I had riding plans for both Saturday and Sunday, but my PITA friend got in hot water with CPS because she drank again. They needed her to have someone check on her twice/day to leave baby H in the house.
On the plus side, with being stuck at home I finally got myself to move Razz in with Sadie and put CJ with Tanza and Abe. Abe really needed that. Razz was stressing him out, as well as keeping him off the free choice hay a fair amount of the time.
Mice woke me up one night last week, who knew mice ever make a racket? I ordered some pretty high rated traps on Amazon they were on delayed shipping and didn't get here till thursday, I also bought a couple of the same brand at TSC saturday. Well the TSC are a different model than the Amazon. I had one set up in my office with a couple mice darting around while I was in there. The larger mouse was able to just lick the bait off the paddle w/o putting its feet on it, but I put a bit of p/b in hoping that might work better. Caught a 2nd small mouse with that. Caught two small mice on the main floor with the same model trap. I ordered a rat trap from amazon and some of the cheese scented paddle board old style snap traps that would come faster than thursday. The rat trap is probably not sensitive enough for a mouse to spring it. But I now have 3 traps in my office including the rat trap. 1 of the cheese scent paddle in my bathroom that I put some p/b on the paddle too (that has caught mice for me before) and I added 1 new trap in my bedroom this morning baited with a choc chip wedged down securely in the bait hole and have I 4 traps, 3 different models on the main floor now. And I have not caught another mouse after the 3 little ones with the small traps that the bigger mouse defeated. I haven't seen or heard it again, maybe he found his way back outside when he realized I was trying to kill him, but more likely I need to do a deep clean, make sure it has no food stash and has to try the bait if it wants to eat.
I have got to figure out how to get more weight on Abe, I need to do spring vaccines soon and will say I want the vet to check for things that might be keeping his weight down when he is out. I meant to buy some different stuff to try on way home tonight but alas I forgot. I've been giving more concentrate pellets with beet pulp, and cool calories, and I bought some alfalfa pellets and added those, sometimes he won't clean up the alfalfa. Started feeding him extra again at night since he is at his limit of what he will clean up while tied up to eat. He has access to big hay bale all day but he doesn't beaver on it all day, like he should since he is a bit thin and should be hungry. I wormed him, Razz and Tanza today. Maybe I will have to worm Abe every 2 months, maybe worm him again in a week to get something like the 5-day panacur effect. I don't know if I'd get him wormed 5 days in a row.
I'm not actively wishing it, I'm not close friends with folks there, but I like most of them and don't want their lives disrupted. But part of me has been wishing for an outside force to make my job vanish. I've been doing better the last few weeks. Starting to take a day off every couple of weeks to just go riding. I need to just keep taking care of myself and having fun and not think I have to solve every problem at work. And I'm pecking away at home life. I threw out a few boxes of crap from the shed last weekend. I got my car in and got new tires put on it today, then got a few things at Walmart and bought a couple of mouse traps at TSC. I have a mouse in my bedroom. Ugh, it was making noise last night and I didn't sleep very well.
I'm no longer riding with L and F together. It has been so much more fun and relaxing just to go with either F and her slower mare or with L and Taj. Two weeks ago L and I went to Lory state park. Abe was swirling, someone had taken off a few minutes before we got mounted and he wanted to go catch that horse. L had to hold him for me to get on. I turned on a different trail away from how they had gone and it was technical and climbing right away. And kept climbing a lot. Taj actually got tired. It was a nice change from Taj and Abe getting all racey with each other.
When I ride with just F and her mare, Abe is pretty chivalrous, lets me rate him to a slower trot so slow mare can keep up better and so on. Yesterday F and I went to Sharptail. I was leading Abe on the way back, cuz F's mare had been bobbing her head when trotting, plus I'm trying to get in some walking and hopefully lose some spare tire, and I accidentally went off the main trail. I didn't want to climb back up the hill so I tried taking a short cut but we hit a fence line and had to bushwhack up a pretty steep hill to get back to the actual trail. I got on Abe for going up the steep hill, F and her mare did very well clambering up the hill on no trail. F had her Renegade hoof boots on the mare and a new one had a cable break. That had probably been irritating the mare, F said she moved better after I had noticed it and she took the boot off. Mare does move funny on that leg due to an old injury, maybe she lands crooked and puts extra stress on the hoof boot.
Hopefully mouse goes for the bait tonight, I bought their mouse attractant gel as well as 2 traps. I have 8 more traps ordered from Amazon. The Victor, metal tab ones I had did catch some mice with raisins wedged in the tab but the last few that I had are pretty well shot; I bought Tomcat ones that are set up to not have to touch the mouse after the trap springs, they were rated pretty high. I had bought some cheapo glue boards, not sure if they would even work on mice, they are good for bugs. I had some more $$ glue boards and did get some mice with them a couple years ago, but I don't like using the glue boards, if I spot the mouse on them right away I have to whack it with something and dispatch it, and if I don't check one that had been getting no action and then find a dead mouse later I feel bad. But I'm not doing any catch and release traps. I want the mice dead, I just want it to be close to instant death. Hoping this different snap design works and I can get rid of the mice.
I need to note this, and give myself a pat on the back because the garage is very cluttered with stuff mom and dad had accumulated. The 3 feed bags of stuff I put in the dumpster, and wire crate that I put wood scraps in and took out to the burn barrel being gone is hardly noticeable for the clutter that is still there. But what I got rid of is gone forever. I whiffed on no phone games today but I did get my trailer ready to go tomorrow, except I need to get some hay in it for Taj and Abe.
Tomorrow farrier comes at 8 am, then I told my riding buddies I would meet them at 11:30 am where F boards her horse. I need to make myself a sammich to take to eat. Probably I will just use the watermelon elyte powder I got at the convention raffle and throw in some cheese sticks and a sweet salty bar plus large water bottle. I am going to have to get up right away when my alarm goes off so I can be ready when farrier gets here. Feed at least the mini's early and lock them in the alley so they are easier to catch, maybe pre-halter them, get my camelback filled etc etc.
Monday I have to renew my DL.
First my friend B, her kid just turned a year old. Then neighbor L that was helping me with dad and then with cleaning 1x/week, her baby will be 1 year old in March. Today I hopped on FB after my ride with the new riding buddy I have been hauling to trailheads cuz she doesn't have a p/u and trailer and saw she had posted an ultrasound, baby is due in June. None of these was a planned pregnancy.
Neighbor and her DH did want to have a kid sometime but were not trying at the time. B had been trying to find a guy she wanted to marry and have kids with pretty much since I met her, but E was not expected, B had told me she had decided to just raise E on her own "because dad is a good man but we would fight about how to raise E", although E's "other grandmother" was at E's bday party along with B's parents so perhaps B is involving dad somewhat now.
New riding buddy F, has a boyfriend, perhaps now will marry him. I had not seen the FB ultrasound post when we were driving to the TH and back today and she did not mention it. I guess she is not going to be trying to do endurance this summer. That's cool, her mare is a good trail horse but I don't think CAN do endurance pace, especially for 25 miles. F was then going to buy a pony her barn owner can't use for lessons cuz pony is ornery and bucks if he decides something is too much work, but pony decided longer faster riding (endurance) is also too much work when we went to ride in Nebraska where I met Abe and decided I wanted to buy him. F certainly can't mess with bucking pony while pregnant.
Nothing like trying to get shit done, even though I feel like the big boss is blocking me from merit raise or promotion, and getting radio silence when I make a request for something I need group action on on a Friday afternoon and its radio silence because everyone started their weekend early.
Of course I could risk my ego, thinking "oh they'd fall apart if I just quit suddenly" and actually quit. But I still like most of these people and don't want to put them in a bind. My supervisor especially I feel would be at risk of a breakdown, she is already doing a bunch of extra stuff. They wouldn't just fall apart, not right away, some folks that are coasting a lot would probably step up , some that are already working pretty hard would work even harder and hope big boss got off his wimpy ass to fill the position quickly.
over a USA Today story. Eye roll, I'm pretty sure USA Today is near the front of the pack for publishing stories that are very nearly pure fiction as fear mongering or in some regions probably Yahoo inducing 'news'.
But its quite possible that some Tornado belt university like Oklahoma may gain an advantage for bidding for the next 3 to 5 year grant proposal to manage weather research. That would probably be the shove out of the nest to get me to sell this place and move to a much less blue state or else to NM to get a warmer winter. I don't think I would sell and buy a place to commute to either OK university for the last few years before I hit retirement age, I would just retire early, maybe get a low level job, but I could probably just do YOLO and go around to different rides if I found a situation where the retired horses would have care while I was gone.
But I really don't think we will be getting laid off in the next few weeks. The stupid leadership thought that Barky and Biden policies would be permanent and went all in on idiot DEI that is anti-science and has zero relationship to our core mission; as well as pushing man-made climate change and shunning any researcher who didn't go along with herd on that and I didn't quit over those things, but it has made me lose any empathy if they do lose funding and folks have to either move to OK to stay in weather field or find private sector jobs.
