Friday, July 31, 2009

Farewell, for the time being!

Has anyone else had a blog mysteriously disappear? My farrier blog is gone. Weird. The computer is being packed in about 5 minutes. I don't know when I will unpack and get internet, so farewell for a while.

Lady does not like shots. After many failed attempts with my little "helpers", bent needles, and a broken lead rope, I put her in the stocks (she walked right in) she received her first set of vaccinations. She still fought like a cat on a leash being hosed down, but she got the injections. The kids were pretty freaked out. Next time I will use smaller needles. Blood was everywhere. Not a great experience. But afterwords, Lady continued to walk right into the stocks. She had to step up like into a horse trailer. I am hoping that the 130 mile trailer ride Sunday or Monday will be a less tramatic experience.

Farewell. (actually, I will try to access Monday at the Library)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Ok, you can pass it to me



Stacey at The Jumping Percheron passed this on to me. I must now tell ten things about myself.

1-- I am the proud owner of Belle, an 18 year old Clydesdale Mare -- yes, an actual clydesdale (as opposed to Klein, that must wear a halter that clearly states that she is a Percheron, not a clydesdale)Foxy, an 11 year old paint mare, and a four month old paint filly Lady (name pending is Q Ton Foxy Cyanoptera)

2-- I am a science teacher with a seriously warped sense of humor. I have horse skulls with Christmas lights in their eye sockets and I think that pics like this are funny.


3-- I drive a Ram 2500 V-10. No this is not my husband's vehicle. It is mine.


4-- I have three kids. I like mine own, but rarely other people's kids. If I liked kids I would teach elementary school. I prefer high school because then they have personality.


5-- I am married to Santa.

6-- I just bought a barn on nine acres in a tiny town in Wyoming. It is so small that it no longer has its own post office.

7-- I have a brain damaged dog. As a pup, he thought that it would be really funny to grab horses' tails. he was kicked way too many times. He is the dumbest Australian Shepard on the planet.


8-- I have two cats and two fish. Let's see how well they will make the move, together.


9-- I am a Coke addict. I drink Cherry Coke by the case.

10-- I am a HUGE Dale Jr. fan. If Belle ever has a colt, he will be named Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Show time

There is a small show on saturday. It is practice for the county fair that is coming up. The kids are still gone, so I had only half entertained the option of showing Lady at halter. She is good --- most of the time. Today, I talked myself into it. The Mr. will take pics, a friend of mine will babysit Foxy. It is the first class of the day -- 8:00 and then I will take them back home. It should be entertaining.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

riotious ramblings

I am stuck packing and cleaning a three story house with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (I don't count the third because it was so creepy that no one used it, just a toilet and shower, no sink -- in the basement) BY MYSELF. I don't like housework and this is like the ultimate punishment for me.

So, I got a new kitten. It is a little black puffball. Shooter is terrified of it, but fascinated, too. Panthera (Panthera panthera is the scientific name of the panther) hisses at Shooter and Shooter runs away. Then Panthera cries and Shooter comes running back to lick Panthera. Puma is not impressed by the new addition. He hissed at her, she hissed back and now she ignores him.

The smell of new tires is intoxicating. The new tires for my truck arrived today. (Thank you, UPS) They had to be special ordered (the joy of living in a miniscule town in Wyoming) They are sitting in my front room amid the mess of packing.
If I don't get the teaching job, maybe I can work at a tire place. I love that smell. My truck finally is fixed, but now the hubbie will need to take it for another week to get the tires replaced. AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh! I really prefer driving my truck. Shooter gets to go on rides, I can drive like I own the road. I can wear my hat. I can tie Belle to the bed and bathe her rather than using the fence. Oh, well, I will definitely feel better with new tires with all of the trailer trips that we will make during this move. We think that we will finally close on the house at the begininng of next week. It better happen soon. The foreclosure on the house that we are renting was announced in the newspaper. I guess that the rent we were paying was not used to pay the mortgage, LOVELY! My neighbor had to tell me about it. Apparently, it was supposed to be auctioned off June 24th.
Babe, the new pony that has been on 60 acres decided that 60 was not enough and got out of the safe horse fence and tangled in someone else's barb wire fence. The horse that she was with is much worse off, but she is still under vet care right now. LOVELY X2!

Will the fun never end? Probably not! The kids are still stuck in Utah. They are ready to come home. My ex is a month and a half behind on child support, but on the good side, my hubbie's ex wife remarried and he does not have to pay alimony any more.

Ok, enough complaining. Worse things are happening all around the world. I have great kids, my horses are alive and fairly well (with the exception of Babe, but she is improving) I am happily married, my hubbie does NOT have to leave for a month to New Mexico (his work took pity on me, with all of the house fiasco, they figured that I might need to spend some time with the man before I had a nervous breakdown and ran screaming into the river naked) I am going to George Strait this weekend in Cheyenne, and I have a full case of Cherry coke.

Life is good.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Bath time for Lady

Lady got a much needed bath today. It was her first real bath. When she was a few weeks old she had some sponge baths, but this was her first REAL bath. The hair on her back is longer than the rest of her body and collects shavings and hay and fecal matter, so she was looking pretty bad. Belle also needed a bath so that I could scrub her legs. (by the way, the new scratches spray is working fairly well. It also got rid of some of the proud flesh from when she fell out of the horse trailer when I first tried to bring her home. It's not a miracle spray, but the skin looks pink and is actually trying to heal rather than just treating the symptoms, but its only been a week. A lot of "cures" seem to work well for the first week. At least it doesn't make the hair fall out like desitin does.)

I meant to take a picture of Lady before she got wet, but she kept trying to help me with Belle, so she got squirted a few times on the butt before I remembered to grab the camera. (before the bath actually started, but some of the gick is already off)

This is also the first time that I actually tied her to a stationary post. She has been lead around and tied off to the saddle horn, but it is the first time tied to a post. I tied her to the same post as Belle so that Foxy would not feel pressured to choose between Belle and Lady. (I should not have worried. Foxy just wandered off during the scrubbing and then came back when the spraying was all done.( here she is, all soaking wet, ready for the soap)

(all suds up)


All done.
I did not want to put too much pressure on her, so she is not spotless(actually she has lots of spots:) and I ran out of whitener, anyway, but she is really soft and she enjoyed her bath and especially the towel rubdown afterwards. I threw the towel on her back, flapped it around, the only annoyance that she demonstrated was trying to grab it when it was not on her back. She is really too smart for my own good.





Look at all of the little black spots that are appearing under the white coat. She won't be so white when all of the baby fur sheds out. I am half tempted to enter her in a foal halter class at the end of the month. But only half. We will hopefully be moving that weekend (please, please, please)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sunday Stroll

No pics today. I forgot the camera and the cell phone. My hands were full anyway. We went for a trail ride today. The hubbie went for his first trail ride in 5 years. He rode Belle with my saddle. I rode Foxy with Kid #2's saddle. Lady was on a lead with Foxy and me. Shooter, the hairless wonder, was underfoot. I ponied Lady in the arena for a few days prior to today and that went well. Foxy's leg did not swell because I kept her to a walk, so I figured that today would be great for a trail ride. The original plan was for Belle and I to go on the trail, but with it so nice out I offered Belle to the hubbie. Lady was not impressed with the asphalt of the road that we had to cross. She was not impressed with the uneven ground. She was not impressed with Shooter that is of the opinion that his spot is walking side by side with whatever horse that I happen to be riding. Lady tripped over him once. She reared up, she hauled back, but she stayed up with mom (Foxy) for the most part. Hubbie was great, but the saddle was not comfortable. It's too small. He realized why Kid #2 refused to ride western for years (it hurts boys, mom).
We need to get him his own saddle for when the Bartman comes to live with us.
All in all, it was fun.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Lady, please stay out of the fence

Lady is a baby. She loves to run and buck and kick. She is pretty smart most of the time, too. Now, she would have been smarter to not get into this situation, but she did. I already had the camera in hand to take pictures when she did this, otherwise I would not have these pics. I would not have stopped, found the camera, and then helped her get out of the fence. I love how Belle and Foxy are watching her, but not getting too close





After her left leg got caught under the fence, I quit taking pics and pushed it back under and then shoved her chest over. Then she scrambled up and tore off around the arena for about five minutes

Weekend Wanderings

For all of those that think that horses have no personality and can remember people. . . You are full of horse crap!

We made the trek down from Wyoming to the crowded freeways of Utah this weekend.




It was for a family reunion. Now I will not bore you with the millions of pics I took of that. Yeaaaah!!!! But I will post one pic memorializing the experience.

What is this? you ask. A couple of hummingbird moths. . . Joined. . .

All of the little kids made me trek out through the poison oak to look at them.

Hey, I have to get my kicks from somewhere. The Mr. and I were in the cabin with all of the little kids (ours? we sent with the grandparents, thinking that we were really smart -- yeah, right)
We had not taking into consideration that little kids wake up in the middle of the night screaming. My mares can handle all of the babies from now on, let me tell you!

We went to the barn to visit Bart. Now for those of you that need a refresher course, Bart is Belle's Brother and teammate. He is one of the best carriage horses on the street. His long Clydesdale legs eat up the distance and he is ready, willing, and able to work and work hard. He is also gorgeous.


He has an incredibly long forelock and beard. Belle does have a nicer mustache, though.
BELLE



I walked out to the corrals. I called Bart over. He immediately started walking towards me. He is not dumb. People calling his name generally have a treat.

Then he slammed on the brakes, gave me a very disgusted look, and walked away. He is still holding a grudge. He is furious with me for taking away Belle. BELLE


It doesn't help to tell him that it is my goal to have him up there in Wyoming, too. He likes his job and is not willing to retire yet. As much as I want him, I would hate to have anything happen to him to force him to retire. So I can be patient. I really need a new job before I pick up any more horses anyway. Maybe the hubbie will have to become Bart's personal Assistant. Yeah, right.

We are hoping to finally close on the horse property at the end of the week or early next week. We need to repair a lot of fence, but it should be worth it. I am busy packing (I still need to empty out my classroom) and playing with the 3 horses (Babe is still out to pasture), 1 dog (his coat is growing)1 cat (very angry that her owner is gone AGAIN to Utah, 2 rabbits (still only 2 Yeah!) 2 fish (way cool, too).

No word yet on the interview with Jackson Academy.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Corrupt them while they are young

My sister came for a visit. Actually, she had to bring Kid #1 home from Girl Scout camp and she had intended to paint the kids' bedrooms in the new house. Unfortunately, we have not yet closed on the house(we are currently only 9 days late)
With any luck we will have closed by next week. So, instead, she brought one of her students out and we played with the horses. Student has a Morgan mare. She has now been brainwashed. She fell in love with Belle. She called her mom and now wants a Clydesdale.

(See, horses DO come in bigger sizes! It IS possible for a horse to be taller than 15 hh.(just a dig at my sister's tiny herd:))

She does NOT want a mule. There was one at the arena that would not stop braying. It was really annoying and funny. She loves Belle's smooth gaits. Belle was not really sure of her ability for a while and did not want to canter, but eventually she did. I told her that she needs to move to Wyoming and that she will need to come visit or Lady will be rideable before she can convince her mother to move here. (She also fell in love with Lady -- What's not to love? She is such a love bug)



I had forgotten how good my niece is at riding. She loped around on Foxy like a fly on Flypaper. Her butt never left that saddle. Unfortunately, our new pony was still in Cheyenne until we move(I will get to that later), so we had 6 kids and two adults sharing 2 horses. Lady and I worked on halter training. Some days she leads better than others.

I also made the 6 kids walk the 6 dogs.

I have Shooter, my sister has a small beast that yaps, and my friend has four. It was pretty funny watching three aussies, a corgi, a heeler, and a beast go for a walk. The beast was carried alot. The heeler and Shoot love to run. But it was hot, so the kids walked from shade to shade. Shooter had to go on the trail later to get his exercise.

The bugs are really bad. I finally remembered to buy some fly spray when we drove up to the city to go shopping. Lady was her normal self. I sprayed her down, she stood there, not caring. Belle spun around her stall wigging out until she finally stood there and took it. They all got wormed, as well. Belle thought about being a brat, but I think that it had more to do with the horde of people, than the wormer. Fox was a brat, but my sister hung on until I could get the tube into her mouth, then Fox let me squirt it in. Lady stood, let me put the tube in her mouth, spit out the wormer. I adjusted the dial, put more in, she ate it, all while not having a halter on. The imprint training with spray bottles, tubes, clippers, and tons of time; it has all paid off. As feisty as that little girl is, I would have an out of control three month old with out the constant work.

So back to the pony. I bought the kids a welch pony. She is 13'1. (at least she is supposed to be small, not like two of my sister's Morgans that are 13'3)
A Friend of mine bought her for her daughter a few years ago, put a ton of training into her, but the girl would not ride her and then my friend's mom bought her daughter a horse that she loves and adores and she now the daughter has a reason not to ride Babe (Yes, it has been pointed out that I seem to have a fetish with feminine horse names i.e. Belle, Foxy, Lady, and now Babe, I can't explain it)
So now I have a small sorrel mare that Kid #1 and #2 can ride. Technically, I can ride her too( my friend did and although I might outweigh her, I have longer legs and can probably distribute it better), she never tires and is a speed demon on barrels. Lady loves to tease her. I was trying to get my sister to buy her for my "fly on flypaper" niece, but My sister was not biting. So she went out to pasture in Cheyenne. I broke down and agreed to buy her (I agreed when my friend was in Vegas and she called in a panic that her daughter was given the new horse -- the girl had quit riding the pony months ago) but she is still in Cheyenne until we move to the new house. I don't want to pay board on a fourth horse while the kids are back in Utah. (two left today, then we all leave for the weekend. Then they won't be back until we move) This is not the greatest pic, but it was before we decided that we NEEDED her so, I don't have any great pics.

(yep, the stirrups are way too short, Kid #1 is not wearing boots, helmet, etc. It was a warm up in the round pen, which reminds me; when my sister was here, she mentioned helmets for her kids. For a split second, I was confused,my kids rarely wear helmets while riding. not the best option, but it is what it is)