Ole's surgery scar

He has a scar in the shape of the original incision.  Barely a scar, but no hair growth for now.  Seems kind of odd that the scar is back to the original incision shape after it pulled into a round shape when the stitches failed and the initial healing happened as a decreasing diameter circle.   Now if the Adequan shots will reduce his arthritis pain for a year or two.   I feel bad about the back arthritis since that is probably the result of the bale I accidentally dropped on him.   But he was getting some arthritis in his back legs before that so not beating myself up too much. 

8.3 miles the last two days

I took a quick spin on Sadie Friday and straggled into work late.   Rode again late this morning and beat the mini 'storm' system that came in this afternoon.  We'll be lucky to get 1/2 inch of snow but the temperature dropped and the wind was blowing pretty strong already by 2pm.  Went across the highway and added a bit of mileage and a nice little change up from my rut.

I gave Ole his second Adequan shot today.   I was reading on-line how to give an IM shot to dogs and ran across some info that the shots can be given subcutaneously to dogs so I'm doing that since I also read that the shots can sting given IM and Ole can tighten his leg muscles to quite a hard state so it might be hard to slip a needle in gently.   I sure hope that this relieves his arthritis pain, I feel so bad when he has gimpy days.  

Yay, I'm getting a thank-you card for Christmas

I guess bro is going through the phase I had a few years ago where I just wanted to skip the whole Christmas shopping hassle.   I'm reminding myself that I had the same phase and I still don't like to shop,  I've been taking advantage of his tight budget as an excuse to just send checks and I have not even been writing "enjoy a day in San Francisco" or some similar gift yourself suggestion on the cards.   Hopefully he or his DW gets sentimental in a bit and I will at least get a newsy letter and card and maybe he'll send me a book or cd for old times sake,  I kind of miss getting rock CDs.

Monday on FB the family that I gave a couple trailer rides to trails was in the town where I work and dropped off a cookie plate to their horses former owner.   We had just gotten a cookie package from the folks that rent the inherited farm property up in ND so not getting more sweets was in some ways a good thing and the family had posted that the old arab gelding at their boarding facility that they have sort of adopted was in great weight after getting scarily skinny in Sept when we had the big rains and his pen had been a mud pit. 

Still I was kind of bummed she didn't message me; I would have told her I had more of the high fat horse supplement in my car and they should swing by so they'd have it just in case the old guy started loosing weight again and I would have taken a cookie plate,  we had lots of sweets but we didn't have lemon bars or streupwaffles (sp?)  My great aunts had gotten a cookie iron in their later years and used to make some cookies that I think were very similar to the Streupwaffles although my aunts rolled theirs up and didn't put any cinnamin sugar filling in them, cinn and sugar with butter was only for lefse.  I cannot recall what my aunts cookies were called, my spotty memory is so annoying. 

   Oh well,  I didn't step in and take them trail riding last summer because I was angling for cookies, I know how to cook and I can bake my own sweets any time I really crave them; I just prefer to spend my time riding for now and if its too cold and snowy to want to be outside I prefer curling up with a cup of tea and a good book to starting a baking project; I know from experience that I'll have had my fill of a baking project before its finished let alone before cleaning up unless I only make no-bake drop cookies or something like that with limited steps and dishes involved.   I enjoyed this families company for its own sake and hopefully we will ride together a time or two next year too. 

Unfortunate timing

A FB friend posted a youtube link to the Seinfeld Festivus and said 'let the airing of grievances begin' this morning.  She is not anti-Christmas in general and had a tongue out emoticon but it still hit me that I am so damned tired of the war on Christianity and I replied that there were over 300 days where the non-religious rule so they shouldn't have to piss on the few days that do have meaning to others.   I apologized for venting on her joke post and she accepted but it is unfortunate that I snapped at her; she does not believe in government as the only allowable religion. 

  That post was just a tiny straw that broke my restraint.   Working with liberals I believe the only reason we no longer have an ugly 'festivus pole' up along with secularized christmas and Hanukhah decorations that don't include anything like a nativity,  star or angel on the trees, or menorah,  just trees, lights (is there any group that doesn't have some sort of festival of lights) and some Dreidels  is that the ugly pole got lost when the building was renovated.   I would have pitched it myself if I'd had access to it, perhaps someone else shared my feelings and took advantage of the opportunity to toss it in a dumpster.   The goofs at work who put it up were 'just joking' too; and the hipster douche writers that came up with the theme for Seinfeld were probably just joking and 'oh we are poking fun at people who whine about the holiday not really attacking the holiday itself.'  Except the Seinfeld writes and the liberal work snots weren't joking really, they were taking away even from the already secularized holiday because 'its not 100% inclusive, waaah.'  with any means available because they want 'no other gods before government' 

Short ride Sunday, What was so wonderful about James Dean?

Saturday night dad flipped to 'Rebel without a cause'   What a weird movie.  Perhaps it would have made a little more sense if the beginning was not missed as I didn't have any backstory for the just a bit younger boy who was trying to latch onto Dean's character as a father figure because his parents were off somewhere and just sending a house keeper money for his support.  How he even met Dean etc.  

 The feminazis and pajama boy men of today would both be up in arms about the way Deans parenets were portrayed.   I didn't think Dean was anything special as far as acting the conflicted character,  but he probably got acclaim from the critics because the movie plot was right up their alley. 

I had somehow gotten the notion years and years ago that Steve McQueen died doing a movie stunt or in a car accident and was surprised to learn this weekened he died of mesothelioma.   Of course the military gets the blame from the usual suspects for exposing him to asbestos but not any credit for teaching him the self discipline that helped him to become a great actor and racer rather than just a two-bit hood. 

It was calm and sunny on Sunday and at least a few degrees above freezing so I took a short ride on Sadie.  She was funny,  I noticed there was still ice in the ditch so I'm thinking 'confirmed not going to mess with water crossing practice'  but Sadie didn't get the mental message and was acting like "oh no we can't go near the ditch"  and I'm like "you got that right we are not messing with that ice in the ditch but you have to stay here on the nice road next to the ditch, we are NOT going off into the CRP area that is full of gopher and prairie dog holes."  

Well we got cards sent out

And I have a bit more riding bug back.  I did not ride Tuesday or Thursday because I was too slow getting moving to both ride and get a bit of decorating and cards sent etc for Christmas.  Monday and Wednesday I rode and just was late getting to work.   This morning it was cold and frosty so I was content to just finish up getting cards ready to mail with dad.    I hope its warm enough in the afternoons to get little rides in this weekend.  I do better at maintaining serenity if I get a little ride in fairly often.

Too hot

Cue ominous music and AGW hysteria.   LOL.     I have to run upstairs and get rid of my long johns though.  I'm over warm and it is making me lazy.    I want to keep getting little rides in on Sadie and should start piddling with setting up the outdoor nativity.   I do like having a few Christmas decorations and I don't know if its accurate or a result of the cold week and a half starting wednesday after Thanksgiving but it seems like I'm seeing fewer lights up this year.   I know I've kind of had a 'stock the bunker' rather than 'eat drink and be merry' mindset lately so perhaps I'm projecting,  I still some some lights, just seems like not as many places as previous years.  

 Well had a nice ride on Sadie but I will just have to try to get moving faster tomorrow to do any Christmas decorating.   Dad is hanging some icicle lights though so I'll probably come home to some lights tonight :)  

Maybe I'll get another 6-day stretch of rides in.

I rode Sadie Friday and Saturday.   Short rides of 3 and 4.3 miles but we both got some fresh air.   Saturday I went to a morondezvous after riding.   Inside term.   It was the first non-horse related thing I've done just for myself in I don't know how long.   It was really great to put 'meat-space' names and faces to some fellow conservatives that congregate on the internet.    I learned the backstory for Pronothotary sp? Warbler.    I had even read Whittaker Chamber's Witness autobiography in college but my vague recollection is that Chamber focused more on his background of why he got sucked into the commie party and then left and didn't include much juicy stuff about the Alger Hiss case.   Rightly Southern very much matched his moniker.   

Working in a nest of bubbled and cocooned liberals as I do it was really very nice meeting up with fellow conservatives, especially smart ones.  If we could pull off a coup to get control of most of the media I think we could save this country from the death spiral into socialist shit-hole.   Perhaps with the rise of twitter and so on we (well they as I'm pretty luddite) will be able to show more young people what a bunch of fakers and Baghdad Bobs the MarxSpewMedia are. 

I signed up for a pyramid scheme 'vitamin/supplement' company with a friend.  Huge sigh,  I like this friend and I let my distaste for looking at you-tube videos keep me from doing my homework plus was lazy and didn't search on-line for independent info.    I will cancel with the company before my next autoship comes.   My initial impression when I heard the price total and then got my stuff which was one persons serving for a month with an extra product vs the two person basic level I thought I was getting was 'OMG severe price-gouging, this is mainly a pyramid scheme' and now taking the supplements and reading the ingredients I think the products are also snake-oil marketing terms slapped on some basic juice and vitamins.  E.g. one is supposed to hydrate cells "oxygenated water and proprietary mineral salt blend,  hmmm,  sounds suspiciously like a super weak hydrogen peroxide solution with a bit of trace mineral salt"  

    I'm trying to decide if the cleansing product is possibly pulling crap out of my system and making me feel temporarily bad but will be good for me down the road, or one of the products is kicking up my rhinitis, or just coincidentally I've eaten extra white flour the past few days and that is getting to me or just this time of year is aggravating my chronic rhinitis.  I guess I'll know if I feel better before I run out of the stuff or after I get through it.   Yeah, even though I think the products are pretty much snake oil marketing terms, I do think its possible the cleansing herbal mixture is clearing some gunk out of my body, just with stuff that I could have bought at Vitamin Cottage for 1/10 of the price.  

I am a bit stressed because I would have liked to help my friend out if this was something where there is a fairly decent product behind the marketing, like Discovery Toys, or Watkins or something but I'm not going to pay crazy money for this stuff and no way in hell would I try to con friends or relatives into paying that crazy money so that I'd rise a level in the pyramid and get the stuff cheaper.  My friend would never con folks, she has bought the con and believes the product is good stuff and maybe it has helped some of the folks taking it, especially if they had poor nutrition before, but I'm skeptical of stuff in general and pretty sure this is snake oil and a pyramid scheme; I hope my friend does not get burned when the pyramid collapses. 

Well I read some good books this week

Read a lot of novelettes.   A fictional biography of Leonardo da Vinci's early years by Cahterine Jaime,  kind of interesting, I might buy the complete biography if its cheap but it was not entertaining enough that I'd pay a whole lot. 

Raiders by Ross Kemp.   I'll probably buy this,  the sample description of the British raid on Italian warships at Taranto was very cool.  I really like when an author can recount factual incidents like this in a way that is as gripping as a good novel.  

Deadly Aim, Patricia Rushford.    Angel Delaney mysteries book #1.   I'll probably buy the next book.  I don't feel like I'm 100% hooked on the series if there are a lot of books but it was a pretty fun read with a bit of Christianity rather than gaia worship or leftyism as a backdrop to the main story so instead of putting up with the backdrop I liked it.  Also liked that it was just a backdrop and not pushing it. 

Could not get into The Norman Ten Hundred bu Stanley Blicq.    It may be just that world war 1 is so depressing in the numbers of casualties.  

Read Attacked (Last plane out of Paris, part one) by Paul Maxham.     I am not sucked in and wanting to buy the full novel although a daring espionage/French Resistance tale from WW2 should have been very engrossing.

I read a fair amount of sci-fi/fantasy and found "Call of the Herald" by Brian Rathbone on my kindle.  It was pretty good,  the intro had been lame and I had left it unread for months but was running low on material as my internet was wonky this weekend and it was too cold to do any more outside than feeding the horses so I was spending a lot of time on my kindle.  

I finished up A Flowershop in Baghdad by Michael Banzet last week.   A really good book describing Banzet's background of entering the USAF as enlisted and working up to being a Major as the first third of the book was a neat biography in itself and then Major Banzet describes efforts to rebuild the Iraqi AF,  a neat account of the good people there -- I couldn't read too much of this at once because I kept wondering how much progress has been undone since the MarxSpewMedia connived to get TFG elected and re-elected here. 

Well on the plus side I rode Sadie 6 days in a row before the cold front hit last night

On the negative front my grand mileage total for that 6 days was only 24 miles.   Oh well this is still not bad at all for late November and into December and I included some good longish canters and also some going into the irrigation ditch with a bit of water in it.    Not being skeered to cross water is an important skill for an endurance horse and I have to seize opportunities to practice living on the sand hill. 

I need to do better at putting my shoulder to the wheel at work, I've been slacking a bit lately and can't really afford to be doing that.   I keep expecting the house of cards to fall, but things might go on for decades and I don't need to get myself terminated because I'm too distracted wondering about what I'll do after the SHTF to do keep up with my phoney baloney feeling job.  

12,5 miles, been a good 4-day weekend so far

12.5 miles is over 3 days so still not enough for endurance conditioning.  But I am having fun with Sadie.   Yesterday I had her step into the irrigation ditch and walk a bit in the few inches of water in the bottom.  I'm being pretty wimpy and only asking her to go down the one spot that is still quite easy for horse access after they came with an excavator and made it pretty vertical most of the spots where folks had been crossing.   I see tracks where other people are going across a couple of new  places since they filled in the easy spots  but the new spots are fairly steep and while the tracks prove horses can do it I'm trying to keep water stuff easy with Sadie to boost her confidence with it. 

I cooked a turkey and stuffing and mashed taters and roasted squash for T-day and had dad invite his friend Jim over since Jim is farm sitting for his boss and didn't travel to a family meal this year.   Yesterday I cut up the dark meat and cooked up some rice,  sauteed some celery and onion and made casserole with cream of mushroom soup and some canned beans and peas.   I should have left the peas out but it wasn't too bad.  Dad said it was pretty good and actually heated some of it for lunch; he doesn't reheat stuff that often, especially right away the next meal so I guess his taste buds are good with canned peas.    Tonight I'm going to fry up some deer steaks,  I've had turkey and sides leftovers the last two days for lunch and we don't have a whole lot of turkey left so I think we'll get it cleaned up.  

I'll probably just toss the carcass instead of making soup like mom used to do.   I'm trying to get/keep somewhat in practice for stretching a food budget but even with the "I'd rather spend money on other stuff"  I don't have to eek more food out of this turkey and I'd have to buy or have dad buy carrots and taters to put in the soup.  I can't imagine making turkey soup w/o carrots.  

Oh really

Well I guess I'm not a genius and the problem was fixed friday.  Yeah I give that about 5% probability of being true.    If it was just a coinky-dink that I fixed the reference orbits and self-described super genius fixed another problem his love of pedantry would have made him spell out his fix instead of just saying in the meeting today "oh I fixed it Friday"   Yeah sure you did.   For petes sake,  as my boss you could just take credit for directing me to fix it instead of pretending.  

Heh, I'm a genius

Sadly not, or I'd know how to persuade people to wake up and be sensible before the damm o-bots implode the country and cause hyper inflation or something like that with their stupid "help for the poor" (by which the top ones really mean help to keep the poor, poor so the Dems have more power) schemes or explode the world with WWIII by arming the craziest regimes in the ME with nuclear weapons. 

But my boss/supervisor whatever for a good part of my work that fancies himself a genius programmer was beating his head on a bit of code all last week and 1/2 the week before that and running debugger because part of the code was blowing up last week (but not in a broken software mode like a segfault,  just announcing it could not solve some matrix equations and was getting some singular values)  and he could not figure out why it was failing.  

 Being plenty vain I of course had to poke at it on Friday night after everyone had left to see if mr smug was missing something obvious.   And I spent half a workday staring at parameter declarations that turned out to be a red herring but I did also at least do the obvious thing and run the problem orbit day with the old version vs the new version of the big software package we are fitting into our packages for unique application and look closely at all the output files generated by the software package coming out of old version vs new version.

 Thus I did notice "oops the reference orbits with the new version have just one arc for the two day period and in the old version that works they are split into two arcs."  (I was responsible for getting the reference orbit part going two months ago and I had messed up and left a hard set value in a template file where I needed to edit the template to use a variable we would pass in)  --this was not biting us with the first set of stuff we were doing so it was not spotted and fixed by me right away.  

So I sent an email this morning that I'd fix the bug with the reference orbits today when I got in (I work 1-9 + making up lunch break) vs everyone else with 9-5 hours and I did so before our 1:30 quick meeting.   I did not see any 'oh good, that was it' emails by 5; but I ran the new program myself tonight and the not breaking the reference orbits into two arcs was the problem,  the program runs now,  input parameters may need to be tuned to give really good results but it runs.  

NOW the super genius boss can fix the software that he wrote and only he understands that translates some model data we use from one binary format into another format that our other code needs.   The model data changed a  few months ago and his translator code was generating files that looked OK in size and were readable --but actual values are not right now the research folks started really looking at some results.    

politcal/philosophical ramblings

The media in the 30s neglected to inform the public that FDR was mostly confined to a wheelchair because they thought the public might feel he wasn't strong enough for the office.  


 The media in the 60s neglected to inform the public that JFK had Addisons + a back injury from the war because they felt the public might not think a president who needed to juggle drugs to control his condition was the best choice to face off against the USSR.  

The media now neglects to inform the public that BHO is an (ex?) pothead and cocaine user as well as being a communist radical with strong sympathies for Islam.  

I don't know why modern voters do not understand that when the media covers for the party in power instead of being antagonistic it leads to corruption.   Power corrupts and power, unchecked by the glare of media attention corrupts faster and more completely.

 The media itself is corrupted, as well as encouraging political corruption by covering rather than shining the spotlight on Democrat's malfeasance.   The public must find a way to reduce the media's power to reduce their corruption.  If only I knew how to make this happen.  

Glad I took that short ride this morning before work - and, happy dance, I got Sadie to step into the irrigation ditch with a bit of water in the bottom with me mounted.

 We are getting a taste of winter overnight and tomorrow if the forecast is not way off.  I hope we get a good fly kill off and thank goodness we are too dry to get November tornadoes.   wattsupwithtthat had a post showing a secondary peak of activity in the fall so I guess its not so terribly strange that they struck in November as it seemed to me when I heard about all that destruction.  

 Still very tragic and I tend to want to ignore the tragedy just because it also feeds the stupid AGW crowd --right when they are desperate for any distraction from the disaster of Obamacare  --which its going to be racist to call it that now, since the website part is such an utter debacle and  I heard it is/was mandatory to go through the website first and give OFA all kinds of personal information to get a subsidy if you would qualify for one.    Lord knows how many people have been set up for identity theft even though only 27K or so made it through to the point of 'putting a plan in their carts. 

4.7 slow miles today

L was out and we went a bit farther.   She's finally learning to wear enough clothes.  Well,  it remains to be seen if she can figure out to wear long johns or something when it gets really cold but at least she is wearing jackets and putting something on her head and not complaining that its cold when its only a little bit chilly.  

My feeling that the world will go into a great depression soon is ramping back up.   The last one launched the government sugar daddy era but I think this one will find governments with bare treasuries and unable to maintain the illusion with debt and it will get very ugly indeed,  especially if we still have our divider in chief in power.     May the commies get the worst  of it,  they've engineered things with taking over the media and feeding people the lie that 'those rich people owe you.'      Rich is always people who have more than you of course so scads of white liberals think the really rich people should pay more to make life easier for the poor folks but they never think they are rich enough they should be paying for this fairness.  

9.3 miles on Sadie

Not a bad ride even for fairly flat at home.    As a total for 3 rides its pretty piddly but at least I got some vitamin H and am keeping Sadie broke.   Today I had to get my feet wet to convince her she could step down into the irrigation ditch with a few inches of water in the bottom.   That was not bad but then when I led her out and mounted up she still wouldn't go in so I had to get off again,  I got in in the ditch and asked her to take a few steps in the water before going out and called it  good.   I'll probably have to lead her in again next time. 

 Oh well, at least she will lead for me in these situations but I have got to be smarter,  I let her refuse to cross or step into water a couple times and set her up to be all stubborn and I know better than to do that, especially with a smart/smart ass bayrab. 

Curmudgeon lately, maybe I NEED to bump up my riding miles

On one of my horse boards the moderators DH has/had cancer in his esophagus.    I guess chemo for that is always rough and he was not exempted.   They just got PET results + blood work showing cancer free but the oncologist recommended finishing the chemo so the poor guy is not done with that torture until February.  

Of course the wife is ecstatic about the no cancer results and the rest of the board is cheering with her.  Only I put in something about 'prayers for DH as he endures the rest of the chemo.'   I am extrapolating from the glimpses board posts show of a situation; but she clings on to pets and horses that are enduring nasty medical conditions until a vet or friend twists her arm that its time to let go and euthanize. 

But I should not judge with her DH, I've never met him, even in cyberspace.  He may be thanking god daily that she pushed him through when he might have just said 'bag this, I just want palliative care.'   He may share her "don't let go of life, any life, until letting go is absolutely the only option left" and would have chosen the chemo torture regardless, but really appreciates having a spouse that is also of that mindset pulling and pushing him through it. 

And the cold front is not here yet this morning so I should probably get in at least another short ride in case the weekend that was supposed to be sunny and fairly warm for Nov. after two days of cold with light snow showers today and friday ends up getting hit with winter weather.   

Rode Sadie today and yesterday

And Sunday with Lynn.    I've been going slow this week so only 3.5, 3 and 3 miles each ride.  Good thing I don't mind saddling up for a short ride or I'd go crazy from lack of vitamin H.   I do hope I get back into a groove of riding enough to be able to finish some endurance rides next year.  I like that I can still enjoy my horse even when I'm only dinking around with my mental health rides but I do miss that feeling of accomplishment from finishing an endurance or even LD ride. 

trying to follow folk wisdom.

I expect I will manage.  I'm pretty good at "if you can't say something nice don't say anything"  but soo tempted to snark on the FB post about the daughters white mice having babies that look like wild mice something about "so what does one do with mice babies to ensure you don't have a population explosion, feed them to your snakes?"   

I'm a stick in the mud about pets anyway,  I don't really understand wanting to have anything other than a dog or cat as a pet.   Birds -- maybe chickens that live in their own hen house for eggs as a cross between pet/livestock but I do not 'get' having a pet bird, I just think they are messy.  Or if you live in an apartment so you do fish instead of a pet, or you get the kids gerbils or hamsters instead of a cat or dog, either because family too busy for a more social pet or as a first pet.   But I don't get adults having fish and regular pets or especially having a pet rodent + a 'real' pet.  

Or if you are a bird person &/or a rodent person how can you be a snake person too?  Doesn't it feel strange having pets that would eat your other pets?  Its not like dogs and cats where the dog learns that you consider the cat part of your household so they have to be nice,  the snakes WILL eat the birds or rodents if they come in contact with each other and you have to feed them rodents or chickens, maybe you can cheat and get supermarket chicken and just heat it to body temp but still it seems like that would feel odd to me.  

I like to visit zoos and I enjoy my pets but I have ZERO desire to ever have a small zoo at home.   Oh well,  I should just count my blessings with that.   Life is complicated enough with having horses, dogs and a cat.  I bet arranging pet sitting when you have birds, reptiles and rodents really requires being an extrovert personality with a huge pool of friends to either have another zoo keeper friend or have to get different ones to check on one or the other species that *I* think many folks  be like myself;  *shudder* quickly feed and check water and move on.  

Yes it was time to swap out the tires

That chore is done for several months.  And since I absolutely need to at replace at least the two very bald tires if not all 4 this spring when I take the snow tires off, the next swap out will be done by the tire store.   Since dad has collected so many cool tools -- I just love the hydraulic floor jack and air wrench and I have an extra set of rims so its only like doing a tire rotation so its not too bad to swap them out myself.   Well almost by myself,  I went out to the garage and could not find the air wrench nor the floor jack so I had to drag dad away from his football watching/napping to find the wrench and ask him where the jack was.   (it was in the back of his p/u so I never would have found it myself)  

Reminding myself how hard it is to write politcal essays.

But I would like to flesh this one out a bit and maybe see if I can get it into the universe by having a good writer redo it.

Thanks to the media circle around Democrats and their war on conservatives talking about candidates with a liberal is like listening to jokes from an 8 year old or younger.

ie. Palin,  she explains that due to Geography the AK governor has had some experience dealing with international issues and then Tina Fey impersonating her "I can see Russia from my house"   Coupled with interviews where they edited to make her seem naive and the liberal army soon starts repeating this and its like an adult trying to get through a kids joke telling session trying to make the point "it was Tina Fey the actress who said that"

Romney or his wife tries to humanize himself with the family vacation dog dire rear story.   The media puts out "he put his dog on the car roof" rather than relating the story in full with the "hey we aren't just Richie Rich folks, we did family car trip vacations and stuff and when minor disaster struck dad kept his cool, hosed off the car and the dog and we went on and had a fun family vacation."   or even more blatant and I could not believe this one was the "binders full of woman"  when Romney points out that he voluntarily took real actions to get more women into his Massachusetts administration.  That was just stupid, and I just could not relate to the twisted up 8 year old humor level, but the liberal that rides Lady was thinking of dressing up as a binder for Halloween in 2012!  

I think we conservatives have amplified that problem because we don't immediately go "That is stupid not funny," as if these O-bots are 8 year olds and we can't hurt their feelings;  and then most of our few  (supposed) allies in the media don't call them out the "that is stupid not funny" because they don't want all the cool 8 year olds in the rest of the media laughing at them for not getting the 'joke' or calling them racist for pointing out blatant stupidity.  

  Well going along with this crap and expecting voters to be smart enough to see through the shams  isn't working out so well and we need to stop letting this 8 year old level shlock generate steam and become  people's rationale for not voting for their interests because they want to vote for the cool dude not the naive governor with the nordic accent or the stodgy, 'maybe even scroogish' business executive and so on.   

Happy Birthday whiner

Ok, he isn't actually whining but he seems to be silently pouting that no one is remembering its his b-day.    Stupid absent-minded me.   I had given him the last of the Hank the Cowdog books I had bought in a big batch this summer because he was talking about buying them on Kindle.   I've given him so many that I ought to try to fill in the series in real books, that would make a more valuable lot on ebay if we decide to clear out the old books some time in the future.  

I am pouting because I overslept and would have had to push to get a ride in,  but I looked at the ground elk that I took out to thaw too late to cook Saturday sitting in the fridge and decided I really needed to cook it up in some form so I made spaghetti sauce this morning instead of doing something fun.  Sunday I cooked up deer steaks that I had also taken out to thaw and I by choice am at work until 9 pm and not around to be doing any home cooking.  I need to either find myself an SO or find him one because I am really starting to resent current living arrangements and I need to make myself happier before I fly off the handle at him.  He's been this way for 74 years,  I don't seem him suddenly becoming super empathetic and realizing how annoying some of his habits are. 

   Just because lots of men take up cooking as a way to fill their time when they retire I should not be so annoyed that he works so hard to remain at the level of heating soup instead of reading a damn cookbook or watching the food channel and cooking so I could have some good leftovers at work instead of frozen tv dinners made edible by shaking on some spices;  instead of acting like 'poor me,  only get a good home cooked meal once or twice a week'  when he has all the free time from being retired.   Since he is dragging with a cold, geez he seems to stay sick forever with every little virus in his old age I don't really want him doing much cooking of anything I'll eat right now anyway. 

Happy to have been wrong

Not about VA but the income tax measure in CO failed resoundingly.   As well it should have but I was worried when I read my ballot because that did not spell out the tax rate hikes.   Thank goodness for the blue books I guess.   I didn't read mine but dad read his and I guess plenty of savvy citizens did as well.  

 Lots of pundits addressing why the VA race went so badly for Cuccinelli,  and I wont depress myself reading them but I think he made the same mistake as Ken Buck did here in 2010.  He supported personhood, life begins at conception.   The Dems use that as a bludgeon "this would mean no fertility treatments, no birth control pills, forget morning after pills ........."    Pro-life candidates need to say "on a personal level I believe life begins at conception" but I only want enough law to prevent horrors like Kermit Gosnell because I don't believe in using state coercion to push moral issues -- or something like that.   There is also the fact that lots and lots of DC government drones live in VA and they believe that Dems can 'keep the spice flowing' 

Why does my gut hurt today?

It's not like in 2012 when I was holding onto hope that the Dem pollsters were oversampling and maybe they wouldn't be able to cheat up to their polling #s.   I guess I was sucked in by the 404care fallout stories, that maybe people would wake up based on this.    I KNOW better than to let myself get my hopes falsely raised and still I thought maybe VA would be sensible.

 I haven't seen any polling #'s yet but I expect that the amendment 66 (stealth income tax hike, sold as 'for the schools, and only $133 for average family') will pass in this running to blue stupid state.     Its going to be  well over $200 for me and I wouldn't mind that hit if it was only that increase in my bill but they put in a progressive hike for the first time.   Income over 75K will be hit with 5.9% vs the rise from 4.6 to 5.0% for everybody.    That is going to hurt the small business owners.   I almost think I should do some real prepping pretty soon.

People can ignore math, but it will not ignore them indefinitely.   Really I knew the country was doomed when they rejected "binders full of women" Romney and Ryan who would have juggled the books, delayed the O-care and EPA crap etc but still have kept trying to be compassionate with the treasury and would not have done any hard core reforms.   But hey, I'm in mid-life and no kids so putting off the crisis for a few decades and hoping for people to smarten up would have been  personally good for me.   Now I just don't know whether the decline will be somewhat slow, or if the country/globe will unravel within the decade. 

Having fun riding my Bayrab

She was grumpy Thursday for the farrier and Friday starting out with L and Lady but she can just learn to soldier through.   Today she didn't seem so grumpy.   I was planning on trying to get a longer ride in but Ole blew that plan.   It was fairly warm and I figured he'd probably not go much farther after we got to the irrigation ditch.  But he must have picked up a sticker or the toenail claw that got torn out on the hunting trip was sore because he was limping and not keeping up at all so I just used the area where they scraped all the sagebrush off and made a nice smooth spot and did arena type work both directions from the corner.   It was still fun and was good for Sadie but I'm going to have to figure out how to get more miles on and not be hobbled by the dog if I want to do endurance rides next year on the little bayrab. 

Back from elk hunting

CJ scared us on the day we hauled up.  He got out of the trailer, immediately took a long piss and then he wanted to roll.  At first we thought he was just itchy but soon we realized he was feeling colicky.   I walked him around and rubbed on his ears which is supposed to be a LTJ trick to get horses feeling better while making sure he would stay on his feet and not just drop and roll again.   After he was starting to nibble at grass and not trying to lay down I did some  accu-pressure all along his midline since I don't recall what spot(s) are specific for horse stomach ache.   Pretty soon his guts were gurgling and he was starting to really graze.     I had given him a previcoxx in the morning with the thought that it would be good to help him from getting stiff and sore on the somewhat cramped trailer ride so I decided he was not getting any pain pills unless he was seriously hurting the rest of the trip just in case the previcoxx had upset his stomach.  Last year he had a colic and liver toxicity problem and dad and sis ended up hauling him to a vet clinic in Glenwood springs to get IV fluids. 

CJ was fine the rest of the season.  He ate and drank a lot.  I gave him the liver cleansing herbs he has been getting all year since that 2012 episode.   He never acted sore in his joints.  He did get sore backed on day three when he hauled 2 elk out.  I did not have any horse liniment stuff along but put some witch hazel on him and then some Unkers people ointment that has menthol, camphor, pine oil and etc.  and then put his blanket on him even though it was not cold enough for him to need it other than keeping his muscles warm.   That did get his back happy the next day so I rode him out instead of staying in camp. 

Dad did get a doe and we took an elk quarter instead of money for one elk CJ hauled out.   But as usual dad's lazy, start late in the day and just pick a marginal place to wait and hope other hunters walking around push elk by resulted in not seeing many elk.   I don't really care except that sis buys the $$$ out of state tag and I feel bad for her not even getting any almost shots at one.   She did see an elk up close this year walking around from where we had parked one day.  She was checking out a fresh track and scat pile and the elk jumped up from sleeping only 30 feet away on the other side of a brush patch.

  I didn't see any elk during my walking around, I was kind of trying to circle around and maybe push some past dad and sis rather than sneak up on anything.   If I got anything spooked out of a sleeping spot it either went the other way from them or sneaked past while they were napping though.   We did enjoy the nice weather and the quiet campground this year.  

urggghhh, blech

main work group at job is all excited about some buzzword filled software design strategy.   In fairness, the strategy probably has some good benefits and will help manage the fairly big job of getting the big stuff that needs to be done before launch ready.   *IF* the team and boss twerp were approaching it with "ok, we are not swept up by the buzzwords and rah-rah bs, but this is a good overall framework that we think will help us gitRdone so we are doing it in spite of this bit that seems like stupid smoke and mirrors" I  wouldn't be whinging here.   But no, we are getting full buzzwords and lots of rah rah crap to kick it off and it makes me cringe.

Elvis has left the building

Hauled Mason home yesterday.  WOOOHOOOO!     We went for a trail ride at an open space just 5 miles from where he is boarded.   He was pretty good for his 12 yr old owner.   She had to use the crop a few times to get his head out of the grass after pulling over for the bicyclists but I think he was very much back to his normal of when she got him and she had a blast.   On the way back when we hit trail that was not rocky she started having him wait (and eat a bit of grass which he loved) and then canter and trot to catch back up to where we were.   Then she would hug him as she had him stop and eat some more.    Having her enjoy riding again like she was the first year she had him at least as I was hearing via the internet made it worthwhile.

 Now I cannot help snarking on what his former owner wrote.

"But he went from being worked several times a week by me,with a consistant daily routine, being moved constantly by his alpha mare to having 300 acres and no other horses to keep him in line."
Heh,  I remember lots of angst posts of how she would get too busy to ride for a bit and then it was sooo hard to deal with him feeling fat, lazy and sassy.

"Consistancy will help, but Mason is looking for an alpha." (she was a sissy leader IMO and would often fold rather than getting tougher whenever he challenged her strongly)

" I never used spurs with Mason, I would ask gently with my seat, then leg, then a swift pop with a crop. He was always slow. Usually the second time we went through that he would respond with just the seat.  He isn't green, he is testing her. Until R steps up and believes she is the alpha, he will continue to test her. jMHO"    Yup pretty much and it does not help that he has experienced partial success with challenging human for alpha when being ridden.  Although she do a great job with groundwork and would lunge him or stuff when she was nervous to ride him and that did keep him a decent horse that will be fine with a confident rider, rather than him starting down a road to becoming an outlaw that escalates resistance if the human gets after him so good on her there. 

  It was not hard to straighten him up when he gave me guff with a crowhop.  After the first couple of rides when I was more confident that he wouldn't escalate a few tight circles while using the crop on shoulder or flank depending on whether my crop hand was to the outside or inside of the circle as the consequence for a crowhop would result in an obedient horse the rest of the ride.

I do think the 12 year old girl may find spurs a very useful aid for this horse so she doesn't have to always use the crop to say "pay attention to my seat and leg aids" and can reserve it for correcting him when he is really blowing her off because he doesn't want to get his head out of the grass or is trying to scare her.  

Mason update

Had a nice ride on him Saturday with L and Lady.   Sunday I thought the owners would come out and play with him.  I had been leaving FB messages and they must be having internet issues or taking a FB break.  I figured they would still plan on coming out even w/o calling me and then I let it get kind of late to call Sat evening and didn't call them before I was holding horses for my farrier Sunday morning so it was noon Sunday before I called,  left a message.  Get a call back and they were off volunteering on flood work.    They will try to come out one morning this week now. 

I'm trying not to be annoyed since I had not spelled out specific expectations but since I told them last week in a FB post and did get a like (which means they read it) that I had been confused about hunting season dates so it was for sure going to only be 2 weeks that I would keep him not 3 and the plan all along had been that R would ride him at my place to start the new "this human is also your boss that won't take any guff" relationship I had strongly expected they would make the effort to come out.   

Anyway,  I needed some ayrab saddle time Sunday so I rode Sadie (ah that was fun)  and since I had said and thought I would long line Mason a bit I did that late afternoon on Sunday.  Pout, the days are not lasting long enough anymore.     This morning I rode Mason again.   He did a little protest crowhop/squeal/attempt to duck for home.   He got to do about 4 tight circles with me flicking the crop fairly firmly on his flank because I was annoyed rather than the least bit worried that he was going to get me off.    I have not gotten brave and tried to jump because I'm worried I would over exaggerate my forward and up to get out of his way and put myself in a position to get popped off or at best he'd probably think jumping means the rider is bumping with seat and or bit and no fun to do.

After that he gave me a very nice ride but he seemed to be getting winded easily.  Maybe I'm just listening more closely.  He should not be losing fitness even though he doesn't have the big hills to climb up and down since I'm riding daily.  I don't know that we are getting much if any weight off him but I certainly don't think we are feeding him so much he is gaining.    Then I gave him a quick bath  --- I like my ayrabs that don't get that hot and don't care for water.  I sponge Sadie off if its warm because of her allergies and getting her used to water if we ever do some endurance at speeds to generate more body heat. 

 Then I cleaned some on Mason's pen.   Didn't get it completely picked up, I hadn't done it since Thursday had figured owners could do it  on the weekend.   Silly me, they are as out of sight out of mind as I was with Lady this summer but my belief on that was that they were enjoying having her to ride.   They know I'm only riding Mason because I felt it was not good for R to start back from the collarbone lay-off with a horse that had developed some bad attitude. 

Ready to send the big guy home and go back to my ayrabs already

He's a decent horse but just not my style having to work so hard to get the ride started.   He does at least warm up and move out  with only a few 'maybe I could stop for a snack or slow walk here'  but its worse than when mine are like "I'm starving, can't we just eat more."    I guess I should set up some jumps or something and see about making him work at home but I don't know if I'll get there.  Supposed to be cold and wet starting sometime tonight and through saturday morning.  If its not wet perhaps I'll try to longe or long-line him tomorrow but not bother riding but I'm thinking it will be a good day to skip any horse working.

Today I was working on his hind foot.  He has a crack and had some weed stalk of some sort stuck in the foot.  I wanted to rasp the flair and crack edges to take pressure off so the crack would not get worse and found the weed stalk so was messing around getting that out and trying to get the soft yucky spots around it off etc.  Mason was not cooperating with leaving his foot on my hoof-jack and after a bit was not even picking up the foot.   I could never be a farrier but if I were I'd have to refuse to work on drafts.

He had no concerns about the road grader though.   I did think 'if he was not so hard to get on I'd probably get off just in case but its a royal PITA to get mounted and surely an easy going draft isn't going to get worked up about barely moving grader anyway.'    My ditch  is not deep/steep enough, the saddle slips to the side ....  He is good about moving up next to a fence so I've resorted to climbing on the 2-board  sort of fence/driveway wings the last two times and if that was not working I'd have to drag the mounting block out to ride him as the fences are pretty much just wire.  Mia is enjoying the fall mornings and not going in the house anymore where I could just leave the gate open.    The driveway gate is the cheap galvanized tin and not sturdy enough to climb on. 

Riding the big guy: day 2

Here is a pic that gives some sense of scale.  Mason makes the full size english saddle look like a tiny child's saddle.    He was a bit grumpy this morning going out with Lady.  I don't know if he figured her being along too meant he'd be going farther for sure or what.   He didn't try to kick her but I was fairly careful, mostly kept him behind her until Ole got in a mode of wanting to come right up behind the horse.   With his conehead, which was making Mason act a bit nervous and I'm still not comfortable with the 'what might this horse do if he did decide he was truly scared of something'  So I made L take Lady behind for a bit.   Dumb Ole did run his cone right into Lady's back leg.  Lady gets a gold star for only doing one two legged kick/buck in response to that.  All I knew of that was L giving a squeal when it happened.

I had forgotten to grab my crop again and had so much *fun* getting on him that I asked L to run and fetch it for me.   I did need it this time as Mason was testing me more to see if he really was going to have to go out and work again.   He was not bad again but I just needed to tap firmly with the crop that yes we are heading out to ride, not just standing in the ditch and maybe letting you eat more.  

He did try to duck for home  as we were going out and had gone a few hundred yards,  found out that when T wasn't paying attention and you get a turn started she just makes you do a 360.    He was crow-hopping a bit as we were heading down my oil pipeline graded area but also not wanting to go so I was pulling his head and twisting my body just enough to dis-engage his hq so he couldn't buck and then making him continue or resume trotting.   NO, big guy we don't pull you down to a walking tight circle if T thinks you just want to walk anyway and doesn't need the circle to recover her balance or control. 

On the way home he got fairly strong (pulling on the bit) so I played with quick releases and retaking tension from my clinic (I'm not good at it yet)  and also did lots of bending serpentines so I was only having tension on one rein and then the other and nothing for him to start bracing and pulling against.   I refuse to let even my almost pony size ayrabs pull on me anymore and I'm for darn sure not letting a big ole draft cross tug on my arms all the way home. 

So I'm playing fox-hunter for the next couple of weeks.

I went and picked Mason up yesterday.  His young owner was sad to say good-bye.  I kept wanting to way "let me tell you good-bye doesn't mean forever" but I don't even remember who sang it so I don't think she would have got the reference at all and I'm superstitious enough that I didn't want to risk putting some kind of jinx on.  Its never guaranteed that horses will stay healthy. 

I rode him this morning.   He was not bad.  I forgot a crop but I was able to just ask him to move forward with seat and legs and he complied except when he was taking potty breaks.  He seemed to enjoy getting his chest and shoulders hosed off afterwards but didn't want the water farther back, especially after it was running cold.    He did crow hop twice but he is too smooth to be a scary bucker.  He was a wee bit scary when he was snorting at the conehead dog though.  Even though I was able to 'pop his clutch' on the bucking by taking him a tight circle to the right ( I think that is my stronger side, rather than he is easier to turn one way or the other)  he is big and strong and felt like if he actually went into a bolt I wouldn't be able to stop that; but luckily he really doesn't have any desire to bolt and I just kept him bending on the nice 100 foot wide graded section where they put in the oil pipeline and he.  I love that spot, its like a perfect trail/arena hybrid. 

He had sniffed Ole in his cone earlier and was OK, but just got a bit snorty looking at Ole up on the hill in his collar when I had turned him around to go back.  But that kind of worked out as it took his mind completely off rushing away from the excavator working on the irrigation ditch and/or trying to bolt for home just in general since Ole was between us and home.   I have no desire to try to trade Sadie for some kind of warmblood and get into an actual hunt club but I think it will be fun to mess with Mason for a bit.  It will definitely be fun to have his family come out,  they are good positive energy people.

My car got a new manifold gasket and spark plugs

So it will probably have a bit more oomph when I want to accelerate and hopefully this fixes the NOX too high (and we are high elevation and have some ozone worries so its probably good to fix that)  and I will be good to license the car for 2 more years and it will also keep running those two years.   That will have it over 180K which will probably be pushing the limits for the econo box model that I don't baby.  (well other than taking it in to get oil changed and checked out by my mechanic,  but even there I stretch the oil changes to 3500 or more vs 3000 miles and so on.)

Ole's leg is healing up and the lab reports came back as cancerous but clear margins so I guess it is OK that I went ahead with the surgery.  First pic is Sep 21, two days after his stitches ripped out and was looking pretty ugly.  Last two pics are from today.   Yesterday I rode Sadie and let Ole come as the vet has said we no longer have to restrict his activity.   She has had over a week to get used to the collar on him so I expected she would be OK but I was still pleased that she didn't give me any fake dramatics when he was bounding around as we were riding.   I kind of liked that collar, it made it easy to spot him vs him blending into the weeds and long grass.

Sigh my car failed its emissions test.

I must remember to call my mechanic tomorrow morning and ask if he thinks he can fix it, I should go to one or the other of the places in Brighton recommended by the air testing place, or start car shopping.   The car does have 150K miles on it.   The testing place said one cylinder mis-fired.  I suppose that could be something easy like a spark plug but if the cylinder is failing I can't see trying to keep the car going,  what a nuisance, the car has been kind of nickel and diming me this year,  bearing went out on the rear wheels,  then I had to have the front strut or whatever fixed because my tire was wearing excessively

   I really really hate shopping but I could ask my dad,  the only thing is he is not much of a bargain shopper but I think he actually kind of enjoys the process of looking at stuff like cars and such.   Well first I need to call my mechanic and get some input.  If the car can be made to pass the emissions test with a few hundred dollar repair I'll probably go that way even though I've got the Ugh, this thing is needing so much attention lately and something else will probably go  in 3-4 months if I get the "too much NOX" issue fixed trepidations.

Had OK rides on Sadie on Saturday and this morning with L.  Sadie continues to feel a bit ouchy on any rock though and I just don't know whether I need to be more diligent with the rasping, or what.  

I need to take pics of Ole's incision --which is now a gaping hole

Almost all his stitches ripped out and he has an over an inch hole in the skin on his hip.   So much for being proactive for his health by removing the pre-cancerous lump.   I hate hate hate when I was trying to do a good thing and end up with an ugly mess.  

He is getting antibiotics from the vets and I am resisting my urge to puff wonderdust on the wound.  repeat after me "He is not a horse,  he is not a horse he is not a horse"   Vet's recommendation is to put nothing on it and wash it off with water if he gets it dirty.   I want to create a scab but dog skin is different from horse skin so I'm so far forcing myself to just leave it.    I did look up dog wounds on the internet and they has some huge open wounds which presumable healed so that did make me feel a little bit better. 

L was out thursday and we had a good ride.  She went into one of her paranoid statements, "I'm afraid Ole will get infection and lose his leg "  which pizzed me off so I took off cantering.   I needed a good canter anyway so it was all good in the end but I cannot wait to ship Lady back to the family in Golden this summer, god willing and the creek don't flood as the saying goes.

Being/doing good is its own reward.

Ancient saying but I never realized its true meaning which is that neither people nor fate are going to offer you any rewards for striving to be a good person.   Or maybe I should say I was never 100% honest with myself.  I may have thought I was doing things just for my own internal warm fuzzy feelings; but when I'm trying to be extra generous and the world shrugs at my offers the negative feelings of being rebuffed (even when its not active, just ignoring my outreach) do often overwhelm my internal warm fuzzy.  

I need to work on that because the world is not going to change and give me a cheering section for basic decent living and I don't want to be one of those people that goes around saying "applause please, I just did some low level nice thing."  And I don't want to cease trying to be nice within the bounds of what I can do w/o burning myself out,  I do have that internal voice that says "atta girl" or "geeze that was rude/lame/selfish whatever"

L was out again yesterday to ride.

We did have  a nice ride.   Spooked up an owl.  Lady jumped and L squealed so Sadie went sideways one stride and I saw a cool owl taking off from the ground.   It must have caught a mouse a bit before we were coming and was eating on the ground instead of taking the mouse to a post or tree to eat.   Very cool since L stayed on,  both horses relaxed after single jumps and the owl was OK.  One of those 'should have a helmet cam' moments as it would have been cool to get the image of the owl but oh well. 

L is so funny, she was on high alert that the owl would be back in that spot or we would startle another one even though Lady had been pretty good, just jumping forward and not doing anything that dumped her.   That somewhat paranoid mindset from L is why it was so relaxing for me to have Lady go off to summer camp, but L is really appreciating her now.  Poor L, she not only had shingles, she thought she might have been bitten by a bat and so when she was in FL and having pain and a rash on the arm that had bite marks and those staff did not think about shingles she ended up doing the rabies vaccine series JIC, and after deciding it was shingles with her doc in CO she reads that it can be dangerous to do the rabies series if you have a viral infection, and she did have some numbness or something,  slight risk but could get a serious condition that could cause paralysis. 

I will go to work today in the office.  My normal route goes by the airport the NG is using for helicopter evacuations but if it seems busy I can always go around that bit and I need to able to work effectively.    I have a feeling our retreat location will have to be moved.   Pretty sure we were going to Estes Park and since the town flooded  quite thoroughly I don't see how the hotel could be hosting conventions again in 3.5 weeks. 

L was out to ride this morning, first dry day we've had since Monday

No flooding at her house and I think all the normal routes to our place were open today.   I've been resting a bit and also working from home a bit.  I don't like working on the laptop.  I'll have to ask our new sys admin how best to get a good VPN server/client whatever installed on the desktop mac. 

Lady was good for L and Sadie was good for me.  A few ouch steps from Sadie that seemed to be front feet,  I don't think the heel bruising has ever made her really sore.   The ditch road was washed out in the one spot where there is an ATV/horseback crossing spot, otherwise no visible water damage out on the field roads I ride.

 Its such an odd juxtaposition with all the damage I see shown on the news in Boulder, Lyons, Estes Park, Evergreen and now Firestone, Evans, etc with slower water flooding.   I'm not ready to put it out really widely but I did volunteer on the endurance FB page that we could take a few horses for a week or so if someone has barn and pastures underwater.   

I hope the possible rain overnight and Sunday is minimal and my work is back open early next week.  Power has stayed on so if roads are OK maybe they will open up, but if there is a lot of damage around town they might feel like they need to keep the buildings closed for an extra day or two to stay out of the way of cleanup efforts and stuff.  I'll be happier if I'm just going to work, if I'm home and dad has the TV on I suspect the news coverage will be shifting to a lot of the sob stories and I get annoyed.    

I almost wanted to reach through the screen and slap some idiot who almost got her baby drowned trying to drive through water on Thursday.  "I had NO idea it could be like this,  well at least she was shaken up"   but the media either seek out the whiniest cry babies and only air those clips, maybe the pathos gets more eyeballs, or there are an awful lot of people who just want to whine to the world when misfortune befalls them based on past news coverage when there has been wildfires and stuff.  

Wow, we are getting a lot of rain the last few days

I hope the heavy rains last night didn't wash out winter wheat that had been planted.   The county will have to work on our road again.    The sides are all washed out but at least the middle was nice firm surface to drive home on.   

Its probably good timing for Sadie.  I've been rasping on her feet while they were soft.  Did the back feet yesterday and her heels were all red when I rasped a little bit.  I don't know if its older bruising from hoof boots or from not having the boots Sunday riding her on the rocks up in Golden.  Hopefully the damp ground will keep it from getting too sore.   I wish I knew what would be best to do for her feet going forward.  I need to email the endurance mentor guy that is doing some barefoot trimming so I can pick his brain, get the boots with less heel strap if I decide to continue without shoes etc etc.   

So tired and cranky

I decided last night that none of the horses really Needs to have supplements or grain twice daily and I am feeling burned out and need to scale back and start getting to bed earlier.

This will help but I am just overall feeling like I'm surrounded by incompetent twerps.  Well I guess whenever I feel tired I tend to get cranky about the idiot factor at work.  Idiocy like we have geo-thermal heat and 'green' plumbing in the bathrooms which means we can't have hot water to wash our hands but just the lukewarm crap from the geo system and we have to flush twice half the time because the low flow systems won't grab the paper if wasn't in the bit of water at the bottom of the loos.  We have solar panels on our roofs but the lights in the parking lot are just on traditional AC lines so we will have a dark lot until they get around to digging to replace conduit because putting solar lights up would just be too easy.

Idiocy like we so so striving to be green that they took out the coffee machine and replaced it with a nespresso and Keurig systems because of course all those stupid little cups that have to be tossed rather than composting coffee grounds and filter paper doesn't matter if the coffee machine was a nuisance to the admin(s) that dealt with it. 

Idiocy like most of the employees embrace the CAWG non-sense instead of applying a little skeptical scientific thinking and they hire an org president who thinks attributing some slogan to that butcher Che Guevara gives the slogan extra authority or gravitas or something.

feeding Lady up for winter

It is good that I felt obligated to my leaser and fetched Lady home for winter.  She does need to put on 20-30 lbs.  I was a bad horse-mom.  I thought she would be on lush pasture so I only sent just a little grain to give her some joint supps in when she was caught to ride.  Then it was out of sight out of mind and I didn't tell DL that Lady normally gets a lb of grain daily when she is on hay not grass when Mason was harassing her when they tried to have her share the huge pasture so they put her in a nice paddock.  Plus I think that the ranch hay is more diet hay and all the regular horses there get 3-4 lbs of grain instead of the 1-2 lbs mine get since our hay is pretty rich for being grass hay.   

I'm sure DL would have asked me or just fed more grain if she noticed Lady dropping weight but Lady is one of those horses that is very hard to judge their weight.  She has a big belly, probably had a foal or two years ago and then years of eating hay has left permanent gut fill, plus she has kind of fat pocket or 'crest' on her neck -- but she always has backbone sticking up.  One really has to feel her ribs and look and feel closely around her tail head and the hip bones etc to judge her body condition and I didn't tell DL any of that. 

Lady still looks great at first glance, even to me when I picked her up. but she was standing with her body curved at home later and I noticed ribs so then I did the full check and she is not bad, but is thinner than I like, especially as winter approaches.  Lady isn't minding getting a little extra grain and some 30% fat supplement for now.  I'll have to show DL the places I check for weight loss or gain if we can coordinate and do camp again next summer. 

*  So today I'm feeling Lady's ribs going, hmmm I thought I felt more rib yesterday.   She really really is very hard to judge her body condition.   But can definitely stand to gain a few lbs and is enjoying extra groceries.  

I did ride the last 3 days...

I've gotten in short rides on Sadie the last 3 days.   I so want to call it quits on the weed spraying but my obsessive dislike of the goatheads is  making it hard when I'm seeing where I missed weeds in the ditch.  OTOH only a few of those missed ones are anywhere close to the driveway and I really should turn some energy to de-cluttering the house and plus try to get enough sleep that I'm not nodding off at work until I get my later in the day energy spike. 

So I should probably ask dad to do any winterizing on the backpack sprayer and put it up for the year.  The flies are going gangbusters it seems.   I'm trying hard to remind myself that they are not so thick they are buzzing in the feed room and garage and very few are getting in the house so I have actually kept the population lower than in many past summers.  There is only so much that can be done with bait stations and I don't want to take out the bees or neutral bugs with any kind of broad scale pesticide application. 

Lady is home,  yesterday I went and picked her up and DL rode with me in the pasture where Mason is boarded.    I had forgotten hoof boots for Sadie so we contented with a short ride with just a bit of trotting up on top the one spot that didn't have rock.  Sadie did pretty good,  she had several steps of 'ow rock' shifting her weight suddenly off that foot but was not ouchie every step and it didn't hurt her to figure out she should look for rock free spots to set her feet down.   Lady was noisily happy to see Sadie again and Sadie was whinnying back vigorously as well.   Lady is not nearly so happy to back in with Razz but as before she is OK.     Lady either doesn't look out for Razz or move away as quickly as Sadie who just shrugs, moves off, and goes to the feeder Razz just left so Razz is running her a bit and did give her a bite on her rump but they've done that before.  Razz doesn't corner her, or kick so she is just going to have to live with the slightly abrasive herd dynamics they have. 

Saturday and this morning I took short rides down my ditch road spot with Sadie and did a little cantering in the empty field.  Ole has been excited to come even though the ditch doesn't have water any more,  I think they are done for the year.   Thursday Ole goes to the vet for getting his lump(s) removed, so its good to see him feeling more lively than he seemed mid-summer when I was wondering if he was healthy enough for it to make any sense having veterinary surgery on him to remove a precancerous lump.   Its sad that I feel like the vet clinic is kind of money grubbing so I don't completely trust them when they say precancerous and so on.   I guess they are honest, they just have a "best treatment" mentality vs.  "what is really cost-effective and fairly safe" which I feel like would be good enough for pets. 

The neighbors probably think I'm off my rocker

I was spot spraying goatsheads in the pasture again today.   *I* myself think I'm foolish spraying so late in the year, but there were some that were still growing and blooming so I feel like I've cut off some burrs from forming even though a great number have already set.    I just couldn't bear not trying to reduce the # of burrs where it was possible that spraying would help.  

I want to see about renting a no-till grass seeder and buying some grass seed to plant this fall too.  I'm just tired of having the weeds everywhere and I guess also I want to tackle some farm improvements this year when it feels like it makes more sense to just wait until next year to haul Sadie to rides.   There is no ride less than 6-7 hours drive away for the rest of the year; partly offering to take the draft cross was an excuse for "oh now I can't go to those rides I committed to ride M."  I'm sneaky with myself sometimes.

belay that,

I guess I am going to be taken up on my offer to ride the draft cross for 2-3 weeks.   Me and my impulsive offers.   Oh well it will not be a bad thing.   Not as good as if they were using a trainer, mainly because I suck at explaining things so while I'm thinking the cross will be fine, as he was when I rode him for a mile or so the one time, I won't be able to give nearly as much info for them to apply when he goes back.   Oh well I guess I can write about what I did every time I ride or long line him and pass those notes along.

I'm going to give them two options.  A) I take him this weekend when I pick up Lady.  Bring him back in 3 weeks and show them how to long line him.  Then they can long line him for a week before R is cleared to ride per her Docs orders and while he settles back in and start out with long-lining him for work and the first rides being just cool-down sessions so he gets the idea of R is the boss but riding is the easy thing.  

B) I take him starting in 2 weeks and they can come out and ride at our place at least once before he goes back.   I really don't know which would be better.   He might be nicer for R away from the environment where he has started doing his bit of acting up, but then he might revert back at his home base more easily than if he gets some boot camp and then she does some long lining there before she starts back to riding.    This is why I'll just give them the choice, they are pretty good at the animal psychology and at least it won't be have been my call if it doesn't work out perfectly.     

WooHoo, pretty sure my offer of bootcamp is going to be ignored

I can feel good about making the offer and not actually have to carve out time to ride a horse that I don't own.    I'm certainly not going to push it; I think sometimes the family feels like they are being pressured and that is not what I want.    Probably they are going to be just fine to work through things with the sometimes difficult horse; and I can go back to reminding myself to bite my tongue and not say something snarky about the first owner 'dumping' him on them.   They do have amazing skills at reading critters and shaping general animal behavior so they are not in same boat as rookie owners who cannot draw on the pool of general animal behavior knowledge would be.  


   I only know that the mom posted a few things that led me to think first owner had given them some expectations that she'd pick them up to join in some trail rides and has not done that so I really should not be assuming she was not 100% frank about her issues with the horse.  I do hope it works out for them to take Lady again next summer because it was really nice having her (and her leaser) off my plate for several weeks.   Lady is not a huge amount of work so I was surprised how much more peaceful I felt when she was gone, even though I had got to a point of feeling like the leaser coming out to ride was a stress added to my morning rides rather than a fun bit of riding company.

catching up on riding log

After riding Wednesday I skipped Thursday and Friday and just did insect and weed control stuff before work.

Saturday I rode about 6 miles, did some canter in the field that isn't planted.  Its pretty good footing not an intense workout like a deeply cultivated field.  It was pretty fun.

Sunday dad and I went to White Ranch open space and did some trail riding.  My fun day for the weekend.   Sadie and Razz both did pretty good.  Sadie led a lot at the start but she got hesitant at some technical stuff and dad made Razz take the lead the last third of the trip.   Met lots of bikes and some hikers, everyone was very polite, just as I remembered this place being years ago.    I had some energy at the end of the ride, even after removing hoof boots from Sadie so I decided it was time for her to go back to riding in the 2nd stall rather than getting to have the very back which I'd been doing to make loading extra easy.

Monday I just sprayed and did some hoeing and bagging of goatsheads.

Today I took a three mile quick ride,  then had to have dad drive me back to search for Ole (well I could have just driven myself but I'd had a lead on him and I wanted dad to drive in case I ended up walking trying to spot if Ole had got the lead hung up)   He was making his way home so we just gave him a ride the last few hundred yards.   I should have made him stay home I suppose since it was fairly hot but he really wanted to go and he is OK, just took a few more minutes of my day.

I suggested to the folks that have Lady that they should send their draft cross to the trainer his former owner used to use for a tune-up before the 12 year old girl takes up riding again after breaking her collarbone.  Collarbone was not a horse-fall injury but the horse had been acting up a bit with her before she was injured and they posted on the horse board that he did some little "twist and jump" and dumped a little gal that was riding him on Saturday.   They had invited friends out so the daughter 'could ride vicariously.'  Lady was very good for various tweens riding her, so that is good.

But I also volunteered that if their budget was too tight, I could take him for 'a short boot camp' session when I brought Lady home since I saved having to feed her a fair amount of hay while they've had her.   I can barely believe I did that.  I try to maintain a personal policy of not riding other peoples horses as I am no trainer.  But the horse does not need training,  I don't think even remedial training, he is just taking a bit of advantage and could use several rides from someone who will not allow, let alone make, any excuses of "he is grumpy because he is itchy from deer flies, or he was jealous of Lady...." if he acts out in any way.  Plus no deer flies at our sand hill so his itchies would probably clear up.   I thought of offering to come ride him  there, even making up some excuse of having to come early and stay later at work for collaboration with european and asian counterparts but could take a long break midday and he is much closer than going home --- but he lives on 300 acres and I'd wear myself out if I had to hike up the steep hill to catch him to ride,  if they can't just send him to a trainer and have the girl take a lesson or two which would be the very best option but are open to having someone with decades of riding experience give him a wee tune-up I'd rather just haul him home, ride him 4 times a week for a couple weeks then haul him back. 

  I am on of several people on the board that has been vicariously reliving childhood horse love via this girl and we are all inclined to want to ensure that nothing happens to dampen her love of riding and I'm a bit worried that with the collarbone and lay-off, the horse might be too strong for her to manage if she has to start with a horse that needs to be worked through anything the first few times she is back in the saddle.

I got my new weapon in my war against the goatsheads.

I decided I needed a pump-up sprayer.   A little on-line shopping last week showed that the 1-2 gallon ones were barely cheaper than the back-pack models so I got a 4 gallon back-pack model.   I don't intend to put 4 gallons in it very often if ever but I tried it out today with 1 gallon and its a great tool.  I love that side handle pumper and it came with a nice long wand.  I can stand still and hit a good radius of weeds.  I felt like I had spent enough time spraying weeds about the time it was nearly empty but I had a bit of herbicide left to hit the strays I saw walking back to the gate.

Then I had a glass of cold sun-tea and took a quick 4 mile ride on Sadie.   She felt pretty good to me today.  Probably because I had my monthly chiropractor visit yesterday so I didn't have any stuck spots. 

Life is short, so carpe diem

Sis called yesterday morning.   They had a horse tragedy,  mountain lion or something came through  and scared their horses so badly they broke out of their pen  and their pretty tri-color 4 year old paint mare and a 5 year old gelding that B had bought as a weanling 'for company' for their 5 year paint mare ran on the highway and were hit and killed by a semi-truck.   The neighbor's horse and ponies where spooked too and broke through a fence into the big pasture area at sis's place. 

Here is Squirt at an endurance ride in Sturgis SD in 2009 before she was weaned.  Sis had come up to visit and we did some trail riding the next day after I was done with the official ride.   Its hard to believe the filly is gone.  I hope they can find someone to track down and shoot the mountain lion.   It is not too full of moon bats where they live so there is a possibility that folks will be allowed to deal with the problem wildlife that does not belong --they are not on the edge of any national parks or wilderness areas. 

Black Hills trip was pretty good for fandamily

Three days of great riding.  I had a little trouble with hoof boots popping off.  Maybe Sadie will need to use the epics on her front feet and non-wide gloves on her hinds -- I had epics on hinds and wide gloves on her fronts and things were a bit too loose.  

Sadie was much calmer with group of horses by day three and she got lots of practice crossing water.   I got off and led her a few spots where she was anxious and I was concerned she'd tangle in a fence or land on sharp rock etc if she took a wild leap but she walked nicely through most of the creek crossings.   On the 2nd riding day we split it into morning and afternoon rides and I tried my re-fitted saddle on the afternoon ride. 

 Dad was just sure Ole needed to go along and get some exercise --so we tried it and only about a mile into the ride I notice Ole is not hanging with the ranch owners dogs anymore.   I had been tired and not even sure I wanted to go so we turned around to make sure Ole had gone back to camp or if he hadn't have a good chance of him hearing us call.   But the saddle stayed in place real well so I used it again on day 3 which included hills and it stayed in place very well.   A very good thing as the treeless was causing a swelling on her back on the left side.

I did get a little testy with  dad and sis.  On Saturday dad announced we should clean the pens and not leave it all till Sunday morning when we were leaving.  I said "OF course, we have been cleaning the pens every day"   "I didn't know you cleaned Friday, -well no I hadn't felt like making myself hoarse just to announce to him that I was doing it,  it was not a big enough job that I needed help or anything and sis jumps in with "*I* only cleaned my horses pen, not yours" at which point I got pissed at them -- I'm not lazy and I've never felt the need to announce every little thing I do, and it was high annoyance for them to be acting like a thing hadn't happened just because I just did it.   and Sunday sis was griping at me for 'rushing' to give leftovers to the dog after everyone was done and I told her to quit bitching at me.   She had got to quit thinking she needs to improve my language or manners,  I am not bad enough to be an embarrassment to her, and she should trust her riding club to not judge her by me anyways. 

But overall it was a good trip.  Dad drove the whole way up and back, we took his pick-up because he feels like he doesn't have enough miles on it and I also had in my mind that my pickup seems to have some issue every hunting trip so maybe using it for family travel is just not a good idea.   Food was great, that riding club always buys great food for their trips and I contributed a bit to  cooking a couple of breakfasts and didn't feel like too much of a slug but didn't have to do any major cooking.  We rode out with the owner every day since no one in the group was comfortable to just use a GPS and the owner's waypoints.   He loves to ride and was not just taking out our group, we just joined rides that other folks were taking anyway for the most part.   

Got back home early on Sunday and found that my processing at work had stopped that morning.  The RAID the sys admins had been warning me about kicked the bucket.  So I was in emergency mode Monday getting processing re-started using a different data area and I'll be in fairly urgent mode to get processing moved to the new computer.   I had hoped to be able to have things going with the new software version so I didn't have to do things twice but no such luck.  

quick 5 mile rides Saturday and tonight

Spent most of the weekend pulling and spraying the durn goatsheads but I did ride Sadie both evenings and we swapped pickups on my trailer.  Now have to remember to swap out the health certs and brand inspection paperwork for the horses and load a couple bales of certified hay. 

Finally rode Sadie this morning

I decided to spray the goatsheads, trying out my new ag dye so I would not get so caught up and run out of time.   Well with starting out having slept late and what all I still didn't get on the horse till the morning was mostly shot but I needed my vitamin H,  thank god for flexible work hours.

The ride was OK.  I thought she felt a bit off --trot seemed kind of rough or uneven at times but nothing consistent from her --then when I got off I was very stiff on my right leg so its quite likely that my body was causing what I felt.   We went 4 miles total,  trotted or cantered 2.5 miles,  she had lots of energy.  

I bought some blue dye to add to herbicide when I picked up feed on wednesday and used it in my little hand sprayer the first time today.   This is going to be very useful for getting a much higher percentage of the young weeds that haven't set burrs yet sprayed.   I was shocked at how many skips I had when I could quickly see whether I had sprayed or not. 

I invited the folks that have Lady to trail ride on Sunday and have not heard back.   I should have worked on trying to set up a conditioning ride date to go to with Sadie instead but I don't think she'll mind just doing flat rides at home. 

Must keep perspective with the goatshead burrs

I'm feeling like I'll never get them under control.  I need to remember that they used to be thick even in the yard and now in the extensive yard and driveway area there are  just a few stray sprouts that I need to watch for to try to keep them from making a comeback and they used to be thick in the horse pens nearly right up to the fence where I have my feeders and I do now have a pretty wide strip where they are gone.    I CAN claim a bit more ground and have a smaller battle field next year.

Time to feed the grain, and get headed to work I want to pick up some feed on my way. 

Had a good but slow first loop at Happy Jack Ride

I was debating leading out or trying to ride at the start and decided to try riding. Sadie had happy feet and some boing boing deer hopping and I was able to ride through that at the very beginning going down the the road. Then we turned off right behind the horse camp and with the siren call of camp and big meadow vs a defined road Sadie was ending up doing circles and I wasn't able to get her lined out going straight so I just got off and led her. She calmed down when everyone had passed us and she had gone a few hundred yards but a Saturday rider had told me there was a boggy water crossing 1/2 mile from the start. Ah no, it was over a mile so I walked a bunch more than I would have needed to. I found a way around the first deep crossing and my alternate route was shallow water and not too muddy, but the trail looped and we had to cross again in a 100 yards. Sadie was not going to cross that even with me leading and I felt like that mud might suck my lace-ups off; so I detoured from the muddy area with little dropoffs into the muddy water and took her through some soggy wet grass area instead --that area still had a few spots of deepish mud. So I got my feet soaked and muddy but my shoes and her hoof boots stayed on and we were back on marked trail so it was okay.

I walked her a bit after that for her to calm down from the skeery mud experience and then mounted up. I had to lead her past a few campsites, as apparently tents look just like horse eating monsters and I opted to lead her through some technical rocky areas. She did quite good, going through lots of brush, picking up a trot on the good footing open spots without me even asking and so on and as I got tired I just stayed on for some shorter technical sections and she just walked through them nicely.

However with the walking a long ways out and my trudging walk pace through the technical spots and so on it took us 4 hours to complete the loop which is billed as 15 miles and may only be that far but is technical enough that it feels like 16 or so miles. I had already given myself permission to quit after one loop and the ride is billed as a 25 miler with a 6 hour time limit and a 1 hour hold before we could start the second loop so I knew there was no way we would complete that 12 mile last loop. (it used to be a short 10 but its longer now although I don't know that they have acknowledged the extra distance.) So I vetted through and Sadie passed but she did have some B's vs A's on gait and hydration and then I pulled and the manager will have to decide if it should be considered Rider Option or RO/OT RO/lameness RO/metabolic since it was not just that I was tired, we would not have completed in the allotted time and Sadie was not 100%.

I felt a bit weird about entering when I knew going in that there was a good chance I wouldn't finish since Sadie is still so green and I figured I might have to do a lot of getting off and leading. But since the ride didn't offer a 'fun ride' distance and I didn't have a sound horse to ride one day officially and then just take Sadie out on the last loop before riders would be on it the second day, I felt like it was better to enter the distance and even though I had given myself permission to quit it was a good thing to be entered as it gave me the mindset to go on through the creek crossings rather than thinking "I don't want to get my feet wet and muddy and then have to ride 14 miles" plus it was good exposure for Sadie to go through the start with several other horses and cross the creek and so on and I got to have her vetted before and after the ride so I know she doesn't have any lameness issues other than she was a bit tired.

I was taking Sadie to the saddle maker this morning to get the saddle fitted to her since Shade will not be doing any serious mileage anymore; so I stayed overnight and hung out with the RM and volunteers and a few riders who also stayed overnight for quite a while on Sunday night. They were friendly to me so I have the impression they figured it was fine to enter and give the ride the financial support versus feeling annoyed with me for entering on a horse that wasn't ready yet.

Sadie bounced back with a few hours of rest and was trotting circles on the lead rope when I was walking her around to graze and stretch her legs on Sunday late afternoon and again this morning.

Got home and the mini's were so excited they pushed the gate open. Frosty went out the driveway gate that I had not shut right away before unloading Sadie but he did come back in the yard on his own and I got the driveway gate shut behind him. I was able to lure Mojo into the pen with some feed .Then I guess Frosty figured he had gotten enough running around done, so he came up to me and ate some feed I put in a pan and let me halter him. Haltering and getting his fly sheet on daily has been good to tame him down quite a bit.