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.

rode 5 miles this morning

I haven't figured out why but I am holding off on asking on FB group if anyone is doing a training ride on saturday.   Can't decide if I really want to go alone or ride at home and do other stuff or what. I think mainly I'm not eager to ask and then be like gulp I don't want to have to show up that early but  thats pretty silly.   I think I could stumble out early and then take a nap.

I am having such a tar ball  situation trying to improve my estimation of glonass clocks at work.  It does not feel like job security having it be a hard problem right now but then sometimes I think I'd rather drive truck part time or smuggle cigarettes or something anyway.  

Did get a quick 3 mile ride in on Monday, going to whiff today

So at least I did get a ride in yesterday.   I was 15 minutes late for the bank thing and then we had to wait for 5 minutes.   I didn't ask if she was free right at the dot,  don't really care.   Need to tell dad I'd rather he borrow from me first,  the bottom rate on his line of credit is WAY better than I am getting at the credit union.  I know its poor money management on my part to have inflation way outstripping the wee interest I'm getting -- but getting up to my WY property hardly happens so I'm reluctant to spend money improving it;  I sure don't want to be more in stocks, as I have plenty of that thru the work retirement plan,  really don't want to go crazy buying gold or silver ...... 

 Don't feel like I have time to spend on lots of horses and diesel to drive to fun places to ride although I'm trying to live more in the moment,  there is no sense in hoarding electronic dollars in a bank when the country keeps rushing down the Weimar Germany,  Zimbabwe path, spending money it doesn't have to bribe people to just quietly sit around and watch TV and bitch on FB. 

Rode about 8.5 and then 9 miles Sat and Sunday

I should have hauled out but I wanted to get goatshead burrs sprayed and with the heat and my whiny shoulder I just didn't have enough gumption to spray more than 1x on Saturday.  Sunday if a wee storm system had not cooled things off around 6 pm I wouldn't have gotten much of ride as I'd opted to spray in the morning vs ride after moving slow.   But it did cool off and had a pretty good ride with quite a bit of trot and canter in recently harvested stubble fields which opened up going in a new direction which was a pleasant change up.

I should grab at least a short ride today but need to start moving a lot faster if I want it to happen.   It must be summer, horse is healthy .....   so I am irritated that dad wants me to sign for a line of credit on the place, then Tues I set up a chiro appt which I need,  shoulder and I'm sure I have a stuck spot in my back.  And then my boss set up a 9-12 meeting on Wed that I need to go to.   Grrrr,  he KNOWS that I really prefer not to come in until after noon,  of course with a few days notice I normally don't mind a morning meeting once in while,  its just that this one messes with riding to get Sadie legged up for that upcoming ride, especially coming after 2 other mornings with other stuff that will keep me from taking more than super short rides if I get that done.    In winter if I only go 3 days between rides that feels like I'm doing good but I want to have somewhat of a ride season this year. 

Need to get moving so I can ride again today

Stupid google has dated my monday post as tuesday.  I think they have me on eastern time.    I evened up Sadie's heels on her front feet tuesday (well more like her bars,  the very back of the heels looked even but then it looked like she was high on the outsides before little chips)   Yesterday I rounded off the toes on the front feet some more.   I need to look at her hinds now and need to get on the stick and find a new farrier.   I don't have much faith in my eyes so I don't want to be having to fix what I think he left uneven.  Plus I'd still like to just go with having her shod although hoof boots are working OK for now. 

After rasping I rode 5 miles both tuesday and wednesday,  I don't think I'm going to get that distance bumped up any today but its not too bad for middle of week riding.    I called the RM for a ride Aug 1 and 2 and mailed an entry to ride both days.   I may have to bow out of the 2nd day but it looked like such a fun ride and new trails each day. 

Well I'm glad I didn't have enough gumption to spray today

Because the wunderground weather web page was wrong and it rained.   I did get a fair amount of spraying done on Sunday.   Also rode Sadie 7.5 miles with good amounts of trot and canter both Saturday and Sunday.   Today our farrier came.   I just had him trim Sadie along with the rest of the herd because I haven't found anyone else yet.

BUT I MUST start searching harder.    I asked him to give her a mustang roll and he just did his usual trimming style with maybe taking a bit on the quarters so they would not chip.   I'll be rasping the toe and sides myself to get the amount of 'roll' I wanted.  

I got my carpet tiles put in my trailer on Saturday.   They went in pretty nicely and the color looks fine.   I have enough colors in the trailer and the carpet has enough color bits that it blends in fine. 

The twins I hauled to the Shamrock ride gave my $60 for gas which I didn't need.   So I signed up for a hoof boot exchange group on yahoo and bought some used size 5 epics for their draft cross.   Hopefully they fit his fronts fine and will stay on well in use and I can decide if he needs same size on backs or one down if he even needs them.    I would like to be able to take them places that have serious rock and not worry that its beating up his feet.   

TGIF

I love the paycheck and mostly enjoy the coding part of my job but it is very much a TGIF week.  Reading comprehension how does it work?  but I should know better than to expect it from folks who think that voting for the party that stomps on the economy with ridiculous regs and punitive taxes on almost all producers outside the 0.1%ers means voting for better science funding.   hello does the term 'discretionary spending' mean anything to you?    Its one of the things that gets cut when the budget gets squeezed.    One does not even have to understand that logic,  looking at history also shows that the so called anti-science party spends more on funding science. 

I borrowed a "Keep Calm" meme sink poster idea from a downstairs kitchen and printed it up,  had to go the extra step of putting it over the haranguing note myself but at least it has not been taken down -yet.  I do hope it is left and no more harangues are put up,  my cream is only half gone and only has about 1.5 weeks left on shelf life.    I'd like to put it in the pool next week but I will be flat stubborn enough to just trash it instead if the note nazi can't STFD and STFU now.   I am not going to "be nice" when I have to look at a dammed harangue every time I use the kitchen.  

I sprayed some weeds on Tuesday but have felt too steamy to do any more spraying since.   It is supposed to be 10 deg. cooler this weekend for highs so hopefully I get some spraying and riding done.  Today I bought myself some carpet tiles to put in my trailer.   The GPS would have had me going in circles forever with one street that was not there, but when I peeled out of the loop the second time around and it re-calculated it did then manage to get me to the location. 

 Tried to tell me the wrong side of the street but I eventually muddled through that and found the hole in the wall 'store'.    They do carpet tear-outs and cut up the carpet pieces into tiles.   This will work much better than rugs that bunch up.  They are nice stiff rubber backed things.   They didn't take much care to only take the better patches of carpet when cutting their 'tiles'  but for only .50 a square foot and considering the hard use that floor gets its great.  Hopefully I like the color I picked out OK when I get it in my trailer but I'm not very fussy so it should work out fine.  

Survived taking 13 year old twins to Shamrock

These are excellent, well behaved kids by general standards.  They asked a few times if they could help in some way and were polite and did what they were told.

But I have no experience dealing with kids or even supervising adults so I am not good at setting out tasks continually and I found out that even great kids are not self starters who just look around and do things that haven't been done yet or keep something like 'scatter the horse poop' done w/o reminders. 

So it was some extra stress for me at times but overall I had a fun weekend too.   The kids had a blast,  the girl has always wanted to go horse camping and figured it would never happen because they don't have a truck and trailer (and horses original owner either gets too nervous or too sentimental/bittersweet seeing him with kid or is just too selfish to even go a short distance out of her way to haul them to join her on a day ride near home)  I hauled Lady up too and the boy really had a blast riding her.   He has a great natural seat and 'this is fun' when Lady would jump the creeks to stay with the herd.  I have had Lady across water but haven't worked with her recently and she was putting her priss on or something.  

My dad enjoyed himself too.   We skipped this ride last year, after I had planned to go up because I didn't think Sadie was ready for the longer ride and our neighbor that almost always does our chores was taking a trip that weekend so it just didn't feel like a good idea to go.    I know dad was really looking forward to going because he had most of his packing done a day ahead of time and he tends to procrastinate on the packing task.

I still decided Sadie was not ready for the LD again this year.  Well I thought she could probably do the LD one day but she might get a little leg sore and not be able to go out and do the the fun rides and then dad and the kids might have problems getting herd bound Razz and Lady to go out w/o Sadie.    It was very hot this year and I was feeling fairly wilty so I was kind of glad I was not riding 30 miles and very relieved that I was not doing the 55 mile ride any of the days.

I also found out that while Sadie is getting much better about anxiety of being around strange horses she is probably going to have some race brain.  She really wanted to catch up if she saw other horses in front of her.   So doing the fun ride at just under 4 mph rather than entering the LD and having to keep up 5mph to finish on time and having all that adrenalin from the other horses was a good thing and she got lots of practice crossing water,  going through draws and stuff.     Easyboot gloves stayed on and she did not get sore.  I still need to find a great farrier but at least I know the fall back option will work OK.

still alive

Been cleaning and packing the trailer and p/u for trip to WY.   Have not been on the horse since Sunday and that is mostly what I write about so no posts.

I have not pinged nor been pinged by the DL family since Friday.   That is a bit weird,  I need to contact her if she is not going to contact me first.   My mantra borrowed from Hay Creek ranch of "it will be fine"   only goes so far w/o some pre planning and communication.

Dad used up all the water last night watering the little flower bed --he forgot to shut it off after 45-60 minutes.  I don't know if the system recovered so that he was able to water the big flowerbed today or not.   Probably he waited to see if it would rain,  possibly he borrowed tanks and trailer from neighbor and hauled more water in.   He has sentimental attachment to mom's flowers too so I am not going to nag/ask him about it.

Heh 'speaking' of nagging:   Someone has left dishes in the sink at work all week.   Before someone went all nagging nazi with notes over the sink after I forgot my gunky  1 qt pyrex over the weekend *I* probably would have washed the one plate, cup and 2 utensils since "I use this sink a lot and sometimes forget my soaking dishes"    But I am holding resolute on the no community actions until/unless the extra nagging note that was up on the Monday after I'd forgotten my dish is taken down.    Perhaps someone will mention the situation someday and I will inform them why some things that used to happen just don't anymore and why my cream is "mine, hands off'."   They probably think its about money or something like that since they are on such a different wavelength than me.