Change needed

I simply must either find a way to be more self starting and be able to work as complete loner --gulp-- I'd have to 'sell' my work to become self-employed and that terrifies me.   OR I will have to suck it up as a fact of working life and join the group for lunches etc to get the few minutes of informal meeting aspects per day.  I am really annoyed to have to do that,  honestly I think my bosses could just cc me on emails to keep me in the loop, they would not have to carve out time to brief me but since they do not do this ..............

Well I'm going on the baseball game meeting.   I was late saying yes so probably will be some scramble for tickets by boss, who is actually nice and all but still  Blechh.    Do. not. like. jumping through hoops just to get basic updates.   Either need to find a job where they just expect that they have to 'waste' some time on formal communications so folks know what is going on,  or a job where the casual talk is not all  pissing and moaning about the liberal talking point(s) of the day and how those meanie R's are anti-science, anti woman and children,  only looking out for big business (even though the biggest corps go Dem in their campaign contributions)

played with 3 horses today

I guess its 3 horses, although I don't really think of the mini's as horses, more like super sub compact ponies.   Mojo is acting much tamer wearing his halter.   Today he let me clip a lead rope on him after I scratched his chest and neck a bit and then I tied him up and finally a month after getting it, used the little rasp I bought on his front feet.  

Then I caught Sadie and changed the rigging of her saddle.   No more 3-point rigging for us,  I think I'll wait till I get the crupper and have done lots of long-lining to get her used to it to ride her but I played with long-lining her today after I finally got the latigo straps changed to the front Dees on the saddle.   

Then I rode Shade.   I was going to go down the field roads but Ole started out with us but was stalled after only about 0.3 mile.   I could have tied him to a fence but I decided I would just do some flat work.  The flat work went well;  I think her fetlock felt better and she also did some nice rounding for me.  Got both leads but I had to try twice to get the left one, pretty sure I did not get my hips right on the first request.   Sometimes I'm really sticky to get my left hip forward/right hip back.   

*whew 3 typos that I caught.  I really should edit my posts more.  I had good English teachers back in elementary and HS but I am not reflecting well on them.

Spring shots yesterday

Yesterday Dr Mike was out to give all the horses their spring shots + do lameness checks on Sadie and Shade.   I have a renew prescription for Adequan for Shade and recommendation to use the Surpass topical left over from Sadie's bruised knee and elbow on Shade's fetlock.

 Sadie is cleared to be eased back into work.  I am going to just longe and ground drive her until the new crupper arrives and I have gotten her used to it.  We drew blood for coggins test for just Razz, Shade and Sadie.  If mom would decide she wanted to come ride we would have to get a blood draw from whatever horse she would take.  Or if Lynn wants to ride Lady at a WY ride she can pay me extra to get the coggins but I wasn't going to ask Dr Mike to try to get it yesterday.  My trailer divider makes a decent 'stocks' substitute for vaccinating,  he just gives the shot in the butt.However drawing blood would require doing something different, as my dividers are too high to allow access to the horses neck --maybe an IM tranq dose in the trailer and then draw blood after unloading and the tranq kicks in --   Or maybe I could feed Ace ahead of time, anyway I didn't want to mess around yesterday when its questionable if Lady needs to go out of state at all this year.   

Lady did let Dr Mike check her heartbeat, guts and lung with the stethascope and he offered to see if we could do vaccinations w/o loading her but I said 'lets just not wind her up'  she was starting to give him the stink eye and I think she would have gotten up in arms with needles.  As it was I put her in the trailer with some hay cubes and she didn't even flinch for the shots, she just kept chewing.    What she didn't know was happening didn't upset her.   It makes me wonder what kind of weird experiences she had before she was just chilling out in a pasture in KS for 3 years before I got her.  She did rush on unloading but she is small enough that she can turn around in the narrower spot where my manger is.  I just got myself out of the way rather than trying to interrupt her to make sure she didn't scrape herself up.   Even the horses I really care about I won't put my body in danger when they in the middle of being stupid anymore. 

All the other big horses went pretty smoothly.   Razz was his pushy self, but not to point of being dangerous,  its just a nuisance.  Shade and Sadie were quite good, nice little pocket pony arab personalities showing --thank goodness Shade grew out of her "AAACK VET" stuff she had till about age 6.    And then we had the mini's rodeo.   Frosty had got in the pen with wild little Mojo and he just had to get into running around too when we were trying to get Mojo's lead.  Finally I grabbed Frosty's lead and got him reeled in and tied him up while Dr Mike grabbed Mojo and then dad held Mojo and that cut the mayhem down to a dull roar.   Then dad curried Mojo a bit while Frosty got his jabs and I caught Black Diamond in the next pen (easy) and he got his jabs (no big action but Dr Mike says he does not like the needles.)  

Get Off my Lawn

I am becoming less bemused with how liberals tend to think sharing their noise is a public service or something.   It is not possible to have been in this building with curved hallway acoustics since September and be unaware of how sound travels and yet every damn day I get to hear conversations,  someones music,  the chirping birds from the eagle cam they have on their computer .........

I think when we are back in the old building and I have an outdoor window again I will just establish a habit of shutting my office door.   I do sometimes now when I can't focus because of the distracting noise but, I feel a bit shut off from the world so I don't do it routinely.   Hopefully having a window will cure that.  Oh really I should be working on resumes and so on,  if I was solidly happy to be working here little acoustic distractions would not even register in my mind.  

That darn gelding

I was not even thinking of riding him regularly, just thinking "maybe I should get one of my LJ pads I used on him back,  just in case I want to ride him a little bit" and he goes and finds something to cut his leg on; the Bugger.   I don't think he has actually lamed himself at all and I am hopeful today that Sadie will be good to go in another week and I just need to get a crupper for her.  Should do that AND change the rigging on her saddle to be forward so the cinch cannot get so much slack by the saddle going forward as well.   Center fire rigging is not working out like I planned and I need to go to plan B.   But it seems like every time I have thought about using Grey a little more the last couple years he goes and injures himself.   I guess he likes being retired and while he is a little bit young to be absolutely retired,  its just as easy for me if I am not thinking "Oh I should ride Grey 1 or 2x a month"   I think I will put him and Shade together by themselves. 

 I let the horses graze this weekend and Shade and Grey are acting like they want to hang out together and have been a bit of PITA to separate back and Lady keeps crawling through the fence and definitely would rather hang out with Sadie, even if it means being in with the big geldings too.   Shade has lost a little weight and Grey has gained so they can probably eat the same stuff for a while. 


I really need to stop coasting,  I just cant decide which direction I need to paddle towards.  Eh that doesn't sound right,  coasting is not really a water/boat term.  Well I'm definitely not a watercraft or swimming person.   But seems like for every "get out of this job" circumstance I get a contradictory one of "oh might get fun if I can hang on."      Sorry I am so dense God, please keep just tapping me with the cluebat; maybe I'll get it and turn the right direction before I run into or off of a cliff.

ah geeze

Give yourself a trivia point if you got the Archie Bunker reference. I really should find a different blog host on general principles anyway but now google has gone and changed the posting format. There was nothing wrong with the way it was. Oh and now it is eating my line breaks! --NOT HAPPY

 Sadie seems better YAY!. She was expecting me to catch her and bring her out for grain and the surpass rub today, so funny. I told her nope, can't have any drugs in your system when Dr Mike does the recheck on thursday. She has been being so careful that I was concerned that she had more than a bone bruise but have been telling myself not to panic, a bruise to the bone takes serious time to heal up. Yesterday I let them go eat on the scrubby weedy 'pasture' and of course everyone had to go cantering out with tails up etc including Sadie. I think she went "oh cool this isn't hurting" afterwards because she was trotting a bit this morning.

  I must remember to call Dr Mikes office and ask to add a lameness eval. for Shade to the schedule for thursdays visit. I think her RF fetlock that has a bit of arthritis is bugging her slightly. Hopefully I can just give her another round adequan every 4 days for a month and back to maintenance but I want the professional opinion on is it even that foot and the fetlock. Its pretty subtle but I haven't been riding hard enough to aggravate if there is something a bit more brewing there.

  Grey Moun is looking pretty good, he is not feeling so good he is acting bored, "I'd like to go back to work" but he has more energy and no longer acts like it would be an atrocity if I did ride him if I grab him for the farrier or to give him a quick grooming session. I might have to be an indian giver and get back one of his LJ pads, although I could use Shade's treeless saddle on him. I don't really think it would stretch it out miserably.

The Dems are losing it, so I'm loving it

The Democrat meme machine is stepping on itself this week. They are going after Romney for transporting the dog on the roof of the car in the same week that they are going after him and Ann for "being out of touch" Go boys, remind the nation that Romney has done some average middle America things like DRIVE the family to the vacation spot in a car and they took the dog along rather than dropping it at a fancy pet hostel. You don't have any examples of Barry doing anything so typical. When they went to camp David the dog was on a separate plane.


I wonder how many other normal folks went "Wait the dog was safely in a big carrier strapped to the luggage rack of a station wagon?" when they heard the full story. I had heard this rumor of "Romney once put his dog on the roof of his car" before and from the ominous tone I was NOT thinking "securely in a crate", it would not even have been a story that anyone remembered except the dog got 'dire rear' --probably one of the kids fed it too much greasy fast food on the road trip.

And thank GOD Romney is not being a McCain, his campaign fired back with an excerpt from Barry's "autobiography" about little Barry eating dog, snake and grasshopper. We don't eat dog in America Barry, you should have at least read Ayer's text and struck that part as detrimental to political careers.

Friday the 13th

No the post is not about the superstition, although I am just a wee bit superstitious. It takes about a count of 13 to grind the right amount of coffee when I make my morning brew but I usually drag out 12 or go 1314 so I'm not stopping on 13. I wonder when 13 became a feared #. I don't buy the "ancient humans counted 10 fingers and 2 feet so what came after was unknown and scary", ancient humans were not counting long before they wore socks to where they would have used toes not just the whole foot?

Anyway I realized I posted about Sadie's saddle slippage scare and banged up leg on FB but not here and this blog is it for my personal diary/journal so I should probably make note of it here.

on Sunday I was riding Sadie, went down the road, she was being so good; and I left the dog at home to start so I didn't start out and then have to take him back and change my plans to "I'll just ride in the paddock" Sadie was being good, I was thinking how much I love going down the dirt road about 2 miles into the ride when I realized the saddle seemed awfully far forward. I whoa'd, but then idiotically leaned right to look where the girth sitting. Saddle slipped sideways and I fell off and did not keep hold of a rein.

Sadie was upset and cantered off. She was not bolting, such a good mind, but I had to walk home about a mile and was worried that she might get hung up in the half down fenceline on her way home or get a foot caught in a stirrup or something awful. She did not get hung up and was standing at the driveway gate just wanting to get home when I finally got there. The only tack damage was one rein came apart on the leather tie like they are supposed to do rather than rip horses mouth. Sadie still has a spot of blood on lip so I switched to a little S hack and took her into the arena to longe her to check if she was OK and then to get back on very briefly to show her the saddle doesn't do that every time. She was not thrilled with me back on her but was well behaved. I didn't see or feel any lameness.

Rode Shade later that day, then when I went out to feed evening hay Sadie had a definite limp on her RF. I thought she might have given herself a stone bruise and just put an easyboot with arnica water cotton in it on her foot.

She was less sore the next morning when I changed out the cotton. Then tuesday I observed some swelling around her suspensory up high near her knee so I called Dr Mike and he came out wednesday. He found that she was tender on her RF knee and elbow so she is getting 10 days of Surpass ointment on those spots, rechecked in 2 weeks and hopefully will be much better. If not then we will take X-rays.

Allergy season can end anytime now

I jogged yesterday, only about my 4th time and its going pretty well, taking MSM regularly has my knees feeling better than a few years ago; but I hit a patch of trail with lots of blooming trees and it felt like the pollen was smacking me. I hope I'm still not allergic to grass and just have to get through the flowering season and thank GOD I live in the era of cheap readily available drugs. I hope SCOTUS rescues the nation from the Obamacare bill which will inevitably lead to great reductions in innovative new drugs etc if it is not tossed. I don't know if congress can ever be wise enough to toss it.

I have the vet coming to give Sadie a lameness eval. She was wheeling away from hay piles and cantering sound with a couple sound looking floaty trot stride, but yesterday I noticed swelling around the suspensory ligament on that RF hoof that I think is bruised and decided I wanted a professional opinion. My record on telling if its just a hoof issue or a suspensory is not great, Grey and Cindy both had several days when I was thinking 'hoof issue' and they had ligament issues and I wanted to know if I should see if I can still get a lesson with Stacy Westphall (bah google its close enough) in July.

It really would not make sense to go with Shade or Grey, as they don't move like reiners. I could borrow Razz as a back up but I don't want to sign up unless Sadie should be able to go.

Heres your signs?

Maggie left, NOAA is dragging heels on funding the project which is the reason our group exists-- the AF is picking up the slack for now but Barry is seriously slashing military budgets so if he gets reelected....

And today email from our Program director. Previous president of our parent agency retired in December. New president is eliminating our directors position who oversaw multiple small spin-off, non core, groups like mine....

Criminy, of course I have 'in group' bias but I think the spin-off groups were the most productive in the whole organization; we all had more flexibility and I think most groups, not just ours, had to write proposals for special funding so we had a sort of capitalist type competition to keep us from just getting an entitled bureaucrat mentality. So THIS is where they choose to start cutting?

I think I really have to quit trying to avoid change. I know I'm only being human in wanting things to stay the same but I like to think I'm smart enough to understand that life/reality etc. does not work that way. It is probably time to be pro-active instead of waiting until I'm forced to react.

Bought another 50lbs of sand clear yesterday

I had been thinking that I would make mom or dad buy future sand clear for the minis partly to give them some more incentive to not stir up the sand in that pen. I get so annoyed when mom strips the pens and stirs up sand where I had built up a layer of hay and manure mulch. I only clean out the deep spots and then I only move that 'mulch' to a spot that is too sandy when cleaning a pen is up to me; but mom is driven by the aesthetics rather than what is healthier for the critters and she had a little burst feeling semi-healthy and being ambitious in early Jan.

but CJ had a colic episode thursday morning. Vet wants him to get 10 days of sand clear and I will dose the 3 horses in with him as well on at least some of the days when I don't feel like taking CJ out + with the thought that they probably have some sand too. At least I didn't have to pay CJ's vet bill of $178. Yesterday I had to get feed so I looked at their sand clear prices. $126 for 20 lbs. So I got the 50 lb size from horse.com for $176 + $20 shipping charge. Got more MSM and Corta-flex while I was at it, and they had a little 'Rider Rasp' that looked like it might be just the thing for rasping on the mini feet. Only 5 inches long and has a plastic knuckle strap. Which is so NOT washing my hands of the mini situation. I'll just have to juggle as best I can. I don't want to short my riding time and care of the horses *I* bought, but its not in my nature to just let the mini's colic or the young twerp mini that they should never have taken on IMO ruin his joints with the too long hooves under my nose.

Mustn't burn bridges and harden hearts

But I am CRANKY today and tempted to spout off to the rich gal who is so excited that her tax credit solar panels are making lots of electricity with some heavy snark that I hope her grandkids don't end up paying a terribly high price. And I mustn't even think about the gal who went to nursing school and I'm fairly sure that was on one of Barry/Nanzi's programs and posted a week or 2 ago that yay she got the job working 1.5 days a week for a church doing some kind of newletter I think and maybe some general secretary stuff. Way to pay back the taxpayers missy. You rock. Oh well pot/kettle my job is entirely taxpayer funded, and pre-Barry I always thought I and pretty much 90% or better of the people there were giving good value -- now not so much, but I don't feel like the gub'mint will waste any less money if I quit and the program does actually produce data useful for weather forecasting, we are not torturing statistics to say that tree rings confirm a 3x multiplier sensitivity to CO2 or other totally fraudulent 'climate' research in our little group.

The pollen is back

I maybe could have skipped taking allergy drugs on monday but was stuffy so I took them. Yesterday the rain and snow had knocked all the pollen out of the air so I could breath easy all day without taking anything. Today the sun is shining and all the trees and other spring flowering plants are working overtime to catch up I think. I must get moving, told someone I would be in Boulder after noon (loaning her Grey's Little Joe bareback pad) and she just emailed that she will be there right around noon.

YAY its snowing , Shade got her adequan Monday

OK is really rain/snow mix. Anyway it is Moisture, blessed blessed moisture. I don't think we'll get the 'up to 1 inch of water' that the regional forecast said was possible on our sandhill but at least its some.

I gave Shade her adequan monday. Over 6 weeks is too long between doses, Saturday I went a bit on hard packed dirt road and I could feel she was a little off on the arthritic fetlock. Sadie went out on Saturday and again on Sunday when L was out to ride Lady. Both good rides, no drama, which was probably helped by the 80+ temps. Spring time in Colorado, hot to snow from sunday to monday night. I've gotten to love it; it really sets the insects back for one think and its a great excuse for being so slow to get snow tires on and off the vehicles and so on.

Grey Moun has gained weight being just with Lady and I need to actually cut his soaked feed ration back a little bit. I think he is loving this set up, enough calories to have energy to be a bit of a rascal and Lady totally caves to him. She was crawling through the divider fence to hang out with Sadie some (Sadie is only horse we have that defers to Lady, and I suspect if I put just the 2 of them together full time Sadie might decide she was going to swap positions at some point.)

WI recall election is polling too close to call so I think I have a spot where I feel like I can push back against the marxists.

I am Done with Jay Leno

Kind of sad as he IS funny at times and occasionally even makes jokes that point out some of king Putts idiocy, but last week I was home and the tonight show was on and Jay had Piers Morgan on totally pushing the Trayvon Martin is a miscarriage of justice story. Piers " Its a travesty that Americans can legally carry guns like this BLAH BLAH BLAH." Having that kind of thing in the Tonight Show setting with no one to give a counter point is just not correct even if it was not only done in the context of pushing the democrats' side. WTH Leno, you get a pass but in general the Democrats meme is that it is just HORRIBLE that someone could collect and actually USE all those high powered gas fueled vehicles like you do? Why not just advocate for freedom instead of pushing their other nanny state/ totalitarian memes in order to earn your pass for the gas guzzlers?

I'm extra hurt because Leno started out sticking to the Carson template of staying away from taking a side politically (as far as I remember anyway). It was always clear that Letterman sided with his liberal New Yorker neighbors but I mistook Leno's mostly impartial past stance as him leaning a bit conservative so it stings to learn that that was only professionalism and he is willing to discard that professionalism to aid king Putt and the left now.