Need to get in gear if I'm going to ride this AM

After our rainy stretch we are getting a mini heat wave.  Temps are not terribly high but it feels muggy by my high desert standards and its been kicking my butt a bit.   I did pull weeds Tuesday and spray goatsheads yesterday but spending more time surfing than when it was cooler last week.

I should call the farrier I wanted to try again this morning and if I don't hear back I need to move on in the search or contact the endurance guru and see if he can take on 1 more horse.   I don't trust my eyes too far so I will not do the rasping and boots w/o a periodic backup.  I'd really prefer to just go with shoes of some sort than have to rasp and put boots on all the time.  Should be doable if I'm willing to spend the dough.   Sigh,  I hate the search and I hate leaving D as a customer but I have got to have excellent trimming and shoeing not just fairly good if I'm going to ride serious miles on Sadie and I do still think I want to do that.   I'm too young to get plumb lazy and only do dinking around rides at home and a very few walky talky trail rides with dad and sis. 

YAY- Sadie's foot seems all better

I rode her just 3.5 miles Sunday,  turned back early cuz I met someone walking their dog and didn't know where Ole was and didn't want him pestering them.

Monday I took a 7 mile ride.  Sadie had lots of GO,  but was a good girl.   She was not too happy about a kid riding his dirtbike but first time I took her off to the unused ground to the side of the field road and just let her dance around a bit.   The kid was super polite, turned around one time rather than meet us again and then on my way home he was coming on a long stretch of field road with irrigation ditch/canal  on one side and then winter wheat field with about 10 ft strip of unplanted slope.    He paused on the bike (ehh call me sexist for assuming it was a boy under the helmet) and I got off of Sadie so she wouldn't dance into the wheat and be trampling a farmers crop and then I gestured to the dirt bike rider to pass us.   Sadie jumped a wee bit in place but was good, no shoving into me or zooming around in circles. 

 Last week when she got sore on the foot Sadie  was taking it easy before she got sore to the point of having a definite bobble.   She felt a bit uneven a few times but I think it was lookie loos as she was always craning her neck to look hard to one side or dropping down to a walk to look harder at whatever she thought she had seen in the long grass and when I'd resume a trot it felt fine.

I can't tell L if she ever makes it out again to ride Lady but I think Sadie almost got bit by a bullsnake.  She went to graze next to the canal one time and when she noticed the snake I think she nosed it to move.  I didn't see it until it looked like it was getting ready to coil and strike at us and then I was yanking Sadie's head up and legging her to move away from the snake and he moved away from us, whether it was because he only then realized "whoa big thing there" or he was taking the opening to retreat rather than thinking he had to fight off something ready to attack him I don't know. 

I did have to refuse some people who wanted to pet the horsie.  It was after Sadie had first seen the dirtbike and was extra ancy and this nice couple was walking with their 2 little dogs on leash and a wee toddler.   Sadie was kind of zigging down the narrow road when she saw them and I was taking her off to the side when the Dad asked.  I said something like 'I dont No',  'my horse is amped up from that bike and is nervous of your dogs and I don't want her to react and knock your little boy down.'   Heard the little tyke say 'big horse' as I went around with my comfortable cushion.   Heh, Sadie is quite a small horse, but yup pretty big compared to a 2 foot toddler.

   I usually like to be an ambassador for horses and if my mount is calm enough I'll say something like 'ok, pick the kid up so they can reach the horse's neck' but it wasn't happening that time;  someone getting knocked down or into the water would not have been a positive. 

Ughh, trying front shoes on Sadie didn't work out and no ride this weekend

Well the ride up in WY is still on this weekend, its just that I won't be attending it and getting away from this smug asshole state and the endless farmstead upkeep.   Sadie stepped on her shoe when I ws riding her Saturday and I was so stupid I didn't check out the shoe right away and it twitsted way around.   She did not seem sore finishing the ride that day but I rode her on Sunday in hoofboots to test and she was off after about 5 miles of moderate pace riding.

So 19 miles from Friday through Sun, but now Imma have to give her time off.  I'm not sure for how long,  I don't have much experience with hoof soreness issues, not sure if she has a bruise or what.

 I felt very low on Sunday, angry with myself for not being on the ball with the loosened shoe and for not being more proactive this winter to contact the hoof trimmer and boot guy and try to get her feet better and then trying to get by with having D shoe her.    I'm going to have to get a specialty farrier and probably use glue on shoes for a cycle or 2 if I can't be happy with my rasping and the hoof boots option.  

5.2 mile ride today

Should have rode farther but I was lazy getting started and the dark clouds gave me an excuse of 'well maybe I shouldn't get too far from home, looks like there could be a late morning thunderstorm'.   Was going to make Sadie double back most of the pipeline strip for some extra distance but Ole had sat and waited for us after the first 2 miles so with the serpentining I did up the 1/2 mile strip he was right there when I headed back towards the irrigation ditch and I didn't make Sadie go farther anyway. 

 The  Fri,Sat,Sun before memorial day ride in WY has moved base camp.   Since the ride will now be out in the middle of nowhere so no riding through town to start and finish loops I decided to go for it on driving up there.  Called my vet to keep health cert/travel papers arranged.   I was so bummed though,  I found out there is a competitive trail ride at the AFA that weekend but its too late to sign up for it.   If they have it next year I'm going to try and do that.   In state, short drive and pretty scenery that civs don't get to ride on w/o special arrangement anymore.  

There is also a CTR on June 7-8 that is fairly close by.  I need to call and see if I can sign up for it, get some extra exposure before my centered riding clinic.  Hopefully I'll decide Sadie can handle the commotion but I might drag Grey along JIC I decide I want to take him in the larger group activities.  Kind of hate having the 'horse back at the trailer' as extra angst though.   Will have to see how Sadie does with the distance rides and decide.

Only 8.5 miles between Fri and Sat. rides

 Saturday, I was feeling stuffy in the morning and decided to let the horses graze and do more grass pulling in case it developed into feeling dizzy or a miserable headache.   Then it clouded up, sprinkled some, finally had a clear patch and took a short ride.  I was feeling in a bit of tizzy about not training and worked out my frustrations with a fast ride instead of the long ride I should gotten in that morning.   Oh well, I think Sadie is OK.  I'm not wild about her trim(barely) and shoeing job.  May have to haul up to WY just to get some endurance vet feedback.   OTOH Duncan is not some newbie or a disciple of this or that goofy hoofcare theory so perhaps he is correct that Sadie did not have much foot to take off.  At any rate with shoes to keep her feet from just flaring she'll hopefully have a nice rim of wall to take off next time or if I get a lot of "what is your farrier thinking?!" I'll have to shop around and find someone else.  

Sunday it was cold and wet and I didn't do much other than read 1632 by Eric Flint.   Fairly decent story,  I had heard good things about it so I pushed past my initial 'give me a break' over the UMWA as being super-heroic.  I suppose in a smallish town situation and something like mining that can actually be dangerous maybe a union can be kind of a civic/fraternal pride organization rather than a shield for lazy drunks to hide behind so they don't get deservedly fired. 

Other than feeling a bit over the top with the union cheerleading it was an interesting alternate history sci-fi.   Flynn credits the Swedish King as being a good leader and general.  I'm kind of interested to read more about the 30 years war now, although Flint spilled the beans that Gustav died in battle in about year 14 or 15 of the war and it drags on with much misery for the area with another 15-16 years of war and probably a much worse ruler vs if he had lived and ruled over what he had won to date.

When we Americans wring our hands about Putin grabbing back pieces of the Soviet Union I think most of us just have no historical perspective of how much time Europe spent warring amongst itself and how that will drive belief (not sure it can be called paranoia) that one needs to control buffer territory around your core country.

After reading the story Flint is defending the school/students as a good thing and that a HS senior proposes to and marries a 'camp follower' --an unwilling one, who was doing it as the only way for her remaining family to survive after her parents were butchered by soldiers.   It strikes me as sad that he feels the need to defend those things that rang pretty darn true for me.   When conservatives bemoan schools we are talking about the mandatory aspect and using them to warehouse kids who are just killing time before they can draw a welfare check or live in jail cell vs being there for kids and parents that value education and thus making it hard for teachers to teach the ones that want to learn.

 and nowadays the commie crapola of distorting not just history but math, biology etc.    And I didn't have to suspend any belief to think that a young man would fall in love with a woman who hides her young female relatives (blood and 'foster') in a latrine,  has the old crones make themselves unobtrusive and stands to face the conquering horde she expects will rape the women --and happens to have a good body if not  soft pretty face the way Flint describes her.   How sad to live surrounded by people who actually believe in a kind of new nobility and that common folks need a cadre of 'elite' bureaucrats to order their lives for them.  Ah well I guess that is common among the writers he knows.  

I haven't ranted in a while, guess I'm due

Some jerk and his jerk friends put video of him luring a feral cat with food and then he kicks it and sends it flying.    Of course there was tons of outrage and with them providing the police with the evidence and their identities on a silver platter the jerk has been charged with animal cruelty.  This was on network news last night or one of the news as entertainment programs and was also mentioned on the HQ blog.

Also mentioned and got a fair amount of outrage on the HQ blog was a women who filmed and celebrated her abortion.  I don't know how many weeks she was, I didn't go watch her video myself.    THAT did not get any general public outrage, or if it did the MarxSpewMedia is not acknowledging any outrage. 
 
Now I am not in favor of kicking cats or dogs, and I did not analyze his video in slow mo but he got a lot of height on the cat --which means he scooped with his foot rather than smashing its ribs so it was pretty much 'giving this cat a huge scare' not setting out to actually cause it physical damage.  If I was on the scene I would have wanted to smack his snickering friends that were doing the taping with a cluebat in the form of a 2x4 ---but there are probably multiple kids that got real injuring abuse from a parent on that same day.

AND we have the same day release from some abortion Barbie celebrating the fact that she was not barren and had conceived  "I'll cherish my  sonogram, I'd grab it if my apartment was on fire" but  -paraphrasing-  'I didn't care to make the sacrifices and do the hard work of raising a child right now so I aborted.'    Other than the comment sections on a conservative blog this is ignored or celebrated.  I believe treatment of the powerless and voiceless reveals plenty about a society and that includes treatment of animals, but there is a psychotic schism when scaring a cat makes someone a horrible monster, but aborting a fetus (up to 8 months along if you spend the dough to go to Albuquerque NM) is a celebrated choice.

   It is NOT anything to celebrate when a woman has spontaneous sex w/o protection and does not take advantage of the 'day after' contraception option if she doesn't want a child.   Its worse if that same woman, upon missing a period cannot be bothered to get RU-486 or whatever "in case I might be pregnant and gosh I really don't feel like I could handle motherhood right now"     Having screwed the pooch on both of those  if she gets an abortion in the first trimester she can rationalize that "I probably, or at least possibly, would have miscarried anyway."     Waiting until that is definitely a baby and you may in the future see 3-d sonagrams from friends that fully show how much so at some point OUCH.

One would think liberals who are always moaning that they care about women would want to spare them that emotional pain by making it costly at least in terms of hassle and time to wait vs using the options that have the uncertainty of whether there was even a fetus as a salve for her conscience if the young woman later decides that life, including life in a womb is more sacred and its wrong to end it just because it would cause personal inconvenience.  But of course to leftists human life is not precious unless they can use it to advance the cause of more government. 

4.4 miles on Sadie this morning.

We did quite a bit of cantering.   I should probably work more on trotting but then again, she is a shortie and it may be better for her to do more cantering.    Chance of rain tomorrow.  Sure would be nice if we get a good rain and it softens the horses' feet up.  We probably wont get enough soon enough to help so I probably need to soak Sadies' feet Thursday morning before Duncan comes.  They are dry and hard as adobe.  I think I'm going to give shoes a whirl again, but maybe only fronts this go around.   I must remember she had shoes 1.5 years ago to go hunting.  She was ok for getting them on but then was like "Nooooooo"  when Duncan tried to use the clinch cutter to loosen the nails.  I had to rasp the nails down and take the shoes off myself over multiple days (cuz I'm too weak and don't have a knack to make it easy so couldn't get it done in one go with my weakly back, not cuz she was melting down any more but it was a pita)

I'm still lusting after the 12 year old endurance gelding, that I believe is still for sale, but trying to quash the desire.  But then I'm thinking "why?"  The country is going to collide with reality and math someday,  I think in the medium term future (5-10 years)     Since I don't think the country will be stable enough to rely on any traditional savings there is zero reason not to indulge myself in the here and now.   If I'm willing to take a loss (call it a leasing fee) and he stays sound I can probably sell him this fall or next spring.    I should cowboy up and at least sound out the owner,  I've been hesitant, thinking she may consider me a less then great owner, but he has been on the market since Feb and she got injured so she can't ride him in early rides to show him off......

18 miles on Sadie this weekend

Sadly that was spread over 3 days so not great prep for doing a 25 mile ride.  But baby steps,  upping to 6.5-7 miles was a step up over the 4-5 miles and the day I rode Sadie alone we did quite a bit of trot and canter.   Did a fair amount of trot/canter on Sunday with L and Lady but L was getting a headache so did not push the pace much or add an extra 1/2 mile or anything on the way home.   Well we did canter up the oil-line strip.   I was pleasantly surprised she was up for that at that point.    I am trying to kick myself into gear to make some riding dates.   Being a procrastinator and introvert too often winds up with me just riding at home.   I need to set up riding dates and inform L she can tag along if she keeps up or she has to come out to the place on alternate days.   

Dad is drinking some super green supplement and has stopped buying party size bags of MandMs.  He did meter out the candy by pouring up a small cupful so didn't scarf the bags in just a couple days, but still not great with type 2 diabetes.  I don't know if the supplement or dropping candy is responsible but he has also been doing more around the place in the last week or so.   Perhaps that is just him not wanting me getting so frustrated with trying to keep up some bare minimum maintenance at the cost of riding time that I 'run away' from home but as long as he doesn't overdo and hurt himself its quite welcome.

However I *still* want to hire some grunt labor help.   I'm going to place an ad on CL unless I find someone posting as services or job wanted in my area.  Last week all I saw was lawn services in Denver.   I rode in the mornings and pulled cheat grass in 3 to 4 sessions with breaks both Sat and Sunday and still have 20 square feet or more to go in the gigantic flower bed.    Called the tire place to see about getting two new tires for my pickup.   They can order the exact style I had like I wanted.  I still have pretty good tread on two tires so wanted to match things up and just buy 2 tires.    Over $250 per tire but its been a couple years since I did p/u tires so I was thinking it might be up to $300 with inflation.   I'm sure not going to replace trailer tires just based on age though, or even the p/u tires with good tread are probably over the recommended age limit but they seem to be in good shape. 

Well 4-14 has come and gone and I did not get procesisng going and tell my work 'I'm dropping to part-time"

Having a bit of a hard time with this today.   I had thought I had it all settled in my mind.  Its a good job, I like aspects of it yada yada yada.   But today I feel like the scientist in Atlas Shrugs.  I may have to purchase the story on kindle since I gave away my paperback copy.   Its not really a well-told story.  Kind of drags in a lot of parts and I had to skip sections where Ayn's main hero is belaboring the points so I didn't expect to want to re-read it.  But she did nail so much of human nature that gets sucked into these socialist whirlpools that end up in commie misery and the Francisco protagonist has a lot of very good pithy summations of the good points.

The weather is finally nicer today, but still pretty breezy so I passed on riding yet again, sopped my dismay at skipping that with laboring in mom's gigantic flower bed pulling out cheat grass.   I'm going to have to get busy soon with the grass killer spray on the spots where I've pulled the main tall nasty stuff but new grass is sprouting.    I asked Dad to ask neighbors if they knew anyone looking for odd jobs.  Cannot bring myself to use advertise for anonymous labor off of CL yet.  I may come to that and we'll just have to up our security routine to compensate but holding off for now.   My legs and back have adapted to the work for the most part but my right hand and forearm are sore from so much grasping and left side is getting there.