Ho Ho Humbug.

Wow, I'm a bitter old coot. I skipped the 'secret santa' this year on my BB. My giftee from 2 years ago I don't think has done it the last 2 years. She was expecting and moving so I understand her being a bit forgetful but after I prodded out of her that a package had arrived she didn't remember who it was from. I was too proud and didn't name myself. I had spent hours making up a calendar with pics of her horse on it. --it turned out clunky unfortunately , also had bought her and her dogs little fun items, and then after sending package off early found many folks were totally ignoring the $ limit so I sent her a book that another BB member had written (she ended up getting 2 copies due to a mix up at the post office)

Then last year I wasn't going to join in but someone had thought they'd signed up and hadn't so 2 of us did a late signup and the 3 of us were matched up. I was just sure that this person was so polite that they would write a thank you on the BB even if the gift was flat, but of course I still stressed, and spent hours searching for a necklace I thought she'd like, opting for a pendant that was a turquoise and silver cross --and knowing she is quite catholic I thought that would be great even thought it came w/o a chain. So did I get a thank -you? Ummmmm No, what I got was a mention of eating an entire large size candy bar (I'd sent 2-3 yummy dark chocolate fair trade bars from my annual stash I buy for myself) --to me it was phrased like it was not nice for 'Santa' to have sent bars that were more than single serving in each wrapper, no mention even that the chocolate bar was from santa, but I recognized the decription, so then I stewed and worried that she didn't like any of the gift items or was insulted at getting a pendant with a temporary chain I'd had to scrounge up, and/or disliked the other little filler stuff I sent since she never even posted that she got a package. Except I did ping her as guest/santaElf and then outed myself.

So this year in spite of "I'm not playing" I've gotten bored and read the santa sub-board a few times. THIS YEAR Ms polite, WAS prompt and gracious in gushing over her package. WTF? It really is too bad I had such a mindset of wanting to be a good santa. I got great loot the 2 years I played, and since I gushed over it, I probably would have gotten good loot again but its too crushing to me wussy little ego when my santa efforts elicit a response worthy of a drugstore fruitcake.

Was it just two days ago I wrote this on a BB?

Pausing between rides
« Thread Started on Dec 13, 2008, 2:25pm »
Had a little jaunt on Shade, and I'm going to take another spin on either Grey or Razz in a bit. **I picked Razz

Its supposed to get COLD and stormy tomorrow so I have to take advantage while I can.

Then I'll probably haul some christmas stuff down from the attic. I'm not going to put up all the crap mom does when she's not sick, its about too much. But at absolute minimum the gatepost light pumpkins have got to be switched out for the snowmen. We may be rednecks but were not pagans

Then I'll have to log in to work and see what I should be doing, and sometime I have to worm the equines, but none of them looks wormy so I'm not making that too urgent, Sadie got dosed 6 weeks ago, the rest should have some immunity by now.

"Moonlight rides are fun even when there is no moon" Ute Jung

*******************
Well the forecast was close although it had sunday's low about 10 farenheit degrees too warm. It snowed saturday night till about noon on sunday and then got cold. Denver set a record low for Dec 14 before midnight, of colder than minus 15 degrees Farenheit. Shade and Sadie's tank has a smaller heater and it had 1/2 inch of ice this morning. I broke them a hole and fished some ice out of the water with a 4x4, picking up once I was not going to wet my gloves. They drank some, when I went back out about 40 minutes later it was refreezing, but I scooped all ice out of the water with a strainer but left the lid of ice over most of the tank with just the 18" hole open. Hopefully that cuts down on the steam cooling.

I also got the snowmen exchanged for the pumpkins on the gate posts, and a couple of decorations up on saturday.

On Sunday the dogs and cats mostly were couch potato's, while I did some picking up and tossed much junk mail and put mags and newspapers away; getting down to bills and papers of moms. This inspired her to clean the table clear to the tablecloth so YAAY!. In the evening the cats were restless so I put up the christmas tree, which I also fondly refer to as 'the giant kitty toy'. I got it up and lights strung, and a sparse set of ornaments. Maybe mom will get in a mood to decorate it a bit more, or I'll add more ornaments, probably slowly unless I decide I must move boxes back to the garage. But we're low key with the house cleaning as you've no doubt gathered.

Not a boarding place for a while.

Our only 'boarder' has left for greener pastures, The desert was more marital, than our literal sandhill, I guess. In more proof of my social ineptness I had never heard a peep that her husband had any addiction issues etc until last weekend when she was going over details with mom while I was around.

We will miss her, she was working off most, maybe all of her board cleaning pens for mom, and doing some driving training on the minis etc. And morning chores are not much easier for me - all that has disappeared is throwing hay over the fence for her geldings. I hope she enjoys her new life. Not sure if mom will advertise for any new boarders. We wouldn't take anyone that was not self-care. With us self-care means I will throw hay in the morning (or mom would in the evening if someone wanted that schedule) but they clean their own pen, keep their water tank filled and washed to their standards, and cover 1 hay feeding and any grain/supplements feeding themselves.

I am still toying with the idea of advertising for a 'part-lease' on some of our horses. CJ and Razz, maybe AJ. Would be a minimal charge or free, but the horses stay here, so they would be spending gas money, and we have no indoor arena or anything special to lure anyone. But might be a soul out there that cant or doesn't want to own a horse right now but would like to ride a bit, and doesn't need a lesson horse or big indoor to entice them. Shouldn't hurt to put it out there IMO.

Thank goodness for my commute

ok often I wish it were 1/2 length, but the empty car sure is a good place to let out the frustrations. I am of the opinion that no good would come of listing them to mom but I am sooooooo tired of her career of being sick. Yeah I know she didn't infect her jaw bones, but she did choose to have 3 elective surgeries in maybe 20 months. Weaken our immune system anyone?! This is after working with little germ bags for years and running to the Dr for antibiotics every time a cold she picked up from one of the them lingered.


The knees were reasonable but I don't know why other than wanting to be laid up she had the H and bladder tuck so soon afterwards. Oh and the strong IV antibiotics that might have cleared up her bone infection by now were giving her dire rear -- so do you think she took the broad-spectrum probiotics I offered her from the horses? Do you think she went to a diet that would have been easiest digestibility. Oh HELL NO , wouldn't want to risk taking something not labeled for people OR give up making high fructose corn syrup the mainstay of her diet. I have tried to be understanding that food is one of the pleasures she has left with the jaw pain, but I bought her some better stuff -puddings at least made with sugar etc and she didn't eat them. I ate some of the pudding and it was pretty tasty, this was not -here eat cardboard flavored health food.


I am crabby today because I am tired of having to dunk hay but there are still many many bales from the stacks she bought this summer that NEED to be dunked to be feedable at all, and I don't want to pitch much of the hay --genius paid the per bale price they were giving to people picking and choosing minus a whole $25 per stack. That is WAY under a 10% discount and it is way more than the top (10th) layer of bales that is affected, the bottom bales are maybe useful at 60%, a good portion of the top bales probably shouldn't be being fed to equines even with dunking (but knock wood the ones I'm feeding it are doing ok so far) and then probably 20% of the next few layers is crap. I'm feeding generously to encourage them to pick and choose through what I give them, so there is probably hardly any savings versus if I had told her to just buy full price 2008 hay. She USED to be able to discern hay quality and be VERY capable of asking for a good deal, but (pain) drug addled brain was not up to it and I didn't know that this summer.

Oh and the topper is I asked her to get me a bottle of diesel stabilizer. I told her Stabil is one brand. Good thing I was too tired to get diesel last night. I might have just dumped in the gasoline stabilizer she bought. Probablly wouldn't have hurt the diesel but I had thought I might just dump the liter in even though it treats up to 80 gals, so I might have tossed the container and never known that I did NOT have protected diesel. Gee thanks mom, way to make the effort to say the extra two syllables when you ask the store help for the product.

Well got some vitamin D and vitamin H this weekend

Saturday Dr W came out and Shade got her spa treatment for her fall. She was stuck in about 4 places including front fetlock. She thought one adjustment on her withers was a bit rude, but she still loffs her spa treatments, she was licking her lips when he did her neck. Sadie thought she she should come and and get some attention too; but I'm quite sure she doesn't need any chiro work.

Then I rode RazzMo later, had to get some vitamin H and exercise the dogs. Today I rode Shade. I think she feels ok. She felt smooth but she wanted to take it easy which was fine with me. I don't want to undo adjustments by overstressing anything. It was so warm, I wore a windbreaker over a long sleeve tee, barely needed the windbreaker but I didn't care to get a sneak chill which I'm prone to. Later I was going to ride Grey but Razz and Sadie came up to me so I hopped on Razz and ponyed the wild child. This was mostly a grazing trip. Razz gave Sadie pinned ears if she came up to his head so in one way it was easier to manage ponying here. I remembered I should really worm so I turned and headed home after just a short way. The goobers both jumped at something so I told them that was the end of the grazing. Decided I didn't have enough daylight to worm and just scrubbed and filled three stock tanks when I got home though. I'll have to try and remember to worm next weekend.

dang its only wednesday morning

I don't want to write a big whine fest but I'm tired. I don't do enough power point slides, plots etc to get efficient at it, and I got behind in Oct/Nov. Stupid politics. So I ran to the office 2 days on my holiday weekend, and didn't leave last night till nearly 11pm. I have a great job, the flexible hours are awesome but every once in a while it does entail unpaid overtime.

Yesterday it was sunny, pratically hot. I grabbed Shade for a quick ride, checked my chiro appt card to see if I had an appt today, nope it was for 10:15 tuesday so I had to make it a quick ride. Shade felt good, I was having a blast but when I turned around early and let her canter up the hill she hit a soft spot in the sand and fell. Poor baby, so now the chiro is coming to see her saturday morning. I came off and got sand in my teeth, Shade got sand up under her saddle pad but popped up and seemed a bit embarrased but not hurt, she still wanted to hurry towards home. But I'm getting her checked out, if she wrenched something it wouldn't stiffen up right away. I had to wait a long time for my appt, they had an urgent walk in --if Shade had not fallen I would have been sorely tempted to say "I need to get going and I expect you not to charge me since you were not ready for me --but I stuck it out. I was out in several spots, most were probably from popping off Shade several days ago, and my neck was getting stiff --too much computer + a couple unplanned dismounts will do that - and the chiro visit seems to have nipped most of the stiffness in the bud so it worked out.

Well better finish up my coffee, grain horses and get my tired self to work.

Oh I just want to sleep

and I've only been up a couple of hours and have plenty to do today. So I better quit staring at the screen and get to it, it may be nice enough to ride tomorrow morning so I don't want to feel I'm too behind to do so.