Once in a Blue moon

Its a blue moon tonight. Ours is visible and actually looks blueish. I attribute it to snow on the ground and being fairly cold, LOL.

I don't do resolutions, but new years goal is to be more focused in a mind on where I am kind of way.

Great new business idea -Infidel Airlines

Anyone want to give me several billion to test it? Someone else posted on Ace(http://www.ace.mu.nu) that having a pig mascot would deter a fundamentalist islamic terrorist. Eternally unclean to die with a pig or some such. So every flight would have a pig mascot, every boarding gate would have a dog, striving to make most of the dogs trained bomb sniffers over time.

And if the TSA, NTSB etc keep the no carry on rule in place, Infidel Airlines will also provide books, snacks, netbooks or cheap laptop cpu's so folks can work on things in flight via use of a memory stick. OK Infidel Airlines might be a bit over the top for naming. Perhaps Freeborn Skys or something.

Got some fresh air with the bay girls on sunday

It was sunny and calm and felt nice out on sunday. I had been going to ride saturday, which was forecasted to be the nicer day but after some sun around 11 am it was clouding up and a cold breeze by the time I was ready to try to ride around 2. Never wait when the weather is nice is the rule around here. But I lucked out with the nice weather on sunday. Mia was snoozing in the sun when I grabbed Shade so I thought I was safe to take Sadie too. Well Mia wanted to come then but went in the house for me pretty willingly.

I think I may need a pommel riser insert with my barefoot saddle on Shade. I will have to try with a rigged up one. After looking at the video of me riding her my stirrups are not really behind me so I think the feeling I've had may be coming from the saddle being a bit low in front. Its an easy thing to play with at least. I still really need to get my riding muscles fit, and should take some lessons to improve my technique/equitation. But I felt better on sunday and I had added a thin wool pad under the skito so it effectively made Shade a bit wider. Of course I was also distracted on sunday ponying ms Sadie. If she weren't a runt I might be tempted to ride her a bit already. But being runty she'll get to wait until fall 2010 to be started, or possibly later if I think she needs more time to grow up. The trainer I have in mind does quite a bit of long lining and would probably just do ground stuff I requested it. I really just want her started, I can deal with a lot of greenness, but I'll leave the starting itself to an expert.

Everyone survived my christmas turkey

No one took the turkey out to thaw until thursday evening shortly before I got home. Mom had it in a couple of paper bags to quick thaw outside the fridge but it was still solid after I hayed the horses Christmas morning. So I decided if we were going to have to soak the bird to thaw it anyway it was a good day to try brining. OK, find a recipe that looks passable, calls for a gallon of vegetable broth, 1 cup sea salt, and tablespoons of rosemary, thyme, sage and savory. We had a qt of chicken broth and a packet of dried vegetabe soup, so I used that and water to make 1 gal, couldn't find the sage in front of my nose on the ledge above our stove and no savory. So I threw in some allspice. Barely found a cup of salt (1/4 cup was actually sea salt) Got that all in a pot and simmering and climbed into the attic on the rickety ladder to get my 5 gal. igloo water cooler down to soak the bird in. The good ladder is so heavy and needs a car moved to set up nicely so I took my chances with rickety.

Verified turkey would fit in my cooler and rinsed out; unwrapped the turkey and no way were giblets or neck budging yet, well they usually use plastic to wrap the giblets these days so I figured its fine to just soak the whole works. Put in a gal. of cold water, the turkey and dumped the hot brine on top. --recipe calls for ice water and cooled brine --assumes a thawed turkey too.

Let that sit while I grained the horses, then I checked the brine. What was in the bird was cold but otherwise it was warmish so I threw some ice cubes in there. Didn't want the outside of the bird too warm. I kept checking and adding ice cubes until the brine was nice and cold. I kept hoping mom would snap out of her facial pain and take over the meal preparation but no such luck. She did clean up after supper though. So about 2:00 I brought the turkey in and added the seasoning and water to the bread mom had shredded the night before for stuffing. Had to rinse just a bit of ice out of the turkey to remove the neck, dad brought in the roaster --mom was instructing from the couch where stuff was and how she seasons the stuffing etc. Got the bird in the oven about 2:30. Its supposed to take 3 to 3.5 hours for a stuffed bird but brined birds cook faster, so we'll have an early supper for the big meal. I made pumpkin custard --didn't put frog eye pasta in this time but I was only going to make a small batch with 1/2 of the pumpkin mom had out to thaw but I misread the recipe as I was mixing things and put in white sugar where it called for milk (recipe called for brown sugar and just a bit of white sugar) Well I caught this before baking but I had to double everything to balance out the extra sugar, and it barely fit in the bowl, and I was slopping over stirring things in since I had grabbed the mid-size bowl which was plenty big for a small batch........ But it turned out fine.

I also got to make the mashed potatoes, gravy and a vegetable and thanks to microwaves and some gravy mix everything turned out pretty good. Gravy was plenty salty but balanced ok with the mashed taters and stuffing.

So WHY did I go through all that instead of just cooking something else? Dad had invited a truck driving friend to come over and with mom being sick and me not liking to cook, we hardly have anything but tv dinners to cook. Only some hamburger, fish sticks, etc type stuff -- no roasts, steaks, chops etc. Dad's friend didn't expect dinner, he knows mom's been sick but he's on the road all the time and while some truck stops have a buffet where drivers can get close to home-style meals they really appreciate a cooked meal once in a while. And while I wont give up my free time to cook often *I* like a good meal once in a while too.

Then we opened what few presents we had. Dad got me rims for my car --didn't put those under the tree. I requested them so I wouldn't have to pay $16/tire to switch out from snow tires to all-seasons 2x/year. I got dad (and mom) some cowboy humor books. Brother and wife sent us a Figi's gift box with sausage, cheese and chocolates. Mom's brother and his wife sent us some cute cowboy tree ornaments, a puzzle, Hickory farms gift box, and a horse hair pottery thing that would hold a thick candle I think, or can be a pen holder etc. I guess H knows the artist/crafter that makes them. Sis hasn't got presents ordered yet (no big deal we are not tied to exact dates) I sent brother and family a check, and sister a foldable camping kitchen counter thing she had requested. She hasn't opened it and I didn't quiz her if it was the right model from the box. Cabelas had 3-4 different models. Who would guess there is enough demand for a portable kitchen counter that they need multiple models? LOL

Had another nice weekend

Saturday was pretty warm and Mia came in for a nap about the time I was dragging myself off the couch to go ride. So I thought I'd probably pony Sadie but she was busy visiting with the neighbors morgans and didn't come up to the gate the whole time I was tacking Shade up so it was just me and my main girl. I need to set up to do that more often. We didn't ride very far but had some lovely cantering.

Sunday I rode RazzMo and got dad to video me. One of these days I'll get it downloaded and get my guru to look at it. I know w/o any instructing that I have gotten so flabby. I need to ride more, instead of worrying about the state of the country. At least with mindful riding I know I can achieve a positive difference.

Dad got up a bunch of lights. He bought LED strings to replace the broken outdoor strings we put on the evergreen trees outside the house. I put up mom's kids nativity scene. Scooping a little sand inside to keep the plastic figures from blowing away I could handle. I also got the indoor tree up. I left a lot of our more recent ornaments off. We could just about decorate another tree. Good news if I get a place of my own I guess. I should hit the stores after christmas and get another set or two of indoor lights. I barely had enough and that was scavenging scattered good bulbs from one string to fill in broken bulbs in a shorter string. Its probably cheaper to buy a new string than enough replacement bulbs to fill in the one string, and one cannot get those round bulbs anymore. Perhaps I'll get LED indoor lights.

I mail-ordered 4 thermo cubes today. I was browsing hoping to find some more that come off at 37 instead of 45 and found some that don't come on till 20F and then come off at 30F. That should work pretty good for tank heaters in our climate, I might have a few days where I'd plug in heaters directly but we get a lot of cold nights then it warms into the 40's and the black plastic tanks soak up plenty of heat and don't need tank heaters running and basically humidifying the air above the water when temps are between 30 and 45F.

I'll probably be a couch potato christmas day and then maybe I'll get the motivation to get out and ride on saturday &/or sunday. It will still be below freezing on saturday, with sunday just getting to 34F. But if its calm and sunny and I feel rested I might enjoy a ride in the snow. I ordered dad some funny books but they wont be here. I haven't gotten mom anything, really have no idea what to get her, plus I guess I rather feel that taking 100% care of her horses is pretty much a good gift and I shouldn't have to buy stuff too.

I signed up to 'adopt' another soldier. I wanted to just send one-time packages and not be expected to write weekly cards/letters but I had emailed on that and didn't hear back from the coordinator and one cannot just switch on the website. So I'll bore another young soldier with horse and dog talk unless this one is an exception and writes to me so I could have some back and forth on topics he has some interest in. Oh well the main point is sending a little stuff as a thank you for their service.

Hey its already thursday

Keeping reasonable busy at work. Trying not to obsess over the latest marxist assaults on capitalism. Have we lost so much ground that we have to let the already much Marxist infiltrated system collapse and then hope a new America can rise from the ashes? Will the health mandate bill be defeated? Will the EPA destroy U.S. business while boosting China and India? Hmmm wonder if that (boosting of China) is why Russia blew the whistle on the HadCruT scam in Siberia this week during Dopenhagen. Is there any set of temperature data that has not been sorted or massaged to a warming trend? See WattsUpWithThat.com if you want details behind this.
I suppose I should join the local Republican party and try to push good conservatives for local elections. I hate politics and joining groups but I probably need to get over it and consider it civic duty, just like voting or being willing to take jury duty.

Grey and Shade seem to be picking up weight wise. I added a scoop of senior that had been bought for Duke to their daily feed and upped the oil back up after I had lessened it. Today Target had canola oil at their pretty good price for 1.5 liters. Yay! I have found that the canola oil stays liquid instead of gelling to quite a bit colder than the soybean oil so I wont have to remember to haul oil from house to feed room until its going to be really cold with canola. I have not been in a mindset to grab morning rides before work. I hope I don't regret not taking advantage of fairly mild weather later.

Got to enjoy my horses this weekend, aaah nice.

Sadie had to come say hi, and see if I had treats when I was taking pictures.

I rode Shade twice. Saturday my dad walked out as I just finishing saddling and asked if the dogs needed a run, nope I took them in the morning. Since he was dressed and outside I asked him to video me with the camera so I can get some advice from my horsewoman guru friend in GA. I rode in the little pasture and RazzMo was looking over dads shoulder and sometimes nudging him the few minutes I had him video me. So I told dad he should throw a saddle on Razz since Razz was so bored, and he did. So we went down the road west just a bit as the dogs had wanted to come, then Mia was done after going just a few hundred meters so we turned around, I shut her in the yard and we went the other way about a km. Shade and Razz were both dragging after passing home, Shade was just wanting to eat. I am going to up her and Grey's feed a bit more and than suck it up and move RazzMo within a few weeks so I can give Shade and Grey richer hay. I hate to make the change because its so convenient for graining having Razz in with Shade and Grey. Shade shares with Grey and not Razz so they get what I want them to have; then CJ is boss over Cindy and Sadie but he goes to the first pan I dump feed in and stays there. Sadie and Cindy sometimes swap or share but its not bad. But if I have Razz in with CJ and those girls he is boss, he has to test every pan to see if one has better or more stuff and he eats much faster than CJ. So I'll have to halter him and take him out when I want everyone to have specific stuff. Its a PITA when its cold. Maybe I'll have to swap Razz back and forth depending on when I'll be willing to take him out.

Sunday it was even warmer but we had a good breeze. So I rode Shade again. We had a bit of cantering to save my sanity for another week or so. Then I dumped and scrubbed the water tanks east of the house, both of which were really due for that. Maybe the mini's barrel is low enough to dump today. I didn't want to mess with it yesterday with 7-8 inches in it although I could have tipped it since its only a 1/2 barrel. AJ's tank is half-full. I scooped some hay floaties out of it. So I guess he uses it as night when we put his hay in his stall. So I probably wont try to talk the parents out of using that tank and heating it when its cold. Its been mild the last 3 nights so I haven't plugged in heaters. I want it to be COLD in Copenhagen, DC, and NYC to help fight Dopenhagen, but I'm enjoying the milder temps here while we have them.

WHAT was I thinking?

I volunteered to be santa's elf for a military family WHAT was I THINKING?! I was thinking its fun to buy toys but I was forgetting that I only like to buy toys that I like, which is why I usually buy toys and drop in collection bins instead of doing any kind of matched thing the last 5 years or so. I hate hate hate the stress of trying to match a vague list to what is in the store and in this case also to what would fit in a flat rate USPS box since I was given a family in Alaska. --I could have UPS'd a bigger box to someone at Fort Carson but to Alaska and to make sure it arrives in good time, I didn't even want to run the rate calculators and I've been unpleasantly surprised too many times when I thought something wouldn't cost all that much at the post office -I like to stick with the flat rate boxes if I'm using the post office.

So I will have to give the nerf dart gun to a collection bin. It was already a smaller nerf gun rather than what was on the list and I have another item from that kids list so not a biggie (although the other kids are getting 2 cheaper things). I shopped with a strong eye to 'will it fit in the largest rate flat box after I remove the extra packaging' more than worrying about would the kids like it, although I still spent hours going up and down toy aisles. How would I know what kids will like anyway? Its been decades since I was a kid -- or what a mom of young kids who 'likes pretty things' would like? I got the mom a Burt's Bees gift set and some Aussie 3 minute miracle hair conditioner. I could not bring myself to try to guess what she might find pretty and went with 'eh, she is in Alaska, surely its hard on skin and hair and some pampering stuff will be suitable'. THIS is why I stuck to buying legos, K'nex(spelling?) tonka trucks etc in years past.

OH Well I have at least got everything else fitting in the box after ruthlessly stripping off the store packaging; NOW I have to wrap everything and get it all back in the box, might be FUN trying to wrap the odd shapes and wrap tough enough to squish the soft stuff in the box and not tear on stuff that has point, etc etc. Oh well its for kids of 14 months, 4, 4 and 7. I don't think they will be fussy about neat wrapping. If they are fussy, TOUGH. The elf was also to give the family a walmart gift card or visa card of at least $25 to cover a nice christmas dinner. I added $20/each and will include a note for them to go shopping for the bulkier stuff on the list because this elf doesn't have a license to fly Santa's sleigh. With luck mom and/or the whole family will enjoy a shopping trip to Wally world --I don't do visa cards since they charge for issue plus charge service fees every month if not used up in a year.

tank heater update

by saturday evening I had concerns that a light in my small area would keep things too warm so I removed everything but the temperature control cube and the cords to the tank heater and outlet. The thermo cube must generate some heat as the works has been cycling a little bit with the temperatures remaining below freezing point. The tank is staying open and I have yet to see any steaming vapor over it. So I guess I can just buy another cube and do the same thing for the other tank.

First priority is to convince dad that AJ does not need his own tank and drain it and turn off that heater though. That is up to 600kw hours in a month that stays cold --if I assume that heater is 1000 watt and some are 1500 -- or I just forget to turn it off in the morning when it will be a warm day and I tend to forget that switch even when I was really using that tank. Heh, just planning on not having a grid connection at my place in WY is making me extra conscious of electricity usage and I don't even write the checks to the utility company in CO. I did give the mini's a 500 watt tank heater this morning. We are having too many days that are staying well below freezing to keep messing around just dumping ice out of a rubber tub.

Meanwhile our EPA has declared all greenhouse gases are pollutants and EPA can regulate them. And I guess there was a supreme court decision that allowed this. I will guess that lawsuits will be brought or something. At this point I think a good chunk of the population should lean towards congressional candidates who run on a platform of cutting funding to EPA and various other bureaucracies but I am afraid a majority might still favor status quo of bloated, intrusive government we are having lately.

Must break free from couch

I did just a couple wee projects. Got my windshield wipers adjusted -bet you didn't know a hammer was the tool for that did you? But I couldn't find a big flathead screwdriver to pop the cover off so I used the hammer claw. Then I loosened the nut with a wrench. Nope the hammer is not the only tool I had. Took the dogs for a run and then splashed some extra washer fluid on the windshield and tested if my wipers still work after the blades got stuck the other day and bent. Whew I'm glad I don't have to get the wiper motor replaced. --They wipers got stuck when I ran the cleaning function on a cold night. I'd been driving 20+ minutes with the defrost on full blast and had had the wipers up so they wouldn't freeze to the windshield while I was parked at work. But a little extra drag and the previous owner had two 22 inch blades when the car is supposed to have 22 and 20 inch blades. Timing got a bit off from cold then the blades tangles and got really stuck, and I had to force them down a bit to drive home cuz the drivers one was right in my sight line. Of the zany fun I have with car foibles, LOL. Checkers in Brighton is wonderful by the way. I had both blades off and in the store and was confused because the computer was saying the 2 sizes but it didn't match what I had and I wasn't sure if I had the exact right car model. The manager checked, verified I needed different sizes AND he put on the new blades for me. I was trying to get the packaging off the passenger side and he had already finished the drivers side. I told him it looked like he had had some practice putting those on. I usually fumble for at least 5 minutes with the blades.

I did gather up a night light, 5 qt ice cream bucket and misc and set up my temperature outlet cube and tank heater with the bulb set to go on when the tank heater does inside the bucket to retain the heat a little bit. This is to see if I can get the heater to cycle so its not running all the time the temp is below 35F. I feel like it wastes so much extra juice evaporating the water at 40-50F the tank heater's thermostat is set for. Now to keep a close eye and see if it keeps the tank open but is not running constantly. Our weather is so erratic I'm not sure a timing outlet is the way to go and its hard to find one I want. Stores are full of ones set up to come on at dusk and run so many hours. I'd like one that comes on 7 hours after dusk and runs so many hours.

December is starting cold

And I am loving it. Not because I like cold weather, I prefer just enough to kill off most of the flies; but because it will tilt public perceptions more against man-made global warming. Please let enough of our population be going brrrr to rise up against the stupid cap and tax bill. AGW proponents like James Hansen hate it because it has scads of exemptions and wont do anything to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions for several years anyway and I and other conservative minded folks hate it because it adds yet another layer of choking red tape.

The public should be even more hostile to talk of choking our industry while agreeing to trillions for 'poor' countries -which was the expected Copenhagen agenda but with luck that will fall apart at Copenhagen and it wont even come to our senate having to reject any treaty.
Give me a break, most of these poor countries are loaded with rare minerals and other valuable natural resources. They are poor because they have had backwards governments, either in form of colonial rule, dictators out only for personal power, or communist governments that continued the colonial "just leave the thinking to us" mindsets.

I had a thought to keep my tank heaters from running so much with the 35F on 37F off outlet regulator. Going to see if I can set it up with a teeny light bulb and a bucket or coffee can covering the works --because what I'd like is a regulator that doesn't come on till its a few degrees below freezing and then goes off as soon as it hits 32, or even cycles some when it is below freezing as a lot of the heater wattage is going to producing steam rather than keeping the tanks drinkable.

is it friday yet?

Dang I hope I didn't leave it too late to start another round of zinc. I am feeling droopy already and should work at least another 2 hours, but thankfully I have pto and its flexible here so I can decide to chuck it if I feel like pushing will be counterproductive for the whole work week.

I think it will be ok, yesterday my nose and eyes were itching a bit and today its just my eyes. I bought zicam meltaways yesterday. Target didn't have the strawberry cream flavor I like in the cold-eeze brand. Now I may switch to zicam. I'm not into paying the extra for the highly advertised brands but the citrus meltaways do seem to have less zinc taste to them. Hopefully I wont need to buy anymore zinc this winter though. I have stocked up a fair bit I think. Geez how boring, prattling on like a hypochondriac. I must look up an address and send a friend a letter. I have gotten some small little things done so at least I don't feel like a total slug.

Climategate story continues to grow in the blogosphere. all U.S. TV news but FOX continue to ignore or excuse the shoddy data handling and tribalism at the CRU. Maybe more folks will come to understand how slanted the coverage is if the story keeps growing while those big media groups ignore it. I think that may be the biggest thing needed for my country to recover from its current mess. I realized it last year and it was unsettling but we need to be a much more skeptical people. Folks will have to live with that unsettled 'who/what can I trust' feeling for a bit and learn to demand sources and references and trust THEMSELVES to decide what is and isn't a real story.

pumpkin custard with frog eye pasta

See there should be a rule that the frog eye pasta box cant look so much like the tapioca box. Well I probably didn't need to worry about adding anything but the frozen and thawed pumpkin seemed runny and I'm way too lazy of a cook to strain it, plus thought it might dilute the taste. So I poured a little bit in my hand, dumped in the pumpkin and only then went "huh that doesn't look like tapioca"

I can report that the taste is fine and it didn't turn it into a tooth hazard. However it does have the odd chewy teeny piece of pasta amongst the custard. Oops. Can't be a picky eater when your cooking is as sloppy as mine is.

It was Nice weather again today. I was feeling sluggish, may need to have another round of zinc. I only filled my little cart twice on my pen cleaning project. The spot that was grossing me out could still stand some work but its mostly done. Should get the sheds scooped out next weekend if I can stay healthy and the tractor starts up for me. I rode RazzMo today. Shade came up to see me when I walked in to the pen, but she was not really wanting to go again- I was planning to ride Grey but he walked off and Razz is always 'take me, take me', course I never ride him very long so he thinks a little extra food + the attention is great. So I rode every day of my 4 day weekend, I was really blessed with good weather coinciding with work holiday and no family commitments this year.

Stuffed to the gills

I was hungry for some real food today so I heated the ham up instead of waiting for tomorrow. Its over 8 lbs so plenty left to keep feasting tomorrow. I also made scalloped potatoes for the first time. I know they are pretty easy but I've never made them and mom was sleeping off the flu. I was able to find a recipe it called for using powdered coffee creamer -that sounded yucky but it gave me the basic outline of flour and spices, butter and amount of milk/cream to use. They turned out pretty good, I don't think they tasted as good as moms usually do but they weren't nasty and watery. I also baked the yams I bought and for the record --yams need to be in pan or at least have a drip pan under them. Didn't set off the smoke alarm or anything drastic but did drip gooey yam juice on the stove bottom and make some burned smell.

I also rode Shade today. Second day in a row. We ponied Sadie on friday when it was 70F. Today it was low 50's and breezy. So I didn't want to mess with the sassy 2 yr old and Mia was wanting to come. Yesterday she was content to sleep at home and keep an ear and eye on the place. Worked out nice for me because I wont take Mia unless I can hop off and grab her leash that I make her drag, I just don't trust her not to get aggressive if we meet another dog.

I loff my bay mares. Well honestly I expect I will love Sadie but until I'm riding her its just fondness and anticipation that I think she'll be a fun ride. But I love Shade, she is just a wonderful match for me.

Thankful I finally got horses wormed!

Also thankful its just mom dad and I this year so we can do a meal any day of the long weekend or not at all, although I asked dad if he wanted ham or turkey today so it would be rather low of me to welsh at this point. I wanted to try the roasting bag method for turkey but we don't have any celery and I only bought 3 onions and intend to use half of one to make more hot stuff. Dr thought dad has a virus that has been lingering for 3 weeks and mom thinks she probably got it now. All the antibiotics she has been on she has very little immune system so she probably did catch it. I felt like I was coming down with something last week, hit the zinc hard for 3 days. Feels like I may have a quite subdued version. Some stuffiness and coughing up just a tiny bit of crud so I've been taking the hot stuff mixture at least 1x/day trying to ensure I don't get a full blown version.

I rode Razz today. Was thinking about riding Shade but she walked off and Razz came up. Worked out well, I didn't ride very long and then I wormed all the equines. We had a good freeze early this year; I could have wormed a month ago and I didn't get a summer worming done even for Sadie but shrug, they are wormed now. Shade and Grey have been seeming just a bit thin lately. They aren't bad. I've been feeding everybody but AJ the crappier hay since I don't ride much in winter and I don't have enough good hay to feed unless I segregate just Shade and Grey to feed --and they are not wild about the hay I bought. So I'm feeding more 'grain' and a higher fat/calorie grain as well, got the over due worming done and will watch and see if I need to change horses around and switch hays. Hopefully I can continue like this at least through december.

I love a short work week

Fairly busy today with work stuff so very good. I like having manageable scale things to get done it makes the work day go so much faster. I should get to some neglected personal obligations but its been nice just riding and doing a big of pen cleaning at home. I needed a stretch of fairly mindless tasks. Bought a temperature outlet control today. Should save some electricity on the tank heaters. I want to get some timing ones too but the co-op only had christmas light ones that start at dusk and can be set for X # of hours. I want to get something that can be set to go on at say midnight and off at 6am. If I had that and the temp on top so the heater wouldn't get juice if it was a warm night then I could just leave things plugged in. Oh well we have horse pens set up so that we only have 2 tank heaters this year and I could make it one and might do that if we get a long cold stretch but graining is much easier with them in these 2 groups. I can tailor grain at least somewhat and they usually get what I wanted them to have.

Sure is monday

my ISP or possibly just my home cpu's were having some trouble finding websites sunday and my blog was one of them so I wasn't able to post when I was happy from riding Razz on saturday and riding Shade and ponying Sadie on sunday. The weather was NICE, and it was a very pleasant surprise to have both days be nice when the extended forecasts had been predicting snow, then just cold fronts early last week. So let me type it again and remind myself that I have lots of happiness in my life. I rode twice on the weekend and got Sadie out and she was fun. Sadie has such a pretty floaty trot, I bet she'll be even smoother to ride than Shade AND I think she is going to be a lot less reactive. Still an arab but I *think* she is going to be bold/curious about a lot of stuff she notices where Shade sees danger first and then has to decide to check it out farther.

But its monday. Mom and dad are both sick. Dad must have got some secondary thing after having a cold when we were hunting. Or its a stubborn virus, he is tired and sleeping a lot. Some coughing but not a lot so I don't know about bronchitis or anything. Mom is sick as ever although I don't *think* she has jaw pain right now. Well she has been practically bedridden for so long it will take time and plenty of effort for her to get back to normal even if the jaw infection or whatever is fully gone. Sadly my reaction, especially with mom is just being irked because her dragging around moaning makes me feel like being lazy.

Co-workers mentioned the CRU "hack" (data dump IMO). They are not dismayed by the un-science that has been revealed, only that its now a harder sell to get the public/government to sign on to reduce CO2 emissions and its wrong for blogs to air those emails -well if there were only a couple bad emails out of the thousands it would bad to air them; but I don't think there is a whole lot of 'cherry picking' in selecting emails to publicize. Sighhhh, this is why I don't even begin to discuss politics with them, I don't want to hear it if they think the D's and the commie agenda are still 'da bomb'.

Not one of the 4 with kids responded to my email about kids coats to send to Iraq either. Not even 1 "sorry already dropped em off at coats for CO, or Salvation Army or no outgrown coats this year."

SNARK warning ::: I guess I shouldn't be surprised --they are liberals and want the government to handle all types of aid etc so they aren't obligated to be charitable or do anything---at least they think they want the government to handle things. They won't like it if they have to get a bureaucrat to sign off first when they want to drive to TX to see family or fly to Europe for vacation but it will be far too late by then.

I hate to be down on a saturday but

I think the only bright spot will be if I get my butt out and ride somebody a bit.

The senate is fixing to start debating the 'health care' bill. Its a monstrous tangle of socialist and facist crap and I fear it will pass anyway. Facist in the sense that big honking corporations will be at an advantage over innovative small companies that might become competitors in future.

The was a leak of data and information from the CRU. check out http://wattsupwiththat.com if you are interested.

CRU = climate research unit at east Anglia university in the UK. The leak is good, some light of day shining on the AGW cult and its egomaniac top proponents but the timing probably distracts U.S. folks from lobbying against the gubmint health care takeover. Plus MSM is ignoring this mostly and talking about the bad ethics of hacking I hope the internet is big enough that a bunch more people now realize what a bunch of commie propogandists many in the media have become. *update some MSM are covering it. WSJ (only paper I would consider subscribing to) Boston Herald, and probably others.

The fake hockey stick temperature plot is pretty well exposed. (modern tree ring proxy data didn't match modern temp records) and instead of realizing that the tree rings are not a good temperature proxy they (mostly Michael Mann) just added the thermometer data to the proxy data. Plus stuff about how they worked the peer review process to screen for people and viewpoints they wanted. A funny thing friday night our web server at work was just hammered. There is some emails from a climate scientist at ncar in the leaked stuff, is the story so big on the internet that folks were checking out everything related to ncar? Our group is not doing climate modeling, its just a newish method to measure atmospheric temps with radio occultation, studying our own atmosphere with techniques used to study Mars and Venus etc.

The ncar person comes off as pretty clean although his words could be interpreted to make him sound like just another propagandist, I suppose I am tending to give him a bit of extra benefit of the doubt. He believes in global warming with CO2 driving --of course I do also, its just that I NOW believe that all the fear mongering is based on half-baked computer models that assume water vapor as additional warming feedback --this is half-baked because cloud physics are NOT understood, no one knows if a slight temp increase from CO2 would result in more water VAPOR acting as additional greenhouse gas OR if that water will condense to clouds -letting less sunlight through and moderating warming. Let me say that again. NO ONE KNOWS -- I happen to know that the U.S. is still funding lots of research trying to crack the answer of when and how cloulds form and yet the AGW crowd is saying that it will all stay water vapor so it WILL magnify the warming.

In engineering one always wants to have huge safety factor etc and its certainly good to run models with the water vapor not cloud assumption to get worst case scenarios BUT to run models only with these assumptions and then to have fudge factors in the models to get some agreement with historical records and to go beyond that and even do some data fudging when the models mess up and don't get todays climate right when started from ie 50 years ago is piss poor science at best and given all the carbon trading scams could almost be considered criminal fraud, and it appears that some agencies were fudging data. They say they were correcting for instrument bias and drift with satellites etc but because they over trusted cpu models showing warming, they looked only for things that might be making instruments measure lower temps IMO.

If there was a right wing media conspiracy as Clinton used to get away with implying the presses would be red hot running stories about the trickery and 'old boys club' for getting papers published. Well don't hold your breath waiting for them, course I'll only know they covered it if I read it on the web since I don't waste my time on tv 'news' or reading the local fishwrapper. Both of them happen to be commie biased and I have not researched and found a traditional media source I trust although I know honest reporters and even whole honest papers are out there.

knocking wood but I'm not feeling sicker

the tickle in my nose has not come back at all and I have just a bit of throat irritation which may be dryness from the zinc lozenges. One good thing with them is I can't imagine anyone taking them when they feel healthy. I will keep up the attack measures through friday at least -- laugh all you want but I was knocked on my butt for 5 weeks with a sinus infection 5 years ago and ever since I take every measure I can to ward any kind of upper respiratory bug off.

wednesday whine

Cell phone and key card turned up so that is good. Now to the whines

Feel like I'm getting a cold, I'm pounding zinc and hot stuff mixture and thinking die viral scum die
I wanted to buy some zicam spray and the store only had oral stuff. I like to take both and hit the virus from multiple fronts.die viral scum die.

beware the electronics vortex

Sorry I couldn't invent a better term but it is being a bad period for electric devices for me: I have mislaid my card reader gizmo for the camera and my mac won't download the pics using the camera cord. CPU's make life so much better except when they SUCK. No pics from me until I either find one of 2 readers I should have, figure out if I need to install software from HP or break down and buy yet ANOTHER reader. My pics aren't worth a huge amount of effort or expense so I'll probably coast for a bit.

I have mislaid my cell phone too. I guess perhaps I'll have to call it tonight when I get home.

Then there was the drive to Meeker when my alternator died, I was lucky to be traveling with dad and sis and we had 2 vehicles and we were able get it fixed that day but along with the trend ....

My horse trailer has a fuse between the battery and the charge controller panel. It burned out on the trip --related to alternator?
Who knows, since we had a generator along which was working to power things when it was running and my trailer was plugged into it or I could turn on my pickup and have power and the weather was mild we did not search too hard up there --we thought my control panel might need to be fixed by a pro or possibly my battery was bad as I had let it get low on water.

Today I left my key card (at home?) so I will have to be careful tonight not to get locked out of my office suite area when I use the bathroom.

Hopefully that is all.

Brrr

Snow is falling outside the office window and it feels chilly. I should have worn a warmer shirt instead of the top item in the drawer today LOL, at least I always have a sweater in the office and I can add a polar fleece vest if shutting the door to stop cold air from the hallway is not enough.

I stopped and had the snow tires put on my car on the way to work this morning so I may find out if they change it from being utterly crappy to reasonable in a bit of snow but only the mountains are supposed to get much of this, we front rangers get some saturday night, wont hurt my feeling one bit if the roads are quite dry tonight. Well must stop procrastinating and do some actual work pretty soon but first my warm comfort food.

TGIF

I dont really wish the camping/hunting trip was still going as my back and neck were whining at me every morning in the wee hours although once I was up and moving they felt fine. But its hard to get back into the routine. Maybe I need to make a few changes. Haven't had enough coffee to ponder that yet today though.

I should get down some trip high and low lights while I still remember them. My 'new', 2003 truck had a Found On Road Dead trip. The alternator was bad, we thought it was just a bad battery when we had to charge the battery saturday morning to start it to take off. Nope it was the alternator. Good thing we were caravaning with dad and he had the generator and a battery charger along. + Integrity Auto in Gypsum is a wonderful mechanic. I hope his son enjoyed the trick or treating we delayed a bit. Oh and my usual luck held, I had to guess if it was a dual or single alternator, guessed single cuz we could only see one and that was correct but the mechanic told me on the dual alternator Fords the 2nd unit is not visible from the top. The generator cord got broken but dad knew how to fix that.

The west slope had similar weather, they had not gotten as much snow but the horse track out of camp was muddy the first few days. It was just a dozer cut trail. Grey lost a hind easy boot on the first day. We only went out for a couple hours to stretch horse legs since it was late by the time we got trailers leveled, generator cord repaired (again LOL) etc. The ground was pretty uneven and especially by the horse corrals where dad and N wanted us to park. My trailer was a foot off the ball in my pickup. The next couple of days I left the hind boots off him since it was not rocky where we were doing most of our riding.

We didn't harvest any deer or elk ourselves but the group of campers got 6 elk and one pretty nice buck. There was a couple with 3 horses that did most of the packing but CJ got to pack out the buck and one elk. That day I did have all 4 easy boots on and it was probably good as we went around the back part of the wildlife area and rode through some rocky areas but as I was leading CJ back with the elk so dad and N could keep hunting the darned hind easy boots twisted. One gouged Grey's heel bulb so I had to stop and get it off. No place to tie right there and the boot was not coming off, I was trying to get the cable over a hook to get more slack since it was too tender for Grey for me to open it normally. Cable kept shredding so finally I deliberately cut it through to get the boot off. I'm going to have to take a pic to illustrate this (tomorrow) Meanwhile the hunter had gone on ahead while I took the horses to water and was wondering where in heck I was -- I had a radio that did not have all the channels so I could not reply until L tuned her radio to relay a message. But eventually we got the elk back to camp and Grey was walking fine once the irritating boot was off although he had the scrape on his foot.

humph day vent

Probably not even a coherent one either but I cant stand it. My country is dying of a thousand shallow PC cuts. At least there are some who dare to say it but I sat on my hands at a forum because the membership is small and I didn't want to offend someone whose opinion in other areas is valued by the board and by me. I hate feeling like a coward but I always fail to speak my mind without being blunt and everyone else probably feels as I do but is also being polite, sigh.

And I really really want to help an animal rescue I like and am trying to keep cordial connections to make that happen but some days I just want to scream at arrogance masquerading as 'finer social manners than the peasants use'. Plus I am about ready to declare war on the agency that collects and SUPPOSEDLY distributes to designated charities the proceeds from charity sales. They better pay my rescue or refund the $ they collected from me if they don't want me to bring fraud charges against them and attempting to publicize them far and wide. I will make it my personal mission in life to get them shut down if they are dirty or even just incompetent. My charity is tiny and I know them so i KNOW they haven't gotten their money 6 weeks after it was deducted from my account -- I am wondering about all the donations the outfit collects for huge charities - are they only giving pennies on the dollar of what they collect?

I'm Back

I should have posted between the funeral trip to ND and going hunting but then again this is just my journal that I leave open, not a widely read blog with many folks left wondering where I was.

I must say it was really nice being away from internet access for a full 8 days. I never even took my camera out, we were usually trying to get going in the morning to possibly see some elk before they bedded down out of the warm sun and then hustling to get horses untacked and fed before it got dark when we came back in. Dad took a shot of CJ carrying a deer with the antlers tied on and Naomi leading him on Ramsey with a disposable camera so it could be a long while before I know if that picture even turned out. Now it is back to the daily routine for a while.

Hug your horses often -RIP Duke

Sad end of our weekend at the Lazy H:
After doing some painting most of sunday afternoon I took a break and rode Grey. It was wonderful, he is so good with his leads using the LJ bareback pad. Then I was feeding everybody and when I got to the back paddocks where Duke and AJ live Duke was laying down and there was a circle of disturbed sand around him. So I told mom and dad since Duke is their horse. Got Duke haltered and up and he was obviously in distress, breathing hard etc so called Dr Mike. He was able to come out in 45 minutes, we walked Duke some, let him lie down some as he wanted but didn't let him roll till Dr Mike got here -- I felt we might be putting Duke down as we waited. That is the most distress I've ever seen a horse experiencing. Well when Dr Mike sedated Duke and did a rectal he could feel a twisted bowel and it was obviously very tender for Duke having the rectal done. He thinks Duke might have had a tumor that strangled the colon since the colic developed so quickly. Duke continued breathing hard after the exam and only 30 minutes after getting the pain killer so there was no question about the decision to put Duke down right then.

Duke started as my brothers horse . I had bought a QH stud colt when I was in HS, that we let breed E's appy cross mare before we had the colt gelded that fall. When E went off to college and was not into horses anymore and mom wanted to get into jumping she took some initial lessons on a school horse and then used Duke until she wanted to move to higher jumps than Duke could manage so mom bought AJ, and Duke went to mom's instructor on a care lease and was a school horse until he was 22 but mom and dad took him on the annual hunting trip every year and he was a solid packhorse and seemed to enjoy the change of scenery although he loffed teaching kiddos to jump. The picture is of Duke in retirement taken about 18 months ago. Duke was 25 this spring and except for getting just a bit fussy about stemmier hay which I had chalked up just to aging teeth had been doing real well, he was in a good weight and had taken to running and bucking when he thought I was tardy with breakfast. So a bit of shock losing him; but in a way its easier than watching a horse gradually decline and trying to decide when the quality of life has gotten too low and its time to say goodbye.

afternoon blahs today

Morning was good though. The chiro didn't show to work on Shade so I rode her and the dogs got a walk. Dad had to drive down and fetch Ole -he had run off, but the ride was fun and the vitamin H was good. Nice sunny morning.

But my weenie P/R efforts aren't getting anywhere. So much for helping charities I like get money from promotions. Work was ok, and then the email about my aunt Julie was not bad news but drove home how ill she is.

Cloths Lined but How Does One penalize

A haystack? LOL, As I was trying to fill in some of the face where the darned stack load had tumbled I was wondering if I needed a helmet more for this than riding. Well a helmet wouldn't have made any difference. I had decided I was not going to get the last bale onto to row I was trying to fill back in but was not quite successful at quitting before a mishap. I slipped and fell as I was setting the bale down, catching my chin on a hay bale setting against an adjacent stack. I hate stack machine stacks but its my own darn fault that this one came down. I had noticed it was looking wonky the morning before 30% of the stack came down but I did not tell dad he needed to get another pole on the stack. I don't know that I would even be capable of wedging a pole in to correct a wonky stack myself but I could have tried. Oh well, funky bruises is part of the horse owning territory for me.

Help out a good animal rescue -vote daily

I have a friend in VA who runs a small dog cat and horse rescue and also does military pet fosters as needed. She is participating in an on-line contest trying to raise funds for spay/neutering in her area.
fill in Lost Fantasy Stables and Animal Rescue Inc. and select VA for the state.
the site recalls last vote for folks so you only have to type that once. You have to id an animal to confirm your vote
theanimalrescuesite.com

Sarah runs her rescue on a shoestring, working a regular job to pay rent and general expenses for her family and personal critters; being the top vote getter for VA and winning the $1000 would have a real impact for her. So if you read this blog please consider adding this appeal to your own blog or any social network sites you use. With some networking help we may be able to do some good in the midst of these crazy times.

Thanks for adding to the votes.

Waxy Wally joined my ride weekend

Wally wonders if I'm really sure I can drive this big rig.


Got the coffee pot out, now we know we can handle things.

Wally had to hang out by himself friday morning as I could barely manage getting Shade vetted and tacked up to ride by 7 am.


Shade was fine at the 13 mile point which was only a pulse down to 60 bpm and trot for the vet than ride the 12 mile loop. At the 25 mile vet check the vet noticed she was a little off, she thought right front. She didn't hold my card to look at her again after the 1 hour hold was up, I trusted I would be able to tell if Shade was off as long as we went out alone so Shade wouldn't be pulled along by other horses. I walked out about 1/2 mile and Shade was most definitely very off when I asked for a trot so that was the end of her ride. We headed back to the basecamp to announce we were pulling and turn in our vet card. M checked Shade out and found she had a cramp in her right hind leg. The relief at having a temporary problem cheered me greatly. After I took Shade back to the trailer and untacked her and turned her in with Grey Moun to just relax and munch hay I hung out with the timer and did some pulse checks the rest of the ride on friday. Wally and camera were left in the trailer, I took this pic saturday.

I ate at the ride dinner and then was heating water to soak up the horses grain and beet pulp quicker. The days were sunny and nice but it got cold quickly in the evenings and the water buckets had ice on them each morning. Wally was annoyed that all the cooking was for the horses till I dragged out a beer ;)


Saturday morning with the blankets still on. I contributed to Shade having the cramp by not blanketing quickly enough thursday evening. She and Grey were eating and didn't look cold so I waited till just before I went to bed and she was shivering when I came with the blankets. Now I know for next time that she is stoic about cold as well as other things.

Saturday I helped them do a little pulsing at the first check and then I rode Grey Moun. I paid the fun ride entry fee but rode only the 10 mile loop instead of the 13 mile loop, I just wanted a good checkout of his leg with a quicker finish so I could rest and drive home that day; the fund ride entry fee was a bargain lameness eval after his scary cut on his hock 7 weeks ago + one bandage slip where the gauze was really pulling on the top of his hock when I went to remove the bandage - I was worried I might have a bit of bandage bow effect from that. But my 'old man' is sound as a dollar. He acted like a baby whinnying for Shade half the loop and pulling and pulling on me --he'll wear Shades S-hack rather than a sidepull next time he might be excited. He had worked up a sweat so I let him hang out with Shade and relax and roll before we went to see the vet. They will show any little lameness thing better when all the adrenalin has left their system.
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My favorite ride manager rode her geldings first 50 at Kenlyn last weekend and we rode together some. I had held Shade back at one point and rode with another horse that had more similar gaits. Susan's gelding has a HUGE trot which was too fast for Shade. When she heard I'd had to pull she worried a bit but I told her she trains in terrain more like the Sangre ride at home so CJ would probably be fine. Unfortunately her gut feeling was correct, he stumbled going down a hill and couldn't recover in the sagebrush and fell. He has a big bruise on his shoulder and she got a heck of a twisted ankle. She had aluminum endurance stirrups and the one at that side got squished flat together. Good thing she had pulled her foot out of the stirrup as the horse was falling judging by the look of the stirrup.

sunday night.

Shade has passed 21 now. Endurance rides, not years. I offered her and Grey beer on the leftover soaked feed from the ride when we got home, with some plain feed as option. Grey dived into the feed with beer, but Shade is either too health nut or too champagne taste and stuck with the plain feed. I had a small spurt of 'domestic' ambition and swept out the human space in my big trailer, and put in some rugs, duct taping the light ones that wont stay in place otherwise, put in a coat hook and was ready to put in 2 more but I couldn't find them.

I should have done some pasture fencing or bought paint/cleared my room but I was too lazy, I kept taking long breaks after every little thing I did. I did pack up hay cubes for Shade's ride, I had to sort them as some were moldy so I sorted a bunch extra while I was at it for the next trip or to have handy to feed. I think the bag got wet after I bought and opened it, not that the quality was bad at the store - still it took a lot of time and I did a bunch just standing bent over the bag--DOH, my back was protesting when I quit that session. I rode Grey Moun when C was out to ride RazzMo. Grey is sound after his hock injury --WooooHooooo! I took the dogs for a short walk down the road after C was done ridiing, Grey didn't want to go by the place that used to have calves, + goats and pigs etc. They have moved so there is nothing but bunnies and prairie dogs in the pasture next to the road but Grey took a couple really gimpy steps when he stepped on rocks right at that corner so I turned him around. THEN he went prancing and snorting towards home. I think he was faking me out with the gimpy act.

office humor fail

flowchart to determine if you are a racist -- http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024552.php

Printing this handy dandy flow chart and putting on my office door glass must have upset someone I work with, or my supervisor thought it would upset a visitor or high officer in the org. Ummm my office is no longer the first one people looking for an admin find though so more likely it was a)

So now I am trying and right now failing to take anonymous peoples discomfort in good humor. Nothing in there implies calling liberals racist although I flat believe they ARE the racist ones: "Minorities can't function in our world, we have to have nanny programs for them or their children will go hungry yada yada" That aint something us mean ole conservative types think. We think almost everyone can make their own way in the world and will do so if there is not a net preventing them from learning to soar. In fact supervisor gave me the BS line "cant vote for a black man" before election when I honestly said I couldn't vote for a chicago machine politician. LIBERALS always resort to name calling and it really does pizz me off that whoever was squirmy about this went to him instead of me OR he was squirmy about it but hid behind "it might be a friction creator in the office"

WELL this means war, but it will have to be nice and SUBTLE humor to prove my point that progressivism enslaves people to the state over them. Perhaps a step back to nice list of cowboy wisdom on the door to start. BUT methinks I may need an "O" Orwellian bumper sticker for my car within a few months. Heh heh heh.

guess I'm not testing the saddle change in the morning

In fact it does NOT look good to try to ride before friday morning. I guess I'll take a teeny ride then and maybe use the treelesss saddle with the foam to keep me from getting behind the stirrups the last 7 mile loop at my ride on saturday. I want to have the option of rotating saddles when shooting back to back 50's next weekend at the Westcliffe ride which will have some climbing. But looks like good riding weather on saturday so I hope that holds.



Tonight
Rain likely in the evening...mixing with or changing to snow after midnight. Snow accumulation up to 2 inches on grassy areas. Lows in the mid 30s. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph in the evening becoming light.

Wednesday
Rain and snow likely. Snow accumulation up to 2 inches on grassy areas. Highs in the upper 40s. Northwest winds 10 to 20 mph. Chance of precipitation 70 percent.

Wednesday Night
Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of rain and snow. Lows in the mid 30s.

Thursday
Mostly cloudy. Slight chance of rain showers in the morning...then a chance of rain showers in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 50s. Chance of showers 30 percent.l

Thursday Night
Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of rain showers. Lows in the lower 40s.

Friday and Friday Night
Partly cloudy. A 10 percent chance of rain showers. Highs in the mid 60s. Lows in the lower 40s.

Saturday and Saturday Night
Mostly clear. Highs in the lower 70s. Lows in the upper 40s.

sleepy saturday pet post

I caught Ole and Peekaboo on the same couch -not a very unusual situation, I've even seen them curled together outside when its cold but Ole jumps up before I can get a picture. Mia so enjoys coming in the house during the heat of the day to get away from the heat and flies. She thinks its her solemn duty to stay outside and patrol overnight though. She doesn't come inside at night unless its really wet or VERY cold, guess she figures the predators will stay in too if the weather is crappy enough.

New truck tows well & Shade is a 1000 miler

I mentioned to my friend that co-manages the Turkey Creek ride that it would be Shade's 1000 miles so I had some butterflies but was looking forward to it. OMG, she mentioned it to the other managers and they set aside a bunch of loot for us. Totally shocked me. Some rides ask for the horses mileage to date so they can announce if a horse hit a milestone and maybe they give you an extra completion award if they have a table to pick from. But C made some pillows, which will look wonderful in my 'LQ' and they gave me a sweatshirt with the TC ranch logo embroidered on it and a little dreamcatcher too and a little container of electrolytes. The beautiful t-shirt is the completion award.

The new truck towed well and I will become spoiled now, its smooth, has a CD player which I forgot to grab any CD's to play and its SO quiet (the blue beast, 93 dodge had a gap in the door and I had to crank the radio to counteract the road noise). I'm thinking I have to buy a toolbox for the pickup bed because now that I have the crew cab with nice leather bench instead of just storage area behind the drivers seat I cannot have antifreeze and diesel treat, etc in my cab, LOL.

And Shades eye looks much better, it was good at the ride and still looks good this morning. I am going to try to get some fencing and brushhogging done this weekend and move her and Grey to a bigger paddock. I have to talk to mom about hay for Duke though. Maybe he and Shade can live together some months but she might need to buy some more of the hay I picked for Shade. I think she is thinking she will feed it to Duke but I don't want to have to isolate Shade to make it last for her. I'm already thinking I have to use some of the dusty hay mom bought earlier this summer and just dunk it for a several weeks in the fall and spring when its not a big hassle to dunk hay to stretch it enough for Shade and a rotating companion horse with her --whoever looks a bit thin on the hay she bought.

Next year I guess I will have to do all the hay buying. For the quality it is she really paid too much. I did feed the sample bales and thought it would work ok but I was thinking in terms of 2-3 stacks to make sure we had time to find better hay and she bought 5-6 stacks of the 100 bale stacks of it, SIGH, its the second or is it the third year in a row I have to manage second rate hay, feeding on the ground to reduce dust inhalation and dunking for the most sensitive horses, and the hay is not even a good dollar value per lb. Have I mentioned that I HATE SHOPPING before? But sickly/slackly has managed to make it the lesser evil now.

CJ's owies

CJ's hock cut is healing nicely. Its filled in pretty good around the edges and doesn't look to be getting any proud flesh. He has a little dime size scrape on his fetlock that I have been babying with ointment and bandage. At some point before too long I'll tire of that and decide it just has to get wonder dust and heal under a scab but I like to have a nice wound that isn't weeping or anything first and yesterdays bandage change was the first time it looked like that. I'll give it a brief chance to grow some skin if it will, since its down there where the dust will constantly be in it but wonder dust does pretty well.

Breaking in the new to me pickup -with pics

Yes there really is a physical pickup, and my worries about inflation eating up all my savings value are much reduced now LOL.
The pickup have been used to run and buy sample hay bales from 5 different growers (needing 2 types for different horses) Finally found a source that passed the horses taste test with flying colors and also passed my tests of value and nice 'clean' hay. I think this was put up just about perfect, the bales are really nice and dust free. No dunking should be required, YAY.

Kind of sad today

I want to still be interested in something, I keep picking it up but just can't engage myself anymore, feels like a dying friendship but thats a bit dramatic, I can get most of the good things I found there elsewhere now.

Shade's eye is still swollen, I stopped the eye ointment yesterday I thought her eye looked a bit cloudy and Dr Mike warned me to stop if the eye got cloudy.


Yesterday I put her in with Grey Moun to get only soaked brome hay and less exposure to the paddock weeds in case it wasn't the flies that got her eye irritated.

We bought sample hay yesterday. The horses don't care for the hay that was a better value per pound so now must decide to buy the light bales, or just let the horses pick and choose a bit, they are not going to waste away --OR-- keep looking and I don't want to have to mess with it. I want to throw a liberal snit, things should just be handed to me on a platter -insert pouty or tongue in cheek face here. I should put the batteries back in the camera and see if it will take a few pics. I'm beginning to think having the camera take AA batteries instead of needing special ones is not so great after all, maybe the cameras with special rechargeable batteries hold a charge longer and better. I guess I should break down and buy some new rechargeable batteries but I think I have a big pack of the disposable ones in that size floating around somewhere.

New truck is home

Still no pictures. Too busy running around changing bandages on CJ and Grey Moun --I think Grey only needs 1 or 2 more after this and CJ's little fetlock booboo is starting to look like its healing. Not bad -the first bits on that one were getting the dried blood off and a saline wrap to pull out any gunk. Plus I had to put goop in Shade's eye this morning. Dr Mike was out yesterday, no ulceration, he thinks it got itchy either from the flies or possibly a bee sting and then she has been rubbing it and keeping it swollen. She gets eye goop 2x/day for 5 days and 1 gram bute for a few days. She also got a chiropractic adjustment today. She was due for a little bit of tuneup. Her withers were stuck and are a bit sore and inflamed. I'm supposed to ice her. Since she is getting bute for her eye I feel ok in skipping icing until saturday. I didn't have him adjust anyone else. Feeling too poor after all the unplanned expenses the last few weeks. CJ and Grey need to stop cutting themselves and costing me $$ in vet and elastic tape. They aren't working so they don't need to be tuned up 100% anyway.

I should be excited ...

I just bought a shiny new pickup (well its a 2003 with 108,xxx miles) but its new to me and is in lovely condition. And anyone who reads this will have to wait till I take possession wednesday for a picture of the dark blue crew cab F350 pickup. I grabbed my camera this morning but forgot to take pics when I wrote the check at the dealer. I'll never be a photo journalist.

Plus I'm pretty sure that Shade is just one ride away from her 1000 miles at AERC. I am so blessed to own my little steel magolia. The latest toughness was competing after getting bee stung right near her left eye. She looked like someone punched her poor thing. -btw a cold beer is pretty good for cooling, I started with the cooling gel wraps I use on her legs in the roll and then used the beer can for a while after she'd decided the cool felt pretty good and was not tossing her head --I didn't want to give her a real knock on the eye.

I think I'm still in that state of shock one has after writing that size of check. I don't really feel like I have a dread of what if this thing sucks at towing or is a constant visitor to the mechanics, the Ford superduty has a pretty good reputation and I had it inspected, but I just feel tired. I should be recovered from my endurance ride. I slept pretty good saturday after riding and it was only a 2.5 hour drive home and I mostly vegged out yesterday. But I just feel tired. I have to go get the paperwork and play with the insurance SOON.

My saddle that I put on ebay sold. I had put a bid on it because Shade got back sore saturday. I think I can fix that, the ride photos (and from the last 2 rides also) show my feet way out in front --or my butt way behind my stirrups so I expect I was bumping around on the back of the saddle a bit -damm I'm unhappy with myself for not figuring that out UNTIL Shade's back was tender to the touch, but at least she seemed pretty much all better by this morning so I'm not beating myself up too much.

I ordered a seat cover and will put some extra foam in front of the cantle so I cant slide back as much. I am also thinking of asking someone to make me a stirrup hanger with velcro hooks on the bottom so I could put some velcro loops on the top of my saddle and have adjustable stirrups. I sure hope that is all it takes to fix things. I bid on my own saddle yesterday, figured I'd donate to the rescue I was donating proceeds to myself rather than give the saddle away super cheap when I'm suddenly worried about the new saddle working for the endurance rides. But I still have my OF, I'm leery of it because Grey used to get sore from it but Shade wore it and never had any problems before so I can at least rotate it with the Barefoot so she isn't stuck with either long panels or me bouncing for the whole day.

Well I'm not at the dealers

The truck I looked at did not get inspected yesterday. Place was closed at 6:15 when they went to do it. I'd had the mis-impression that Paul worked a much earlier shift than that, or I could have pressed dad to please call around for a shop to do it. Oh well, perhaps I'm meant to get another dodge ram instead. Trying to live this but I'm having trouble letting go of the frustration. There are plenty of trucks for sale, I do not need to replace mine this week, breath in, breath out. MUST try to find hay on sunday. I'm pretty sure sickly mom hasn't done diddly squat about it and we are almost out of alfalfa mix that AJ gets. I get so so so tired of feeling like the scrubbing bubble.

I did ride today. Just a quickie, Shade felt ok.

is it bad that

Is it bad that I could hardly care less that Ted Kennedy died yesterday? I don't want to read about his career or his checkered history, I don't want to speculate on whether Massachusetts will overturn the special election law they passed just 4 years ago so the now democrat governor can appoint a warm body D vote more quickly, I just don't care. He was old, he died, its too soon to have any idea how this will affect things in Washington.

Horse related: I should try to get up really early and take a quick systems check ride on Shade tomorrow morning. Unless inspection shows something bad on the truck I test drove this morning I'll be dickering with the dealer for a good while and we are supposed to have a long boring work meeting.

I should clean out my desk, since I'll be busy tomorrow. No I'm not laid off or fired (at least not yet) The group is doing an office shuffle for reasons I don't fully know. Some new personnel but other folks changing offices for unknown reasons. But I decided it would seem too lazy and unsocial to turn down an offer for a south side office (I may not need a desk sweater anymore or at least not until the sun sets) next to core people in my group. The desk movers are coming on Friday and I'll be out for my ride adventure. I'm getting some butterflies with possible truck purchase, horses needing wound care still and not a lot of training but I really like this ride and I feel due for some fun after all the snafu stuff. (just hope I'm not still under any jinx)

Was gunshy of trailering anywhere so rode at home today

It was too hot yesterday and I thought I'd try to get started in the morning but failed. But the heavens smiled on me. After starting out letting Ole come but insisting Mia stay inside. It was too hot for Ole too, I noticed he was not following, went to the irrigation ditch in case he just had not made the corner. No Ole so I headed home hoping he wasn't pestering on Tate, He was in the place between Tate and road 35, must have been a rabbit in a dense patch of bushes. Went home, gave Shade a little hay and went in for a drink and to grab my camelback that I had not grabbed earlier. In this time we got some cloud cover and a bit of nice breeze. Had a nice 10 mile ride then. Its so nice when I can just make a loop and not have to wait or double back for the pokey dog. With the 2.5 miles aborted bit with Ole along that is not too bad, Shade felt strong so I hope we complete in good shape saturday.

Shade wore the reactor panel saddle today. Thursday I made her model the OF but I have decided I will sell the R/P instead. I want the buyer to be happy and I think thats more likely with the R/P. If the batteries would have cooperated I could have taken pics but I had 2 sets of batteries that apparently wont take a charge anymore. Waiting for two others to charge. Trying to decide if I'll just put the saddle on ebay. I should email endurance list first and offer to take it to the Happy Jack ride saturday. I WILL borrow the parents pickup (unless I get a replacement truck bought first) to go to that ride, I've been looking forward to it. Will skip the ride in Nebraska over labor day weekend, and just go to the colorado springs ride two weeks after HJ.

I rode Razz a little bit yesterday in my OF. I think I got it working good for me which is another factor in keeping it and selling the R/P. I will sell my cloud nine stirrups though. I have had it with those clunky things bonking me on the head when I'm saddling and on the shins when I'm carrying the saddle.

musing on the day

I wonder if people who were uneasy with the National Socialist Democratic Parties early moves were called fear mongers and people claimed the unsettling facts they pointed out were myths and fabrications? I understand people don't want to think about unpleasant possibilities, heck I get tired of it and avoid news sources that seem too overwhelming, but its frustrating to realize people I thought were thinkers are doing the lemming bit along with the folks I expected to be in that group.

If I wanted HS dramatics I could have gone into teaching

Well I could drop some drama llama carp if I dropped some of the web forums, seems like when I think I have found an okay balance by avoiding some subtopics and posters something comes up and I'm groaning yet again. I guess its just my substitute for soap operas to keep going there at all LOL.

Then at WORK apart from the computer outage that could not be helped and all the extra activity from that I heard from a university contact that the other processing group wasn't getting our data. Perhaps he was asking them for product but it came across to me like they were unwilling to deal directly with me to solve the problem. Sheesh its not like they get charged for my time! Then monday I get email from our sys admin, he had checked something on their website that verified they were not getting our data and was wondering how we could solve it. *I* have still NOT heard boo from processing center B. But I decided somebody had to cut to the chase so I checked the relevant logs, they were connecting fine but their data request used a specific feedtype --and I believed that our older software didn't work with it so I emailed the people at processing center B telling them "a little bird told me you are not getting data" and suggesting they use "ANY" instead of the specific feedtype. And cc'd my group at work. At least I did get a note from their person equivalent to me today that the fix worked.

RIP Blue Beast --guardian angel was working hard

So I fetched the Blue beast home today. Went about 300 ft and the tranny was DONE. How lucky I was to get it moved off the approach to the interstate overpass last night. Now I have to go truck shopping. Yuck. I think I'll go either Ford or private party. The dodges have been good trucks but I want a straight 1 ton not a dually and while I would not mind supporting a dodge dealer buying a new vehicle from Government Motors is not happening. I also think it would be a good idea to get a 450 instead of just barely a one ton. OK I admit it, I even looked at some semi's but really do think that would be total overkill.

OK how does one lift the chinese curse ...

You know the one "may you live in interesting times" Things have been too interesting lately. CPU/RAID failures at work, get that solved (sys admin mainly but I had to restore scripts with new paths) Grey Moun gave himself a nasty hock wound wed night. I called the vet cuz he was so lame but hadn't heard back on when he could come in 2 hours and was still battling to get processing going again and after hosing the wound it didn't look so awful and certainly nothing to be stitched so I flushed it with some saline + bit of iodine, wrapped the leg, gave Grey tucoprim and called the vets office to push appt back to friday.

I probably should not have done that --Turns out the cut went down to the bone and Dr Mike even felt some movement indicating a chip which he thought might actually be the tibia. Dr M is concerned about possible infection. Grey is on 25 cc of penicillin 2x/day after lots of extras on friday. We will switch to at least 2 weeks of tucoprim after 5 days of the penicillin.

Well I worked a bunch from home yesterday getting some processing that was not as time critical restored but met an endurance buddy today to trail ride this afternoon --after having had to fix the hourly processing which got hosed because a disk filled up. I had to fix some files even after making some disk space because they got zeroed out when the disk filled.

THANK GOODNESS I unhitched the BAT and just had the bumper pull. My pickup's transmission went kaput about 1/2 way home. My wonderful dad came with their pickup and towed the trailer home. I found I had 4th gear so I pulled off the turn lane to the interstate to a safer area and will fetch it in the morning with dad and pickup for backup to tow me home if the tranny quits altogether. I have ONLY 4th gear, seemed like I had reverse for a short time but I was on a hill so might have just been gravity and having clutch at least somewhat engaged. I certainly do not have reverse any more. I don't really feel my pickup is worth ME fixing the transmission. Have to study whether I could possibly get cash for clunkers for the pickup and still get something big enough to tow the BAT; if that could happen that MIGHT tip me into doing that. Otherwise I think I will look for a used 1 ton pickup.

All caffeinated and not much to do yet

Well I could work on the routine stuff for the other group and I am pecking at it. But I was all set for a big push to transfer jobs to a new cpu from the one that is on the fritz -only things must be getting stuck for the sys admin. He'll get it worked out, he's a whiz at this stuff but dang I could have taken a good long ride this morning instead of coming in early intending to minimize the outage time. If only I were psychic or had a crystal ball. Oh well such is life.

Razz was good yesterday -but CJ got cut and I missed it

C took it pretty easy on him, but he gave her a pretty good ride. I grabbed Cindy and she was kind of showing her age. Used to be she was still energizer bunny riding in a ring but she was not into it. But Razz was not sucked down so it was cool. When I walked out to catch her I noticed wire in the pasture. Spent about 10 minutes gathering it up and tracking to where it was down from the unjuiced electric wire that had been running around the top of the pasture. I checked legs when I caught Cindy but didn't look hard at CJ. Had a lovely ride on Shade saturday evening. Mia came along, I tied her up after about 1.2 miles so I could have some canter time.

Today I only rode the John Deere. Got the goatsheads around the edge of the little paddock where the woven wire fence was installed. Then dad put the post hole digger on and we moved the mailbox about 6 feet east so there is more clearance to turn left with the BAT. As usual things were over engineered. When dad does a project he does it to last forever not to get it done quickly. I was going to grab Grey Moun and take the dogs for a run about 7pm but when I went out to catch him I noticed CJ's left hind leg was all swollen and had a cut on the inside of the leg at hock height. So instead of riding I got mom to help so I could hose his leg, then put some bag balm on it with a telfa pad and elastikon and fed him some tucoprim powder antibiotics and a gram of bute. Put the tractor away since dad was just finishing the mailbox project and then I took the dogs for a quick walk, drove out about 0.7 miles and then walked with them about 0.6 miles and drove home as it was getting dark with some help with storm clouds. Only got a few sprinkles though. I'll have to pull CJ out to feed him for a week now to finish up the tucoprim course.

ugh my brain is fried

I could not think of a way to automate it so I just hand edited an 1900 line file down to the 88 lines of information I needed to try to process some old data. Doing tons of greps and lists on site names to get down to the 22 sites with 4 lines of information each that I needed the information for.

I will wait until tomorrow to add the 88 lines to the existing information file and try to re-run in spots where things were failing.

My hand that got bitten is swollen. I will slather with sore-no-more tonight. It doesn't really seem like infection I think its just bruising from the pressure of a dogs jaws but I will evaluate in the morning if I need to run to the clinic. Geez I really don't want to explain to 5 or so different HMO people how I was so stupid so I hope it looks on the mend in the morning. I want to get Shade back into some riding but I'll have to see how hot it seems in the morning. I just am not in the mood to push myself physically.

WooHoo --mom and dad put up woven wire fence

AND RazzMo's leasor is going to come on saturday. She worked some overtime and has more gas money. I rode him today and he was pretty good. He was reasonably energetic too, so perhaps the remission product is increasing his energy.

I guess getting my hand bit when dad had unexpected free time worked out pretty well. Its not a bad wound but the bruising or something is mucking with the tendon and I cant use my finger normally. At least I can type but I'm having to ride with just the first 2 fingers on that hand. Otherwise they do some sympathetic thing when the ring finger hurts and I cant get any curling pressure at all. And my riding glove got shredded on the top. Funny the bite puncture is on my palm and I don't see any hole there. Back of the hand on the glove got torn but the skin just has little scrapes.

I'm glad most of my tuesdays aren't like yesterday

Having some fun typing today. I have vet wrap around my right hand. Darned dogs. Sigh *I* used to find routes to ride that never took me past any problem places where dogs ran out and harassed and followed me. I don't know why the whiny neighbor couldn't do that. Sure wish she had controlled her big dog better last night when I met her. And honestly stewpid Chi's just shouldn't be taken out in public. Although Ole does not get a pass. Her big dog made an agressive move towards Mia whom I had hopped of of Shade and grabbed her leash to make sure she didn't start any ruckus. I guess Ole thought the dog was making an agressive move towards me because Ole took out after the dammed dog. Neighbor cant be any help with her hands full of TWO stewpid chi's --I am not a little dog person sue me if you are, they can be ok but really its a 10 lb dog, don't tell me it cant get sufficient exercise at home and they don't tend to play well with other people or critters. I was having trouble getting Ole to quit and was scared he might actually hurt her big dog so at one point I tried to grab Ole's ear --and got my hand bit by her stupid big dog for being so foolish. I was also upset because I hadn't worried about Ole, he is Mr friendly puss, just wants to play --except he must have felt I needed protecting. He did something like that once before.

Good thing I had riding gloves on! I still got skin broke in a couple spots and some bruising right under my ring finger. Oh the kicker --this neighbor is berating me all this time because Mia has been slipping out of our fence sometimes when she goes by and harrassing her and her dogs. Did she ever leave a note to let us know? Oh hell no. Did it occur to her to just change routes? oh hell hell NO. But goes off on me -for AGES -while I break up the fight while she stands there holding the stewpid chi's and then when I finally get Ole away from her dog and am dragging 2 dogs home, where Shade had run to when the dog fight started. I so wished I could just say the hell with everything and just leave for WY right then.

But alas, no, I feel obligated to continue renting and helping while mom is so sick and it makes me soooo mad, she will not go outside the western medical box to try and get better, or better quicker or just able to function better until they can kick the infection -sometimes I get negative and wonder is she likes being sick in some subconscious weird way. And I would never want to just leave work hanging although last night I was about ready to. Well the sys admin was working on the problem remotely on his day off and the rich group was not refusing to share their unused resources --course sys admin stated flat out he was using them in an email. But I still felt like no one else cared much that we were down and researchers were out in the cold until we got going again.

But today is much better -- our sys admin rocks. The fsck he started and restarted remotely on his day off finished up and the missing raid was able to be remounted. Instead of having to edit many scripts to put or fetch data from a new place + recreate entire campaign directories to allow processing to resume the hourly processing came back on its own before I even got to work and I was able to get the missed daily files replaced and start that processing job with minimal effort.