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.