Black Hills trip was mostly mis-adventures. Hopefully filled the yearly quota

I still don't know how well the saddle pad adjustments will work for Tanza cuz I only rode him short walking rides with Dad and Sis.   This is because I was dumb when trying to level my trailer.  FYI, if running trailer wheels up on blocks is not enough to level it; one needs to have the wheels on the ground and chocked before unhitching from p/u.   And never think "oh it will be just a few minutes and we are right here watching" and leave the horse tied too long while getting trailer situated.

So Tanza had some minor bruising of lower front right leg and was w/o his shoe and I opted not to ride him at endurance speeds.   The leg was fine by Monday so that was a good decision.

Saturday was not bad,  we rode a 2-3 mile loop, saw it was looking like rain and decided to go back to camp and get rain coats or wait if it rained.  It started raining when we got back to camp so we untacked the horses and hung out in dad's camper to have a bit of lunch and see if it cleared up.  It rained for 15-20 minutes and then just stayed overcast and drizzled a bit about every 30 minutes so we never did ride anymore that day.

Sunday we went on a longer ride.  Dad got his saddle way off to the side where he fell off twice, once each side.  Second fall he went downhill and wrenched his back.   We were right by a road at that spot but he initially thought he could ride back, but got to hurting so when we crossed a road we got him off Razz and left him to wait for us to come back in a p/u.   I had to talk sis out of going off to get vehicle faster.  I felt like with Dad's balance and hurting back it would be a disaster if Razz and Tanza were even a bit jiggy when she left on Babe; plus I wouldn't be able to get Dad down safely by myself.   She did stay with and it did take both of us to get Dad dismounted w/o dumping him.  Was no problem ponying Razz back to camp and we got Dad in p/u OK.  Offered that we could take him to the clinic to get checked out but he felt it was just wrenched back muscles and I figure he knows his body after 79 years.   Gave him Alleve and SalonPas patched back at camp and got him in his comfy zero gravity chair and he was ok.

Sunday evening I decided I would hook my p/u back up, and put trailer in the access lane since most folks had gone home so we would not be fighting with it Monday morning when we had an 8 hour drive to get home along with getting the rest of camp torn down.   While I was doing that Tanza was scratching his head like a dog and got his leg over his high tie lead rope.  Thank god I have plastic tubing over the lead rope.  He got just a tiny bit of a friction burn, but did not break the skin and seems sound today.  I wrapped it Tuesday to keep the tiny bit of scabbing he was getting even though I didn't see any broken skin down, lest the scabs cause issues and he seems to be trotting sound even in the wrap.    We got the p/u hooked up and then it was time to get it moved.

When the trailer came off the trailer jacks I was using as risers on Friday the tires were jammed between the trailer jacks and the chocks behind the rear wheels.   I was trying to shovel out underneath the jacks and Sis said "use your bottle jacks to raise the back end of the trailer."  That was a great idea.  I got the trailer jacked up and we got all but the one big chock behind the right tire out; then I was able to pull forward and sis was able to use the shovel to dig that chock out.   I got the trailer backed up onto the more level access lane, had some late supper and crawled into bed.

Monday we got everything packed up and on the road at a decent hour and made it home by about 6:30.  I even had time to spray some goatsheads.   Dad was hurting from the long drive but he felt good enough to unpack his fridge yesterday.  

I'm going to have to put CJ and Tanza together for a while

The two redheads are a bit skinny and Razz and Sadie are plenty fat.   So I'll have to put CJ and Tanza together and hope Tanza doesn't get a bit where the saddle pad will rub so I can feed them plenty of hay and give CJ more Eq. Sr than he is getting now and maybe a bit of the Amplify.  Good thing I went to the Buffalo creek ride and got the "body score is a 4" to open my eyes to the gradual weight loss with Tanza and now I looked at CJ and noticed he has dropped weight too.   I don't like my horses being under a 5 but I was just not registering the dropping weight until the vet said Tanza's body score last week at the ride and then I noticed I can see ribs on CJ this weekend.  Sigh, in theory part of the reason to always shove any thought of moving out back in a closet is because I'll notice things and take better care of the horses.   I guess I'm going to have to get a younger roommate with sharp eyes to fill that role for me before too long.

I sprayed about 5 gallons of 2-4-D this weekend.  This is good burr eradication progress,  it took me quite a while each time to walk around and find burrs to spray to use up about 1.3 gallons of spray.  I have to remind myself of this progress because I felt like "uggg, I'm still not doing much but spraying weeds"   I also did some hand weeding of mom's old super over-sized flower bed,  watered the pretty weeds I'm trying to start along the outside of the horse pen and burned some tumbleweeds that got going before dad got his mower belt replaced earlier this summer.  Not bad for as hot as it was.  Not great but not bad.

I also washed a couple loads of clothes, I hauled a huge tote of sweaters that mom had to take to SD to hand off to sis to deal with and also washed some of her clothes on hangers that had gotten so dusty they needed to be washed before wearing or giving away and boxed them up.   It always seems to take a huge toll on my mental/emotional energy stores to deal with "what to give away, throw away etc. and this was no exception.  I added some smaller ls shirts to my wardrobe as I sorted,  decided that I will give bro mom's Broncos Ed McCaffrey jersey,  I forgot she'd even had that or the Brett Favre T-shirt.   Course she didn't wear them often, appreciated them as gifts, but was saving them.  I come by that silliness naturally,  of save something until it spoils (food) or is outdated or no longer fits well etc.  instead of enjoying it and being ok with using it up, wearing it out etc.  Trying to work on this personally.