Rain, Rain, Go AWAY...

...and mudboggin' on Monday. Wow. It is definitely possibly to have too much of a good thing (except for chocolate cake, that is). Where is the sun? Does it still exist? Is it seriously soggy at your house or dry as dust? Or are you one of the lucky few that is somewhere in between perhaps? I pass a little pond every morning on my way to work that I look to as an unofficial water table. At the beginning of the year, that thing was down to a large puddle (and had been that way long enough there was grass growing where there had been water). I've never seen it get that low in 20+ years. Anyway, not only is it slam full, it's on the verge of brimming over. Not sure how much rain that translates to, but I know we've had umpteen inches in the last month or so. I sure do wish such things didn't always seem to wind up feast or famine. *sigh* Like the photo? Kinda puts you in mind of soaring eagles and majestic hawks, doesn't it? Ha. Apparently even vultures look pretty darn good from a distance. Huh. Sounds like some kind of life lesson to me ;o)

I wanted to apologize to my email subscribers for the previous post. *smacks palm on forehead* I totally forgot that the video clips don't show up in the emails and did not include a hyperlink to it for you (how rude). If you missed last week's clip and want to see it, click here to watch it on our Vimeo channel. I'm sorry, and I'll try really hard not to forget next time (have a hug?).

I have a couple of photos to share with you today. Pamplona may have the running of the bulls, but around here we have the running of the hay. The horses are quite familiar with the sound of the tractor and the moment that engine starts, heads pop up out of the grass all over the pasture. Most of the time, I let the girls into the training area [which is normally closed off] to distract them with forbidden forage so we can run a rope across the area that leads up to the hay without interference. Because we have to bring the rolls in through the Moo Crew's pasture, we block off the bottom of the girl's hill leading to where we set the roll so no one winds up in the wrong field. For some reason, this never fails to create an atmosphere of giddy anticipation among the girls.
While this next photo is hardly brilliant, it cracked me up because it looks like Lady (L) is giving DD the evil eye for closing off the upper pasture before she can sneak up there (which she actually managed to do last time - the heifer):

Now that I have a modicum of understanding with regard to camera settings (aperture, to be more specific) I finally managed to get a couple of halfway decent shots of the girls charging up the hill toward the hay. I think I should have uploaded at a higher resolution, though:

The pasture is, of course, a disgusting muddy mess...

Not so fast Rina... Woo!

Lady and Sarabear bringing up the rear...

Other than the icky mud, I thought this was a nice photo of Sara:

And finally: (though completely irrelevant to the theme I had going) a pretty sunrise over the tree tops on a misty morning just for you (I forgot I was going to post it last month :o)

As always, thanks for reading this far and have a wonderful week everybody!

Access Denied, Dude

...stop messing up my Saturday! I'm not one to complain (well okay, maybe I am a little) but I'm ready for some of that Camelot weather. The kind where it only rains after sundown and doesn't interfere with anybody's plans for the day. Plans like, oh I don't know... let's say for example playing working with the horses (outside), visitor area completion and chair painting (also outside), tack/feed room construction (also also outside). *sigh* I'm glad we're finally getting rain again - really. I am. But does it have to be so much all at once and every Saturday? ReallyReally? So it's back to rain rot and icky stinky feet (soggy poo just packs right up in those frogs [hooves] and sticks like glue, don'tcha know - Blech). I do have plenty to do inside: Tempting stuff, like taxes (sorry for swearing). Do you do your own taxes? Have you started? Are you finished? DH keeps trying to talk me into doing the DIY with the whole Turbo Tax thing, but I'm afraid (very afraid). Being mathematically challenged - not to mention paranoid - I much prefer the security of looking to someone else for answers should there be any questions asked ('cause if the IRS comes knocking, I'd probably respond with mass hysteria ;o)

For those of you stuck indoors today, I did an archive dive to find the clips I shot of the girls playing in the pasture not long after Sarabear came. That morning was, to me anyway, hysterically funny. Some of you may remember my previous post (here) and the blurry photos of Bella "protecting" me from Sara. *giggle* Poor Bella - I'm sure it must be quite the trial for her to be *cough* saddled<-- Oooh, that was bad :-D with a biped that is dumb as dirt. You might want to check the cast of characters on the right-hand side of the blog to see who is who before you watch. I should note that I was using the zoom (so we're not quite as close as we seem to be).
Here's the rundown: The squeals are from Rina, who was flirting with Cinnamon through the fence; most of the low snorts are Sara (who did not understand "playtime" and thought there was some kind of crisis going on); and the funny sounding snorts were largely Bellas (although I think Sara blew once too) and those were directed at me. Horses will "blow" to alert members of a herd that there is D-A-N-G-E-R. Although I had tucked myself in next to a large tree just in case, Bella did not seem to think I was safe there at all and felt it necessary to intervene. She jumped and played mostly in circles around where I was standing, and tried her darnedest to keep everyone away from her hapless human. After shooting a few clips, I decided to go in the house because Bella was becoming quite stressed. She wasn't buying any of my calm reassurances that everything was okay. After all, what do I know? I'm just a people ;o)

Hope that gave you a smile or two. Thank you so much for reading this far, and have a blessed week everyone! 

Shock and Nawwww!

I don't know about you, but I have a tempestuous (such a cool word ;o) love/hate relationship with the internet and all things technological. As the parent of a deaf child, I TOTALLY appreciate  the marvelous blessing that texting has been. I do not miss the days of running halfway across the pasture to catch DD for one thing or another (can't just bellow at a deaf kid, don'tcha know), but as a regular form of communication I find it seriously annoying. Just call me for crying out loud. I can't wait until iPhones are more affordable (Facetalk means signing not texting - Woo!) Facebook is okay I guess, fun sometimes for sharing photos or catching/keeping up with old friends and family but definitely prone to TMI Overload (too much information).
Sometimes I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW - in explicit detail - "What's on your mind" (because ick). I'm not sure I like all the ease of access stuff either; especially when I can't really tell where my personal information is going. Leeeetle too scary for me - sorry. And don't get me started on Google's new [over the top] tracking stalking strategy. *shudders* The photo, in case you are wondering, is one of the cabinet doors in the workroom at school (I was making copies and pondering this week's post). It's kind of funny to me that with all this amazing technology around, the bulletin board decorations haven't really changed all that much since I was in school. We are NOT talking about how long ago that was though. Getting back to my original thought here...

Twitter I use for promotional purposes and periodic one-liners just to break up the monotony. Example: What do you get when you toss a grenade into a kitchen in France? Linoleum Blownapart. *snort* But honestly? I just don't get the twits, er, twitterers sometimes. Do I care that you just finished flossing your teeth? Um, no (although I'm sure your dentist must be very proud). How about it? Are you addicted to any of the social media sites? You can tell me (I promise not to tweet it ;o) This photo is Bella performing one of her spectacular yawns. *laugh* I was kind of proud this one was actually in focus (she didn't do the head flip/hair tossing thing with it - she really gets into her yawns).

This has been a bit of a painful week. At the beginning of it, Taya came hobbling down the hill with a stick protruding from her front foot right above her hoof. At first I thought it was just caught in the hair, but I couldn't get it out - it was through the skin and stuck fast. Ugh, a puncture (eew). It obviously pained her, as she snatched her foot away every time she thought I might touch it again. Poor girl. Got a gel ice pack and laid carefully over the area hoping to numb it a little. She stood still on her own for me (the girls are SO good about this :o) as we waited for a few minutes. Said a prayer, put some pressure on the ice pack and slid the offending splinter out. Whew! A squirt of peroxide to be safe, and she happily trotted off munching her good patient treat. Some kind of sticker bush I guess, but just look at this evil thing - Yeow! It was stuck in there all the way to that second knot. She must have lay down to roll and knelt on it or something. Geez.

Before I forget, I have to give a warm fuzzy (furry?) Thank You Thank you Thank you! to Beth over at Seriously Horsing Around. She finds some great horsey stuff any and everywhere, and actually managed to find a way to get a free one year subscription to Horse Illustrated (post is here). The magazine was one of the first things to get whacked a few years ago at the beginning of my [personal] budget cutting craze. I've missed it, but now in 6 to 24 weeks I'll be perusing its pages once more. And for free too: Yay!

We ended the week with a Mad Max mental moment (and why are you not surprised, right? *sigh*) I had a couple of pretty good shots of him aggravating Cinnamon, but cannot seem to find them anywhere (don'tcha just hate that?). The two of them are fine until mealtime, then it's Nyah-Nyah games. We'll make due with this picture of our resident problem child taken near the end of last fall. I used the poster setting on the camera, which gave it an unusual look. I kind of like it though, and although I wish his ears were up, I have to admit it's much more Maximus the way they are :o)

One of the things on my ToDo list is to build Mr. Miscreant up there a climbing wall. He seems to have a genetic predisposition for it, and has discovered that the round pen panels make a pretty decent ladder. Grrr. I have the plans (and a pretty good idea of who I can coerce to handle the carpentry part) but I was hoping to put it off until we finished the patio/visitor area and started working on the boy's new stalls. I am now rethinking that strategy.
Below is a photo of what was - in its former life - a round pen panel. More specifically, the panel between Max and Cinnamon's stall. It has - as evidenced by its current state - been pretty well annihilated. Must you add Max the mountain climber to your personal cast of characters? Really man? How about we add Joe Destruco instead? *sigh*

Guess that's enough for now; I'd better get busy around here (so much to do and so little time ;o) Gotta go work on our taxes (talk about painful - Blech). Thanks for reading this far, and have a blessed week everyone! Oh, and don't forget to look for Epic Farms on Goodsearch please; we'll take all the help we can get. And Clancy, I hope you're okay down there girl (prayed for you when I saw all that water on the news). Okay, now I'm really done. Hugs,

Okay, first I've got something burdensome to get off my chest here (no, not those silly ;o) Life is full of disappointments; some big, some small. But every once in awhile you experience something that strikes without warning and transcends tragedy. Therefore, I feel a deep seated need to publish the following letter from my [thoroughly] broken heart:

Dear John;

  I am writing to you to express the terrible sense of betrayal I am feeling; you have been with me for only a few short years and I cannot understand how you could just disappear from my life like this. I searched for you for so long and was elated when at long last I finally found you. You were there for me during that brief and shining time before my cancer and while I missed you terribly through the chemo, I can still remember our joyous and bubbly reunion a few months after the end of my last treatment. 

  How can you do this to me so suddenly? Could you not have told me that things were not going well for you? You didn't even bother to come up with a suitable candidate for replacement, you cad! You have doomed me to another desperate search. How long that will take I shudder to think. Who else can help me keep it all together like you can? Without you I know I will disintegrate into chaos and utter disarray. 

  And I can't believe you yanked every last bottle of your stupid Curl Around Shampoo off every shelf in the country. What did I ever do to you??? Well big fat raspberries to that, you putz!

Frizzily yours,  Jen

Thank goodness Ebay was there with a [rapidly dwindling] stash of John Frieda to save the day. Not to mention my 'do - such as it is. (I'm still mad at him though ;o) And did I really just buy 12 bottles of shampoo and conditioner at one time?? EEK I'm a hoarder. *hangs head in shame* Yep, sure did. At least the shipping was free.

Don't you just hate it when something you know and love goes *POOF*? Ah well, C'est la vie, right? Meh. Okay, now let's get to the Expo, shall we?

You know, sometimes I'm terribly thankful to be A Nobody. I've never aspired to fame - just the fortune part - *grin* and I'm definitely missing a large portion of the competitive gene. I have neither won nor done anything overly notable (and don't care either - so Ha). But you know what? There are no huge expectations hanging over my head either (well, other than mine that is ;o) and the only person putting pressure on me is me. I'm thinking it is more than enough mortification to get "that look" from one of the horses that says I just had a ginormous brain blip.
When you're famous, however, any and all of those mental moments and ill-fated foibles become public fodder that travels faster than the speed of light (just ask Pat Parelli who took a hard public slap to his superiority complex courtesy of someone's stallion at a clinic ;o) Even Mark Rashid [my horse hero] talked about his own equine attitude adjustment in one of his books. He said straight out that he had started to believe his own press and suffered the consequences. Humbleness is probably the single most important thing to remember when working with horses (and they are more than happy to remind you, should that important factor ever slip your mind for a moment *grin*).

For egotistical *cough* whatever reasons, instead of bringing his regular [and advertised] mount for Saturday's performance, the entertainer, who was the reserve champ from last year's Mustang Makeover, decided to bring along a green broke mustang instead. While it wasn't a total train wreck, I couldn't help but marvel over the self-inflicted stupidity of someone who I presumed was lots smarter than me about horses (otherwise I would have been the one out there, right?).  Even veteran equine performers can have those I'm so not up for this today days, so I'm going to say that this horse did extremely well under the circumstances: Huge gloomy arena, strange smells, people (not me) firing off flash photos, pouring rain, funky yellow lighting, and a very loud [fairly garbled] sound system. I'm betting there will be considerable post performance damage control to be done.

Sandy and I spent a lot of time wincing; particularly after he lay the horse down and stood on the saddle (that's not very nice there, slick). Not everything that can be done, should be done; didja not know that dude? I don't think I'd care too much to have a little kid standing around on top of me, even if I was wearing a nice big belt. Oy.
Anyway, I shot a few short clips for you guys and slapped 'em together to share. He ran out of bullets after two runs of shooting at and missing all but one of the balloons. He apologized and explained that this was his very first time shooting from the back of that particular horse. This would be the main reason for the BooBoo Award. I'm not the brightest bulb on the porch, but I'm thinking that's probably not the time or place to introduce your green horse to something new and scary. The shooting is up first in the clip, followed by a pretty neat looking leap into a moving trailer. Kudos to the obnoxious woman in black who was nice enough to ask me if I could see. Too bad she didn't bother to listen [and move] when I politely said "No ma'am". There were a couple of close calls where it became obvious the horse had had enough; and control got pretty dicey. I stopped filming the last clip about two seconds too soon (darn it), as the horse body slammed the gate for the second time in a desperate attempt to get the heck outta dodge...

I'm going to say that the best and biggest surprise of the day was clinician Tommy Garland, who showed up on an - are you ready for this? - Arabian. *shocked gasp* Naw, really? That was definitely a new one. What cracked me up (and I sooo wish I had thought to video it, or at least get a picture) was that his horse actually looked right up at the crowd and scanned over the people with obvious interest while his rider spoke. Too funny; not a single one of the other horses "looked up" all day. We wandered around the stables later on, and found him calmly munching hay in his stall. Out of all the horses we "visited" down there, he was the friendliest (most rolled their eyes and backed away). Not only gorgeous, but reproducible (yoohooo Bellllllaaaa... woo! A studly hubba-hubba for you right here sistafriend) If only. Here's a photo of that gorgeous boy:

Well, I think that's [definitely] enough for now. Thanks so much for reading this far and have a blessed week everyone!