banned in Bloomington

Or relatively close. Wonder if I'll get more work done now. Probably not much. I've been enjoying exploring new areas.

I need to find some horse friends that believe in free speech, and other former american values. Censorship is really quite ugly, especially when its anti-semitic -or anti Bob Dylan. Who has a problem with Dylan though? Ah well I just couldn't toe the line there. Its against my religion to worship people and that was pretty much required.

A redneck mudroom

My christmas present to myself was a pair of shoe shelves. Of course mudroom shoes are not dress flats, and don't fit on a short shelf, but its perfect for gloves. The paper tubes are nice for getting some air inside my waterproof gloves for dunking horse hay. Ah the fun I have caring for the equines. We've been using the bookshelf for shoes for years, but it was overflowing.

Speaking of fun with horse care, I cleaned horse pens today. I did two bucket loads with the tractor and two cart loads. Dad helped me unload my first barrel of diesel, then brush-hogged some of the tumbleweeds from the 'pasture'. Not my normal vitamin H but not bad. Feels much better having had some energy on a saturday. Although there was a lot of errands I should have done today and decided they could wait so I could stay home.

TGIF

Is there any more to say? Work actually is ok. I am just feeling low. I've tired of something but I don't have a good replacement for it and am feeling deprived. How lame is that?

Well at least Cindy is better

Mebbe the vasoline did some good after all, she has a little open spot above her heel bulb, up in the coronet band where I smeared vasoline and it actually stuck since it wasn't wet. This spot is higher than the wet cotton in the easyboot reaches, but I put in fresh cotton today anyway. Not having her foot dry and hard as a rock can only help with the pain. She is walking better but still waits by the feed tub and hay troughs for me to bring the food rather than wandering around. I put some cool green jelly on the open spot on the coronet band. Its got some good anti-germ ingredients, and was handy.

Ole's owie is not looking quite as big today, more quarter sized. Poor guy is either very embarrassed, or scared I'm going to take him to the vet and doesn't like me to notice the boo-boo. What a goofy mutt he is. I took a bunch of pictures yesterday and now need to find my downloader gizmo. It was not in any of the three spots I though were most likely.

Pulling hair --Mom ran water in Dukes tank last night. So it was even more full than yesterday when I decided I'd let it get good and empty since its a real pita to get out of its spot and the low was only going to be 40F so it didn't need to have water over the heating element. If it was low enough she NEEDED to run water she should have only put a few seconds worth in --its not even worth wishing she would scrub it herself, I honestly don't know if she'll EVER get back to that state of fitness and ambition. Yeah sigh sigh whine whine whine but I realized this morning that I really would rather not be practically working for the government anymore. But options are limited when I feel like I have to stay here because she cant/wont take decent care of her critters. Well I have to shake off the ennui, perhaps actually sort of keeping my exercise resolution will be slightly helpful.

whee windy ride

Shade was having a fine time acting afeard of the tumbling tumbleweeds. I loved the energy of it, and the exhilaration of the wind blowing through my helmet. Only went 3 miles, but it was FUN. I really want to grab my camera and get some pics for some photo blog ideas but I didn't get it done today. Hmm, maybe I don't really want to. But methinks it could be a bit fun and worth the time spent getting pics downloaded from the camera and uploaded to the web.

I felt bad last night and tried to give Cindy some bute. Not sure any made it into her system, she spit some out because I'd already given them hay, and I was lazy and didn't even halter her, let alone, halter, remove food from mouth, then squirt in bute+yogurt. But she was a little better this morning; and moving pretty well after I put an easy boot on her with wet roll cotton sprayed with a bit of iodine in it. I made sure to have some cotton over the back strap, I think the bruise is near a heel bulb and will probably come out the top + sure don't need to bruise the heel bulbs with the boot strap.

I have to write an ohh Ole post. I got pics, but have to download them. I thought he had learned to watch out for barbed wire, but he snagged himself today when I was riding. Has about a silver dollar sized hole in his skin, high on his back leg. I put some wonder dust on it. If the local vets weren't so pricey I might have had mom run him in --but they are, and I really don't like giving antibiotics all the time anyway. If he leaves the wonder dust and lets it scab it should heal up pretty quick. They always say dog skin is elastic and they can stitch but we have terrible luck with the lampshade collars breaking right away and that would be the only way to keep him from ripping stitches out.

So this is 2009 for conservatives?

Yesterday when I went to start my car the battery was dead. My own damm fault, I fetched something from it this weekend and the overhead light didn't come on when I opened the door so I turned it on ... and left it. Well the handy dandy battery charger got it going in a few minutes so that wasn't so bad. Stopped at safeway and got mom some press and seal which she will probably get little use out of for her pic line. I'm pretty sure cutting a sleeve from a newspaper bag and a couple rubber bands would work much much better but perhaps they don't want the compression on the line. I didn't even mention it cuz its either talking to a brick wall, or get my head bit off if there is a reason. I'm not seeing any progress on her health either. And I STILL cant completely shake the feeling that she doesn't want to get to healthy and have no excuse not to try to work at her career; although she sure doesn't want to be this damm sick. Pbbbbt spellchecker, I'll use mm instead of mn if I want to.

Today when I grained I noticed poor Cindy has an abscess in her RF foot. I wanted to attend a seminar to show team spirit and was already running late so I dashed to the garage and sprayed some hoof marvel stuff on it and smeared some vasoline on it. Which really didn't want to stick because I hadn't waited for the spray to dry. Both things a pitiful attempt to soften her foot so the abscess can break open and relieve the pressure. Tomorrow I'll put a wet poultice of some sort on it. Probably just betadine/saline on cotton, but maybe I'll try potato. It just occurred to me that if I just sliced the tater instead of grating, it might stay in the boot better. OTOH, wet cotton always stays pretty good, it just doesn't always stay wet, and may not soften as quickly at potato juice, but I haven't ever got potato to stay in place to tell if it softens any better. Sometimes internet ideas sound good when you read them but they don't work out in real life applications.

Oh and I was still a teeny bit late for the seminar so 50/50 was it positive or negative to not just bag it, staying home to doctor Cindy and then grab a ride? Oh well, I'm doing that tomorrow and just working late.

winter doldrums

Except its been breezy many days. Just too cold this weekend to want to do much. Somehow I am very very rarely inspired to tackle indoor stuff. Well I guess thats reasonable. I mostly should toss stuff and who wants to cart stuff outside when its freezing? Well thats my story and I'm sticking too it for now.

I did have a lovely ride on Shade to start the year off right, and I took Sadie out on sunday.

I had her and Shade out for grain, then put Shade away and opened the connecting paddock gate so there was some playing going on. Sadie was wound up but she quit dancing around so I could untie her and backed nicely so I could open the driveway gate.
She was full of energy but mostly keeping her nose in the grass. I loff this trait, bodes well for future endurance career never being too excited to want to eat. The neighbor horses across the road got a little stirred up seeing Sadie in the ditch -they were in their pens about 40 yds back from their pasture fence that borders the road -- then one got its leg hung up a bit in the panel

So I tied Sadie to their fence right by their driveway gate where its a sturdy post and panel gate on one side of post but still twisted wire fence on the other and ran and knocked on their door to let them know. Thankfully they were home and got the horse extricated quickly. Normally I would have trailed to make sure they didn't need help but with both of them home I hustled back to get Sadie; I don't normally tie horses to a wire fence, let alone 20 month olds on very brisk days.

Sadie did good though, she was pacing a bit as the lead allowed but didn't get extra wound up or paw at all. I finished our walk to the corner, then she had the edge off her appetite and was in go mode on the way home. I didn't let her have extra slack in the line -dont trust her yet if I would get behind her butt, she pranced and even did some 2-track at times when I put my elbow out to make sure she didn't crowd me but she never dragged me or ignored the elbow. Sure hope she stays sound and healthy, I think she's going to be a fine trail partner in a few years.