I enjoyed my lazy holiday

I rode Tanza wednesday after the farriers were done with the mares.  He still isn't just going out and coming back w/o a fuss but he reins well even when he is being a twerp and doesn't do anything too dramatic, so I feel like I'll be good to get through his greenie stage although I'm telling myself this may need to be my last young green horse.

Made fish and sweet potato fries for supper.  Stupidly cut my hand as I was cutting the fries.   Not very deep but its an awkward spot to bandage right at top of palm on the little finger.   Was a mess getting the bleeding stopped that night, I couldn't find my bandages after finally getting the super glue to come out and ending up mashing some paper towel down which and the paper/glue combo stopped the bleeding so I just cut off the excess paper toweling and put some vet wrap over it.

Got the paper off next morning and put a nice bead of glue on it and then a bandage to protect the glue and some vet wrap to keep the bandage in place and restrict bending.   Crazy amount of vet wrap for one shallow, maybe 1.5 cm cut but vet wrap is cheap and almost everyone in office is on vacation so I don't have to give a song and dance explaining why I have my hand so wrapped up.

Thursday I got a short ride in on Sadie before the cold front and snow blew in, then baked the ham I bought at Target.  Its a tasty ham thank goodness.  I also baked squash, added apples and extra water after the T-day squash was dry and not very sweet.  Plus I covered it, had to improvise covering ham and squash as we were out of foil and the casserole I normally use for squash was not washed yet from meatloaf I made 2 weeks ago and I wasn't going to hand wash it with the stupid cut hand.  But the 2.5 or so stainless steel sauce pan and same height cover worked OK.  Had an inch or so of air  as it was a big ham but it baked up fine and I used two loaf pans with one as a cover for the squash and it came out very sweet and tender.   I just made up Idahoan mashed taters from the packet,  I like them just as well as mashed from fresh.   Just heated leftover gravy from T-day instead of making some from the ham drippings.

   I thought everything tasted fine,  Dad did his usual snack on a big cup of M&Ms but he's been doing that no matter if or what I cook so I bit my tongue and kept telling myself its not my problem that he chooses to shove junk food in his pie-hole.  But I'll still make ham and bean soup this weekend, well I must admit that that is one soup I like myself and its not just to get a few veggies into  the dadster like making turkey soup.

We are skipping decorating this year.

I was lazy and did not ask Dad to get stuff down for me to put up.  I asked/volunteered to help him if he wanted to decorate late on Saturday but we were both meh, not interested in doing it this year.  I can see the neighbors nice lights as I drive home and it feels like that is good enough this year.  I don't feel like I'm being a bah humbug, but OTOH I do a lot of crap like going hunting,  cooking soup beyond my interest etc for Dad all year round and don't feel like I need to wrap something to hand him on Dec 25.

I rode Tanza and Sadie friday and Saturday again.   Just rode Tanza in the paddock.  He was pretty good,  was fine with road grader going by with blade up but then the other horses got all Lookie Lou -- I think at someone walking on the road at bottom of pasture and Tanza decided maybe the grader must be scary.   So I decided not to push and do a 3rd canter on him but instead did some small trot circles and stopped on the fence side away from the road.  Got off, gave him his horse treat for standing nicely while I did so and then led him over to the fence line along the road as the grader went past.  He had to jump and kick out a bit even though I was between him and the grader but then settled down right away.   So my "I'm 50 and have to be cautious" thinking was about right.

 Thanks to the centered riding clinics the last 5 yearsI feel like I'm OK riding a green horse, my balance feels decent and I can sit most spooks just fine,  but I don't want to push my luck and end up with a bucking/spooking rodeo.

My mares will get their hooves trimmed tomorrow.  Hopefully it helps with the bit of thrush Sadie has had.  I probably have to make a point of spraying her frogs and sole with bleach water 2-3 times a week for a few weeks too.  

Not doing much journaling lately.

Almost my same post as last week.  I rode Tanza on Friday 12th.  He was a stubborn redhead  --sorrel horses are often called red horses and his coat and mane color are close to my red head hair.  I'v got over 4 decades more experience at being a stubborn redhead and he didn't do anything very scary so we did the ride I had planned about 1 mile out and back plus all the backing and circling that Tanza initiated.  On Saturday I rode Sadie about 5 miles.  I have got to contact someone to trim her SOON.  I keep thinking I'm good with just using the gal that trimmed her last time but not contacting her.  I suppose my subconscious may be helping me forget because I'm a bit leery of the other half of the tag team that came out even though she did a good job on Sadie and the other horses she trimmed.

Saturday I was trying to get something ready for my boss and found I had a big mess with how I was doing some clock solutions.  Yuck, I feel like an idiot for not doing comparisons to known good clock solutions, and was tossing and turing a bunch saturday night even though I know from experience that those sleepy thoughts are very rarely useful for me.   Today I think I'm making good progress getting that straightened out.

I made sweet potato oven fries for the first time last night.  Pretty tasty so I think I will cook the other yams I bought this same way.   I also made meatloaf with mushroom sauce.   I used about twice the chorizo I would have needed with the very lean ground deer meat so it was pretty greasy but it was tasty.

I am not going to cook anything just for dad anymore.  Well I didn't much anyway but he snacks and snacks whether I've got real food started or not.   So if cooking real food only improves his crappy diet a tiny amount then I am only cooking when *I* want some real food to improve my crappy diet a bit so I don't resent the time and effort spent cooking.    I think dad is missing mom and a bit depressed,  he has watched two Victor Borge specials on PBS the last two Sundays.   He may a bit just be filling in until the sunday night football games and avoiding 60 minutes just because I get so crazy watching that stupid propaganda anymore but I'm thinking the classical music bit reminds him fondly of mom and Borge is funny to watch even w/o catching all the inside music jokes.  For that matter watching football as much as he does is a bit of a mom thing too.  Dad liked football OK but was not into watching nearly as much as mom was.

We have not put up any Christmas stuff yet.  I think I will ask him to help me get some stuff down and do some decorating.  Mom was the one in the family that had a fair amount of childlike wonder with halloween, Christmas etc although she never was one to get decorations up very early she got a kick out of cute Christmas decorations, buying Santa on Harleys,  a fun light up snowman etc.  But I do like to put up the outdoor nativity scene she had bought and see it when I come home from work and will do a bit of extra decorating to see if I can evoke some good memories and chase away my grinch tendencies.

Somewhat higher spirits

I rode both Sadie and Tanza yesterday so that helps my spirits a lot.  It is good overlap having the green horse that does better with just short rides in winter when I am content just getting a short ride in.   I made a broccoli cheese turkey rice casserole saturday and turkey soup yesterday,  that finishes up the turkey and the dogs got the turkey pieces I didn't leave in the soup when I separated the bones,  there is enough that they will get good portions a couple more days too.    To counter feeling so virtuous over maximizing healthy meals from the turkey I made myself molten brownie sundaes in a cup.   Water, brownie mix, couple teaspoons of oatmeal and 1/2 teaspoon of cocoa, microwave for about 75 seconds, top with ice cream.   I tell myself that this is better than baking so I don't have a pan full of yummy calories tempting me to eat more and more but mostly its laziness that prompts me to do this instead of making a pan of brownies or chocolate cake, or making cookies. 

I got a check sent to my bro and his family.   I'm feeling slightly guilty for sending double that amount to a dog rescuer I know who had posted a panicky FB blurb about minivan seizing up with transmission woes ... something like "I'm screwed, we don't have thousands of dollars for a new transmission or new used vehicle"    It is silly to feel any guilt for that though,  I have given bro and family generous money in past when they were doing in-vitro --successful until miscarriage, oof. 

The dog rescuer was like "oh I couldn't, you've done so much already ..." when I offered but I think realized they needed to accept,   I put in note something about not messing up my shaky book keeping and if they had to be stubborn use the money for the rescue bills but IMO having the van repaired was needed for the rescue but writing check in her name instead avoids any potential IRS hassle over using donation for a dual purpose (personal and rescue use) vehicle. 

I have to contact dog rescue again and see if they need more $ to cover repair and do my other December charitable donations.  I am just not as excited to give to St Judes again after getting at least a dozen junk mailers, some with dumb ass trinkets, so the extra to the dog rescue might be somewhat balanced by dropping them.   Fisher House, Salvation Army and Soldiers Angels are cool with no or very little soliciting.   I gave to Samaritans purse when Ebola was in the news and they have sent some letters and LWR does too but at least neither of those sends quite as much snail mail or pulls that sending cheap trinkets crap. 

I'l like a double shot of ambition

I'm a serious dragin S this week.   Which is not unusual for me this time of year.  Shorter days and holiday bustle tend to give me wistful thoughts of just spending a week in bed.   But the horses can't feed themselves and I have to just keep on trudging along at my glacial pace.  

Survived thanksgiving feast

My advance planning to cook on Sunday was good,  the weather was lovely Thursday through Saturday and I rode all three days.   Took Sadie on Thursday and Saturday about 4 miles each day and on Friday I rode Tanza a couple miles solo.   He did pretty good, some stopping on the way out but when I exercised my patience and let him look for a good minute he was then ready to go on and did not try to turn and go home.   He was trying to rush when we turned around but I was in the strip they smoothed out when they put in the natural gas/oil pipeline so I had lots of room to do 'one rein stops'/ bend a whoas and he was ready to walk nicely by the time I got back to the road section so that worked out well.

Dr Mike was out this morning and we did the blood draw to get allergy testing done.   He thinks Tanza is having some continued allergic reaction to something, said its common that horses have multiple allergies and when the major thing sets them off the minor allergies that wouldn't have been a problem get triggered for a while.  I need to buy some more omega shine or other flax based supplement with lots of omega3 and omega6 and whatnot.  Sadie doesn't have any issues in the winter so I had not bought more after feeding the last of it in September.   I may need to give Tanza the Platinum supplement that is specific for allergies too but I'll wait and see what shows up on the testing.

Thanksgiving meal turned out OK,  turkey was drier than the last few times when I've brined;  I think I cooked it longer than needed or maybe at a hotter temp.   I will try the oven bag and low temps next year.   This is the first time I used this roaster and it hogged so much space in the oven I had to use a shallow pan and not even foil for the squash and the pieces of squash on top were overly dry.    Oh well,  having the food be only mediocre will lessen desire to have me cooking a whole lot and that is all to the good.

I spent a lot of my long weekend just being lazy.   Feels good to do that once in a while although I want to put my noise to the tossing junk and organizing stuff to be kept this winter.  I hate when I can't find something and don't know if I used it up or tossed it away because 'never gets used.'  I want to get things to having a place and if its not in that place then yes I forgot to buy more or tossed some item I had been saving away because it sat for years w/o getting used for anything.

YeeHaa --Two sunny morning rides in a row.

I rode Sadie both days.  Rationalized that Tanza just had his feet trimmed on Wed plus a couple of the bald spots on his face from hives that broke open are still not completely healed.   Poor itchy gelding.   I just called Dr Mike after waffling and forgetting for days to get him allergy tested.  

I still may not know all triggers, but if I can at least eliminate some possibles it'll be much easier to narrow things down if/when he gets hives again and I might get a definitive 'he needs lots of protection from skeeter bites but no citronella ..... in the spray' or no alfalfa in his diet or something.

With a bit of luck I'll ride Tanza tomorrow.   I may just ride him in a paddock rather than trying to round up a buddy since it may get windy in the afternoon and dad can get moving in the morning but I think only with advance planning like going to shoot or something.  Or maybe I'll try taking Tanza solo down the road if things feel good but if I get on him it doesn't really matter if its only flat work in the paddock.

I need to catch up on laundry,  I didn't run any last weekend because it was cold and I didn't want to end up with ice in Grey and Shades pen where our grey water runs out and I've been too lazy in the mornings all week although I could have done so if I was out of clean clothes.

Sunday its supposed to be cold and windy so perhaps I'll try to get some more de-cluttering done or touch up paint in hallway to put pressure on dad to fix the one shelf in the hall closet and finally tack the baseboards up, I am tired of tripping over them.   I'm may to have to nag a bit to get him off his damm comfy chair,  I hate to nag and he hates to be nagged but I am also getting tired of living in the clutter, some of which is his tools that have been upstairs for a year for when he finishes up the damm project.    I think I'll take the sliding doors for that closet and put them in the shed or throw them away, they were always coming off the tracks,  I'm thinking I'd rather get the chinese screens that mom bought for the upstairs office would work better and I don't need them in the office, they are just in the way there.

Thank you MarxSpewMedia

I am now in tin foil hat territory. 

I was so gobsmacked to learn in 2008 that you do not just spin the facts for your *socialist* democrat party but actively suppress any facts that might harm them and get away with it because only *faux* news of the national broadcast media sometimes strays and publishes these facts and you just pretend they are not accurate and they help you get away with that by being so sensational vs strictly accurate with any possible tsunami or other natural disaster stories. 

Since then you have only doubled down with ignoring and even lying about everything from Fast and Furious scheme that U.S. AG Eric Holder cooked up to prop up the false claim of '90% of guns in Mexican crimes came from the U.S.'  to the graft out of the "stimulus'  that would have made the Teapot Dome folks envious at how much money Obama donors got for phony baloney *green* energy business schemes,  Obamacare  --the list is so long one would need a list to keep track.

Now shows like "Madame Secratary",  having Elizabeth Warren --who should be known only for lying about 'native american heritage' to get hired by Haaahrvard on  morning shows to push her as a charismatic political face and voice and on and on seem to be laying groundwork for either Hillary or Warren for 2016.   Especially since Mr Cosby has called out the Dems with their welfare (but first you must kick out the dad) and the Rap culture etc for destroying black families.  

So all these claims about Bill Cosby 'raping' women which seem to be popping up only now after the 2014 election really make me wonder if this is not mostly about throwing Barry under the bus to make way for "its time to have a women POTUS."  Since the election clearly shows the public are tired of Obama, time to spin it as 'black men are not good leaders' rather than report the truth that this mess in the U.S is much more due failed socialist policies and severely bloated bureaucracies thanks to decades of setting up a new government agency to tackle every new problem.   

  I only know Cosby by his on-stage persona but thanks to your distortions, facts suppression, and so on I immediately want to discount these tales of 'I think Mr Cosby gave me a roofie and then had sex with me 35-45 years ago w/o my consent'.     *I* think that the alien abduction folks prove that there are people who will spin wild fantasies and then tell them as truth rather than "I had the weirdest dream' when they have an audience that reinforces rather than fact checking the tales.   

But Mr Cosby may well have been a monster who did such things rather than only taking advantage of groupies wanting to have sex with a mega-star -- it does not jibe with his stand-up comedy, and how he handled his TV shows  but there are monsters who hide their dark sides and he might be one.   

But this feels like *they* probably know he is having some memory issues or otherwise is somewhat hobbled to fight back against false allegations.  So they can push the 'war on wimmen,  time for wimmen to have the power to push Hillary or Warren for 2016 POTUS  and because Cosby called them out on some of their false socialist premises they are gleeful to savage him w/o regard for whether he is innocent or not.   

So thanks to media behavior over the past decade or three I find myself thinking 'you just want to try to get some of Cosby's money and some media attention'  rather than trying to have any empathy for his accusers.    I don't like this,  I always cringed when my grandparents were judgmental and have worked at tamping down my judgmental thoughts w/o knowing back stories rather than spewing them out; but the MarxSpewMedia are managing to make me have much more of an 'us and them' viewpoint with labeling 'them' as either useful idiots or active shills for the marxist totalitarian.  

you're freaking welcome

I know its a crummy attitude and I have tried to restructure my giving so that it is its own reward.  With donations that is pretty much true now.  With some other stuff setting up gift exchange for bb, and some other personal or semi-personal gifts not so much.  I don't want to live in an Asian world where the miss manners rules are both complex and rigid and receiving a gift or even slight favor requires formal thank you gestures or reciprocation such that one must weigh 'would giving something be a burden to the recipient?' for any little random thing done just to be nice or any little thing I would get would make me feel like "oh great, now I have to go out and buy a thank-you gift in exchange"

But still, I am feeling a bit rejected and a bit annoyed right now.   The problem with being so internet connected.  I always feel like "its really easy to just dash off a quick thank you and hit send"  My rational head knows that if someone is feeling raw about a loss or is knee deep in more elaborate thank you's to folks they know absolutely expect some kind of gesture then things do not work that way;  but my cranky emotional side insists on feeling slighted.

Rode Tanza a couple miles with dad on RazzMo

Dad rode RazzMo so Tanza would have company.   Helped quite a bit, so if I had almost anyone on Lady I think Tanza would be OK.   Tanza led almost the whole time,  just stopped a couple times on the way out to look and also look back to make sure his backup was still there.

Razz was hardly the ideal steady eddy.   On the way back he was worked up himself and being that he is a pissy herd boss Tanza was a bit antsy if Razz was too close behind with the hard breathing, and then Razz acted like something was trying to grab him a couple times; at one point I told dad to make him go in front.  That lasted only 100-200 yards and then Tanza wouldn't slow his super fast walk anymore and took the lead again. 

Tanza was about like his first solo ride out or a bit better; he wanted to go faster but didn't really get all worked up about it like he did the second solo ride out a month ago.   He was acting like he was itchy to the point of "it burns" when I unsaddled and unbridled so I grabbed a sponge and sponged his neck and a bit on his face.   I don't know if getting sweaty irritates where he has a few hives or what with him.   He rolled really good when I put him out too.   I hope he is not going to have worse problems with skin allergies than Sadie, it will suck if he needs even more special managing than she does, but I may have to get him tested if these hives don't disappear and stay gone.

So pretty good ride before he gets a week off if the weather forecast is accurate and we get cold hitting tomorrow.  --It may not be too bad tomorrow morning, I haven't gotten the latest forecast. 

Nice ride on Tanza this morning. Short but sweet

I feel like a bad horsewoman though.   His back legs were all stocked up.  DOH,  I should have realized that all the crazy fast racing around on Tuesday might cause that and at least smeared some poultice on to reduce the swelling.   Oh well, cannot go back in time.

He was very sane today.  We walked and trotted some figure eights in Shade and Grey's pen while Grey finished his big helping of soaked up feed.   I left Shade in the pen and she polished her halo by just visiting with Razz in the corner and then going back to polishing off the last scraps of leftover hay.  Sooo nice that I didn't have to move her to work Tanza in her pen.

The stocking up was reduced after the short ride so that was a relief.   I don't really know how much harm it does when horses get that swelling,  they are more prone to get it in the future once they have had major stocking up and swelling from injury can cause secondary problems so we never like to see swelling on lower legs but again I can't go back in time.   I put just a bit of sore no more liniment on the legs and a bit of arnica gel.   Tanza was doing his lifting leg, halfway threatening to kick thing.  I told him I don't use stuff that stings so cut it out.

My boss has done the "I could write a subroutine (or full code)" and then welsh on me again.   So stupid of me to have forgotten he does this.   I could have been halfway to writing what I wanted myself just in the two hours I spent in his office on Tuesday walking him through the program because (again I had forgotten)  that he is not capable of only adding what is asked but insists on trying to understand the whole thing and then I still didn't now he intended to welsh until late yesterday.  

And after staying way late yesterday getting procrastinated slides put together we ended up spending the whole time allotted to the meeting hashing over just the strategy to get data from 100 or so ground sites with needed redundancy.   I like the new guy they hired for orbit determination.   He is wicked smart but better yet  he was pretty much in charge of setting up something similar at his job in commifornia.   So he is a great counterweight to my boss who wants to have fewer but much more elaborate smart computers 'to reduce complexity' instead of breaking them into simpler pieces and with more redundancy like our sys admin has wanted to do instead of having to get fancy with software OS solutions.  Now the sys admin and less senior software engineer have this new orbit determination guru on their side and with guru's experience to back it up.  

Its also going to push me to do more in my job and that is great, I've gotten into such a rut and doing too much coasting because of my angst over politics of the country and state and if I'm honest my irritation with my bosses style.  Now having someone who will probably become a defacto supervisor in terms of 'write/modify code to do this' if not ever writing the CYA reviews for the government funding who is so smart and who has supervised smart people will force me to keep focused and get things done quickly.  

Rode Sadie today. Worked Tanza on Tuesday

I was up so late being excited on Tuesday night that I was too tired wed morning to do any horse stuff beyond feeding.    Tuesday I worked with Tanza,  I had thought I'd probably get on him but he was so wound up I decided it would be better not to.   Spent a frustrating session lunging him, scrapping that because he was just racing around in circles and there is not much whoa one can apply with just a line to the halter,  searching for lines, deciding I'd have a wreck if I tried to use the long rope lunge lines, searching more for my shorter flat lines, not being able to find one,  deciding to tie two of the mini driving reins together and finally long lining him.

He was a sweaty mess by the time I got to the long lining and it didn't take too much to convince him to walk but he did start out trotting fast,  still way better than the Skeery fast canter he'd started out with on the long line with me going - Wow, you are really athletic but I don't like you racing around so fast you are leaning into the circle.  

I thought I'd work him again today but woke with a headache which did not yield quickly to ibuprofen and some allergy pill so decided I'd better just ride Sadie.  I don't like to climb on the energized greenies when I'm feeling sub par.

Sadie was pretty good today.    Last time I rode her she got goofy on me the last quarter mile home but today she was back to normal self.

Now I must stop procrastinating and get back to figuring out how to generate some plots to present to small group tomorrow.    I could probably do it in Excel if I had taken time to learn Excel at some point but since I did not do that I'll have to wrestle it into the PDL code or something which I'm not particularly fast at doing, so need to grit my teeth and GitRdone.

I've got the blahs....

I'm thinking mostly this is some side effect from flu shot.   Note to self, getting vaccinated on a Friday was a dumb idea.  But some mental blah too.  Been doing my lazy weekend posting on the HQ blog thing and feeling shunned.   I guess I did get a few responses on food thread which is ironic since I'm not into the cooking for artistic effect thing at all.   Need to shake it off or stop spending so much time there and read actual books on my kindle instead of lurking so much with the occasional comment dropping thing.   I can't type fast enough and don't have quick enough wit to ever be one of the 'cool kids' there and I don't want to go Aspergey and force folks to comment to soothe/be nice to me like it seems they do for 1 or 2 posters that seem special needs.   If I want to play troll I'd go over to some lefty place to be irritating.  

One the plus side laundry is pretty well caught up.   I got Razz in with Sadie and Tanza and it seems like that will work OK.   I put Lady in with CJ but will not keep that mix for long before making it 4 horses in the big pen.    The two of them are moving tanks around like crazy and I'm leading more torwards saving RB hay for Grey and CJ now.   I have plenty of clean PHC hay and I think the RB hay is actually easier for Grey to chew and get calories from.   

I did ride Sadie yesterday.   Decided I was too off and it was too windy to climb on Tanza today though.   I am hating the end of DST but for weekdays having light earlier in the morning will be a good thing.  I'm just going to have to not drag around sleeping in and moving crazily slow on weekend mornings and early afternoons anymore since it will get dark so early. 

The helmet won ....

I wore my spare helmet that is not a lid-locker style that works better for me while hunting because the orange helmet cover would go over its little visor that came with it but didn't have enough of a pocket for my longer neoprene visors on my normal helmets.

Mistake--.   I had a good shot at a deer on Friday but I had to put my helmet visor over the scope to keep it from tipping and messing me up to look through the scope.   Well when I fired the visor whacked the helmet into my forehead and maybe down on my glasses.   I noticed the lump on my forehead right away but Saturday sis was "OMG you have a black eye"

Either the helmet also smacked my glasses into my face when I shot or because I still wore it Saturday but with the thought that I would take it off if I got a shot at anything and it was tipping forward extra and kept pushing my glasses down onto the bridge of my nose and cheeks right under my eyes I ended up with some colorful bruising although there isn't any soreness to go with the 'black eyes'.

And I missed my shot.   Pretty sure I jerked up when I pulled the trigger which is pretty stiff.  Mom liked a stiff trigger and that is the rifle I was using.   I was doing well with keeping a steady bead with the crosshairs on the scope before I fired or I would not have taken the shot.   I will have Dad normalize the trigger pull and practice more before going hunting again.

Dad did get a deer.    170 yard shot.  He uses a range finder so that is the actual distance.   He bought himself a nice lightweight portable tripod to keep a steadier bead because he was not as steady last year just resting his arm on his knee as he used to be.   I may need to try using the bog pod and buy one for myself too.

It was the normal frustration on not being able to get out early and although I said "sis and I should go out early by ourselves"  Dad went "oh I''l go out whenever you girls want to"  except he does not even start saddling until full daylight and we could have got going at least an hour earlier if we were not grooming his horse, helping him and waiting on him on at least 1 or 2 mornings.   None of us even saw any elk.

  Tuesday it rained overnight.   We had planned to just go to town for showers and of course the anti-hunter did not go "oh lets push back the town trip one day, the elk will be out later"  *I* thought they would based on just going up there the last 5-6 years and I was right, but didn't push dad and sis to go out.

 The other pair of hunters at our camp went out Wed morning and got a cow elk they shot at 10 am w/o even having to walk very far out of camp.    We hauled their elk in for them.   They had cut it only in half and spent hours dragging the halves downhill and realized they needed some horsepower to get it back to camp.   Silly men,  it was not a huge distance and they might have managed getting it back to camp on their own if they would have skinned and quartered the elk and just cut the meat they wanted off the ribs and neck and made 2-3 trips instead of trying to drag the whole thing at one go.

 As it was CJ hauled the hind quarters + some ribs and the head and neck  "my friend is getting into taxidermy and wanted my to bring back the head"  and sis led her mare back to camp with the front quarters with some ribs.   Normally both hind and front quarters can go in CJs panniers and sometimes the backstraps/tenderloins or sometimes the hunter will pack them out when we haul out someone else's kill.   So even though it was just a short distance from camp I think we earned the full hauling fee we charged them.

Dad got his doe on Thursday and on Friday hauled it to town to a place that will hang game in their cooler for a decent price because it was too hot to leave it hang during the day at camp.  When I shot and missed, I had just walked out 1/2 mile or less from camp to where deer had been hanging out in the mornings.   Grey got all agitated back in his pen at camp and ended up with a spasm/gas colic.   Sis and I rode out later that morning and Grey was not right but I didn't realize he was really off until he would not drink at the dam which he loved the water all week and then tried to lay down.

He got a trailer ride to the vet clinic in town which had him feeling better, when we got there and I got some banimine in case the ride did not give a complete cure.   He did need the banimine later but then was fine on Saturday.   I rode CJ out, but we brought Grey along, with his super light treeless saddle and I ended up riding him most of the way back cuz CJ had lost a shoe and was getting sore and then laid down with me at one point and I didn't know if he was getting sick now or was just being a jerk or what and Grey was obviously back to being 100 percent.

Saturday we rode to a cabin which seemed to be handicap access.  I'm going to see if its possible to stay there a night or two.  That is about the only way we would be out early enough to see anything.  I think dad could get a handicapped note/placard from his Dr. since he cannot walk around on uneven ground.   I'd even offer to haul an injured veteran in on horseback if we could stay there too.   Otherwise I might look into whether there are outfitters that deal with limited mobility hunters and maybe I could just buy dad an outfitted trip for Xmas next year.

 He wants to ride the MDH trail in ND again and I don't really want to burn vacation to do two trips, but I cannot do the hunting trip again any year unless I lay down "sis and I WILL go out early on two days" and you are only going those mornings if you have gotten your horse ready all on your own and are in the saddle when we mount up to go"  or if we can get that cabin and sis and I can walk out early and leave him there with good overlook if an elk wanders by a couple mornings/evenings.   I get SO frustrated with not getting out early when elk will be out or staying until dusk if we are going to get late starts.    *I* do not need to burn 8 days of vacation and put in for tags for deer and elk to just trail-ride 75 miles.  If I'm 'going hunting'  I want to be really hunting for at least  1 or 2 days of the season.  

whew --Sadie is not super sore footed today.

Of course this means I have to decide whether to continue with the tag team farriers.  I haven't really inspected Grey's shoeing job but on quick glance it looked like he rushed the job and the shoes narrow more at the back than Grey's hooves do.   Which is opposite of what one wants.  You want a little extra shoe at the heels since the hoof flexes wider at heels as the foot lands as I understand what I've read and been told about things.   I suspect I'd be happier if I could have only B coming and she charged the standard amount instead of Rs cheap rates.  Although I have no idea what kind of shoeing  job she does if she even does shoes.

Oh and the CDC had great news.  Ebola usually only spreads to 1 or 2 people from each infected person.  Of course when the CDC left a bunch of nurses with no training in highly infection disease control to deal with the first case in the U.S. (other than flying docs from Africa back to the special centers)  there were 70! medical people in contact with him and 2 of them are already sick.


 In Africa in past outbreaks (this one seems different) by the time someone is infectious they are too sick to move around and only 1 or 2 family members were in contact with them either nursing them or doing funeral rituals.    This strain seems to have a longer incubation time and its a big unknown of when they are shedding the virus and how long it can persist outside the body.    Even with this strain that seems to develop more slowly people probably don't drag themselves around while sick in Africa.  the hospitals suck so they don't go to one until they are desperate, and I'm sure almost everyone has to walk around a lot to get anywhere so folks don't go "oh I need to get that powerpoint done" or "I'm out of ice cream and I want my comfort food if I'm sick so I'll just run to the store"  So I'm pretty sure the CDC transmission rate stats based on Africa are going to have little correlation to how things will work here, at least until a lot of folks are good and scared.    What a cheery thought, but there it is.  

New farrier came today ...

I don't think that I will have them out again and hopefully Sadie and Shade are not sore from somewhat aggressive sole paring.   I was not expecting a team of farriers and the guy she was paired with used to trim horses for a boarder of ours years ago --small world.   Mom and I never thought he did all that great of work, boarder used him because he was cheaper than almost everyone else.   Well paying cheap rates for work that isn't quite right sure beats praying the premium rates I paid to J for not trimming hoof that needed to go ---and then he blew me off ---I'm still fuming about that,  if he didn't want to work on my horses fine, but what a cowardly weasel not telling me that when he sent the invoice so I would know I needed to go back to my old guy or find someone new before it was an "oh shit,  I NEED to have Sadie trimmed before being gone for 12 days and that is barely a week away" situation.

And the blame for Sadie and Shade being a bit sore is at least as much on J for not taking hardly anything when he did them 8 weeks ago so that B had to take a lot of sole and hoof to get them to where they belonged now, and they are only standing on soft sand and not working (Sadie will have two weeks off for foot to grow) and I don't think they got trimmed so short as to cause any laminitis.

I'll probably go back to D for Shade and Grey,  and probably have him do Tanza for now because D is quite good with fidgety ayrabs (B was pretty good, but R got annoyed with Grey) and I think I'll try to have the endurance rider/barefoot trimmer do Sadie this winter and contact the CJF endurance rider for recommendations.   If I have to take Sadie to a high dollar pro I will do it or if I must learn to rasp/trim for myself and find a tool or figure out better how to gauge heel evenness just by eye and use the hoof boot stuff I will do that, and will do the same for Tanza too if he needs it, although D may be able to do fine for Tanza since Tanza's feet are more normal --nice round feet, with lots of hoof wall.   He did not seem like he got trimmed too short,  he had a lot of hoof wall to take w/o B needing to take any sole I think.

I guess J has a nice racket with people that want to keep their horses barefoot because 'its so much more natural and therefore better' and are thrilled to give lots of their hubbies money to an expert just to do a bit of rasping and checking up that angles are not getting completely messed up and doesn't want to work on horses that need actual trimming and shoeing.   What a pain in the arse several months it has been with trying to figure out Sadies feet and I'm still searching, siggghhh.  

One foot in front of the other

Yesterday I loaded up Lady, Sadie and Grey Moun and hauled to Golden, picked up Mason the draft X and we went trail riding at Table Mountain.   I love riding with Mason's family.   The girl is a teenage girl and I wouldn't offer often to ride with only her and Mason because I'm an old curmudgeon but with the family as a whole it is great.  The mom is very down to earth and one of those people who is super easy to talk to.  The boy is quiet and at times a bit disorganized but super considerate and Grey loves having him as a rider, he is easy to carry and not bossy, only directing for which trail to take or 'can we have some trot or canter for a bit'.  Some horses like more leadership from the rider but Grey has always preferred a 'just give me the outline and let me decide the fine details' riding style. 

Today I made some Irish cream liquor.   Decided I could not see giving Ear Leaders gub'mint extra excise taxes so it would be better to just add whiskey to cream, coffee and sugar myself.   A mini go Galt gesture I guess.   I've got beans soaking to make chili.   Need to decide what meat I'll add in.

I contacted a new farrier and she said she would fit me in early next week.   In some way's Sadies hooves don't look too bad but knowing that this definite imbalance is there w/o having left shoes on way long or otherwise neglected getting regular trims makes my gut clench.   I have to mess with Tanza's feet at least one more time before she comes but its sprinkling and a bit windy today so hopefully its nicer tomorrow.   Hopefully being held vs just tied will help too.   His seller said he was good for hoof trims, but he got agitated when I went to pick out the back foot that had the puncture wound.   I should have moved him to a better spot and tied him shorter quicker than I did.  Once I did that and only picked out his foot he did act like he felt silly for making such a production of things.

whinging

misspelled cuz I like the Aussie feel of it.   I am so far behind on prepping for stupid hunting trip and stressing and wishing I just was not going.    I keep telling myself to suck it up cuz I do quite like eating venison and elk.

  I would probably actually even enjoy going hunting if it was with an avid super go getter hunter and all I had to do was ride out to help pack out after a success and otherwise dink around riding on my own and cook suppers and do some horse feeding.   But I get so frustrated going with Dad who works hard to increase the odds for the elk and is such a drag to get going in the morning when sis would like to try to get out early to increase chances of seeing something.   It was a actually a bit better last year when we were not eating with the big group of more avid hunters.  Somehow having all of them being more gung-ho made dad's lazy style even more frustrating.  Plus it helped that he got a deer after 2-3 days so I knew we would at least have some good eats out of all that vacation time I was burning.  Still I am just stressed about trying to get ready this year.

Does not help AT ALL that the frigging new farrier who emailed an invoice rather than writing one when he was out did NOT respond to my email so I had to finally remember + suck it up and text him again and its iffy if he can come out before we leave and I don't think I can leave Sadie until we get back.   To me it looks like her heels are growing more underslung with this shoeing.  I don't trust myself to trim her well and now I can't seem to trust any farrier to get things right and I'm so bummed and stressed about that.

I pulled the last bit of goats heads I will bother with this morning.   They are mostly getting too dry now and half the burrs have fallen off or fall off when I pull the main plant.   I DID clear a lot of the horse pens this year that were over-run last year so I should try to be positive instead of feeling so down about not getting them all the way cleared.   Hopefully I will start the year with a well functioning sprayer and that will make it easier to fight them.   Plus I think/hope they are thinned out quite a bit in the mini's pens and arena and if those areas (oh I hope) barely need to be sprayed  it will help me have time to spray those east pens and the pasture area.

Flies are also thick right now.   I don't know if any thicker than all summer but SO not gone yet and they are very noticeable on the ground these mornings.  They are overnighting on the warmer ground as the air temps are falling.  

Yesterday I just rode Tanza in Grey and Shade's pen.  He was pretty good in there.  I will just have to twist Dad's arm to ride with me a few times down the road so Tanza has a buddy and maybe L will start coming out and after a few rides I could force her to ride Lady as the steady horse buddy for Tanza.  Or DL might come out if I ask her.  I know she'd ride Lady in a good way, I just hesitate to ask her to drive so far but she has got some parrot client she trims  beak and feet for out here and probably would not mind doing me a favor.   I also need to get hooked up with his breeder and see if I can maybe haul with her to some spring rides.  Either as a slot in her trailer if it isn't full with boarders or perhaps taking one or 2 of her barn horses in my trailer if she has a big group wanting to go to some rides.

I need a younger body

Or to be less obsessive about the goats head burrs.    I've been pulling some of the ones that I didn't get sprayed and they set a bunch of burrs.    My body is protesting at the 30-40 minutes of pulling per day I've done and I can't trash my back and neck, which are already being fussy and slightly degrading my sleep.   But I would so like to get rid of them now.  I'd like to be too busy going to rides next year to do as much spraying + I want to spray the pasture area a couple times next year.

But I did ride Tanza Saturday.   He was not such a saint this time.   I am a bit intimidated to push him,  lot of power under me and I don't want it blowing up.   I went to about the same spot I turned around on Monday but turned him a bit before while he was walking forward for me.  He stopped a lot on the way out.  That is not a big deal, but he wanted to zoom home and was not quite as nice about slowing down as on his first ride out. 

I rode him in Grey and Shades pen for a few laps when we got back so he would not think he is just done when we get home.   He was anxious, but is enough of a smart cookie that he might make the connection and act that way to be lazy in future if it gets rewarded now.   I am reminding myself that he did not do anything very bad at all; just felt like he was not too far from bolting or blowing up a couple times. 

Rode Sadie today.   She was pretty good but acted rather spooky and anxious.   Maybe a bit of something in the air this weekend LOL.   Mostly I think its just that she had 3 weeks off.  She had been getting so good for me before her colic and layoff.  I'm going to have to suck it up and text the new farrier,  have not had a reply to emailing him.    Hopefully after everyone is trimmed again I'll either feel better about him or know I have to search again.   There is one on FB that a lot of folks south of here are using that posts pics of some of his work and it looks so good.  Makes me so bummed that he never called back when I was trying to get him this summer.     But then the old farrier is still doing Dad's horses and CJ's shoeing job looks pretty good -- I need someone that can do good work on Sadie's tricky feet.   

Also did some laundry this weekend and finally got mom's memorial service plant repotted.   Thank goodness the coop had potting soil when I thought to look for it when I got some horse feed.   I never remembered to try to get it at Target or my rare trips to Walmart and Dad never bought any even though he was all hot to get it repotted way back in early summer.   

Took Tanza for his first ride down the road on Monday

I was wishing briefly "gee I wish L was coming out to ride so he would have a buddy horse",  had to remind myself that L on Lady wouldn't be that great as L lets Lady pretty much do whatever Lady wants and enjoys running towards home which I would not want for first few rides on a high energy horse that is so new to me.

Tanza was quite good.  I am very happy with him.   He walked out briskly, stopping a couple times to look around briefly and moving on when I asked him to.   He wanted to hurry home, but complied with me asking him to slow back to a walk every time as he started trotting.

Ole went along.  First time he's joined me since sometime this spring.   Someone on my horse BB recommended Devils claw for the old dog/arthritis symptoms.  I did not jump into that,  thought dogs probably don't get that much out of a herbal remedy but finally went "well what do I have to lose, if it works its cheaper than previcoxx and I don't have to twist his vet's arm to get it"   Happy I did that as it seems to have both Ole and Mia feeling more perky.  

So far the only downside with Tanza is the: trying to ride 2 horses with work and doing some basic ranch and house chores.   I knew that could be an issue and hesitated a long time on looking for a 2nd horse because of it.   God was looking out for me there since Tanza is such a great fit for me.

Water pump went out wed evening. Should be fixed today

So September is still on my least favorite month list, but this missing pump has not been too bad.   Dad borrowed one of Paul's tote water tanks and got water thursday and topped off horse tanks and brought some in house for essential washing and flushing.   We could not find paperwork for company that installed it or remember their name and called a different company yesterday --who never called back or anything.   Not sure why they were unwilling to come out and fix anyway,  not like it was a warranty issue since its 11 years old but this morning he called again and asked them who else in that town installed cisterns and got the right company called and they sent someone right out.   Without the part they needed when they found the problem control box with juice going in but not coming out, but sounded like the repair person was confident he could get the part in town and get things running today.

I am loving my new horse.   Seller named him Tanzaknight;  tanzanite is a gem and he is a pretty good gem for being a high energy 4 year old.   I have no idea what happened that she suddenly decided not to have horses anymore this summer,  but her loss is my gain.   I have a really nice horse with better breeding then I was shopping for + 3 months training vs just 30 days to get started that I would likely have had done.   She has reasonable peace of mind that I am a good home and that I really wanted him since I paid her more than she was asking in her last ad because I wanted her to hold him for me for a couple weeks before I could pick him up.

  I'm trying not to obsess on why she went from having bought a nicely bred weanling 4 years ago  and then had him trained early this spring to selling the horse property; giving/free leasing all her older horses to a friend who just didn't want a young arab with having young kids riding; and selling horse trailer and stuff too.   She didn't volunteer why the sudden change to being horseless and I didn't pry after my hint statement of "sorry you are having to part with Tanza" did not loosen her tongue at all.   

Tomorrow I think I will ride Sadie down the road.   If I go early or it stays cooler, Ole may come with me,  he was pestering me today before I went out and saddled Tanza, although he was a good dog and didn't try to pester the horse or run off while I rode T in Grey and Shade's pen while they had their feed outside the pen.  

September is almost over, thank God

Well it has not been all horrible,  but my cousin died at the start of the month, she was not super young but only 66 is still pretty young these days and she will be greatly missed.  I had not even known just how special she was to so many folks in her church and family although dad, sis and I  always appreciated her,  she was a nice lady always very welcoming and warm and intelligent, good conversationist.   We never lived very close together geographically and she was allergic to horses so we never spent a lot of time together.  

Then Sadie had the colic bout and VS scare which I did get word today she is cleared, never had VS!  YAY!   Today Lady had what I think must have been a gas colic.   I was all set to just wait and see with her but I noticed her respirations were pretty high when I was doing accu-pressure along her midline and then she went and laid down, still panting so I got askeered and called the vet right away.  

It was just a gas colic and she was back up and looking mildly for food by the time Dr Scott got there in just 1/2 an hour.    Darned little princess making me be a drama llama with the vet.   She just got a dose of electrolyte paste and a bit of banimine paste (which I think she spit some out) and kept eating hay pretty good afterwards.    Dr Scott thinks my new guy can probably 'go'.

  Unsaid was that he probably doesn't think Sadie can go all that well.  Which I experienced this summer.   She is a sweetie and she can do the distance riding at a low level but probably only at a fairly low level ever.   Which is OK if Tanza doesn't have an oh shit injury or illness,  I can afford to feed them both and there are enough ride days to keep two horses occupied if they are both sound next year.  

Shade's knee arthritis is continuing.  That knee is getting visibly swollen.   Sigh,  I'm afraid Sadie may be in the same situation before she is 20.  She has very similar conformation fault in her front legs.  Maybe she'll have a few more good years than Shade if we don't hit holes and summersault and/or I end up doing less total miles on her but I do not know that riding makes the joint fail any faster, it might be helpful by strengthening the muscles and ligaments, anyway its what I do and I guess I'd rather have 10 years of having ridden Sadie and enjoyed trails with her and be bummed if she gets a bad knee in her teens then have her stand around and be sound till over 20 but all she ever did was stand around eating and getting bored.  

idle musing on why 'society is doomed'

There is a short stack of Physics Today magazines under the Kuerig coffee brewer at work so I've been glancing through the article headlines lately.

One might think that Physics Today has lots of physics and Astrophysics material and would only cover those topics but nope.   There is an article on how E. Coli expresses itself.   --ok maybe that can be physics and not just biology.    Carbon in the soil?  Really this is physics?    Modeling Crime Hot Spots.   Seriously  you are not calling yourself Mathematica Journal or Statistics Today; how in the wide wide world of sports does modeling crime pertain to Physics?    Call me an old FUDDY DUDDY (dam autocorrect for making me put that in all caps)  but writing a model to describe  crime is not physics and unless they change the name to Physics and Statistic Methods Today such an article just does not belong.   When even the physicists are churning out papers and articles on AGW and social science crap trying to curry favor with the drones who hand out that sweet sweet grant money from uncle Sugar, it feels like a bad portent.

Still alive

Went to Sturgis SD for a ride.   Another 1 for 2 weekend.   I should not have entered the 2nd day.  Although Sadie's hind leg(s) that was pull source at HJ 2 weeks prior to this one was fine.  She was a little off after the first loop of second day on her right front foot.   The one she bent the shoe on.  Farrier did come out and fix it,  I don't know if the stepping on it had any relation to the mild soreness or if its just that Sadie doesn't have a lot of bone and is going to need extra legging up for endurance.

So I was thinking I'd have to enter her just 1 day at the ride near NEMO the last weekend of September but now I will not be going up there at all.   Sadie was colicky yesterday.  Much better today but she doesn't need to take another longish trailer trip in just two more weeks.   The Dakota trip was hard on her.  She was good in Sturgis other than the leg which was minor and a RO/L pull rather than mandatory pull.   No doubt the vet was correct that she should not go out again as all the rock on the 2nd loop would likely have made a serious problem out of the minor strain or whatever.

But my cousin passed away so we ran up to Bowman ND with the horses Sunday night, then up to Minot to that funeral and a 10 hour drive home Wed. and that was with no getting out of the trailer cuz I didn't trust Sadie and Razz to load back up good or be sane to unload in the dark if I took too long to get home.   Thursday Sadie seemed fine but the cold front that made her a uncomfortable in ND on Monday/Tuesday came through here and she was just not right Friday.

And Sadie might have VS;  hopefully not as it will be a major wrench in dad's hunting trip if we end up with a horse quarantine but what will be will be.   She had a couple raw spots on her gums, but no new VS symptoms today so hopefully she just rubbed her gums a bit eating something odd.

I have a new gelding.  The one in WY I've been posting about.   I was supposed to haul him home today but postponed to tomorrow because of Sadie.   I wanted to push it back a week or more if Sadie does have VS but the seller wouldn't do it.  I suppose I could try to find a boarding situation for him but since Sadie does not seem to be having active VS I think I'll just take him home and hope for the best with only isolating him from direct contact.   I don't think we had a freeze and got rid of the flies here.

My headache -- tension in neck and up the muscles in back of head is finally yielding to the ibuprofen so time for me to feed the horses. 

p.s.  Definitely still have flies.   Ugh.   I think once I get Tanza home I will have less tension, especially if Sadie is VS clear.   I should call sis in ND,  possibly her horses were exposed, Sadie might have had it then,  or might have picked it up in Sturgis although with an infected farm just over a mile away its likely to have been brought to our place by flies.   No symptoms until the friday colic and I asked and Dr Mike said its 7-10 days from picking it up to having symptoms. 

Argghhh, #$%farriers

Sadie did travel well with her EDSS or whatever trim and shoe job but he couldn't be bothered to fire up a forge and cut off excess heel sticking out and now she stepped on the outside branch and bent the shoe and loosened clinches.    I am so pissed after paying pretty big $$ for two trims and one was barely a bit of rasping and just a half set of shoes that I may not stick as a customer even if he makes it right before we leave for SD on Thursday.    For certain it is try someone else if he doesn't come through on the customer service and fix it instead of blaming the horse for having flat feet and saying his schedule is full.

No bloody wonder so many people have gone to DIY trimming and hoof boots.  They are a PITA but at least you know the job will be done right if you take the time to do it right rather than being at the mercy of the farrier's whim on the day they come out. 

Well I made an appointment to look at the buckskin arab mare

If I like her I won't know whether to cancel on looking at the gelding.  He has got some good bloodlines and I had thought I'd like to go with a gelding rather than a mare but bird in the hand.   I do not have time for two youngsters.    Well this is putting the cart before the horse.   I may decide the mare is bad fit for me.  

*IF*  I love her I'll have to get set up to have a pre-purchase done on her including getting a Coggins test, so I might still want to see the gelding while waiting on those results.  I'm probably crazy for thinking so seriously about getting a young horse but I feel like if I'm going to stay in CO for the job and Dad I'm going to do lots of riding while I'm here and not just be slaving away on weed control and crap and wanting to 'run away from home'  multiple times each month.

Hmmm,

http://denver.craigslist.org/grd/4636989302.html

I had not heard back from the gelding's owner in ages and ages and decided if I really want a 2nd horse maybe I need to look elsewhere.     This cutie is almost next door.  Think I need to get a look see.   Sure seems to move nicely and maybe has a bit more bone than Shade and Sadie --would be nice to have legs that stand up to the rocks and hills a bit easier.

Of course after I see this the WY geldings owner gets back to my email but is pushing off to next week and 'two other people interested in looking at him'.      So if I did really like this mare I'd just say 'sorry, found something closer and more available.'    I also like the idea of giving a good home as the kid joins the military.  I could invite them to come ride the mare any time they are home on leave.   But I'm resisting calling,  not sure if I'm still clinging to the notion of the gelding or not really ready to buy another horse.  I certainly thought I wanted a backup horse but perhaps the subconscious knows different. 

Things that are good

Reading someone describing their ride and whinging about nuisance dogs, or so many bicycles on trail or rocks, ruts ..... and thinking: I'm so happy that I enjoy my horse so much that teeny factors like that barely register AND I have friends to ride with that are the same mindset so I only have to 'bite my tongue' in cyber space where it is much easier to ignore the negative Nellies. 

 I DO have to learn to be better at skipping reading posts from the Nellies but life is good. 

In Baseball a .500 average would be great

In distance riding not so much.   But the first pull was me entering a ride last year just to get exposure for Sadie when I knew she wasn't ready for more than a fun ride but the management was not putting on a fun ride that year.   I could have just ridden her w/o entering but I wanted to support the manager and be on the ride insurance just in case, plus the vet exams were part of the exposure I wanted Sadie to have.

This is what I put on FB this morning.

Thanks so much Yvette. I had a great time again this year, the vets were so wonderful. I would have liked to have had Sadie legged up to complete again the second day, but maybe next year. I so appreciated the vets looking at her so I had confirmation of my feeling that she should not go the last loop. Having a sound horse this morning is priceless.

That is all true.  I am still feeling a bit deflated though.  I was wavering on whether to even enter the ride the 2nd day.  Should have gone with not entering in hindsight but I am pretty sure that Sadie IS FINE this morning and that is the important thing.  And I had a blast 80% of the first loop.  I bought a HRM from Flattop Tack on saturday afternoon (was not on the ball enough to get it before that days ride)  I remember years ago when I used one on Grey I often looked at a high reading in sand or up hill and thought "oh this must be wrong, his HR can't be this high"  

 Sunday with Sadie I was looking at the rate and going "I don't know if this monitor is catching all the beats or keeping up when we go to trot or up a hill because these numbers are pretty low" .    Then her HR was higher the last couple of miles of that loop on level ground but into a strong wind,  I think her LH leg was starting to get a bit sore at that point.   So the HRM is going to give me great extra information to know if Sadie is tired or sore and WOW she rocks with her cardio system.  Hopefully her legs can toughen up and handle the hills and rocks that are a part of most of the rides around here.  If the legs can catch up with her heart and lungs she'll be awesome at this sport.

Sadie is sporting new shoes on front feet only

Other than to be a big enough client to justify his drive there was no reason to have him touch Shade or GreyMoun.   He said they both had good trimming and he only rasped a bit on Shade and barely took any hoof off Grey.   Which in a way is nice reassurance that it was not wrong to be keeping with my old farrier for so long but OTOH its not a warm fuzzy that the new guy is going to be way better for Sadie.

  I do think her new shoe job looks better than when I had D put on fronts back in May but not a huge difference.   I guess I'll find out if he has her balanced enough that she doesn't step on the shoe this time and the thing with the endurance is that even small faults in shoeing job can cause big issues with the # of miles we do.

I'm just not 100% confident that all faults are gone and holy cats it seemed expensive.   Probably not much more than my old guy if he was not giving a cash discount so if this is going to work well for Sadie I'll probably stick with this guy but as it was it was like paying for a full shoeing job and 2 trims.    I skipped doing her backs cuz A) the hoof boots fit her hinds better,  B) she stood well but I was concerned she'd decide she was done before he was if I went for shoes all around and C)  all the above stuff.  

Sigh,  I wish I was like L seems on the boards.  Seems like every new product, vender, service provider is just the best thing ever  WooHoo.  I'm always cautious on 'is this better or not?'   Is it worth the extra dough?  etc.   Worth quite a bit to me to keep Sadie sound since I'm sentimental and will keep her and feed her anyway so making sure I can ride is definitely extra value but we shall see.

I make my own sunscreen makeup powder on Sunday.   So far seems to be working,  my skin does not feel irritated and isn't breaking out in a bunch of zits and I haven't gotten sunburned.   I have the tone a bit too pale but I was tired of messing with it and decided its paler than my tanned skin but pretty close to my ears etc so I'm calling it good.  

One thing I'm glad I did was use ginger for a bit of yellow tone.  I had gotten a couple "don't do this making your own stuff you'll ruin your lungs" hits searching for the recipe and was like "harumph I can mix this w/o inhaling a bunch of it"   --I did not even read the scare articles but after putting more oil than the recipe called for in my mix I was still getting powder up my nose when I was applying it to test the color and would it stay on etc.

  I KNEW I was inhaling some powder because I could feel the ginger.   So I added some sunscreen cream I found until it went on w/o the ginger up the nose feel.   W/O reading the article I suspect that applying the zinc and titanium oxides daily if they were too dry and fluffy would be the health concern rather than inhaling some while mixing it up unless one was trying to start a home business and making bunches of it to sell every week.

Sigh, Poor MIa

Update:  The vets found bacteria.  Mia has some antibiotic ointment and pills to take and they gave her a steroid taper to try to knock out the vicious cycle her scratching the itchy ears so hard she is breaking the skin and spreading infection/causing new damage.   She seems wobbly on her feet,  I think the infection has her inner ears full of fluid and messed up those balance sensors.   Did not sound like the vet gave a song and dance that I made things worse before we took her in so that is nice.

******

I am glad Dad agreed to take her to the vets.  I'm sure they are giving the big lecture on "you shouldn't try to treat stuff at home instead of coming to us right away"   since Mia's ear is a red hot mess now and I did try the 'home' remedy that actually works for ear mites when I came home late on Friday to find she was scratching at her ear and it was all red and irritated and did look to me like it might be ear mites causing the irritation.

Unfortunately Mia has some much bigger issue going on.  Last night I came home and it looked like a blown out abscess under her ear, like what cats get after they've been in a fight and inside the ear was also red and miserable.    I just did warm compresses for that and gave her a couple Tramadol pills left over from Ole's tumor removal so she wouldn't be miserable overnight. 

Well regardless of what I hear the vets say I am not going to feel too badly about not going to them right away since they took months and months to figure out she needed thyroid supplement years ago.

However I do feel badly that I did not cotton on quicker that her ear was not improving, probably should have had Dad get her to the vets Monday or no later than yesterday since things were not improving, but I totally whiffed on catching that the issue was actually escalating fairly rapidly.

Ugh, Anyone want to write some numerical code for me?

The stupid software engineer has written some crap polynomial fitting routine with 6th order fit for the shorter orbit segments  and order 16! for longer segments needed to go with ionosphere stuff.  I'm wondering how it is not making all the missions have crappy results instead of just the one that got noticed.

He did this to get a chi-square value.  Now I'm pretty sure it is not too hard to get a chi-square while using a sensible spline fit instead of a crazy high-order polynomial but I do not know how to code it up quickly.  I hate coding stuff like that.  

12.5, 4 and 4.5 miles Sat. Sun. and Monday.

Now turning to packing and stuff for the ride.   I am nervous again that Sadie is not ready for 2 days of the LD course even though she did 12 miles and then the LD just fine on Aug 1st and 2nd.   I just think that the LD course at this ride has usually been a bit long and has a fair amount of technical up and downs so it might be more of a squeeze on pacing to finish in time.   Oh well if I decide Sadie is too tired to go out a 2nd day or we end up OT its not a big deal.   I just want to build on the getting back into the distance riding.   I really missed it last year.

I'm having to force myself to just chill on the weed control at home.  Yes I would like to get after them more but I would not be happy if I kept them sprayed all summer but at the cost of not riding Sadie other than a few short jaunts down the field roads at home.    I will try to make more progress next year.   Hopefully some of the spots I did hit good this year will have less burrs so I can maintain those zones and get some new sports sprayed; maybe do something to improve the pasture.  

My fly bait buckets are helping quite a bit.   With the darn VS scare I cringe seeing any flies on the horses faces but the # of flies is significantly less than before I started using the fly bait in the buckets with some moistened manure or last years dead flies for attractants.

Well I'll have time to catch up on weed spraying Sunday. Not going to look at gelding

Owner called and said he had reacted to fly spray and has hives.   I'm not sure she understands that if I like him and I think I probably will it will still be a week or so to set up a pre-purchase and stuff unless she has already had a Coggins test done.    I don't want to set that up before I see the horse in person cuz I might change my mind on wanting him.   It would be no big deal except I'm sort of wanting to make some loose riding plans but not knowing when I might end up running up to haul a new horse home is putting a damper on that.

With the Vesticular Stomitis scare the place where he is staying may have sprayed some stronger fly control stuff on all the horses.   I am trying to keep Sadie sprayed and will spray the trailer with corral product mixed strong before heading to the ride next weekend but mostly just trying to keep the fly bait refreshed so its not a bunch of flies at our place and not getting gung-ho with spraying, face masks etc.  Maybe I should be being more paranoid but VS causes quarantine but is usually not too harmful if a horse gets it as I understand it.

Colorado has had VS before but this time it jumped from south Texas to northern Colorado.   Hmmm,  if you are in country illegally and LEOs shrug cause ICE won't deport if they arrest you maybe you scoff at following the animal control laws with health certs and the like.   Makes me wonder if there was any match racing near where this cropped up,  or could have been roping or barrels etc too.    Racing at a regulated track I believe they check paperwork a bit more.  

Having a JEF who ignores and waives the laws for large segments of the population is making everyone tend to blow off rules and laws.   That is bad thing with the laws like needing a clean Coggins test and health certificate to haul livestock around to prevent spreading diseases.  Reason #1997 why I hate the MarxSpewMedia.   The JEF would still be doing only minor damage in IL if they had not covered up his faults and invented good things to say about him.

Squee: going to look at a 4 year old gelding on Sunday

I had about decided that the seller was set against me as a potential owner or it was a scam although there were no red flags in the ad and she finally emailed and called me today (I missed her call but called her back)

I'm so excited about this guy,  it does make me a feel a little bit like I'm the crazy cat lady but with horses rather than cats but not really.   Other than hanging onto Lady because she floated around so much before the folks doing the lease to own ran into trouble and I took her back  and I just decided I'd hang onto her until the economy improved --so I'll probably have her for life, although I have it in the back of my mind that maybe she'll go back to KS to be a kids horse for my friend in a few years the only horses *I* have that I don't ride are Grey and Shade - and I do ride Grey occasionally, with his teeth I don't feel like I could keep weight on him and ride him much and Shade is too lame to ride; both of them gave me hundreds of miles of riding fun and earned a nice retirement.


Razz and CJ are dads horses and its not hurting anything for them to only be used for the odd trail riding that Dad does and the hunting trip.  It is a bit silly with CJ since the hunting is the ONLY thing every year but he is such a good boy for packing elk out and packing me around or giving other hunters rides back to camp when I've had my own mount and there were no elk to haul.

Plus Lady and Grey are good extra mounts when I want to ride with the family in Golden I've become friends with.

So just SQUEE,  so excited about maybe getting another horse and one that if he doesn't have an injury or something that the seller is hiding has the potential to be a Big Horn finisher.    Plus I have plans to haul out and ride with some other endurance folks on Saturday.   Finally feels like I'm getting some riding groove back.

rode Sadie 4 miles this morning.

I emailed the CL contact for the horse I've been dreaming over yesterday morning but have not heard from her.   Maybe he wouldn't pass a pre-purchase,  maybe she doesn't want to sell him to an endurance person, or to someone like me that only dabbles in it.  

Maybe she doesn't really want to sell him to anyone.    I would have called to establish myself as more serious vs just idly 'tire kicking' but she didn't have any contact info in her ad,  just the anonymous CL reply link.  I like their new option of clicking on a contact button so web bots can't just scoop up info to encourage sellers to give real contact info but she did not use it.

I finally ordered Mia some more dental chew treats.   She was in my face looking for attention yesterday and her breath was just nasty.  I suppose its been nasty but I hadn't been up close to notice.  Hopefully the dental treats help it.  Seemed like they did a fair amount of good before but I never got more re-ordered after using them up.

Asked dad to call our dog vet and ask what they charge for Previcox,  I think its time to put Ole on something regular for his arthritis.   He isn't horribly sore but he is consistently moving his RF leg in an odd manner which the vet previously said was due to arthritis in his back (where I dropped the hay bale on him --darn dog, but I feel like I caused it, even though it was an accident so I should do more to alleviate the after affects since I can afford to.

I need to review my donations and catch up a bit.  I try to donate roughly what I would tithe if I was in a church.   Being a stingy conservative bitterly clinging to guns and tradition and all that instead of being a nice liberal and lobbying the government to raise everyone's taxes to do nice things.

Riding journal catch up

I rode 5 miles Thursday.   I was late getting started but was swapping offices with someone at work (which my boss was in a bit of a snit about - 'I would have quashed this if I'd known')   If I had not wanted to swap offices with B I would have gone to boss to quash it but even though the offices are next to each other I felt it would be helpful to be a bit farther away from distracting loud talkers.  So since my new office was possibly not even going to be set up until Friday I rode and didn't worry about lateness.   Turns out the office was ready early but I didn't worry about going in an hour or so late.

Saturday I slept in and decided to spray weeds right away after haying horses and then it got hot so I only took a quick 4 mile ride after 7pm.   It worked out fine.

Rode 10-11 miles today.   Quite a bit of trot and canter but Sadie got some short eating breaks in there.   She is such a great eater and general take care of herself horse I love it.

I am on the verge of buying a 4 year old horse being advertised in Cheyenne.  Related to Ls mare that I was so impressed by at Mountain Mettle ride last week.    If it were a bay horse I probably would have contacted the seller by now.  I am trying to figure out *why* I consider chestnut color as a bit of a negative,  I've always thought that I believed a good horse can come in any color but I look at ads and tend to pass over paints (Sabino is the accepted arabian horse term I guess) automatically and ding chestnuts too.

 I know my paint bias can be rationalized because white legs can be more prone to 'scratches' skin infection horses can get on their legs, plus white faces might have sun sensitivity etc.  but there really is no logic with chestnuts.  We've had some decent chestnut horses in the family but they have never been mine.  So only sentiment from having bay as my first horse and then having greys with GreyMoun and Cindy can explain me thinking 'darn I like the conformation and pedigree but the horse is a chestnut.'  

 Even with all my earlier logic to myself that with Lady plus Shade and Grey being retired but needing care and would I ride enough for it to make any sense to have 2 riding horses I am still wanting this 4 year old.  Realized how much when I didn't see his ad and was like 'CRUD I missed my chance' and was all relieved when the ad was there when I looked again.

And I've always tried to live the "if you can't say something nice just don't say anything"   It is hard when I think I should offer some kind of condolences or support to be nice because I almost always do but my head is just going 'selfish liberal, I want to shake you' so I need to 'say' nothing rather anything with that meaning slipping in.   Must give myself permission to just say nothing, most folks are not going to connect the dots to know that my 'silence' has any meaning. 

Bought stuff. I so love Amazon :)

Was looking for sunscreen powder and read a review of one that was "you could buy this stuff and make 10x batches for this price,  plus that one had no coloring it was just white"   So I looked up some 'recipes' and bought the zinc oxide and titanium dioxide powder and some bronze color mica and will mix it with arrowroot or corn powder and should never run out and have to use greasy sunscreen on my face again.

I did a search for leak-proof sprayer and bought one.   Had to laugh at one of the poor reviews "I did not factor in how heavy 4 gallons of spray would be, its too much for me"    I had *better* not have to fill it up for it to work or I'll write a seriously scathing review since most sprayers work fine just starting with 1/4 full or whatever.

Bought batteries for the GPS pace and distance watch receiver.   Now if I can find the actual antenna part and get batteries in it  I should have a tool to keep track of pace riding Sadie w/o buying something special.   I plan to buy just a basic heart rate monitor from super nice tack vendors at the next ride.   Decided it would be good to have more tools/info getting back into the distance riding with the Sadie so even though that stuff usually breaks or quits on me I'm going to try using some for a while since I'm not dialed into Sadie like I was with Shade.

I may have to avoid FB for a while, or if not altogether at least skip some posts.  I am not even FB friends with the irritant but seeing post(s) on group and from other folks who asked to friend and I did. And I'm feeling churlish for being annoyed by her "WooHoo,  son is WINNING on new horse and we got great awards for it"     She is a good horse person and if a horse is off they don't go out or they pull or slow down as needed and its not awful to enjoy winning as long as horse welfare comes first -- but that kind of post still often bugs me;  I guess because the posted verbiage does not go into the horse welfare comes first and is just "YAY we WON and the loot for winning was great"

OTOH I am so impressed by another riders development.  She rode in a 'winning is the only thing' manner and was winning on horses not ready for the speed and ended up with lame horses after a season when she started but with her DD getting into the sport in a serious manner and probably because of that getting mentored by a top level 100 miler rider she really seems to have the right attitude now.   She still rides wanting to do well but I really think she is doing the homework/moderate miles to get a good base first before going for speed now and enjoyed the experience on a tough ride rather than kvetching about the tough, probably 5-10% long, and not glow-sticked for all the night miles that had to be ridden course.    Adults can learn better sports and horsemanship :)

  Maybe there is hope for me to learn how to ride faster and still feel like I'm doing the horsemanship stuff OK and being a good sport, polite to vets, volunteers etc.  I've always worried that tired + caught up in possibility of winning might over-rule my best instincts and have tended to hold back (and have not had a great horse so little temptation to push the envelope)

I really should buy myself a new weed sprayer

The one I bought last year has started to leak.   It is not at all much money so I should just do it but I hate tossing the old one aside.  It bugs my enviro-nut side to discard it,  but it probably is not good to drip 1/2 cup of herbicide on myself every time I use the sprayer and I did tighten all the stuff that I could and its still leaking some just not as badly as before.    I was looking at some reviews last week and did not find any model that was getting raves for not leaking after hours and hours of service.  It occurs to me that *maybe* a battery model would be slightly less prone to leakage because it would never be over pressurized so I might go with that option even though I'd prefer not having to worry about battery charge.

I also need to order some sunscreen face powder online.  So annoyed, last year or year before Target had many brands of powder foundation with sunscreen and last week when I had used up almost all of my supply of powder the only foundation I could find with sunscreen was some nutragena and when I got it home it turns out  its cream@!# foundation.   It seems to be making the acne of my acne/rosaeta flare up so I'm eking out the last of my powder and need to see if I can find some powder sunscreen online.   I'm wondering if the FDA banned the active ingredient, hopefully its just some dumb social media scare or Obanomics has made the active ingredient pricey but I can get it online.

Sadie has her first completion :)

I have to get some unpacking done and get the pics I took downloaded (none on trail this time) but I am happy.   Tired but happy.   Did the 30 mile LD at Mountain Mettle on Saturday.    M had volunteered to ride with me "I'm going slow but my mare is bold on trail"  Sounded perfect but we started behind a Kenlyn group that was going fairly slow but Linda knows how to pace and I knew she'd finish in good order,  the pace felt good for Sadie but M and her horse were impatient to go faster after a couple of miles.  So I told her to just ride on, I was going to stick with this group.   That worked out pretty well for both of us I think.   We both finished anyway.   M had blisters because her horse fought with her wanting to go faster some places but she was happy to find the mare was sound after having 6 weeks off for a lameness issue. 

I was so impressed with the 4 year old mare Linda was riding, leading the way through slick rock and over bridges like  a pro.  Did get ancy when she was in the back at one point (was worried about bogie monster from behind) and wouldn't eat on the trail so I'm not envious of Linda.  Cindy did that "cant pause for one bite of grass' and never got over it so she was pretty much only an LD horse cuz she could get through those before hitting the wall.  Linda's young mare may well mature out of the 'gotta get back to camp can't even pause just a titch to reach down and grab one bite of grass'  but I'm glad that Sadie loves to eat.  It worked out well for Linda having me tag along with her too, because I was able to direct her the correct trail to take a few times having ridden the 12 mile trail with M on her other horse on Friday and studied the ride map more than Linda or G had done. 

Sadie continues to get more relaxed about other horses on the trail and was leading and in the middle of the two Kenlyn mares at times as we rode with no fussing about it.   She was so nicely relaxed at the vet checks that Georgette was able to vet her.   It was great to see Georgette vetting a ride,  I had lost track of her a few years ago after hearing she'd had a stroke.   She was moving carefully so must have some balance issues still but it was wonderful having her vet a horse of mine again.  

I locked my p/u keys in the cab Thursday night.  So much for brilliant thought of 'just put the keys in the ignition in case someone needs to move it in case of emergency.'   I bumped the door lock button as I was reaching in to do that and my mind did not click when I heard the "ok locked" beep.   But  another camper saw me trying to get a coat hanger worked in the door frame on friday morning and failing and came over and rescued me.   He said he'd locked his keys in same model of truck a lot and had to get in that way.  I hadn't been being aggressive enough on prying the door away from the cab to get the wire in and was thinking it wasn't going to be possible even though I'd had someone rescue me from locked keys in cab with my old dodge that way years ago. 

 Picture is of Sadie this morning after the ride.  I took the shells off this afternoon.  She did a great job of taking care of herself. 

Ugh, going to have to buy a heat gun to try glue on hoof boots

I had hoped to skip that PITA sounding step.   We live on sand hill so normally the horses' feet are pretty dry.   But it is monsoon season and rained about an inch yesterday and still drizzling today.  

I had a mini-meltdown yesterday.   Was spraying burrs even though I knew it was good chance of rain and got to the gate to our pasture area and the bare spot there was just FULL of goatheads.  I did get it together and when dad said he needed to hook up the mower I said nicely that I wanted him to work up the goatheads first and he did that.    He got rained out before doing any mowing but that is no biggie.  I'm pretty sure its too late to do the pasture any good this year anyway.  I'll still have him knock the weeds down to be neighborly so the weed seeds don't go in the neighbors's lots so bad but next year need to mow right away when we have the horses stop grazing and then repeat and maybe put some weed spray on it.

I had asked dad to call someone with an ad for corral cleaning and another with field mowing and he said "I can just mow"  but did call the skidsteer guy for me.   He was going to come today but called and canceled because its raining at his place this morning.  We may not get any of the rain today but waiting is no problem.  I should either place an ad for help wanted or call some of the ads from folks offering services and see if I can some general labor but getting the pens cleaned will be a nice start to my new goal of "stop trying to do so much yourself,  use the salary while its there to hire stuff done and ensure that you are enjoying life instead of feeling like a serf for the Dems"

I talked to someone on FB and decided to ride Sadie on Saturday (which was my original plan) rather than Friday.   M has ridden the trail the LDs take on Friday and she said there is a steep and NARROW section that drops down to the river + horses have to cross a bridge to the vet check.   Sadie would probably be fine to lead down that section but with this rain it may be muddy and I'd be gasping to lead up it + although she is quite good I could see a bit of wreck happening if someone came up behind her.    Plus M offered to ride with me on Saturday,  said her mare was bold but she was planning to ride slow and that sounds just perfect for Sadie.

And been musing wondering what causes internet BB forums to die.   I'm on 4.  One is huge and I never post and go for months w/o reading but I like to look up stuff on their farm care section and if I get a jones for those type posts I know there is lots of content.    The first one I joined seems to be shriveling up and dieing off.   There are multiple factors and FB is one,  so much easier to put pics there and doesn't feel silly to put just a two line update.    The other is the moderators were "Grrrrrr to some posts they considered pot stirring but would let some chronic stirrers go and now neither of them even posts anymore although one did get called and came on just to scold someone for posting something that was a bit anti-progressive."    3rd factor is the other 2 boards.  One existed before I joined and some folks considered it to have a mean girl vibe and started the one I originally joined; I joined it at a time when I was annoyed with mods of original board and go once in a while to read posts from one person that does ranch classes and writes fun threads about that.

and the other was started so that a group of us conservative horse owners didn't have to self censor ourselves --but especially with FB drawing off some contesnt that kind of splintering has led to a pretty small pool of posters.  The small conservative group is still going,  it has lulls but folks still check it and respond when someone does post.    Original board seems like its dying,  threads looking for advise will still draw some responses but a lot of general posts only get 1 or 2 responses so that just strengthens the "why bother writing something more detailed,  I'll just put this on FB and most of the old horse BB friends will see it there"  

around 17 miles this weekend

Saturday rode about 10.5 miles in the heat with quite a bit of trot and canter.   Sadie acted a bit tired and definitely hungry before being done.

Sunday went on a slow trail ride at North Table Mountain open space.   We were on quite a bit of technical trail just picking through the rock at a walk.  My best guess from the map is it was only 6.8 miles even though we were riding for 2.5 hours.   Sadie would not pass Grey Moun and pick up the pace at the start but she was willing to trot and canter the last mile or so so I hope she is ready for real LD ride on Friday.    I'm pretty sure that a 2nd day would be too much with it being a mountain ride and her having no base yet.  I feel like such a wimp/screw up for not having gotten her conditioned better by August 1st but it is what it is.

 She is calmer than Grey and Shade about bikes, backing out of the trailer etc even with her limited life exposure so if she is only ever up to LDs that is what we will do.  I am the real anchor,  I've toyed with buying another horse but I don't feel like I am in shape to ride more.    If I get stronger and she does not I think I'll try to network harder for pickup rides before jumping into buying a 5th horse.   The sensible thing if the only goal was riding more miles would be to trade or sell Lady and try to find a retirement place for Shade and/or Grey Moun but I want to know they are all well cared for and I'm egotistical enough to think my care is better than 95% of what is out there although I know I don't provide the very best care.

Sunday we had a group of 5 riders.  I invited dad (expected him to not want to come because he has  had zero interest in coming when I've ridden with DL and Rbefore but I asked because his saddle was still in my big trailer and he accepted)  I guess he had visions of babysitting amateur riders on just boring flat trails before actually riding with the twins in WY but now knows they like to ride and don't whine or need horses led or anything.

 So I hauled Razz for Dad, Sadie for me of course,  Grey Moun for J and their mom DL rode Lady (she has a bad back so gaited horse that is not going to jump is better for her)   I had dad pull my little trailer and we fetched Mason the 5 miles from his place with that which worked out really well as the ranch owner was hosting a shooting event so there were a lot of extra cars parked around.    They fed dad some supper when he hauled Mason home and he probably visited and talked guns/shooting with them.

It was fun watching J ride Grey Moun.  Grey of course took the lead a fair amount and was looking and listening hard for deer or other possibly hazards but was fine with having Lady lead some later on.  J rode him well,  held him up a couple times early in the ride when DL wanted to ride ahead to take pics, picked the directions to go and so on.  J did grab the saddle pommel to aid with posting Grey's bouncy and sometimes big trot but overall he has a good natural seat and he doesn't get nervous.   I think R would have been happier if we had taken a less technical route, she lives to trot and mostly to canter but she was a good sport about the exploring  trails aspect.   She loves her big guy even though he is the most work to ride.