Friday, April 23, 2010

Rain, Rain, go AWAY!!!

This morning it has been raining. It rained all night. I was feeling lazy and did not want to get my work boots muddy. (as in the boots that I wear to go teach in, as opposed to the muck boots for cleaning stalls, and my riding boots.)So, I drove my truck to the barn to feed Belle her Lunch. 1/2 can alfalfa cubes soaked in water, 2 cups oil, 1 quart Senior feed, 1 cup Nutrena Empower (I am not a paid spokesperson. I am trying it out to see if it helps Belle keep her weight while I am increasing her workouts) Not my brightest move. We slid.





It is really nicely stuck. 4-Lo did not even get me out. I had to call Mr. BPA (who told all of his co-workers -- they all laughed) to come and take me to work. We will need to pull it out later since we really can't have both of us miss work today. It is really not much fun slodging around in mud past the ankles with a lap top in one hand, a backpack of text books in the other.

And before anyone says to just hook Belle up to the truck, the harness is still not fixed from the last time I hitched her to something.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Lady, the hairy mud ball -- and cats

With Wyoming weather, the horses don't know if they should be shedding or not, but they are really starting to shed. We are still getting snow (this was last week) but the grass is turning green (Lady's little hoofprint)Foxy never grows much of a winter coat, hates blankets and does just fine. Lady and Belle grew thick, long coats this winter, and only wore blankets when they had sweated (in Belle's case) or I made the mistake of bathing them (Lady's case). Lady is a shedding little monster.
It doesn't help that when the snow melts, the ground turns into a soupy, muddy mess. We are installing a hot water system into the new garage. It's main purpose will be for attempting to keep Lady white. She likes to nap, alot. She likes to find mud puddles to sleep in. Yesterday, when I pulled her out to be trimmed, she had a big lump of mud on her back.
She doesn't like the hoofstand, so I had to play peek-a-boo with her and pull on her tongue, scratch her ears, etc. to attempt to keep her occupied. Brushing her out helped, too. and the lunging before. and tying Belle and Foxy near her. She still tries to lie down on the trimmer. She's still learning. She thinks that trimming should take no longer than the time it takes to pick her hooves.

Isn't she cute in her new Halter? It's a little big, but I think that by summer it will fit perfectly. She was getting fed up with pics by this picture, but with the clouds, the pics kept coming out blurry and the flash washed her out.

Normally, I can lead Belle around by her beard when she is out of her stall to eat her grain, but with the shedding going on, on ended up with a handful of beard. Belle and Shooter share her grain. But if the door is open to the barn, Belle will run outside to Foxy's outdoor run (regardless of the fact that her inner door is RIGHT THERE. You could nigh at her through the door.)Saturday, while adding on to the outdoor arena, Belle was eating her Lunch, but Foxy neighed and Belle left her grain to run back out to pasture.
She is so whipped.

More in furball news (if you don't like cats, Stop here. Move on to the next blog, email, or other internet item, its all about cats) I have updated pics of the cats. We need cats. They keep me from dealing with mice. Mice attract Snakes. I HATE snakes. I was raised on Indiana Jones. It is perfectly fine for him to hate them, so I do to.

This is my cat. The rest are NOT mine. They below to kids, Mr. BPA or my sister. I only claim this cat. This is Tigris as a kitten,
This is Tigris, now. He is a barn cat. He is an excellent mouser. He can find mice in the dead of winter (awesome).






These are Puma, toothless wonder, basking in the sun, and Gizmo, idiotic, loudmouthed barn cat. She is not allowed in the house... except she ripped apart her leg and I had to drain a gallon of pus out of it. Nasty stuff. Right before breakfast. She and Puma rarely see each other, but while Giz was yowelling, Puma came and checked her out, so I put them both on the bed and they have coexisted peacefully.


Guido is a giant furball that is declawed on the front. He loves to claw the furniture, but has no claws. He is a feline version of shooter, but has a brain. Don't pick me up, I'm too big, but I will be petted from the floor, chair, couch, etc. He will soon be getting a Lion cut (he loves it, he is just a big drag queen)















I accidently put this picture in sideways, but it fits this psycho cat with multiple extra toes on each paw. He was spayed and neutered the same day. He is not my cat. I had his brother, Paws (he also had many extra toes, he was fixed, but it never stopped him. I think that he had a spare pair.) He was killed when he was hit by a car. It was the 7th or 8th time that he had attacked a car.
















And last but not least because she woke me up this morning, making bizarre sounds, is Rascal, the amazing riding cat.First as a kitten, then as an adult extra for an Alien movie. She is psycho. She is going to explode. She is due anyday and stays in my bedroom. Shooter may have been the one to mangle Giz and he has been a cat chasing fool (This is why I have no recent pics of Socks. He runs when Shooter chases him.)So we don't want Shooter, Tig, or any other cat to kill the kittens. But since we have no idea when she will pop, she has been living in the house for weeks. The pictures that I have taken of her, just don't demonstrate her hugeness. She is normally tiny. Her belly is four to five times its normal size. She attacks Puma, Bandit, Tig (when she can get to him) the dumb indoor dog. She is cranky.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter!!!

Today is Easter. DUH! If you had to read this to find that out, you are a little slow. Or out in the middle of nowhere. Nope, I am in the middle of nowhere and I know that it is Easter. We sold all of our baby bunnies and picked up some chicks.
SIDENOTE -- Never ask a room full of agriculture students where to pick up chicks. They will tell you the local bar. These same students had no problem telling me where to get my piglets, but. . .

When we got our chicks, there were other families getting the dyed chicks and wanted to know what to do with them when they got big. Would the lady buy them back? EAT IT! Or get a pullet and eat the eggs!!! So now we are up to 21 chickens. Mr. BPA read an article that said that the grasshoppers were going to be worse than last year, so now we have 21 hungry predators to devour them. The eggs are good, too.

Today, I decided to throw the harness on Foxy. I checked with her former owner, the one that trained her, to see if she had ever been roped off of. (I did not want her to spin and try to keep the tugs tight when she felt pressure) She was injured before she was roped off of, so we were good. But first, I had to outfit the harness to properly fit Belle, by adding leather to the checkrein, the noseband, and the crupper. We set out to pull a tire around. Unfortunately, Belle was so thrilled to be pulling, she dug in, dropped her butt, and pulled, and pulled, until we broke the tug and the towhooks that were hooked into the tire. Well that sucked. Belle was having so much fun. I need to get her an actual collar harness that is tough.

So then I put the broken harness on Foxy. The tug was the only part that broke, and since I did not have anything that I wanted to hitch her to, I figured that we could at least see how she tolerated the harness. She did not twitch for the crupper, the checkrein, or even the blinders that are plastered to the side of the head. She did object to the 6" liverpool bit. I switched that out for a solid rubber loose ring snaffle that my sister had on the extra bit hook (with 8 horses and since she used to have a boarding business, she has a lot of extra tack) Foxy was standing there, so mellow, that I took the time to take a picture (I rarely remember. I forgot when I was driving Belle earlier, and I even had Kid #1 ground driving her. I need to send the kids out with the Slave driver. I forgot how to train without throwing them off the carriage.)


I left the halter on as a safety feature since I was adjusting the harness from Belle to Foxy. Pulling off copious amounts of leather. The tugs and break straps are just hanging there and the leadrope is in my hand, since Kid #2 is driving. I had to laugh. He was trying to neckrein her butt. That was one of my huge pet peeves when I trained carriage drivers. Or he would shift his weigh and walk in the direction he wanted her to go. Foxy was an angel under harness. Once I get the tug fixed and a cart rigged up (I have some ideas for a light two wheeled cart, just perfect for Foxy, Belle. . . I need a real harness and a heavier duty cart or wagon)

Lady got a new show halter for Easter. While we were in town selling bunnies, we saw a fun raiser with saddles and had to stop. It is really nice. I spent so much time with the big girls, I did not work with Lady today. With the massive snow storm this week, they were all ready to run, so they all got out to run before we did any work. Even the 28 year old and the gimpy appy were galloping around like they were twitterpated. Lady tried to nurse, but Foxy is finally dry. Lady did not like that and kicked out at Foxy. What a stinker.