its a woman's prerogative to change her mind

 I've been spelling that wrong for 20-some years.  But spell-checker and google search say  it starts with pre, so ok.

I rode some this weekend.   Took Sadie out on saturday.  Grey is such a saint doing this.  Sadie was just full of herself.  Was not terribly bad, just a LOT of jumping into a canter, cutting in front of Grey after doing so etc.   She jumped hard when Ole startled her near some trees and pulled the rope out of my hand,  I was a bit scared she was going to run through downed barbwire fences dashing for home but she ran a bit and then turned to see why we were not running with her.   She was too full of herself to let me approach on Grey Moun, but waited when I got off and walked up to her.   

But after that I got more rigorous, short hold of her lead and insisted she go the gait I called for etc.    as we headed home.   Then I rode Razz in the fading light.   Did very little packing for Moab and felt tired in the evening.

Sunday,  I rode Shade,  she did not feel right the first 40% of the ride and again I felt exhausted, so I was having doubts about the wisdom of asking her for 1 or 2 50 mile rides on the 31 and Nov 1.    

Monday  was day 1 of a workshop:   GPS on ocean platforms.   great energy, it was hard to stay connected to the network to get cpu's set-up for more work after they finished runs.  I do hate to take vacation and have cpu's sitting idle because I didn't set up big runs for them to churn on while I was gone.  And I was tired and had to take a sudafed at lunch to ward off a head-ache. 

SO-- I decided Moab is scratched.  Canceled my appt for health cert. from clinic in Golden etc.

Tuesday,  the usual stress of trying to get a diverse group of scientists to agree on just 1 or 2 goals came up --it can be like herding cats.    When I went to my office for a couple hours after the workshop was finished I had a message from my normal clinic that he would write me a health cert.      I have also decided that inflation is a concern and I need to make my land improvements and long term purchases now.    

So wednesday   I called the power company to meet on Nov 3 to set up getting power.   They'll only have to put in a few poles so it should not be too costly,  then I called my vet's office and said "lets write the health certs for WY.    Rode Shade and was darned glad I had scratched Moab thoughts.  She was sore on her right rear,  short striding at the walk.    --Good thing for RazzMo I already decided *I* did not want to go to Moab,   he had come over and got in a kicking snit with Shade when I put her away sunday.   He leaves tomorrow or early saturday to pack dad around the mountains for a week, so he'll be working hard  and I'm glad of it.   I slathered Shades whole leg with sore-no-more liniment.  

Today Shade was walking much better.  Whew.  I did not want to give her bute,  she got an upset stomach from getting it for 1 week several years ago and I'm very hesitant to give it to her at all ever since.   If she needs it I'll give her some acid reducer as well but I could not find any this morning.     Yesterday I loaded most of the tack dad will need for his trip in the nose of the gooseneck.  Today I hooked up his camper that he tows in a bob-tail hitch for horse camping trips -- he is a professional truck driver.    I also got down some of the hunting stuff from the attic.

Normally I give minimal help packing for the hunting trip, but dads company has him been running him around instead of getting him home by sunday to start his 2 weeks of vacation.  He wont get home till this afternoon, and he has set up stuff on my new trailer; and mom is still dragging.   They have her infection licked but now her body is attacking the dental implants.  She had hoped to save them, but they will most likely have to take at least some out and she's been getting knocked with jaw pain again.   Such an endless cycle of sickness.    

Carpe Diem

Heh, would not surprise me if I have mis-spelled that.   But I've been in a funk with the credit crisis,  although it does not affect me directly and the elections and lots of doom and gloom predictions of what 'could' happen.   So I decided I had better seize the brass ring and go to Moab this year, while I can, instead of crossing if off, worrying not being well enough prepared to justify the drive.   It was looking like I left it too late to get a health certificate but I found a clinic in Golden that will do it 3:30 wednesday.  Then I can get some ways down the road before dark,  layover and have a leisurely drive to Moab on thursday.   Now I need to find a layover spot.

Lady, now known as Pamona,  does not need to board at our place for a month.  The renovations at the P's neighbor with a paddock came together this week and that neighbor is going to fetch her from Conifer.  More room for me to get a training ride in this weekend,  Moab is just meant to be I think.    

I got enough horse fix yesterday with a quick ride on RazzMo and today with a 5.5 mile ride on Shade to get through the week too.   So YAY, its not feeling to bad to wrap up my work week, be on call this weekend nor even to have early start on Monday with a workshop.   Said workshop could mean good things at work; I sure hope we get lots of positive energy out of it.  I'm so happy my new supervisor is so dynamic.   We needed it, sadly it was not going to come from me, but I'm a good 'make it happen' person after someone else gets the ball rolling. 

getting low on vitamin H

I was wimpy this morning and opted not to try to ride in the chilly wind.  I did at least get a good start on getting the pen where I'll put Lady ready for her.   I'm leaning towards thinking I cant go to Moab again.   Its not looking good for mom to be ready to do morning feeding and I don't have a health certificate, don't have the trailer all ready to go, I should just get organized to take a day trip trail ride this weekend and next (Moab) weekend instead ........

None of those things would be a show stopper if I'd had the mindset to go to Moab all along, but they may keep be from deciding 'yes I can drive several hours one way just to have fun'   

aaahhh, I love early voting

Now I can totally rasberry any commercials I hear.   Neener neener neener,  I already voted my conscience, cant change my mind now.  

In horsey news.   Lady is coming to live at our place again for a month or two starting this weekend.   I  need to move a feed trough out of there, shut the gate and start getting it cleaned up better.   But today's horse activity ended with feeding and unloading the feed I bought yesterday --yesterdays activity was feeding and swinging by the co-op to buy feed.

Sunday I did ride,  aaaaahhhhh.     Had a fun little ride on Shade and a quick spin on Razz before light ran out.    Saturday I wormed Sadie, and mom's mini's and worked a bit on trailer loading with Sadie.  The good news is I can get her front feet in the new horse trailer -the bad news is I still haven't got her stepping all the way in.  I could with a helper or if I HAD to but I don't want to push her much at this point.   I decided I wont bother worming the adult horses until the next cycle when we've had a hard freeze.   They've been wormed more the last 18 months than usual due to me having Sadie, this round I decided I'll worm her but not worry about her picking up worms from the others since I'll dose with ivermectin after we get a hard freeze and kill off the durned flies.   I think our frosts took out most of the fly parasites, the flies seem thicker than ever.   I must remember to buy some more fly bait next time I buy joint supplements.  Going to try a different brand,  with luck maybe it will work without having to mix it with something to attract flies.  

finally rode Shade this morning

I rode three mornings this week and 2 of those on RazzMo.   I am such a good daughter.  Of course if I would be better in parental eyes if I lived hours away and sent flowers a few times a year.   "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is 200% true with  parents and kids.  

Oh well, whine whine.   I'm in a crummy mood because I cant even persuade my mom to vote for McCain.   I'm sorry but I'd rather have a few problems than have government dictating even more of life than they already do and that is exactly what Senator O wants to do.   I wonder how hard it is to emigrate to Canada?  Too hard to get horses to Oz, and they seem to have an awful lot of nannying from the government themselves so I no longer find myself thinking it would be so awesome to go live in the outback or bush, like I did as a teenager.   

Its crazy because one of the dings on McCain in my (myth of a maverick) book is that he wants to regulate as well --yes, he wants government regulation to catch up with modern banking/stock exchange and so on and clean up abuses including those within government.     He doesn't want to force everyone whose business they started has grown enough to hire someone to buy them medical insurance and so on.   Well the U.S. is going to get the president they deserve if they elect Obama.   And I guess I'll be in that camp for not studying up on democratic nominees earlier.   I encouraged my democrat co-workers to support Obama if they couldn't support Edwards.     Now I think I'd prefer Hilary but its too late. 

OK, I need to get back to horses

They are my sanity and for all my writing that things will be ok no matter what happens on Nov 4, I've been investing too much mental energy. Its for nothing, I don't have the gift of persuasion so I simply have to let it be now that I have filled out my lengthy ballot. Oh the joys of living in a state where competing amendents can be placed on the ballot in addition to all the candidate choices.

Saturday was a good day to huddle in the house and so I did. With an average of 300 days of sun a year I don't have to learn to deal with rain and especially rain and only about 5 C above freezing. Sunday was dry and just a bit warmer so I enjoyed a ride on Shade. Mia was feeling GREAT, she crossed the few inches of water in the irrigation ditch to get to burr-less road on the other side and continued with me. Ole found a leg bone in the CRP he prowled around in rather than sticking with us. I came back to road 35 and announced to Shade that I needed more fun so we had to go a ways down it and back rather than straight home. Ole tagged along for this part, leaving his bone somewhere. He's such an oddball dog. No pics of Shade or the dogs today.

Then after a bit of couch potato time in the house I grabbed Grey and Sadie for a bit of a ride with lots of grass munching for the 'starving' yearling. Heres a pic of Grey Moun and Cindy in the paddock. Grey is the far horse whose head I caught.

Yesterday I grabbed RazzMo and took him for quick spin. He is fun to ride and is bored. I also want him to be a bit legged up before hauling dad in the mountains in a few weeks but if he were a pain to ride he'd just have to suffer when dad goes hunting.   The crabby ears here were warning the other horses that Razz gets first dibs if I had cookies (I never do because he gets so clem-like for them) and any good scritching.    I hope mom gets healthy in a few months and starts riding Razz; he really could use some serious saddle time and my horses could use double the time I spend on Razz.   I need to spend less time at a keyboard.  

Did I just do that?

I just filled in the comments section on his web page and told McCain (ok - only whatever low level staffer is assigned to read that block of comments) how *I* think he needs to attack Obama. At least this time when I say 'they should have listened to me' "they" did have a bit of a chance to do so. Early in 2004 I told co-workers that Kerry could not win because any Mass. senator was going to seem too liberal to much of heartland america. Too bad no one passed it on to the stupid democrats, they all fell in line and voted for K in the primaries, because K won a few very early primaries so 'was most electable' and was a war veteran. DOH. I voted for him, although I wasn't 100% for him. Just wanted it clear to Bush that he didn't have any mandate to continue.

And I'll vote for McCain but I don't subscribe to 'the sky will fall; children will be indoctrinated to communism in schools, our taxes will go back up to 1970 rates yada yada yada if Obama is elected' I'm voting for Markey (D) in my HoR race. I don't think I've ever voted for Musgrave and she has not done much that I like, I wont vote for her now JUST for the sake of gridlock, I have some feeling that Markey as a business person is not just going to vote in lock step with her party, she'll vote against extremely liberal items. Or if she proves not to be a 'midwest' democrat, I'll wont keep voting for her. Us darned independent voters, splitting tickets and going with who we like at the time, hahahaha.

My prediction is ......

We will have a one term president.

I hope this is not just wishful thinking if the young Democrat wins. Unless my gut level feeling of him is wrong, and lord knows I don't have any special skills for "reading" or understanding people so maybe that is the case, I wish for it but I can't believe.

Of course oddball renegade that I am, reading the con book on Obama by Jerome Corsi did not bother me much; its the pro book "the Faith of Barack Obama" that is giving me unhappy vibes. Perhaps thats why I'm for McCain, I only bought a con book about him, LOL.

Link to some horse pics

Here is part of Sadies curious face.

HorseAlbum_on_PhotoBucket
The light gray horses are Cindy and Grey Moun. Cindy is the near horse when they're together. Cindy was born in 1982 and Grey in 1988. I am thankful to be in the age of digital cameras. My non skill is still apparent but I can at least halfways center my subjects when I put them on the computer and it is fun to get the personality pictures. As you can see Grey has oodles of character.


The red bay roan/grey horse is RazzMo. Mom and I bought him together 3 years ago, then I gifted my shares in him to mom and dad to cover some anniversaries and so on. The grumpy ears are for the other horses. Razz wants dibs on any scritchies or treats. He's almost a bully but he defers to Shade for some reason and he doesn't push the other horses beyond choosing which feeder he wants and sometimes having to check all the feeders out. Sometimes I have to push him a bit when I'm taking another horse out.

fun time with Grey and Sadie this morning

I took pictures of them in their paddocks as I was leaving for work and forgot my card reader to download. Oh well they are pretty rough pics anyway. But the ride was fun. I was thinking I was moving too slow and needed to just leave for work but Ole gave me his best hangdog look so decided I'd take a quick ride to give the dogs some exercise.

I just love my arabians. Grey was being kind of silly, had to duck away from the neighbors big landscaping boulder on the way out and both he and Sadie spun around when Mia came out of the next neighbors yard (or at the trash cans -silly boos) but I pulled Grey up easily and Sadie stopped before she hit the end of the lead, which was good because I had dropped it and had to grab it up quick. I made Grey back a couple times after he turned around saying we can't go by 'that' piece of discarded junk when we had turned onto the dirt road that is only utility access and where folks from the nearby town think they can toss old furniture etc. I tell myself its good to get horses over worrying about every little thing they see off the side of the trail instead of fretting over other peoples bad behavior.

Today there was a partially deflated mylar balloon about the point I was ready to stop. I got Grey to go just past it and sweet curious Sadie sniffed it really good. Then when we went back past the scary new large mattress I asked Grey to stop for a minute and Sadie grabbed a quick bite next to it. 17 month old arabian curiosity is so fun. On the way home a Schwann's truck was coming up behind us. -he had been stopped talking on the ph or something when we turned the corner onto the graveled road. Sadie got a bit silly, jumped forward and hit the end of her lead and was almost coming in front of Grey Moun. He's still my boy, he isn't scared of noise and made no fuss. He was an angel while I got Sadie gathered up short and put them both in the ditch with her on the far side from the truck and the driver went around. Sadie was pretty much like 'oh wait thats not a big deal' by this time.

This is why I usually avoid news and politics

This year I felt the need to inform myself of both candidates, although I checked out various outside parties at one point of frustration. Well all I can say is they are outside parties for good reason.

But the lies being bandied about this year are so disgusting. There are distortions on both sides but the vicious outright lies about Palin are shocking. So many disparage her for lack of experience and not having large Q&A sessions with the press that one might think no democrat/liberal/insert_your_own_term could fear her in the slightest. BUT one does not use lying sneak attacks on someone they don't consider a serious foe and saying that Palin's Downs syndrome child was really her grandchild -and who knows how long that would have gone on if her daughter was not pregnant? -- and now twisting a backwards Alaska-wide situation that existed while she was the mayor of Wasilla and making it sound like that was the only town where hospitals charged the victim's insurance companies for the rape kit testing in total disregard for truth and facts. Disgusting fear mongering by some of the media. I am even more pissed off at them than usual.

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/09/24/old-media-pushes-false-rape-kit-charge-against-gov-palin

Oh well, in spite of the stupidity that many individuals in the country are so capable of, I actually feel like the country itself will be ok regardless of who wins the presidency. Perhaps it will be better to have the socialist leaning candidate I have to vote against win as the polls seem to suggest is likely. We do have a congress and a supreme court, its not like he can go hog wild with his desires to redistribute wealth in this country - and I don't like 40 million payoff to CEO's who have ruined their companies myself. My biggest worry is that I think he will make things worse by withdrawing from Iraq. We should NOT have gone in, but thats water over the bridge now and I think just pulling out on a timetable and moving soldiers to Afghanistan will only shift the problems in Afghanistan to Iraq but about 10 times worse. But I can hope I'm wrong or maybe that he wont even be so drastic if he does wear the CIC hat. And perhaps the polls are off. I surely cant be the only person who distrusts them and also hates to talk on the phone and tends to hang up before they can start any kind of survey, plus I'm at work when they would call, Oh I love my shifted hours job!

Here's Shades picture

I had to psych myself up to pay the download fee for this one from Time Well Spent photography/smugmug.

I am so spoiled by often having Karl creations photographers Deb and Paschal at rides I go to. I usually buy every picture they've printed; because they charge so little I figure I'll keep the bad shots away from other eyes --bad meaning my form was crappy or I just look ugly, if they take a bad shot they don't bother to print it.

I shuddered at the side on shots from this ride. I had thought I had my shoulders back and head up and was shocked to see how forward my feet were. Yuck. You can tell even in the front view pics that my feet are forward. Oh well Shade didn't get sore, just something for me work on. I had a dressage form lesson with V today -rode RazzMo, he is good for working on form, being super smooth and not as energetic as Shade, and we worked on some things so I have specific 'homework' At least it is not totally alien feeling to ride correctly now, so I have not lost all progress from the spring lessons. I just need to get better form all the time so it will feel weird to not be sitting up straight like I should do. I was going to take a pic of Razz this morning but I forgot. Oh well I have another lesson next week.