Hurray for good neighbors

And for trying to be one myself.   The neighbor girl that has been riding Lady some came over yesterday.  It was warm but gray skies and wind had been making me feel like I didn't want to be outside.   But with the bump of K's youthful energy I went out.  Had her pull some weeds in the tree bed south of the house while I pulled out old stalks from mom's flower beds that I'm trying to keep enough grass and weeds out that they survive w/o shorting my horse love to become an unpaid groundskeeper in my off work hours.

Then we rode Tanza and Lady in the bigger horse paddock.  I asked K not to let Lady go in her favorite corner because of the tree branches that could poke an eye.  With that, plus I think she processes from last ride and improves even when it has been a couple weeks between rides she was doing quite well with keeping Lady where K wanted to be.   I think they could go down the road with me within 2-3 rides if the progress continues.   Lady does not have an energy leap when she is out of the paddock like many horses do so if there is good control and management of Lady's energy level in the paddock I think they will be fine riding out.

Later I kept on a bit with that energy boost and did some hoeing grass out of the flower bed.  I used the microwave to heat the pulled pork and some frozen veggies for supper.  Dad had the last of leftover mashed taters with his and I had a slice of bread.   I hate the Roman orgy feeling of the 21st century but I do love having convenience foods and the microwave.  If only we could get rid of the outrageous behaviors and cheering of such for status or tribal signaling/flaunting purposes and keep the technological shortcuts life would be really great IMO. 

The candidate for work turned them down.  I suppose they could not offer enough money since he was interested and came for interview and gave a seminar but then declined to accept job and he was higher level than our position before going to east coast and is high level management there.  He wanted to have less management but I imagine their is a pretty high mental barrier to taking much of a pay cut.    So we will have to muddle along w/o getting extra management help.   And we didn't get the contract bid we put in for.   I had a bit of a bad feeling that we were gilding the lily too much, adding extra quarter or more percent of time for 2 or 3 high level people who were not going to have any of that time free from their core projects anyway but I deferred to the management folks who were scared to low bid and end up not covering all expenses for the project.   And we might still have not got low enough to be competitive, as there is no way we would have gone nearly as low as the company that won the bid did. 

Making hay while the sun shines

Not actually putting up hay,  we don't even have any hay fields.  But I've been making it a point to ride each morning this week before heading to work because the forecast is for it to rain or possibly snow all weekend.  

I am blessed with a couple of good horses.   Sadie is weak on the staying sound side but if endurance was out of the picture she is the perfect horse for me, she is so good about going out on short solo dirt road rides and even when she is being rowdy nothing she does feels like its going to fling me to the dirt.

Tanza is coming along.  I think his legs will hold up to as much riding as I get back up to doing and he is getting quite a bit better about relaxing if I take him out by himself and I know he is good in groups, having none of Sadie's angst about being surrounded by other horses.   Yesterday I slapped him out of Lady's feed pan so he had to run around a few minutes before letting me catch him,  oh my is he a pretty mover. 

Take it easy, take it easy

Or maybe its "I don't care anymore,  no more no more no more".   I have been trying too hard and messing up, wanting to make a good impression on the POD hire even when he was just a member of the team.  He was hired before the BOD of the big corporation that manages everything got rid of their stupid Che quoting corporate president hire after letting him agitate for 3 years without being a leader who replaced what he had decided was too old and hidebound.   And things have just been worse since people in our group got bumped into management roles because our excellent director moved up to try to save the midlevel program that we are part of and the corporation as a whole.

So I am resolved to remember that I have savings and quite a bit in the retirement plan and I wouldn't feel like just working as a driver, or even just a cashier etc for ten years or so before started drawing retirement was the end of the world.  I will still try to do a good job, as I don't want to contribute to the group or corporation failing and putting some decent folk coworkers out of a job;  but  *I* dont NEED this job so there is no reason whatsoever for me to go all angst over every inadvertent flub.  If I'm still flubbing at least I maybe won't feel as upset if I haven't tried so hard and probably if I just relax more I'll actually do better.  

And hopefully the group hires the candidate that they had come and give us a seminar last week.  That person has a lot of program management experience and our group is floundering on the management side IMO.   So if they hire this dude and he helps out with the management while getting to do more research which he has zero time to do at his current location it should be win win. 

They were looking for more of a pure researcher at the initial science side initially from what our scientist on the committee told me at lunch but the first choice candidates they would have liked are all happy in current locations and they realized they could use some help on the management side.  And IMO getting a good researcher on the what all can we do with the data/products we are generating could be just as useful to expanding program work long term, and it has more chance of success than pitching a new satellite to funding agencies.  So I'm jingling curb chains for that. 

A quick Grey Moun memory

 Grey was very "we've BTDT and Teresa has the T-shirt." He quickly got used to meeting Mtn bikers on trail and I had to insist we give them a little extra JIC room. But one time we saw a biker take a header coming downhill and then the bike slid towards us, not scary close nor fast but it made a life long impression on Grey and always after that any unmounted bike got the eagle eye as we went by in case it was one of those outlaw bikes, cuz if they'd throw their rider who knows what else they might do.  

Such a special and fun horse.  Luckily he had gotten comfy with meeting bikers before that incident and he never worried about meeting riders.  In his mind the bike only became rude after it was separated from the rider.  Which was true but if Grey had become worried that every mounted bike we met might toss its rider and come sliding towards us sharing the many pretty open space parks around the area with the bikers who adore this states foothills and mountains would have become a trial instead of a fun outing.  

I looked and found a picture this weekend to share our big Grand Canyon trip but did not get it scanned so that will have to wait.  The sun has made a bit of headway on our clouds so right now I'll take a short ride on Tanza ahead of the rain or rain/snow mix coming in tonight.

Farewell dear old friend, run free in the meadows across the rainbow bridge.

I had to put Grey Moun down on Friday.   More accurately I had the vet out and he euthanized him.  Grey had a colic Thursday morning,  I gave him just 1/2 a dose of banimine and then called the vet, expecting that his schedule is busy this time of year and he'd maybe be able to come by last thing in his afternoon.   He actually came by noon so having Grey medicated was not the best for diagnosing. Grey was eating with relish by then and based on heartbeat and gut sounds Dr Mike figured it was likely a spasmodic colic and I figured that was so since that was what Grey had at at Meeker 17 months ago.   So Dr Mike gave him vi IV the rest of a banimine dose + something I can't even pronounce in my head no let alone spell that was specifically good as an anti-spasmodic drug and I went to work thinking whew,  my old buddy just gave me a scare.

But Thursday night when I got home Grey was back to feeling poorly and not wanting to eat.  I gave him another 1/2 dose of oral banimine,  checked him in the middle of the night and he was not happy and eating but not distressed and ready to move off if I brought out a syringe again so I left it.  He was worse in the morning so I called vet emergency #,  Dr Mike came first thing.   Grey on Friday showed clear symptoms that his small intestine was blocked close to the stomach, Dr Mike's description was  even with a young breeding stallion or 30K burning a hole in your pocket surgery would be a "do you want to put the horse through this when even if they survive they'll never feel really good again?"  I would not have put my 28 year old guy through surgery at all, even if a rectal had showed a colon/large intestine twist that surgery can sometimes fix and the horse is healthy after some months of rehab, but it was kind of comforting to know that euthanizing him was the only choice, and not something to wonder whether I should have tried more intervention rather than opting out only because of Grey's age.

I may do a series of fond memory posts.  I can't begin to do justice to 25 years of having him in my life in one blog post, especially as the tears are still near to overflowing.      Here is an ear cam shot from when I took DL and Rose to Garden of the Gods in Sept. 2015 and rode Grey myself since J didn't come and I was wondering if Tanza needed rest after his skipping trot at Beaver Meadows ride a week or 2 prior to the GoG trip had made me think Tanza might have a micro lameness that would become a 6 months off injury and Sadie was still on paddock rest from her summer issues.

And a shot of Grey at the trailer,   enjoying the prospect of strutting his stuff a bit.  He had enjoyed being retired from endurance but getting out and going "I've still got it" on day trip rides with good stretches off between them.  Grey is on the right (front of trailer)

I just don't trust Trump --or the GOP leadership

I know Trump didn't really care for BO,  I think he offered to build something 'nicer' for visitors or something and was rebuffed and the oconomy has to have hurt hotel and casino business as fewer folks can indulge in those things.   But Trump has always been a democrat and likes the Clintons,  I can so see him running to muddy the GOP race to help her election chances. 

Now I really really don't trust the GOP leadership.  WTH were they thinking letting a lifelong dem run for the GOP nomination?  The charitable belief would be that they thought he'd burn out in the primary but if they rebuffed him and he went independent he'd pull more GOP leaners than Dems and that would hand the election to the Dems.

But I cannot be charitable to the group that cheered the IRS on as they attacked "tea party" groups, pulled the dirtiest of moves to keep a doddering old fool in the senate when a tea party candidate had forced a run-off in the primary and so on.   My personal theorem is that the GOP enjoys being the minority party as the Dems grow the government.  They don't want smaller government folks getting enough power to actually shrink the federal government no how no way.

I think they welcomed Trump into the race figuring he would split support that would go to a conservative candidate --who shook out to be Cruz, and they would get Jeb or another beltway insider to the nomination.   Even now they are hindering Cruz by keeping Kasich and Rubio in the race.  Mind you,  full throated support of Cruz from them would not be helpful to him because of the deep distrust we have after all their backstabbing and funding every crap thing BO has pushed for, but if they quietly shut down the also rans it would probably improve the odds of Cruz getting the nomination.  But I suspect the DC insiders prefer Hillary to Cruz.   They might pick Cruz or allow state delegates pledged to K and R to switch to Cruz at a brokered convention, but they would do that expecting that hurt feeling from Trump supporters would hamstring Cruz and they would call him the new Goldwater, who scares away the November voters, "so you bitter clingers need to just stay out of the way next time"  

Got on both Tanza and Sadie today

And K came over with her mom and mom (J)  rode Grey Moun and K rode Lady.   I was just finishing with Tanza when they got here so I grabbed Sadie and rode with them in the paddock.  Grey was testing J and trying to just go to the gate some,  she is a good rider but had the reins a bit long and couldn't pull him up one time.  

Sadie was a brat,  but luckily she doesn't know how to buck,  I had the Wintec on her and it felt nice and secure.   My check of fit it looked good too so I think I'll try using the Wintec on her for initial riding this spring and see how things go.