Dumb Dog!

Saturday, Shooter got kicked in the head. This is nothing new for him. He gets kicked daily. His job, as he sees it, is to help move horses. He loves to chase the horses from the barn out to pasture. I was out of town(of course, I was, everything has to happen when I am out of town). I was in the middle of a presentation of trains, when I got a call. It was on vibrate. I hit the ignore button and texted, wxplaining that I was in a presentation and couldn't get out of my seat until the presentation was over. The reply was, "Shooter kicked. eye bloody. Don't know how bad."
I showed this to Mr. BPA (sitting next to me). Somehow neither one of us was too worried. When the presentation was over, I slipped outside to call. It was PANDALERIUM!(word stolen from Jeff Foxworthy) The kids were freaking out, Shooter's whole head was swelling. Blood was everywhere. The only view of the actual eyeball made my brother-in-law think that the eyeball was ruptured. Lovely. Somehow, I did not feel panic, I made a few comments on facebook, but since he was running around and actually tried to herd the horses back to the barn, I wasn't too concerned.

I stayed in Casper(hey, we went to the BIG city!) and finished my stuff. When I got home, Shooter looked like something out of a horror film. His eye was so swollen that I couldn't pry it open. There was a cut right above the eye. He was pretty out of it from the painkillers, but he was thumping his stump of a tail and was happy to see me. I gave him a shot of antibiotics, and put some antibiotics on his open wound. I still did not get too worked up about it. ---side note---- I get worked up over everything. Rascal having her kittens made me crazy. Foxy having lady put me over the edge. One of the reasons why we haven't looked too hard at breeding Belle is that I would be living in the barn for the entire gestation period. By the end, I would be institutionalized. I babied Tigris when Sergeant stepped on him. When Shooter got kicked in the fall, I let him recuperate in the house. I get really worked up, hysterical about EVERYTHING, so I really am not sure why I was so relaxed about this.

Sunday, he still looked bad. I got him all doctored up and went to church. He started looking better that afternoon. He even tried jumping into the water troughs to cool off.

Monday, the swelling went way down. He had muscle control over his eye brows and around the eye. I could see that the eyeball was not punctured. The lens was not intact. The cut above the eye is looking better.

Tuesday, he is out and about helping with chores, stealing Belle's grain, annoying the cats. He even came out to the gate to guide me in when I came home that night -- he really likes to have the vehicle follow him to its parking spot. It makes me worried that he is going to get run over. He also could not settle down that night, he was jumping up, hitting the windows, trying to get his nemesis, the evil black and white cat from down the road. The cat was taunting him and eating the cat food on the porch. There was a cat fight in the girls' room, he had to get involved with that.

Wednesday, today, he opened up his eye wound again, but other than that, he is acting fairly normal. He is no longer hitting into my leg as we walk so that I can protect his bad side. He can see light and dark, but I am fairly certain that it is blurry. Its hard to tell with him because he is not real bright, anyway.

So, he is going to be fine. Heavy sigh. Good, I don't want to lose my dog. Then we would only have Harley. Not the best trail dog.

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.

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.

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.

We are now all older

The birthdays came and went. Foxy and Belle had their cakes. Belle had two carrot candles since she turned 19, Foxy only got one since she turned 12.

Lady just got a carrot since her grain is just pelleted and the carrot wouldn't stick. We did made a human carrot cake in the shape of a horse, but I was not in the house when they cut into it, so I did not get a picture. For Kid #2's 12th birthday, I made a cake. It's a chocolate Foxy. Complete with the Blue eye.
I just got cherry chip cupcakes. I did not even bother to frost them.
Then we went on a trail ride. Yes, the halter is on Foxy, yes, that normally drives me crazy, but I wanted to be prepared. She had a half a moment of naughtiness, but Kid #2 handled it just fine. It has taken a while, but he is definitely gaining confidence.

My neighbor let me borrow her harness. We are planning a neighborhood cleanup. I thought that it would be cool to have Belle pull a wagon to through the garbage into. Unfortunately, the wagon only has a pole, no shafts. But I wanted to try out the harness on Belle anyway. It is short, Belle has a very long back, and its a fine harness, not what we use to drive carriages. Belle was a little confused when I put the saddle and britching on first. The the breast collar rather than the heavy collar. The crupper wouldn't fit, the straps are too short. The checkrein was unbelievably short. (no reenactments of Black Beauty and Ginger) But I ground drove her around the neighborhood and over to show off. Belle was awesome and excited. I definitely got my workout stretching out my walk to keep up with hers. If I jogged, so did she. She kept at a walk most of the time. She really doesn't like the neighbor's yard, so that was tough trying to get her to stand while they scrounged around looking for longer pieces of harness. We just might be able to get it to work. Kid #2 wants to train up Foxy for a light buggy. She won't be able to carry him much longer with that leg, so he wants to use her for light harness work.
When we left the barn, Belle was cruising and did not care that the other horses were neighing, that we were having 45-65 mph gusts of wind, she was just happy to be harnessed. Next time, I will put her Liverpool bit on the headstall. The blinders were way to close to her face, so I was just going to walk her around the barn to see what she would do. Then just up to the house, then down the driveway, soon it was all over the neighborhood and two hours later, we were done. It was great.
(I was still adjusting to fit. The noseband was too small and never got buckled. The old snaffle is too tight in the picture, I fixed it)

Bathtime

I did end up with the day off, kind of. I went to talk to a local principal. No luck there, bummer.

So, to cheer myself up, I took a few minutes to give Lady a good scrubbing. As you can see she really needs it.

I used a ton of whitening shampoo on her.

I was worried, at first that Sergeant would charge Lady because she was tied (a favorite thing for him to do) But Foxy and Belle stayed close, so he didn't dare.

She didn't get perfectly spotless because I had to give her time to dry during the hottest part of the day and her white is going to take time to bleach out the stains from winter. So I let her loose to get even more dirty. She ran over to pick on Foxy.




What a little stinker.

Spring is on it's way!!!

With Spring on it's way, I have been swamped (quite literally with all of the snow melting. The mud is everywhere. We will be fixing up things for next winter and spring!)
After attempting to put Lady in a stall with Princess to try and wean her before show season-
-----Princess would not let her come into the stall to eat. Then when we put hay in the run, Princess chased after a heavy sweat, which is really bad with her four inch coat and freezing temperatures----

So I put her back in with Belle and Foxy for another few weeks.

Last weekend, we did some major spring cleaning. We still need a front end loader to strip the runs, but we got alot of barn cleaning done. I also put Foxy in a stall and run by herself and left Lady with Belle. The first thing that Belle did was try to push over the panel between their stalls. Belle needed weaning from Foxy as bad as Lady. They are still all turned out to pasture together, so it is not a true weaning, yet, but it helps with training and feeding.

I started my spring training with Kid #2 today. He is on the middle school track team, so I figured that we would workout together in the morning so that I could improve my physical shape (thanks for all of the reminders about rider fitness, Fitness Guru Stacey) One thing that I did not think about was just how dark it is at 5:00 am now that Daylight savings stuff was Sunday. We had to briskly walk because we were tripping over frozen mud holes, tire tracks, Shooter and Tigris. (I will bring a flashlight tomorrow) We figured that Shooter would love to run with us, but Tigris really surprised me. Tigris (During the Day)
He kept up the entire time. My goal is a 10K this summer. Kid #2 wants to run a marathon, but I think that we will wait on that.

This week is full of Birthdays. Kid #2 and Foxy will be 12 this weekend. I gave Belle March 21 as a Birthday because mine is on Monday. Lady is 1 on the 28th. I am baking horse shaped cakes and special treats for the ponies. Barnaby turned 28 this month, too.