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.