New Years Resolutions

I don't make them every year but here goes

1. no more than a coffee break of web browsing at work. Cutting back on old sites will be easy enough, just have to stay away from newfound milblogs.

2. need to cut back on snacks, again. Holidays are over and I do have some pudge.

3. More exercise too. Doing chores is not keeping the pudge at bay and I may need walking breaks to cement #1 anyway.

well thats enough, no sense making a crazy long list.

wormed all the horses today

Not the most standard form of record keeping but at least the date is preserved. All the horses got a dose of ivermectin. I was lazy and didn't even tape Sadie or the minis. I just have Sadie about 900lbs worth and Black Diamond the remainder of her tube, and Frosty got 2.7 cc's of liquid ivermectin. Everybody else got a full tube. Most of them don't weigh 1250 lbs and AJ possibly weighs a bit more, but we've never given him extra and I always figure the extra is just insurance for the lighter horses. CJ and AJ both had hay in their mouths so I had to feint with the wormer and kind of fish out hay before I dosed them.

Otherwise I was pretty lazy, didnt do much else than feed, did dump and scrub the mini's water trough. The birds use that one pretty heavily, so it needs dumping fairly often. I've been trying to keep the other tanks 5-6 inches from the rim and set out water in shallow feed pans when it wont freeze to discourage the birds from perching on and fouling them as much. Seems to be helping a bit.

Beware of idiots when shopping

What a frustrating hour+ at target. First I couldn't get the sudafed that was a primary reason to stop there instead of just grabbing lunch and waiting to buy work meals till monday. I've thought for years that the gov'mint regs were that you can buy one 20 pack of 12 hr sudafed every week. Often I don't get back on the dot of the week, but I'm sure I have sometimes so perhaps they've tightened this. I try to stock up on sudafed in the winter, so I can coast during the summer when I have funner things to do than run to the store. I have rhinitis and take it pretty much year round which my dr said is ok to do.

Then since I was there, I got a few gift bags and some wrapping paper since it 50% off. Crowed but not a problem other than killing more time before I start my work day. Checkout -- all cashiers seemed full so I just went to the closest one. Ohhhh myyyy gotttt! 2 people ahead of me, first one checks out and is on their way, then the dumb blonde diva starts. They had put 1/2 price tags on some of the discounted seasonal items. Diva was making the cashier put items in separate bags so she could sort it easier later. Sheesh, its not that hard to unpack a bag and sort when you get home! Then thought she was getting another 50% off that red tag price. Ok an easy mistake but A) IF you are only going to buy something if its super discounted you should probably pass on it anyway. and B) The store has scanners that customers can use to see what price something is going to be scattered throughout the store so shoppers can fairly easily check things in each section if the decision to buy something is hinging on the amount of the markdown. So it was HIGHLY annoying to have unpacked my cart and not want to start over with a completely new line, but the poor cashier is having to search through the list of items and remove stuff because DIVA was SHOCKED that her brimful cart of crap had come to over $230.

Oh well eventually Diva realized she was being rude and let the cashier ring things up, with plans to go to customer service to take out a few more higher price items. Then THAT still took forever because the dumb shit computerized teller drawer had to recreate every scroll taken as items were removed by the cashier before it printed the amended receipt. But eventually the teller got to me and rang me up quickly enough, using my cloth totes without complaint and one big plastic store bag for the wrapping paper and gift bags and even asking first if that was ok with me. I hope I was gracious with her, hardly any of the delay was her fault --she did scroll a bit extra to find items being removed but even that was more the dumbass machine doing the auto scroll and then running on then the cashiers fault.

Thanks Shade, that was a nice ride

Lovely weather today. I've got a bit of a headache, but knocked it down for a few hours with decongestant and a generic aleve so I was able to enjoy a nice little ride on Shade. She enjoyed the generous treats as I brushed and tacked her, and the bites of winter grass as we sauntered down the road to start out. Mostly walked, she picked up a trot a couple of times, I would have slowed her from a canter as the snow was packed and slick in spots and so I did not request any trotting that was not volunteered. She did pick up a power walk on the way home, felt good. She also did a few arab 'teleports' Didn't slip or slide doing those; they were smooth to ride since she wasn't doing her stiff leg braking first.

testing smilies link

seriously I have nothing to journal right now

Good weekend, and short work week

So I better be smiling. Well I mostly am. I put up some christmas stuff this weekend, saturday I put the most illogical pattern of lights possible in the big outdoor tree. For my future reference. 1. Test all lights before stringing --preferably in warm house. 2. Come on you KNOW you need the male plug end at the staring point. 3. trying to wrap things up when you are cold and tired and trying to get by without dragging out more lights when you have plenty is not the best strategy.

Sunday dad and I put a bunch of boxes up in the attic. Hunting stuff he packed up with prodding from mom, who usually would do some of that packing but she is so sickly. I really am not even hearing her watching insipid re-runs or endless sports downstairs much lately; plus the christmas stuff I'm not going to put up.

I wanted to put up the reindeer, just in the ditch since it was cold and putting them on a shed roof is a longer job that needs 2 people and dad was not volunteering to help --but he did help me get the wooden base for them out.

--Again on #1. Rudolphs nose is out, and some of his leg lights, one reindeer's head is not lighted. You can see the head from the other lights so its just a stealth effect, not going to give neighbor kids nightmares. so, it is most likely not going to get tested to try to find the bad bulbs until I take it down and bring it inside the nice warm house. The tester is probably in one of the boxes that we put back up in the attic. Sigh, this is the problem with not being in practice for decorating --and I'm hoping dad is more gung-ho to resume the decorating next year when he is retired, rather than me getting more practice.

Saturday the sun was shining and the thermometer under the porch eaves read pretty high so I grabbed Shade for a quick ride. It was not so warm out in the open, I turned around after less than 1/2 a mile. I assembled one of my shelving units. I like it, but I'd best not start the other one after 10:30 pm, hopefully that will help me pay enough attention to get all the finished ends lined up together. I am not planning to take the first one apart. For the porch I may not even run shoe polish over the raw ends to make them blend in better. I wanted something absorbent on the top shelf for wet shoes. Had a cotton quilted dressage pad that I cut rectangles off to make Grey Moun a bigger spinal channel for the LJ since he has high withers. The pad was white, I bought 'expresso' shelving. So I made some strong coffee with some old stale coffee to 'dye' the pad with. Its not expresso colored, hopefully I don't decide the coffee looks worse with the almost black shelving than the grubby white of the well used pad. --NO pictures yet, maybe I'll take some on the 24th.

It is supposed to be a few degrees above freezing on christmas and no wind so hopefully I'll get in a Christmas ride, maybe 2 short ones.

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me

burp, I had a mint flavored milkshake from the Arby's across from Greasemonkey this morning while waiting for my car to get serviced. GreaseMonkey puts a silk flower on my dash when I use them, well for the $$ synthetic oil service they can sure afford it. Then I stopped at the co-op to get some of the low-starch feed my girls get. Found out why mom came home with gas stabilizer a couple weeks ago, they don't have any diesel stabilizer! I thought sure they would be a better source than the auto-supply places with farmers buying bulk fuel. Then I stopped at target and bought pizza for lunch, and also some ghirardelli filled chocolate squares which I've already had 2 of. I also bought some low shelving. Assembly required sigh, I stopped at the SA store before anyplace else and it is just an empty building now. Weird, a thrift store should be doing well these last several months, well I hadn't stopped at that one in a couple of years so have no idea what the scoop is.

So I bought myself two pints of some stuff thats supposed to be very concentrated online from a marine place once I got to the office. Now I have some steel drums with lids on, a bottle of some diesel stabilizer stuff and some good stuff ordered -- I can max my store card per gallon rebates by getting as much fuel as the debit card allows (I think $100 before the rebates are taken out so not so around 35-37 gals at the price they charge) I feel like such a schemer. But I REALLY want to get some diesel now while its 1/2 the price it was last summer. Talk is that if the recession lasts oil/fuel will stay low but that totally doesn't jibe with the rather hysterical media articles from last summer/fall about how fuel is a fixed need and people HAVE to buy it (like they could not possibly arrange to commute to work or for some of the running kids around .....) therefore the gov'ment should have forced some kind of price lowering or handed out fuel cards to 'the non rich' or something. *I* am thinking that fuel prices are probably a good bet to stay pretty much this low till end of jan and then it'll be a 'lets see what happens' As long as I have the additives to make sure it wont turn to sludge and safe storage it can't hurt to stockpile a moderate amount.

Sven fits his name so well...

Peekaboo gets restless, but she doesn't go out when its cold at all. Sven stays in the house when its wet snow falling or brrr cold but he likes to prowl around. He seems to be a hardy viking cat and not get chilled or anything. He still likes to ride on the hay bales sometimes when I move them, but he doesn't insist on it to stay out of the snow or anything. I love it when he comes out and helps me do chores. He really is helping by putting a smile on my face. We had some mild late fall nights and he would stay out overnight and then come in to eat and crash as I was heading out; not nearly as much fun for me.

Why its good to have spare tank heaters

We've been having a cold snap, one worthy of mid-january rather than just december acually. I had put a sinker tank heater in Shade and Sadies tank, thinking that was safer from yearling curiousity than a floater. Except it wasn't up to snuff for temps more than a little below freezing. Monday night I got home to an iced over tank again and no plugs for christmas decorations because dad thought the timer was just shutting off current X hours after sunset. No dad, acutally I am not an idiot and I read the damn thing and made sure it had a continuous setting before I set it up that way.

So after grumping a bit I broke ice again, and put the floating heater in there. Now my girls have open, warmed water to drink 24 hours a day, but there is still a rim of ice around the tank edges. That will stay until its warm enough it melts and falls into the water or wam enough I think the hose will run and I top the tank off. I give the hose a quick drain after each use now that winter is here, but its got flat spots so I don't trust it to work until its above freezing anyway. I've been adding a little water with buckets to the tank so my girls don't have to stretch against that ice to reach the water. Hopefully it is warm enough tomorrow that the tank can be topped off.

Ho Ho Humbug.

Wow, I'm a bitter old coot. I skipped the 'secret santa' this year on my BB. My giftee from 2 years ago I don't think has done it the last 2 years. She was expecting and moving so I understand her being a bit forgetful but after I prodded out of her that a package had arrived she didn't remember who it was from. I was too proud and didn't name myself. I had spent hours making up a calendar with pics of her horse on it. --it turned out clunky unfortunately , also had bought her and her dogs little fun items, and then after sending package off early found many folks were totally ignoring the $ limit so I sent her a book that another BB member had written (she ended up getting 2 copies due to a mix up at the post office)

Then last year I wasn't going to join in but someone had thought they'd signed up and hadn't so 2 of us did a late signup and the 3 of us were matched up. I was just sure that this person was so polite that they would write a thank you on the BB even if the gift was flat, but of course I still stressed, and spent hours searching for a necklace I thought she'd like, opting for a pendant that was a turquoise and silver cross --and knowing she is quite catholic I thought that would be great even thought it came w/o a chain. So did I get a thank -you? Ummmmm No, what I got was a mention of eating an entire large size candy bar (I'd sent 2-3 yummy dark chocolate fair trade bars from my annual stash I buy for myself) --to me it was phrased like it was not nice for 'Santa' to have sent bars that were more than single serving in each wrapper, no mention even that the chocolate bar was from santa, but I recognized the decription, so then I stewed and worried that she didn't like any of the gift items or was insulted at getting a pendant with a temporary chain I'd had to scrounge up, and/or disliked the other little filler stuff I sent since she never even posted that she got a package. Except I did ping her as guest/santaElf and then outed myself.

So this year in spite of "I'm not playing" I've gotten bored and read the santa sub-board a few times. THIS YEAR Ms polite, WAS prompt and gracious in gushing over her package. WTF? It really is too bad I had such a mindset of wanting to be a good santa. I got great loot the 2 years I played, and since I gushed over it, I probably would have gotten good loot again but its too crushing to me wussy little ego when my santa efforts elicit a response worthy of a drugstore fruitcake.

Was it just two days ago I wrote this on a BB?

Pausing between rides
« Thread Started on Dec 13, 2008, 2:25pm »
Had a little jaunt on Shade, and I'm going to take another spin on either Grey or Razz in a bit. **I picked Razz

Its supposed to get COLD and stormy tomorrow so I have to take advantage while I can.

Then I'll probably haul some christmas stuff down from the attic. I'm not going to put up all the crap mom does when she's not sick, its about too much. But at absolute minimum the gatepost light pumpkins have got to be switched out for the snowmen. We may be rednecks but were not pagans

Then I'll have to log in to work and see what I should be doing, and sometime I have to worm the equines, but none of them looks wormy so I'm not making that too urgent, Sadie got dosed 6 weeks ago, the rest should have some immunity by now.

"Moonlight rides are fun even when there is no moon" Ute Jung

*******************
Well the forecast was close although it had sunday's low about 10 farenheit degrees too warm. It snowed saturday night till about noon on sunday and then got cold. Denver set a record low for Dec 14 before midnight, of colder than minus 15 degrees Farenheit. Shade and Sadie's tank has a smaller heater and it had 1/2 inch of ice this morning. I broke them a hole and fished some ice out of the water with a 4x4, picking up once I was not going to wet my gloves. They drank some, when I went back out about 40 minutes later it was refreezing, but I scooped all ice out of the water with a strainer but left the lid of ice over most of the tank with just the 18" hole open. Hopefully that cuts down on the steam cooling.

I also got the snowmen exchanged for the pumpkins on the gate posts, and a couple of decorations up on saturday.

On Sunday the dogs and cats mostly were couch potato's, while I did some picking up and tossed much junk mail and put mags and newspapers away; getting down to bills and papers of moms. This inspired her to clean the table clear to the tablecloth so YAAY!. In the evening the cats were restless so I put up the christmas tree, which I also fondly refer to as 'the giant kitty toy'. I got it up and lights strung, and a sparse set of ornaments. Maybe mom will get in a mood to decorate it a bit more, or I'll add more ornaments, probably slowly unless I decide I must move boxes back to the garage. But we're low key with the house cleaning as you've no doubt gathered.

Not a boarding place for a while.

Our only 'boarder' has left for greener pastures, The desert was more marital, than our literal sandhill, I guess. In more proof of my social ineptness I had never heard a peep that her husband had any addiction issues etc until last weekend when she was going over details with mom while I was around.

We will miss her, she was working off most, maybe all of her board cleaning pens for mom, and doing some driving training on the minis etc. And morning chores are not much easier for me - all that has disappeared is throwing hay over the fence for her geldings. I hope she enjoys her new life. Not sure if mom will advertise for any new boarders. We wouldn't take anyone that was not self-care. With us self-care means I will throw hay in the morning (or mom would in the evening if someone wanted that schedule) but they clean their own pen, keep their water tank filled and washed to their standards, and cover 1 hay feeding and any grain/supplements feeding themselves.

I am still toying with the idea of advertising for a 'part-lease' on some of our horses. CJ and Razz, maybe AJ. Would be a minimal charge or free, but the horses stay here, so they would be spending gas money, and we have no indoor arena or anything special to lure anyone. But might be a soul out there that cant or doesn't want to own a horse right now but would like to ride a bit, and doesn't need a lesson horse or big indoor to entice them. Shouldn't hurt to put it out there IMO.

Thank goodness for my commute

ok often I wish it were 1/2 length, but the empty car sure is a good place to let out the frustrations. I am of the opinion that no good would come of listing them to mom but I am sooooooo tired of her career of being sick. Yeah I know she didn't infect her jaw bones, but she did choose to have 3 elective surgeries in maybe 20 months. Weaken our immune system anyone?! This is after working with little germ bags for years and running to the Dr for antibiotics every time a cold she picked up from one of the them lingered.


The knees were reasonable but I don't know why other than wanting to be laid up she had the H and bladder tuck so soon afterwards. Oh and the strong IV antibiotics that might have cleared up her bone infection by now were giving her dire rear -- so do you think she took the broad-spectrum probiotics I offered her from the horses? Do you think she went to a diet that would have been easiest digestibility. Oh HELL NO , wouldn't want to risk taking something not labeled for people OR give up making high fructose corn syrup the mainstay of her diet. I have tried to be understanding that food is one of the pleasures she has left with the jaw pain, but I bought her some better stuff -puddings at least made with sugar etc and she didn't eat them. I ate some of the pudding and it was pretty tasty, this was not -here eat cardboard flavored health food.


I am crabby today because I am tired of having to dunk hay but there are still many many bales from the stacks she bought this summer that NEED to be dunked to be feedable at all, and I don't want to pitch much of the hay --genius paid the per bale price they were giving to people picking and choosing minus a whole $25 per stack. That is WAY under a 10% discount and it is way more than the top (10th) layer of bales that is affected, the bottom bales are maybe useful at 60%, a good portion of the top bales probably shouldn't be being fed to equines even with dunking (but knock wood the ones I'm feeding it are doing ok so far) and then probably 20% of the next few layers is crap. I'm feeding generously to encourage them to pick and choose through what I give them, so there is probably hardly any savings versus if I had told her to just buy full price 2008 hay. She USED to be able to discern hay quality and be VERY capable of asking for a good deal, but (pain) drug addled brain was not up to it and I didn't know that this summer.

Oh and the topper is I asked her to get me a bottle of diesel stabilizer. I told her Stabil is one brand. Good thing I was too tired to get diesel last night. I might have just dumped in the gasoline stabilizer she bought. Probablly wouldn't have hurt the diesel but I had thought I might just dump the liter in even though it treats up to 80 gals, so I might have tossed the container and never known that I did NOT have protected diesel. Gee thanks mom, way to make the effort to say the extra two syllables when you ask the store help for the product.

Well got some vitamin D and vitamin H this weekend

Saturday Dr W came out and Shade got her spa treatment for her fall. She was stuck in about 4 places including front fetlock. She thought one adjustment on her withers was a bit rude, but she still loffs her spa treatments, she was licking her lips when he did her neck. Sadie thought she she should come and and get some attention too; but I'm quite sure she doesn't need any chiro work.

Then I rode RazzMo later, had to get some vitamin H and exercise the dogs. Today I rode Shade. I think she feels ok. She felt smooth but she wanted to take it easy which was fine with me. I don't want to undo adjustments by overstressing anything. It was so warm, I wore a windbreaker over a long sleeve tee, barely needed the windbreaker but I didn't care to get a sneak chill which I'm prone to. Later I was going to ride Grey but Razz and Sadie came up to me so I hopped on Razz and ponyed the wild child. This was mostly a grazing trip. Razz gave Sadie pinned ears if she came up to his head so in one way it was easier to manage ponying here. I remembered I should really worm so I turned and headed home after just a short way. The goobers both jumped at something so I told them that was the end of the grazing. Decided I didn't have enough daylight to worm and just scrubbed and filled three stock tanks when I got home though. I'll have to try and remember to worm next weekend.

dang its only wednesday morning

I don't want to write a big whine fest but I'm tired. I don't do enough power point slides, plots etc to get efficient at it, and I got behind in Oct/Nov. Stupid politics. So I ran to the office 2 days on my holiday weekend, and didn't leave last night till nearly 11pm. I have a great job, the flexible hours are awesome but every once in a while it does entail unpaid overtime.

Yesterday it was sunny, pratically hot. I grabbed Shade for a quick ride, checked my chiro appt card to see if I had an appt today, nope it was for 10:15 tuesday so I had to make it a quick ride. Shade felt good, I was having a blast but when I turned around early and let her canter up the hill she hit a soft spot in the sand and fell. Poor baby, so now the chiro is coming to see her saturday morning. I came off and got sand in my teeth, Shade got sand up under her saddle pad but popped up and seemed a bit embarrased but not hurt, she still wanted to hurry towards home. But I'm getting her checked out, if she wrenched something it wouldn't stiffen up right away. I had to wait a long time for my appt, they had an urgent walk in --if Shade had not fallen I would have been sorely tempted to say "I need to get going and I expect you not to charge me since you were not ready for me --but I stuck it out. I was out in several spots, most were probably from popping off Shade several days ago, and my neck was getting stiff --too much computer + a couple unplanned dismounts will do that - and the chiro visit seems to have nipped most of the stiffness in the bud so it worked out.

Well better finish up my coffee, grain horses and get my tired self to work.

Oh I just want to sleep

and I've only been up a couple of hours and have plenty to do today. So I better quit staring at the screen and get to it, it may be nice enough to ride tomorrow morning so I don't want to feel I'm too behind to do so.