Dad got his buffalo

I gave dad a buffalo hunt for Christmas/Birthday for this year and last.  I had offered to get him some kind of hunt last year but he never picked one out and this year neither of us got a deer tag.  So when dad was saying he didn't think he needed to go elk hunting I said "well I was going to get you a hunt last year and it didn't happen, do you want to do a buffalo *hunt."  *Many large ranches in the mountain/plains region that run their buffalo on large pastures will sell a hunting package rather than just selling the meat after butchering.    We went to a nice lodge in Nebraska that is set up as a hunting experience.   They import elk and some exotic game animals as well as having their buffalo herd and will also sell deer, turkey, pheasant hunts for wild game on their property or neighboring ranches that give them a lease for hunting.

Dad didn't care about getting a trophy, so we got the meat hunt which was a 3 year old bull.    The buffalo were hiding from stiff wind in 1F weather on Saturday, we were all over their 3000 acre leased pasture in p/u and ATV but only saw a small group of cows and calves and 3 of the big bulls.  But Sunday was warmer and no wind and the main herd was in one of the expected spots so Dad was able to shoot his young bull.     I had no feeling for how much room it would take up in a freezer so I had went through both freezers tossing some old freezer dried veggies and feeding our dog plenty of freezer burned meat.  

There is plenty of room in the freezer now so I could buy lots of bread or any freezable veggies.  I made a meatloaf last night with a package of the buffalo burger from one cooler where the lid had gotten knocked open a few inches and stuff was thawed.   We won't have to force ourselves to eat the meat :)     I must have dad invite the neighbors and wife's parents visiting from AK over for a meal either Monday after Christmas or on NYD or Jan 2 which I have as a holiday at work and ask if they want steaks or pot roast. 

Horses survived the cold weather.   CJ looks like he lost more weight than he needed to, but the rest look pretty good.    I must add pictures later or I will be late for my chiro appointment this morning.

Horses and I are still alive

Our old dog Ole did pass away since I last posted.  RIP happy wiggly mutt.   I miss having my pre-cleaner for the pots and pans.   Mia dog will do some, but she isn't smart about holding the dish if needed and being mostly outdoor dog she is not right there handy.   But we will not get a new dog until next year and possibly will wait quite a while and try to get a Rottweiler without buying a pup from a breeder.   Dad and I both like Rottie personalities and the hair coat would be better for the gaggle of burrs that grow around our place.

I have defrosted both our freezers getting ready for the Buffalo meat after dad does his hunt.  Mia is having a month of Christmas treats with the freezer burned meat, but there was not a huge amount of waste.  I can make scads of Rhubarb juice.  I knew Mom had a bag or 2 of rhubarb  but there was a whole box full.   Our neighbors who moved to AK and are visiting their daughter and SIL in December will be happy to take a gallon.  

I have been riding a little bit but have been in winter break mode even before it got cold this week.  I brought Lady home the Sunday after thanksgiving.   The family bailed on doing any trail riding so I just rode Tanza at home that morning before I got Lady in the afternoon.   It was passable at home but there was a cold wind where Lady was boarded so it worked out not to be trying to ride in that chill.

I have been having the most forgetful week.   Monday I could not find my purse before work and finally accepted that I must have left it in the office on Friday.  Today I forgot it at home and stopped to buy groceries w/o even registering "wait where is my purse" before I got to the cash register.  Arghhh and argghhh again.   So stinking stupid but I have food for lunch at work and plenty of gas to get home so there is no real harm even though I'm so annoyed with myself.  

Part of being forgetful is I've been so annoyed with dad lately.  I don't even know exactly why,  mostly I suppose because he has been dragging with a cold or allergies and he knows he needs to get his long term blood sugar level down but keeps eating way too much candy and chips and crap.  I fear having to deal with things if he passes away but I don't have it in me to nag at him to eat his veggies as though he is a young child of mine.  He knows he should eat well,  I make some effort to cook stuff he likes sometimes with leftovers available every weekend but even when I make something that reheats perfectly well he usually leaves leftovers sit and eats candy chips and canned soup all week.  And he could cook from scratch for himself but just chooses to be lazy about it.   And he is 77,  I really don't have any valid reason to say "You HAVE to take care of yourself to live longer."  He isn't yearning for the grave, he sees his docs regularly and takes medications but he isn't willing to give up eating junk food to be healthier.  

 Well I wouldn't be willing to give up yummy foods either but I did stumble on to this eating style that calls itself IF (intermittent fasting)   eating window would be a more accurate term since there is no "dont eat any solid foods for a day" involved.  It is just confine your eating so that you have 14 -23 hour periods including sleep cycle of not eating in a day.   I started with 14 hour "fasts" and taking the weekends off because I wouldn't make supper until after dark and didn't feel like I could push breakfast off for very long but with winter short days and having got into the routine I'm usually making it 15-17 hours of "fasting"  7 days a week and my weight is dropping and I've been feeling good.  I still eat some junk along with decent food but not as much and my body gets that break from being awash in blood sugar and insulin each day.

I almost posted my rant on an internet BB

Thought better of whinging there.  I've vented about the situation before and it would be too close to gossiping behind backs.    But as I was typing up my whine I remembered that most folks I met in real life were pretty close to how I had thought of them from internet posts.   It really is this one case where the postings have been so much about how hard-working they were, volunteering for flood cleanup, volunteering to clean stalls for critters evacuated due to fires etc.  And then with me, doing nothing that I don't tell them they need to do.   I'm not a great manager, naturally telling folks "make sure you do this and this and that"  so it annoys me highly when I *expect* that I would not have to demand basic courtesy chores be done and find out the hard way that nothing more than what I spelled out in advance gets done.

I am so cynical and yet not cynical enough

I have always had a pretty high level of cynicism for 'too good to be true' deals from anonymous public.  And I have developed a pretty good level of  'yes the public is so dumb they will fail to see through the media'  thanks to cases like Matt Shepherd.   I knew that WY was no hotbed of of homophobia but even I figured it was possible that a couple of young men were so full of hatred that they killed Matt because a gay man had flirted with them.   Then came to find out that that was just a media invention and inspired the killers  lawyer to use a lame 'gay panic' defense but that folks who were involved in the case knew that Matt was a meth dealer and the pair that killed him were clients, one was on a 5 day meth bender and was bisexual and had been in bed with Shepherd.  But they wanted to present a narrative that gays needed special protections from the masses who were not enlightened like the rich urbane folks.

But still I tend to take people that I meet, even through internet bulletin boards at face value when they post about all the stuff they do and then find myself disappointed and angry when I find that when I do them favors like hauling their horse, or even giving the horse a quick boot camp when it was getting unruly to nip in the bud the chance of it going outlaw they just take the favor, mumble a quick thank you and slip off w/o cleaning up the horses pen even though the mom has bragged online a lot about how they cleaned up the pen of the neglected horse they took under their wing.

Perhaps I should have been flattered that they knew they didn't have to worry that I'd leave their horse standing in shit over his fetlocks, but I was pissed that they didn't clean up after him when they came out to ride.   Then it was "oh you are on the *cookie list*"  We always bake Xmas cookies for folks that have done nice stuff for us during the year.  Except I found out they came to the town where I work, but didn't bother to stop to leave me any after several postings about how I was getting cookies.   I didn't need any dumb  cookies but to have been told over and over about what they were baking and oh you were so nice you are on this list it was a let down when they didn't bother to bring me any.

Last year it was hauling them to Garden of the Gods and cleaning all the horse pens where we stayed, not just cleaning up after my horse, but I told myself it was ok since they did the supper, but when the taking them to an endurance ride this year turned into "R *has* to volunteer for band the night before"  and I had to demand that twin brother J come so I would have some help when I thought about it and was like "oh shit I can't handle that by myself"  it was kind of the last straw for me.    J was a great help but I'm still so annoyed at prima donna R and mom that I don't want to do anything with the family anymore.      But I feel a bit bad that J is paying price for the lazy sister and the mom that is not discouraging sister from using the fluttering lashes to get out of doing the work for what she wants.

So should have been using fly masks

Tanzaknight and RazzMo got pink-eye from the flies hanging right around their eyes.  I skipped going to a ride Oct 8th to ensure I didn't spread something contagious or overly stress Tanzaknight when he might be under the weather.

Vet was out today and figures it is a horse version of pink-eye.   They got their tear ducts flushed from  the nostril end, some ointment and advice to use fly masks on them and put antibiotic ointment in the eyes for 5 days if they will let me.   So I feel like a bad horse owner for not using fly masks the last few weeks when the flies did start hanging around the horses' faces so heavily.   Grey Moun removed his mask when I was trying to be nice to him and I had decided to skip masking and had never even tried them for Tanza.

I was not severely bummed to miss the ride because I had thought way out that only 2 weeks after the Spanish Peaks ride might not allow enough recovery time but then Tanzaknight was so strong at the end of that ride, didn't have any fill in his leg issues or weight loss so I had thought 'ok we may as well go to this last ride for the season'  Oh well.  It was not a bad ride season compared to the lean years when Shade was starting to the arthritis and before I got Sadie.   We entered and completed 5 rides for 205 miles.   We won't get any MRER award because I moved up to 50s after the first 2 rides but completing the BigHorn 50,  getting through the Mtn Mettle after the trailer tire loss and no real sleep from trying to sleep in cab of dad's pickup and finishing the Spanish Peaks ride feeling good is better than getting a fleece vest or jacket.  

Love my little red horse

Tanzaknight finished the Spanish Peaks 50 with about 9 hours ride time,  1 hour faster than Mtn Mettle and looking pretty strong.   He did have a bit of erratic heartbeat at the 2nd VC and finish.  Vet  said that was probably a little electrolyte imbalance.   He ate less than 1/2 of his big overnight mash with electrolytes in it so I probably should have given him some elytes in the morning before starting the ride.    For future I'm going to offer him mini-meals with 1/2 doses of electrolytes to try to get more of the slow release ones in him and have a better idea where he is.  And I will skip the calcium addition JIC that was putting him off eating.

I think I rode better and that helped Tanza be less tired even though I did less conditioning miles on him while I was fiddling with what bit to use,  german martingale and length on it and putting on a balance rein to keep from bumping his mouth when his trot got bouncy at home.   At the ride I just used the saddle pommel and did not worry about keeping tension on the reins.   Tanza did a good job of not running up on the horse in front of him or getting too fast when we were not in a group.

He is SO FUN to ride at these events.  Oddly he gets a bit more keyed up at home and is harder to ride.  Sadie is the opposite.  She gets keyed up even at home but she tends to get so hyper its not fun at group events.  So betwixt them both I have it covered,  if I networked more and could get riding dates for working Tanza on a regular schedule to get him legged up well I think he has so much natural ability that he could become a competitive horse and run for ride placings and season points totals.    Having that potential is already leading me to stretch myself more than I have in several years; perhaps he will turn me into a serious rider rather than just a piddler as I have been.

I hope Dad can learn to not overcook when we get his buffalo

Everything I've read is that it is extra important to leave meat a bit more rare when it is extra lean.   Well burgers were not extra lean and burgers so I wouldn't have wanted them pink.  But they did not need to be cooked to the point that the edges were nearly hockey pucks, sigh.   But at least I got out of cooking beyond heating some pork and beans to with them and it was so late that I was not very hungry anyway.   I am still struggling to keep myself in a decent mood this weekend.   ARGGHH.

Damn crystal ball.  I should have gone to the ride up in WY.  The change of scenery would probably have been very helpful even if I ended up yawning all next week at work.  Oh well I do not have a time machine.   I need to try to get a riding date for labor day Monday.   I'm actually toying with idea of coaxing dad to ride if I cant hook up with an endurance rider.  Tanza is so keyed up at home and I've been tensing as a result and we feed each others tension instead of having a nice relaxed ride. 

TGIF

Well kind of,  at least there will be no work crap for 3 days.   And next week at work should be smoother with all the PITA bosses gone.   I suspect they are viewing me as a very PITA underling, but dragon lady has to dragon.   I  WANT the group to survive and I have serious concern that it might implode if some changes are not made, changes the bosses are reluctant to make.  

But it is lonely to be the dragon.  No one dares challenge me, but there is no comaraderie.   And I self-inflict wounds with doubting, wondering if I should have bit my tongue and so forth.

But I am a survivor and I WILL come through this.   The most they can do to me anytime soon is non-renew my position and I might have some free time while eligible for unemployment benefits and I can always cashier or drive truck to pay bills.   To do a fire with cause they need a long paper trail of warnings and shit or a serious offense.  Its always easier for them to go "oh dear, your position is being eliminated, sorry we have to lay you off."

I'm feeling blue because I didn't get a health certificate for Tanza and talked myself out of going to the ride this weekend because I thought I might be asked to have a sit down meeting with bosses on why/how etc to work changing the position/duties of the problem senior software person.  But they blew it off.  They are probably hoping I'll drop it by the time they get back.  I am concerned that the frustrated and super talented junior software engineer may decide that things are not going to get better and leave if the management doesn't act.

I also thought I would get more done at work generally and not so much.  Oh well.  I'll have time next week, with no one in the office to come with new demands.

Did I speak too soon?

I am feeling edgy again today.   I cannot imagine why my boss suddenly wanting good results from project that was dropped because I couldn't fix it so they went and hired an orbital expert who comes in November puts me out of joint /sarc.

I am wondering if response to my email was just a diversionary "oh yes,  I understand your feelings" gambit.  But I do know that he was going to cut out the problem by making the group "flat" but the former group boss who was moved up to managing program talked my direct boss out of it.  And big boss had a point,  if group was completely flat my boss would have to spend too much time on the PITA CYA paperwork that HR demands.  But big boss was probably also protecting feelings of his long time friend and refusing to admit making any mistake w/ making friend the supervisor for software development.

  They need to get pink elephant out of the way of the software/tech wizard.  They could leave him supervising me,  have the new hire 'supervise' the young software team (tell her she just has to do the HR crapola,)  the team members are very self directed and don't need management except to get the elephant out of the way to the extant possible.  He is a problem for never wanting to get on board with things we HAVE to do because we signed a contract that we would have IT security and whatnot and it makes it hard for the ones who have to develop stuff when the stubborn employee who is dragging their heels on getting on board is called their supervisor.  

I guess I do have to say minerals are helping though because I don't feel quite as edgy as I would have last week.   Still god bless the inventor of sudoku.    Focusing on the little numerical puzzles helps me get over emotional angst and be able to do work again.

I am tempted to run up to ride in WY this weekend.  I had thought I would skip it, because its a long drive but I am feeling like I could use a change of scenery.

well upping amounts of minerals taken is helping some

Saturday I almost had a meltdown riding Tanza.   Head bopping to the maximum was freaking me out.   After sleeping on it I decided I need to ditch the tie down I bought.  Its too big and heavy and I think it bumps his nose, then he tosses head, gets bumped harder and away we go.   I put him back in the D-ring snaffle with a fairly loose german martingale and had a normal ride on Monday morning.  WHEW!   I was frantic at the thought that maybe he actually has a pretty sore leg.

I had a decent ride on Sadie on Saturday so that was pretty good.  I had planned to take her to an AERC ride on Sunday but I kept putting off packing up for it and finally told myself that if I was not wanting to go then I should just stay home, its not like I had pre-registered or anything.  

I got all the goats heads sprayed on Sunday.    I'm still going to be spraying quite a bit next year as many had already set burrs before I got them sprayed but it is progress not to have just crossed off even trying to spray some areas.    Spots that I got sprayed the last couple years did not have a lot of burrs so I feel like I can get down to only having to spray the few that pop up to keep them from getting established again if I am able to spray at the right times next year.

Of course being human nature instead of celebrating the goats head battle I have started to obsess over all the dead branches around the place and a bit on the gates that I should cover with wire mesh or put boards in gaps before Tanza wrecks a leg putting his foot through rails.   Little stinker thinks it cute to rest a front hoof on a rail and even slide it through.  He has been calmly removing the foot but he only has to be startled at the wrong time once.   Oh and I'm also trying to get some new trees going to have more pasture shade, trying to save a couple trees that have been struggling and trying to keep up with fly bait and stuff.  I spent so much time and effort on trees and yard work on Sunday, plus it was hot in the afternoon that I punted on riding at all that evening.   Then I baked a pizza and we ate pretty late and my tummy was unhappy Sunday night and naggingly so all day on Monday.  I got my revenge on it by doing the IF even though I did not have very large breakfast or lunch.   No issues today so apparently that worked out.

We had a work retreat last Friday and OMG I went out of my normal character,  and took on the pink elephant that everyone else was ignoring and generally was pretty vocal all day.   I blamed that for not feeling like going to the AERC ride on the weekend.  I was drained Friday night and still on Saturday and Sadie has been such a whirling dervish at times this summer I just felt like it would be too much trying to make sure I didn't disrupt anyone else's ride weekend.

Felt like I didn't have the energy to do that after draining my reserves trying to fix the elephant issue at work so we don't lose key people and fail as a group.   Office does seem happier this week so I (and my boss) at least have some reprieve before we maybe have to take more steps to deal with elephant.  I personally do not have confidence that the issue will stay fixed w/o some reshuffling of the hierarchy but now I know my boss is on same page and I will back him up if we have to lean on the higher level boss to let us fix the problem.

From the blahs to the grumps

Usually when I get overly irritated by dumb little crap like the office used up the sugar I brought in and then some nut brings in organic coconut sugar that doesn't taste great I can review my diet and vitamins and go "I've been drinking extra coffee" or "better order more of my female balance capsules or start taking magnesium again."    Well maybe the pricey magnesium + tablets I bought to support my friend with her latest MLM venture aren't delivering much Mag to my system and I need to get liquid gelcaps again.  Surely many stores carry them and I can find them somewhere other than Target.  I am not a boycotter normally but I really don't want to be giving any business to such a snooty company; calling concerned customers who warned them perverts would abuse a dumb "transgenders can choose the bathroom that matches what gender they self identify as in our stores" policy.  

I have been trying to get the yard into nicer shape and eradicate goats heads in the horse pens.  I have made progress on the eradication front although I will still be spraying plenty next year.   We have been cutting off some dead branches and that project is depressing because after a good bit of work we still have scads of dead branches on trees scattered throughout the yard.   I overdid the yard work on saturday and had no oomph to ride that evening and then Sunday was hot when I thought the cooler weather would last.   Plus I tried to transplant a few trees.   That project took a lot more out of me than I thought it would and I don't know if any of the moved trees will survive.   The cottonwoods are not looking good.

I've got the blahs today

Dumped and filled horses tank last night but left the water running and ran the cistern and well dry.  It is slowly recovering but I am so annoyed with myself.  Feeling generally stupid today this weekend.  Perhaps I need to not poke at the chess threads on the blog I follow, I often feel like an idiot for missing obvious stuff and having to ask.   Hmmm, well I guess its very theraputic to write it out.  I was thinking there was other stuff I mucked up and can't recall now.   Just general politics and feeling like I can't get enough of the yard work and maintenance done dragging me down.   Eventually the crucial stuff is done.

Cowboy up

AKA as suck it up buttercup, put your big girl panties on and deal with it etc.

When I took Lady up to the ranch in Golden for her summer feed lease the daughter asked me about Shamrock.  Well I had not gotten a coggins test on Lady, had figured they would be booked on the 4th either with grandparent stuff or pet sitting so suggested I could haul them to a ride here in Colorado that has an intro/fun ride.    Me and my big mouth.

The son had been staying with dad and I thought mom and daughter could ride the fun ride.   Ended up that son wanted to come and ride.  This was a good thing; he is a big help with camp chores, but it meant that the two kids would need a sponsor so I messaged that info to the mom and also passed on RMs email when the trail boss said they should contact her.    And I emailed the RM to let her know my plans to ride the 50 only on Saturday so wouldn't be camping thursday night and that I was trailering horses for these teen kids and they would need a sponsor.

A week before the ride I get an email from the RM saying mom has not been in contact with her.  I am like WTF?  messaged mom and said ummmm if you don't want to do this I can haul you out for a day ride sometime.   "no we'd love to come"    I had to text her that the RM and riders offering to sponsor stranger's kids were doing me a big favor and I needed to know their time and efforts would be respected and thanked.   Also a bit previously mom had announced that daughter had to volunteer for orchestra so they would not be able to come on Friday.   Dear lord I am so bad about saying "OK fine"  without thinking about the extra work involved.   So I also added to the text that I probably needed son to come with me to help with horses on Friday. 

Well son was a big help if a bit unorganized.   I get there on Friday, thinking they would all be there to pack up the horses and stuff and it was just son and daughters horse was still out in the big pasture.  Son and I had to go catch him.     Get on the road and I had a loose trailer tire that I did not realize.  The nut that holds the bearing on the axle was loose.  Thankfully other drivers alerted me there was something wrong with hand signals and I got pulled over before the wheel broke off entirely. 

I cowboyed up at this point and called my dad to see if could bring his stock trailer and p/u and I would still go to the ride even w/o my LQ.   I have awesome family and dad did drop his plans and came out.  We moved horses and essential stuff to his rig and he limped my trailer home on the 3 wheels.    I got Tanza vetted in, paid the RM for meals and ate a super quick sammich of the pulled pork.   Son set up his tent and crawled in before it was even full dark, I had more prep stuff to do before I could sleep.   I decided the nose of stock trailer was too musty and I would try sleeping in cab of the p/u.   Not the best choice as I couldn't stretch out good, but I did nap some and I never sleep very well before a ride.

Tanza rocks and completed his second 50 mile ride.   I was so tired at the end I was grabbing the saddle pommel to help myself post.     I hadn't taken time in the morning to wake son and remind him that he needed to deal with horse poop and make sure waters were topped up etc and neither mom nor daughter who should have had more awareness as the horse people had done a thing about it either.  Well I said they could take care of that after eating but mom shooed the kids up to take care of things before the ride supper.   Daughter was a whining diva because allergies were flaring.   I had no sympathy for it; she is old enough to know she is allergic to grasses/hay and pine trees and that the ride location was Colorado pine forests and duh; lots of people camping with horses means lots of hay around.

Diva was showing everyone her hives.    I think of hives as bigger than the red bumps that she had.  I've had similar bumps just from prickly heat rash and she had ridden bareback.   I suggested that her brother and I could manage in the morning if she and mom needed to go back that night so she could take care of herself.   That shut down the whining and they all piled into their tent.  They did offer that I could join them as there was plenty of room.  It was starting to sprinkle and I wanted all my horses blanketed because unlike their draft the light horses can get chilled when wet and then having to just stand tied at trailer.  Sprinkle turned into a hard rain by the time I got that done but hurray I had grabbed my oilskin duster as part of my essentials from my trailer and the gooseneck nose did not smell musty anymore, having the door to the horse area open had aired it out I think.   I was able to get a space I could stretch out in without unloading everything which was good cuz I was running on fumes.   I had to tie their draft shorter in the middle of the night so he could not put his butt to the trailer to itch as the rocking kept waking me up.

The kids did clean horse poop in the morning and mom and daughter took off as mom had to work and daughter still felt off (plus Mason was lame at their finish yesterday --mild hoof bruise) son and I rode Sadie and Lady about 6-7 miles.  I was feeling too tired to ride farther and he was a total good sport about turning around when I think he would have enjoyed going twice as far.   Sadie was a little witch when I got on spinning and doing her sissy baby bucking, I even threatened her I would send her to slaughter if she kept asking me to do it.   She settled down as soon as we got headed away from camp though and gave me a pretty good ride.

Son helped me pack up and I drove him, Lady and their draft cross home.   It only took a short while to get stuff unloaded there as son had packed very lightly.  I got home about 4pm and grabbed a beer which I felt like I needed.    I was sore Sunday night and even Monday morning in spite of having taken doses of naproxen and ibuprofen.   I didn't have all that soreness after riding the Bighorn 50.  A combination of factors I'm sure including the sleeping in the p/u cab the night before the ride.

Resolved.  I will not haul that draft for any horse camping that does not have him in a pen.   They can set up an electric fence if they want to go somewhere where there aren't pens available but I can't have that beast trying to tip my trailer over anymore.  I will set a list of requirements that must be met in order for me to haul them anywhere.   Yup, glutton for punishment that I am, I am teasing the thought that I might invite them to the final Shamrock ride next year.  But I won't supervise the daughter if mom is not able to come; I cannot handle the diva crap.

 I will periodically check on my trailer wheels to ensure the bearing nuts on all 4 wheels are tight enough in the future.  

Just been working lately

Spraying weeds.   Paying neighbor teens to mow and spray the little pasture.  Teens are happy enough to run the equipment but they don't seem interested in taking on more manual  work like pruning or weeding.  Well it has been hot, so maybe that will change with the predicted cooler weather.  But I still got to spot spray weeds.  I knew w/o even trying that there is no way a paid teen would walk around and kill goats heads like I do.   You have to obsessively hate them like I do.  Also I have been working at work, but not focused on a project with a deadline so not staying on track like I should be, sigh.

I invited the family that has Lady for the summer to the ride I am going to this weekend.  I am halfway regretting that as they have been slacker on contacting RM to set up sponsor if the kids want to do fun ride.  I am doing the 50 which is two 25 mile loops this year, or possibly 30/20.  At any rate I did not want to ask the RM if I could sponsor them on one of my ride loops because I don't know if Lady or their draft cross could handle the distance and speed so I would complete in the time window to get official completion.   Tanza is just getting into 50s and I'm re-starting after 4 years of not doing them so its not like I could go "oh we can go fast enough on the longer loop to poke as needed for the non fit horses to do the other loop safely"  and this ride is pretty by the letter of the rules which prohibit pacing by people not entered in the ride distance.  I wouldn't be getting help to increase pace but letter of the rules would probably say it was wrong.

Plus they wriggled out on coming on Friday and I stupidly said I could still take the extra horses instead of pushing back.   I need to text and see if the teen boy is coming then, as the excuse was that the girl *had* to volunteer for orchestra.   Also to remind them that if they are not there early on Saturday they won't be doing any official fun ride, but they still need to show up pretty early to take care of the horses cuz I have an early ride start.   I offered to haul them somewhere to just ride on another weekend and they said they still wanted to do this, so I hope they step up.

So pleased with my rare gem

Tanzaknight at the Shamrock ride doing the LD.   We only did one LD because I went up to Shell, Wyoming the following weekend to ride his first 50.   The Bighorn is a tough 50 and normally I would not want to ride it early in a horses' career but I believe Tanza may fulfill my dream of one day doing the Bighorn 100.   I want to enter that as soon as I think he can  handle it so seeing 50 miles of the trail early in his career was a stepping stone for that.

Tanza completed the 50 miles with about 1/2 hour to spare on the time limit and he was great for crossing water at both rides and trail riding with family after the Bighorn endurance event.  My sister's horse who is normally great for crossing water was having a spooky horse trip and Tanza stepped up and crossed many streams and creeks with no leader to follow.   He led a pair of riders from SD up the mountain and across a lot of water on the 50 too.  

struggling to get conditioning ride dates

A lot of the riders are retired or SAHMs and don't want to ride on a weekend when there are more trail users and I am just not good at the networking thing.   Probably its the nature of it that you have to reach out to a lot of people and then personally ask for favors and leads until you get what you need and I fall into feeling rejected after one or two failed attempts.  I really need to get Tanza out though.

He is doing better at home but still I have a limited area where he is comfortable and have to go back and forth to get much distance at all and have been just feeling tired and quitting after only 5-6 miles.

I need to be getting a lot more miles than that on him and I need to keep riding Sadie and should ride her a lot more miles because she is overweight and a bit footsore.

And the goats heads are going strong and I really want to spray them all this year and not have the horse pens be overrun anymore.

Plus Tanza has been getting welts every day.  They go down, but with his allergies I've been freaking out.  I started feeding him the Platinum allergy powder again and am trying to be diligent with spraying fly repellent on him.  I should get him an appointment with the acupuncture vet; Sadie is not having much allergy issues this year.  I have been feeding her the Platinum but in years past she still had raised hairs for several weeks in the summer.   I also stopped letting the horses out to graze the last few days in case thicker bugs out there or Tanza is eating something he is more allergic to.

Tanza completed his first ride of the season

I was going to ride a second day if I felt like he was ready but he was tired by the end of the ride and the stumbling he has been doing made me decide to call it a weekend.  I didn't want to set back our ride season with an injury on the first ride we attended.    He was restless Sunday morning so metabolically I think he would have handled a second day no problems.     It turned out to be a good think I had not taken Sadie along.   I hauled 3 horses home for someone who had lost a trailer wheel driving to the ride.   They hauled their empty trailer home and it made it fine.  Probably at least 95% chance it would have also been fine with their horses in it, but no sense risking injury to the horses if the other tire on that side would have blown out or broke off.  

Shoulder relief girth review

I do like them.   Both Tanza and Sadie tend to get a bit of saddle sliding forward.  Sadie especially will have saddle on her neck.   I had to do some extra shimming on the front of my saddle pads when the saddle stopped creeping up on the withers as much as they both are short backed and a bit rump high I guess.    In neither case is the cinch keeping the saddle completely off the shoulder, but both horses seem pretty comfy and both have laid back shoulders where a saddle would hardly be on the wither at all if it was completely back from the point of the shoulder.

Rode Tanza at a charity ride last weekend and got dunked

It was not the most productive conditioning weekend.  Better than my normal at home riding has been but not as much good work as I had hoped for.

Saturday I showed up and they were all brrrr, not wanting to ride but the mom and daughter that had picked out the trails did saddle up and ride with me.   Daughter got cold and was taking a break and mom rode out to catch up to the others who were doing a slow ride so we could ride together to check out other trail and ask the ditch rider to open a locked gate.  I should have gone with her to catch them but passed because of not wanting to hold her up while I got mounted.  Ugh for being old and fat.

After talking to the ditch rider when we went out together we barely rode any farther so it was probably less than 10 miles total that I did on Tanza.  Better than 4 or 5 at home but not the 12-15 I had hoped to get in.

I woke up real early on Sunday and went back for the organized event to ride the 25.  That was going fairly well until about 8 or 9 miles in they went in the lake where it was a nice shoreline.  Tanza did want to join in getting a drink and got brave and stepped in the water.   But there were tree branches right at the water line and after he had stepped over he had a "SOMETHING touched my leg" moment and went leaping into the lake.  I came off on the second leaping stride and had a moment of panic when water was not just the 18 inches or less I expected and my face went under as I was yelling whoa for Tanza.   It was only 30 inches so I was able to just scramble to my feet and wade out but in less than 60F weather with a good breeze the ride leader said I would get hypothermia if I rode on so I ended up getting a ride back to the base camp area in a Blazer to get my trailer and hauling  Tanza home.   I had a dry Tshirt and polar fleece vest and blankets and someone lent me a wool serape cape so I was not too cold back at camp.

The best thing out of that day was buying an endurance saddle that I think will fit Lady very well at the silent auction they had to raise extra money for the Hope Held by a Horse charity.

I've been using the Wintec on Sadie this spring and liking it.  I think the narrow tree saddle I bought actually will fit Lady even better than the Wintec did so now I can send her to Golden with a good saddle and keep both the Wintec and my treeless in case I want to swap back to it at home.   I could have sent Lady with no saddle or the barrel saddle K has using on Lady but the barrel saddle doesn't fit Lady real well, requires an extra thick pad to not hit her withers + she might use it on Razz this summer when Lady is gone.  And I'm more comfortable with them not just using the bareback pad or a makeshift saddle on Lady,  a well fitting saddle will be safer for her and anyone riding her.

The work week was a bear with lots of morning meetings + raining on Monday so my only weekday morning ride was a quick 3 miles on Sadie on Friday.    I am getting over being wowed by the new guys' smarts.   That is a good thing overall but there is always the letdown as I realize the person I had put on a pedestal has great plenty of faults and is not going to have any brilliant solutions to difficult problems that I just couldn't see because of not being as smart. 

I am pecking away on doing some 'estate planning'   They rolled out a new app at work to show off our great benefits and it did give me a shortcut to seeing what my work insurance was.  It is enough that I can skip buying another policy so that is nice.    I think I can set up the accidental death policy benefit to go to DL who agreed to be the 'god parent' for Lady and Sadie and that will cover most of the costs of caring for them if I die in a car crash or break my neck coming off a horse.   I need to think about how much of retirement benefit to give to the siblings vs charity.   

Sigh, Apparently I'm an outlier

Well what else is new.   But I was pissed that SI is planning to feature Bruce/Catilyn Jenner "nude except for his medal and the flag"  on an upcoming issue.    My first thought was merely  "oh great the attention whore and more push for calling body dysmorphia a new civil right that has to be pushed"  but then I went "wait, what,  they are going to use  Old Glory to cover xis genitalia ?!?"  That is so disrespectful to the the flag, using it to drape anyone's bare genitalia.    I'm guessing here, but they aren't an x-rated publication and the olympic medal is probably too small to cover anything.  

I want to start a campaign to insist that this flag had better be the rainbow flag, transgender flag (yes apparently there is a special flag for that)  Olympic rings flag,  state of California flag but no how no way should Old Glory be used.   But I don't know where to start and I posted it on a horse BB board that a veteran and veterans wife read and no reaction.   Posted it on a conservative politics blog and some "ewww" reaction about the 67 year old almost nude regardless and or because of whatever hormone and surgical attacks on natural biology and only one response that understood the disrespect to the flag was the focus of my outrage. 

I've never even been much of a flag waver type, but the SI plan pisses me off royally.  But I'm terribly sad and discouraged that apparently everyone else thinks its just noise in our slide into Nero style Roman decadence. 

Hurray for good neighbors

And for trying to be one myself.   The neighbor girl that has been riding Lady some came over yesterday.  It was warm but gray skies and wind had been making me feel like I didn't want to be outside.   But with the bump of K's youthful energy I went out.  Had her pull some weeds in the tree bed south of the house while I pulled out old stalks from mom's flower beds that I'm trying to keep enough grass and weeds out that they survive w/o shorting my horse love to become an unpaid groundskeeper in my off work hours.

Then we rode Tanza and Lady in the bigger horse paddock.  I asked K not to let Lady go in her favorite corner because of the tree branches that could poke an eye.  With that, plus I think she processes from last ride and improves even when it has been a couple weeks between rides she was doing quite well with keeping Lady where K wanted to be.   I think they could go down the road with me within 2-3 rides if the progress continues.   Lady does not have an energy leap when she is out of the paddock like many horses do so if there is good control and management of Lady's energy level in the paddock I think they will be fine riding out.

Later I kept on a bit with that energy boost and did some hoeing grass out of the flower bed.  I used the microwave to heat the pulled pork and some frozen veggies for supper.  Dad had the last of leftover mashed taters with his and I had a slice of bread.   I hate the Roman orgy feeling of the 21st century but I do love having convenience foods and the microwave.  If only we could get rid of the outrageous behaviors and cheering of such for status or tribal signaling/flaunting purposes and keep the technological shortcuts life would be really great IMO. 

The candidate for work turned them down.  I suppose they could not offer enough money since he was interested and came for interview and gave a seminar but then declined to accept job and he was higher level than our position before going to east coast and is high level management there.  He wanted to have less management but I imagine their is a pretty high mental barrier to taking much of a pay cut.    So we will have to muddle along w/o getting extra management help.   And we didn't get the contract bid we put in for.   I had a bit of a bad feeling that we were gilding the lily too much, adding extra quarter or more percent of time for 2 or 3 high level people who were not going to have any of that time free from their core projects anyway but I deferred to the management folks who were scared to low bid and end up not covering all expenses for the project.   And we might still have not got low enough to be competitive, as there is no way we would have gone nearly as low as the company that won the bid did. 

Making hay while the sun shines

Not actually putting up hay,  we don't even have any hay fields.  But I've been making it a point to ride each morning this week before heading to work because the forecast is for it to rain or possibly snow all weekend.  

I am blessed with a couple of good horses.   Sadie is weak on the staying sound side but if endurance was out of the picture she is the perfect horse for me, she is so good about going out on short solo dirt road rides and even when she is being rowdy nothing she does feels like its going to fling me to the dirt.

Tanza is coming along.  I think his legs will hold up to as much riding as I get back up to doing and he is getting quite a bit better about relaxing if I take him out by himself and I know he is good in groups, having none of Sadie's angst about being surrounded by other horses.   Yesterday I slapped him out of Lady's feed pan so he had to run around a few minutes before letting me catch him,  oh my is he a pretty mover. 

Take it easy, take it easy

Or maybe its "I don't care anymore,  no more no more no more".   I have been trying too hard and messing up, wanting to make a good impression on the POD hire even when he was just a member of the team.  He was hired before the BOD of the big corporation that manages everything got rid of their stupid Che quoting corporate president hire after letting him agitate for 3 years without being a leader who replaced what he had decided was too old and hidebound.   And things have just been worse since people in our group got bumped into management roles because our excellent director moved up to try to save the midlevel program that we are part of and the corporation as a whole.

So I am resolved to remember that I have savings and quite a bit in the retirement plan and I wouldn't feel like just working as a driver, or even just a cashier etc for ten years or so before started drawing retirement was the end of the world.  I will still try to do a good job, as I don't want to contribute to the group or corporation failing and putting some decent folk coworkers out of a job;  but  *I* dont NEED this job so there is no reason whatsoever for me to go all angst over every inadvertent flub.  If I'm still flubbing at least I maybe won't feel as upset if I haven't tried so hard and probably if I just relax more I'll actually do better.  

And hopefully the group hires the candidate that they had come and give us a seminar last week.  That person has a lot of program management experience and our group is floundering on the management side IMO.   So if they hire this dude and he helps out with the management while getting to do more research which he has zero time to do at his current location it should be win win. 

They were looking for more of a pure researcher at the initial science side initially from what our scientist on the committee told me at lunch but the first choice candidates they would have liked are all happy in current locations and they realized they could use some help on the management side.  And IMO getting a good researcher on the what all can we do with the data/products we are generating could be just as useful to expanding program work long term, and it has more chance of success than pitching a new satellite to funding agencies.  So I'm jingling curb chains for that. 

A quick Grey Moun memory

 Grey was very "we've BTDT and Teresa has the T-shirt." He quickly got used to meeting Mtn bikers on trail and I had to insist we give them a little extra JIC room. But one time we saw a biker take a header coming downhill and then the bike slid towards us, not scary close nor fast but it made a life long impression on Grey and always after that any unmounted bike got the eagle eye as we went by in case it was one of those outlaw bikes, cuz if they'd throw their rider who knows what else they might do.  

Such a special and fun horse.  Luckily he had gotten comfy with meeting bikers before that incident and he never worried about meeting riders.  In his mind the bike only became rude after it was separated from the rider.  Which was true but if Grey had become worried that every mounted bike we met might toss its rider and come sliding towards us sharing the many pretty open space parks around the area with the bikers who adore this states foothills and mountains would have become a trial instead of a fun outing.  

I looked and found a picture this weekend to share our big Grand Canyon trip but did not get it scanned so that will have to wait.  The sun has made a bit of headway on our clouds so right now I'll take a short ride on Tanza ahead of the rain or rain/snow mix coming in tonight.

Farewell dear old friend, run free in the meadows across the rainbow bridge.

I had to put Grey Moun down on Friday.   More accurately I had the vet out and he euthanized him.  Grey had a colic Thursday morning,  I gave him just 1/2 a dose of banimine and then called the vet, expecting that his schedule is busy this time of year and he'd maybe be able to come by last thing in his afternoon.   He actually came by noon so having Grey medicated was not the best for diagnosing. Grey was eating with relish by then and based on heartbeat and gut sounds Dr Mike figured it was likely a spasmodic colic and I figured that was so since that was what Grey had at at Meeker 17 months ago.   So Dr Mike gave him vi IV the rest of a banimine dose + something I can't even pronounce in my head no let alone spell that was specifically good as an anti-spasmodic drug and I went to work thinking whew,  my old buddy just gave me a scare.

But Thursday night when I got home Grey was back to feeling poorly and not wanting to eat.  I gave him another 1/2 dose of oral banimine,  checked him in the middle of the night and he was not happy and eating but not distressed and ready to move off if I brought out a syringe again so I left it.  He was worse in the morning so I called vet emergency #,  Dr Mike came first thing.   Grey on Friday showed clear symptoms that his small intestine was blocked close to the stomach, Dr Mike's description was  even with a young breeding stallion or 30K burning a hole in your pocket surgery would be a "do you want to put the horse through this when even if they survive they'll never feel really good again?"  I would not have put my 28 year old guy through surgery at all, even if a rectal had showed a colon/large intestine twist that surgery can sometimes fix and the horse is healthy after some months of rehab, but it was kind of comforting to know that euthanizing him was the only choice, and not something to wonder whether I should have tried more intervention rather than opting out only because of Grey's age.

I may do a series of fond memory posts.  I can't begin to do justice to 25 years of having him in my life in one blog post, especially as the tears are still near to overflowing.      Here is an ear cam shot from when I took DL and Rose to Garden of the Gods in Sept. 2015 and rode Grey myself since J didn't come and I was wondering if Tanza needed rest after his skipping trot at Beaver Meadows ride a week or 2 prior to the GoG trip had made me think Tanza might have a micro lameness that would become a 6 months off injury and Sadie was still on paddock rest from her summer issues.

And a shot of Grey at the trailer,   enjoying the prospect of strutting his stuff a bit.  He had enjoyed being retired from endurance but getting out and going "I've still got it" on day trip rides with good stretches off between them.  Grey is on the right (front of trailer)

I just don't trust Trump --or the GOP leadership

I know Trump didn't really care for BO,  I think he offered to build something 'nicer' for visitors or something and was rebuffed and the oconomy has to have hurt hotel and casino business as fewer folks can indulge in those things.   But Trump has always been a democrat and likes the Clintons,  I can so see him running to muddy the GOP race to help her election chances. 

Now I really really don't trust the GOP leadership.  WTH were they thinking letting a lifelong dem run for the GOP nomination?  The charitable belief would be that they thought he'd burn out in the primary but if they rebuffed him and he went independent he'd pull more GOP leaners than Dems and that would hand the election to the Dems.

But I cannot be charitable to the group that cheered the IRS on as they attacked "tea party" groups, pulled the dirtiest of moves to keep a doddering old fool in the senate when a tea party candidate had forced a run-off in the primary and so on.   My personal theorem is that the GOP enjoys being the minority party as the Dems grow the government.  They don't want smaller government folks getting enough power to actually shrink the federal government no how no way.

I think they welcomed Trump into the race figuring he would split support that would go to a conservative candidate --who shook out to be Cruz, and they would get Jeb or another beltway insider to the nomination.   Even now they are hindering Cruz by keeping Kasich and Rubio in the race.  Mind you,  full throated support of Cruz from them would not be helpful to him because of the deep distrust we have after all their backstabbing and funding every crap thing BO has pushed for, but if they quietly shut down the also rans it would probably improve the odds of Cruz getting the nomination.  But I suspect the DC insiders prefer Hillary to Cruz.   They might pick Cruz or allow state delegates pledged to K and R to switch to Cruz at a brokered convention, but they would do that expecting that hurt feeling from Trump supporters would hamstring Cruz and they would call him the new Goldwater, who scares away the November voters, "so you bitter clingers need to just stay out of the way next time"  

Got on both Tanza and Sadie today

And K came over with her mom and mom (J)  rode Grey Moun and K rode Lady.   I was just finishing with Tanza when they got here so I grabbed Sadie and rode with them in the paddock.  Grey was testing J and trying to just go to the gate some,  she is a good rider but had the reins a bit long and couldn't pull him up one time.  

Sadie was a brat,  but luckily she doesn't know how to buck,  I had the Wintec on her and it felt nice and secure.   My check of fit it looked good too so I think I'll try using the Wintec on her for initial riding this spring and see how things go. 

Grey Moun was not so saintly for K yesterday

She wanted to ride down the trail,  I was just starting out with Tanza but figured company would be nice and she had done well with Grey bareback.   We were going well for a bit but then Grey spooked at a mattress, not a big spook but then he got the notion to take off for home.   Luckily not a full run,  she was holding him back but he didn't stop right away.   I was working on not letting Tanza take off  and hollering at her to "make him stop"  for a good minute or so and then Grey would not go away from home anymore.  She would get him turned but he would do a full circle or duck back around after just a step or 2 in the right direction.  

So had to abort riding out and just go home and ride in the paddock.  She did pretty good steering Grey in there but I am back to knowing that she needs a few more weeks of practice on steering and control of either Grey or Lady before going out is possible, and then I probably need to ride Grey or Lady myself the first time out with her.    I may have to get Dad to go out on RazzMo with me,  I hate to do that because Razz isn't a great influence but Tanza does not need a great influence,  he and I just need to get over the nervous hump we have. 

Ohhmmm, Ohmmmmmm

I don't practice actual meditation.  In fact when I visited India not quite 20 years ago the worldview of almost everyone that they were just a twig in a stream and should accept whatever happened really irritated me.

People are not twigs, we can paddle and get somewhere ahead of the flotsam just going with the current,  or paddle to shore if there is a beach rather than cliff or a tree branch to grab hold of.

But we cannot turn back a river and I have got to think smart about how to cope when I feel like people are a river of stupidity.  Paddling against the current is very wearying and may not even be possible; I do need to judge the current and surroundings and paddle in a way that makes sense.

Just to keep up diary

I had a pretty good weekend for riding and general horse stuff.   Sat. I led Tanza out about a mile and then mounted up,  rode him a quarter mile farther and then home.  He is still very nervous about going away from home by himself and was totally sweaty when I got home even though I had kept the pace down.  But baby steps.

Sunday I rode Tanza in the horse pen and did a fair amount of trot and canter.   Then the neighbor girl came over about an hour or so after I had finished.  I had her rake some in the horse pens while I helped.  She wanted to ride Grey Moun bareback so I decided I'd ride Sadie.

SADIE's leg is healed,  WooHoo.    K or I left the gate into one horse pen unlatched when cleaning and Sadie went tearing around for 5 minutes before she let me catch her and her leg was not sore the next day.

Grey Moun gets a gold star.  We rode in the little arena.  K found out it is hard to sit Grey's trot bareback but she did pretty good, she has good natural balance.   Sadie had a couple mini tantrums and one was not so mini.  She had jumped and spun and I had lost a stirrup and she was trying to do little rear ups, but I was able to pull her nose around and she quit.  Grey just kept on going for K w/o spooking or taking off.   I'm glad she was not on Lady.  If she wants to try Lady bareback sometime I'll have to just watch her on the ground or be on Grey Moun cuz I think Lady would want to take off, although she probably wouldn't do much of a spook, she is fairly good or I wouldn't let folks ride her at all. 

How cool would it be to be able to debate things?

There is a board with someone who has some great knowledge of Civil War history and I think I could debate with him about slave holders starting the war,  southern military was sure valiant and honorable and what does he think about 1890s revision where all the crap the north did because they were losing at first got spun into causes of secession?   --IF it were just him and I or us and other reasonable people  -- but there is vocal board member who totally believes the 1890 revisionism and any mention of "yeah, the slave states withdrew because abolitionists started R party and had won the presidency" is met with shouting hysteria of "NO, it was only because of general states rights, slavery had nothin to do with it" 

And of course current politics.   It is nearly impossible to discuss candidate's platforms, history/(can we trust what they say) etc. on any kind of public forum because people having decided to support candidate A. take any criticism of A. as a personal insult and there are also a bunch of idiots who do insult anyone who supports 'that cretin A' as dumb, or racist, greedy, whatever.  

Oh joy, an extra stinking day in Feb and bonus its a monday

What a pity we can't have an extra day in June on leap years.  I quite like June.

My real cause of 'having the blahs' is not really anything to do with leap year, Feb. or even being a monday.  I'm just feeling pitiful because I tried to be compassionate and have been rebuffed for the awkward attempt.  Oh well, sometimes such efforts are appreciated out of proportion and it is supposed to be about being at peace with oneself.

 But even though I hate it when I find that I was doing something mostly for the ego strokes and not really just to please myself I'm only human and do feel pitiful when I feel ignored or rebuffed.  But I'll get over it, cuz I has horses and a pretty good life overall and I refuse to go into some pity spiral over one failed attempt to be supportive as a concerned colleague.

Actually did some corral cleaning ahead of predicted snow/rain coming in tonight

It's like a minor miracle, especially since dad came out and was trying to direct me on how to use the loader to get the bucket raked up manure winnrows scooped up w/o digging up dirt under them and I asked him to just do it and he did.  That allowed me to use a hand shovel to get some stuff right next to the fence cleaned up.  I did this on Saturday which was nice weather. New neighbor's maybe 12 yr old DD came bye.  She is interested in riding.  She likes Razz but I will put her on Lady.  If she does real well and wants to ride more than she can talk to dad about coming after school and riding Razz in the pen when Dad is home.   Her mom came by and said she was good with it but she wanted DD to have to work for it.

Corrals did not get completely clean as I was running out of light and steam but all of them were better than before.   The big pen got pretty well done.   Grey and Tanza's got the manure and wet hay pulled back away from feeders and gate good but not picked up.   I pulled some of the slop back from the feeders and waterer for CJ and Lady's pen and put a couple scoops over that fence into garden but it should have had a follow up on Sunday. 

It did not get the follow-up on Sunday,  I puttered on computer, wrote up a lease for the girl that stipulates that she can work 1/2 hour per ride rather than pay per ride which I have done before for calling it a partial feed lease for folks to ride Lady.   It was chilly but I did ride Tanza for half an hour or so in the paddock.  He was quite good for me, probably the best he has been so far in 2016.   Sadie walked over and then followed us a bit at one point.  She is getting bored.  I am wanting to ride her again too and she no longer shows any bobble to my eye when she trots in the pen so I think I can start riding her slowly or doing some leading out in March.   I did a load of laundry late and made pressure cooker pot roast (round steak cuts of deer meat)  The roast did not taste quite as good to me, but I used beef broth rather than plain water and adding that to my leftover gravy did improve the gravy flavor, so I'll use broth rather than plain water for next roast I cook.  

Dragging a bit at work with the Monday's and all.   I could not figure out how to pass variables in a slick way with our framework to put the orbit guy's stuff into our framework so decided I'll have to just have multiple option directories to get the functionality which is what is done now but this is more instances so would have been nice to avoid having to brute force things that way.   I wanted to choke the lead SE today when he was talking like his framework should allow something that it does not.  He should know/remember that he took that option out of the original software in order to get faster responses.  I always feel like he is playing dumb when he knows his software has a limitation but really he has been juggling many things and its been over 10 years since he wrote that framework code so he probably has honestly forgotten how it works. 

I've been needing chiro work

So why I'm dragging this morning instead of getting moving to make sure I get to appt. on time is a mystery to me.  Whelp, need to contemplate as I finish horse chores and get dressed.

evening update:

Chiro fixed my arm,  it was out at elbow and 2 spots in shoulder.  And shoulder is getting sore now at end of day still.  I really should have made the effort to get my appt moved up.  Called and left message and knew I needed to call from work but forgot 2 weeks ago and then called got machine and went "I'm not doing this again, and now its not that many days till appt last Tuesday."  

Hopefully the joints will stay in place now and things will get healed.   He also fixed my stuck ankle spot and a couple spots in my back.   I think the stretching I was doing helped with back.  Last appt I was really stuck in my back and I had muscle spasms later that day.   I should have made an appt for just a few days later when I felt the spasms starting but oh well I don't have a time machine so can't fix that.  I set appt for 2 weeks instead of 4 this time in case things won't hold for 4 weeks.

I got my ISP service paid and  set up the auto-pay with the new CC.   I had not been looking at emails and totally missed the notices until they snail mailed the bill with late fee for missed payment in Jan.  Oh well I don't think my credit score will be ruined by one missed payment that was corrected the next month, but I am so bad at personal secretary stuff.

Stuck with work project, I will have to work with lead SE tomorrow to move more stuff to my dev machine or move my dev to the machine where the test mission is routinely processed (hopefully I can get a small set of the data(base) needed installed on the dev machine, I don't want to have to port my very raw, 20% done development to a production machine.

I must call vet tomorrow to get Shade more Previcoxx because I'm using it faster than before.   Must remind myself she felt pretty good when I wanted to catch her and worm her,  I hope the arthritis progression will stop and I can maintain her and not have think about euthanasia until the winter after she turns 20.  She'll only be 19 this April and if she is hurting I will give up my emotional feeling that a horse should be at least 20, but I'd sure rather give her that extra year of retirement if I can.

I rode Tanza Fri/Sat/Sun and then on my holiday monday it was windy so I didn't even saddle him but walked him out a little over 1/2 mile and back.  He was nervous to go away from home,  I hope he gets more relaxed about that this year.   He never got real relaxed last year and then when I fell off and he ran home last fall he set himself back.  I've been riding a lot in the paddock since then working on control and my confidence and will do the leading him out some too to try to increase his confidence away from home.  And if all else fails he is an arab so I can haul to some rides and do fun ride and LDs to condition early in season and then move up to 50s.  

Pretty fun weekend for no riding

Saturday was the regional endurance convention.  I missed most of the morning session, just couldn't motivate myself to short myself on sleep or even rush once awake.  But I enjoyed what I did catch and I got a nice zipper sweatshirt for Tanza completing 5 rides.   He really did make last summer so much funner than if I hadn't bought him fall 2014. 

I finally got the horses wormed on Sunday.   Note to self:  don't give Shade previcoxx that morning if you will worm horses in the afternoon.   She was full of Yeehaws and "can't catch me"s and her knee wasn't telling her she needed to quit.  She was feeling it by that evening.   I did get all the big horses wormed and found I do still have some liquid ivermectin so should be able to get the mini's done.  I have to look up how much to use.

Barely watched the SB.  It was a decent game as a (barely) Bronco's fan, I had such butterflies even though I didn't think I was emotionally invested that I couldn't bear to give the game full attention.   I was rooting for them to win so Manning could retire on a high note if he decides to take the opportunity.   I've also always thought that Pat Bowlen was pretty classy as an owner,  he made some effort to find money to keep player turnover down at least in earlier days.   And I've always liked Kubiak from when he was the backup QB here and I like Wade Phillips.   

horses still not wormed

But at least I rode for half an hour on Saturday.   Sunday I went to a memorial service for a college professor.  He helped me get my student job here and also a paid internship at JPL.  It was a bit awkward for me.  They didn't have a remembrance book and I'd forgotten to bring a card.  I haven't kept up with campus research group he had founded so only knew a few faces there and didn't have any shop talk to share with the ones I knew.  

Saturday I went in to buy feed and asked dad if he wanted to come and just eat out.  So we did that, he insisted on paying.  I didn't argue since I bought last time we went for Chinese food.  After the memorial service I did a Target run.  Sort of watched some of the game but I couldn't even listen to it full time on the way home when it had already started.  I was getting too distracted from driving.  I grained horses late and forgot all about the plan to worm them.   I may have to just plan on worming them a few at a time in the mornings before I give them hay.   None of them is looking like parasites are getting all the nutrition so its not a big deal but I don't want to set up the indirect damage worms can do so I do like to worm them periodically.  It'll get done eventually.

I bought some Jack Daniels bbq sauce pulled pork to eat Sunday night.  It was quite tasty for a heat and eat product.   Kind of pricey but not compared to eating out.  I proved to myself I could eat cheaply with ham and bean soup and chile from dried beans and old or tough meats a couple of years ago.  Pretty much cleaned out the freezer and now I am trying to get myself to just relax and enjoy the fact that I can afford to eat out and buy higher end shortcut products.   There is no reason to play "how cheaply can I eat" all the time and I think I found and used up almost all the old forgotten frozen meat in the freezer.

Good thing I didn't make a resolution to post more blog entries

Lets see, I should write this down to cement it in my mind.  My attempt at slow(er) cooking deer round steak that I cook like a roast came out no better, maybe a bit worse than using the pressure cooker has worked.  So now I can use my quick method and know that I am not giving up any tenderness or taste.   Take that foodie snobs who think if it doesn't take all day and lots of extra steps the food won't taste as good.  

I was feeling bored and not wanting to go outside when I did this and then at the end of the day it was warmer than I'd thought and I remembered "oy, I was going to get the horses wormed this weekend and now there is not enough light"  Oh well,  I believe they will all live,  I just hate it when I seem to have a mental block for doing something and I've been meaning to worm them for 3 or 4 weeks now and haven't got it done yet.  

I'm probably going to just have to decide that I do not mind buying 75% of the office half and half supply when I use maybe 7% of it when I'm drinking coffee regularly and not just having tea some days.   I really do like having cream in the fridge when I do have an afternoon coffee and it is not worth getting stressed by the parasites for something that is only a few dollars a week.  

I think I may have to call someone in the office out as a concern troll if she starts trying to be helpful by giving me fashion or career advice again.  I like my utilitarian looking socks and she *might* make more than me for the 10 times more amount of stress she takes on.    

I still have not ridden Tanza or anyone else yet this year.  There is more ground showing so this weekend I should be able to ride and I'm thinking I might try to do some trail walk/running with him on nice days if I'm not quite ready to trust him if the footing is still slick to combine my fitness and his mental training.  

Lady is doing well being in with CJ.    

Well I kept my new years resolution

I'm not much on making resolutions but thought a couple days into this year.  "I should resolve to wash my car"    Not wash it weekly or even monthly, just get it washed.   I probably ran it thru a wash once or twice last year but two separate times I meant to wash it I didn't get it run thru the wash.  Once I filled my tank when I swung by my vets office to get Shade's pills and then forgot to use the wash and then I bought a wash on the way home from work and then found they closed their wash a little before sunset every day and never did come into work that way to use the wash during the month it was good for.  I was annoyed that there was no notice at the pump that the wash you were purchasing would not be redeemable at that time.

This weekend I plan to worm the horses and move Lady in with CJ.  She is dropping some weight now being in the bigger group.  I'm not surprised since Lady eats so slow, what surprised me was how well she did being in with Sadie; even though Sadie lets Lady be the boss horse she eats so much faster, but Lady must have managed to keep a hay feeder guarded until she got her portion.  That doesn't work with Shade and Razz in the group.  

I have not ridden in 3 or 4 weeks I think.   It kind of alarms me that I am not jonesing to get back in the saddle.  I normally don't ride much in the winter but usually get in a short ride every couple of weeks and start getting ancy if it gets much longer than that between rides.  But I'm not wanting to ride any of my horses if the ground has slick spots.   Shade is lame, Sadie is still on rest,  I don't want to stress Grey's older legs and I'm having a mental block with Tanza, I don't quite trust him not to get a bit stupid and slip if the ground is slick, or at least get a bit stupid and me not want to risk causing a fall if I get unbalanced so having to hit the ground which hurts too much at my age.  I'm fairly sure I'll get cabin fever and remind myself that Tanza does have a good mind and isn't going to do anything really stupid if we don't get a stretch of warm weather to make dry ground to ride on within a little bit.

It has been cold and I just don't care to be outside doing anything for very long lately.  I keep hearing about the unusually mild winter folks back east and in AK are having and thinking "well all the cold air just keeps sitting here, and that is not our normal, usually we keep getting some really mild days between cold fronts and snow storms all winter long."  I want our normal back, putting up with all the coasties who have moved here is harder w/o the that mild weather perk.