no confidence left.

Well half time came and the people I was with decided to quit and head for home, his excuse being he had to be up at four in the morning. I really think they were just being kind to me as I think they knew I had reached the end of my rope and things could only get worse.

I am really hoping that she was just going into season and that this isn't going to be her attitude from now on.

We put her spiffy new blanket on her and loaded the horses in the trailer, she must have been tired enough as the ride home was uneventful.

I have decided though that enough is enough and I am really going to have to make the effort to ride her more often as it really isn't fair to only ride her in these events with no training sessions in-between. Now if only the weather will cooperate with my plans.



Here is Miss attitude this morning in her spiffy new blanket.



Something so cute happened today I have to share. Remember Mystery, my shy little pony, the same one that would see a halter and do everything in her power not to have it touch her?

Well I walked out this morning with the halter to catch Prettygirl to take off her blanket and when I turned around Mystery was standing right behind me. She didn't even flinch when she saw the halter and let me put the lead rope over her neck and didn't pull back. I really think she wanted some extra attention and I couldn't help but think back to the days when getting caught was like a huge scary ordeal for her. Miracles do happen. She has come such a long way from the day she kicked me to get away from the halter and she was just what I needed today to renew my faith in why I wanted horses in the first place. She did get an extra treat for that one.



Isn't she adorable!

Quick updates and Pictures

Hey there, well once again the promise to post more often fell by the wayside. Oh well no biggy.

Our oldest son and grandkids came to visit a couple of weeks ago and sure enjoyed them. We weren't able to see them at Christmas so saved the gifts until they got here.










Hot Chocolate after quading and snowmobiling





Hard to believe Aidan is three already. His birthday was the 17th of Jan




Can you believe the size of this egg? It was a super egg and had to put the tape measure beside to prove how big it was. She produced these two days in a row and now they are back to normal size.




Snowy day, Prettygirl and Copper eat together most times.


Mystery with her big boy friend Link. These two eat together most times so it is nice for Mystery because the other girls pick on her quite a bit.