Sandy

I just love this horse. I have a few favorites. She is at the top of the list. ; )

Finally a decent picture of this gal.

Admittedly, I'm not a good photographer. However, this gal Finally stood still long enough for me to take her picture. She's Usually up in my face or has one of those Eeyore looks going on. She is the hardest horse I have to take a picture of. I think CC looks pretty darn good. She has grown a bit, and now is a good solid 14.2. I'm hoping to send her to a trainer here shortly. She is still for sale. If interested, please contact me privately. Here's her pedigree if your interested.
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/foothills+cappuccino




My adorable Grandson. He's starting to smile quite a lot now. He coo's and is starting to hit things with his hands. He's quite the little cuddle bug too. Not that I'm complaining. I wonder if he'll like horses as much as his mom and I do. No matter, time will tell. His brother does like horses, but he is quite afraid of them when they are full grown. The only one he's Not afraid of is Cotie for some strange reason. Who knows. Maybe he senses something I don't around the others.

THE WARMTH OF A HORSE

The Warmth Of A Horse

By Shelly Whiting

~//~

When your day seems out of balance
And so many things go wrong...

When people fight around you
And the clock drags on so long...
When some folks act like children
And fill you with remorse...
Go out into your pasture
Wrap your arms around your horse.
His gentle breath enfolds you
As he watches with those eyes...
He may not have a PhD
But he is, oh so so wise!
His head rests on your shoulder
You hug him good and tight...
He puts your world in balance
And makes it seem all right.
Your tears will soon stop flowing
The tension will be eased...
The nonsense has been lifted
You are quiet and at peace.
So when you need some balance
From the stresses in your day...
The therapy you really need
Is out there eating hay!

Gregory....... being a HAM

This kid comes to life when there's a camera pointed at him. He loves to take pictures and have his picture taken. He's a real hoot! He may be 3, but sometimes he acts like he's much older and wiser then some of us "adults". He's the house clown though, that's for sure. Papa's been spoiling the heck out of him lately too, which doesn't help. LOL

Collin's first bath!

He was less then pleased. He liked it for a moment, then started crying like we were hurting him, so his bath was short and sweet. He looked so cute though. See his cheeks aren't as plump as they were when he was first born. ; ) He's so sweet.

Life is never boring

Well I did it. I went and finished my paperwork for RS. I'm not sure when I start back there, but I'll find out tomorrow I suspect.

On another note, The Store~
It seems that no matter how much one makes there is always going to be someone that is jealous, fearful, manipulative or controlling, the worst is someone who is all four. We have 3 such individuals, one that denies she is, one that is just loud and obnoxious and doesn't care who she pisses off, she treats everyone the same and everyone gets bitched about, then there's the last gal who is all four. This person is the same one who decided to say something nasty to me in front of customers. BIG NO NO. If you've got something to say to me, say it OUT of ear shot and behind closed doors. I've discussed this with the DM as well as my manager and the two other ass man's. All say the same thing. Talk to the person in question, but make sure you have a witness.

I'm not sure how long this job is going to pan out, especially cause they keep bumping me around. One day I'm working days, the next nights, then days the next. It is really taking a toll on me. I'm getting NOTHING done around here and there is a LOT to do.

So RS wants me to consider coming back FT. I'm really thinking long and hard about it. I don't like games. I'm there to get a paycheck - period. If you've got something to say to me, pull me aside and tell me what's on your mind, but don't play the stupid games in the process.

I did find out tonight, that I won't get a check for another 3 weeks. They hold it for a full month. What the hell kind of crap is that!? This is Another thing I'm going to bring up at the monthly meeting. Schedules and pay. Hell I've been there just shy of 2 weeks and I'm already questioning my decision to continue there or not. Although it is fun and I do enjoy it, and as a bonus, I've lost 8 lbs already. I've been fighting to get that off. YES! Now to loose the rest of it and pray it doesn't find me again! What to do, what to do..... That is the question!

What would be your "Dream Job"?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about jobs as of late, can't you tell? LOL Anyway, I'm curious, what would be the ultimate job for you?

Here's mine ~ PT hours for a full time pay. A minimum of 25 hr. Work 3 to 4 days a week for eh, I don't know, 6 hours? With a nice lunch break in there too. Just enough challenge to keep my brain stimulated, just enough exercise to keep the muscles working. An area that's at least open to the outside so I can get fresh air. And somehow involve horses? There is no such job..... Sigh

OLD BROADS' RIDING RULES

1. We DO NOT need to show up with our hair combed, make up on and wearing a clean shirt.

2. Moaning, groaning and complaining about aching muscles is perfectly acceptable,as is taking Motrin prior to a ride.

3. Helping someone on or off the horse does not mean the rider is an invalid. It only means the horse got taller overnight.

4. No one will comment about how big someone's butt looks in a saddle.

5. Everyone will wait, patiently, while someone dismounts and adjusts equipment. Everyone will also wait, patiently, until that person remounts and is ready to move on...no matter how long that takes.

6. When a horse is acting up we will accept that the horse is just having a bad hair day and it is not the rider's fault.

7. Mentioning it is too hot, too dry, too humid, too wet, too buggy, etc., is considered self expression, not whining.

8. Wanting to be first, last, walk, or just stop does not mean the rider is a wimp. Sometimes it is necessary to teach a horse who is in charge.

9. We will take the time to discuss the important issues of the day like who is dating who, who is cheating on who and any other relevant information which needs to be passed on.

10. Not keeping your horse in gait (as we all ride gaited horses) is not a Federal Crime. With all that is going on today, the FBI has too much on it's plate to follow us around.

11. We will acknowledge that horses are very strange animals and sometimes for no reason at all we fall off of them. If this happens to any rider the other riders will ascertain that the person is okay and then not mention the incident to another living soul, especially husbands and significant others.

12. We will acknowledge, without apology, that riding more than 2 1/2 hours increases our grumpy level far more than any ego benefits we may get from riding longer.

Stuff

One of the 4 kittens I was left with trying to find homes for
or taking them to Animal Control.... Pisses me slam off!
I hate that kind of crap! This particular kitten is a female
and SUPER sweet!




Side Picture of Tink... She's a cute
little girl, it's to bad she's a redhead!
She's going to be
One Hell of a hunter jumper!

Peppy and Shasta waiting ever so patiently for me
to get their grain together.
They usually "hang" together.
Especially since Tonka has left.

Sometimes I amaze my self with my stupidity

Yesterday, I thought ~ It would be easier for me to feed everyone if I opened the gates and let all the horses back together. Now Why would I think it would be easier? Less traveling time so to speak, meaning that the 4 mares in the back field could get in the barn Should it start raining, which it did last night and most of today. Well, in my Brilliance, I didn't take into account that Dolly being the lead mare is a regular biotch... If she's not, Opal is and both were in the far pasture. This is stuff I Already know, I was Hoping that since they were all separated for quite awhile, that Dolly would mellow out a little. What was I thinking?! Obviously my brain went on vacation and forgot to tell me.

Tonight after coming home, I'm out there tossing hay and I notice Ms. Doll throwing kicks at everyone, being a total turd, backing up like she's going to double barrel Elly. Etc. So I yelled at her, she looked at me with a "what" expression, I didn't do anything wrong. Hmph! Butthead mare! So, hopefully tomorrow, if it's not raining and I'm not totally dead when I get home, I'm going to separate them back to the way they were. Tink is happy cause she's hanging out with her mom, so is Peppy and Shasta. Sandy's been in with the foals for awhile and they've not had any problems or trying to nurse at all. So Sandy will stay in there with the foals as well as Zelda and Elly. Just the 4 big boss hoss's will be in the back area again. I don't like it but they aren't cooperating, so there's not a whole lot I can do about that right now. Not until I've had a chance to sit out there with them for a bit and get them over whatever issues they are having.

Busy Weekend.....

Well of course the baby was born early on Friday so that started the weekend here off with a Bang! He's a lot more animated today, but is still quite the quiet one compared to his brother. Thankfully! I can see though, where Collin is going to give Gregory a run for his money later down the road. He's built to be a football player. LOL

And today, while I was at the hospital, my sister in law calls to say they want to come and pick up my nieces colt. Dang it, I just got to the hospital! Which it did turn out best that we left, since Gregory and Hannah were a bit wide open in the room, getting into Everything. Gregory mostly. He was being a real turkey. My son David had bought everyone lunch, so this was keeping them busy temporarily. LOL But it didn't last to long, unfortunately.

So Gregory and I came home, I put him down for a nap, HMPH! When David comes in to tell me that someone was outside on the road looking at the horses. OK..... this is something that does happen, just not all the time. So I head out there, they didn't want to talk to me so they took off. I hate that when ppl do that. I would rather have them stay and chat. Makes me less suspicious. Well, I figured, since I was up and out, I might as well get Tonka ready for his departure. So I put a halter on him, and he Flat refused to walk anywhere. About 10 mins of trying to go somewhere, backwards worked for about 10 steps, sideways for another 5, my brother showed up with their trailer. He came in and helped me get him out. It took about 10 mins maybe to get Tonka loaded his first time ever in a trailer. Bribed the boy with grain, worked great! He was so Leary, but he did it, as soon as all 4 were safely on the trailer, I secured the butt bar, and closed the door quietly. He was on! We gave him about 5 mins to get used to it, then they were on their way. One down a few more to go. Sigh...... Their timing sucked, as far as me being at the hospital, but, it worked out for the best in the long run. David got Gregory to sleep for his nap, I fed the horses, then took a nap myself. Boy howdy did that feel Goooood! I could have slept the whole day I think.

A Little Early....

Well at 12:10 am Sabrina's water broke. So.... we b lined to the hospital. They checked her in, got her in a room all by 12:30am. The doctor arrived at about 1:30am. She was prepped for the surgery and taken to the OB operating room. Only one person was allowed to go in with her, I was "it". Although they wouldn't allow me in there until they had everything in place and they were about to start cutting. It's a good thing I went in there with her, cause she was VERY scared! I just wanted to hug her and say It will be AOK, but.... that would have been a really bad thing. :) So..... I just held her hand, wiped her tears and talked to her.

At 2:30am, we saw -----
for the first time! Enter Collin Lee.....

**Weighing 10.43lbs officially and is 20 1/2 inches long! Wow!



Mother and Son are both doing quite well. Collin is just perfect! 10 fingers, 10 toes....

Boy He has a Healthy set of lungs.... He's just the most precious thing!

Anticipation~~

After the LONG wait, tomorrow has FINALLY come.. We will be leaving here around 9:45am. They have told my daughter that only one person can be in the delivery room, so I get to be it! I'm under strict rules ~ No photos of the actual cut and whatnot. She doesn't want to be grossed out by the cutting for the C section. :P Can't blame her, but.... I may have to snap one anyway. If she doesn't want it, she can always bury it later. I plan on taking a lot of photos of the new baby, so be prepared...

I think we are as prepared as we can physically be. We have a crib, car seat, bassinet, high chair, walker, port-a-crib, diapers, bottles, formula, bibs, clothes (OMG a Butt ton of clothes), blankets, a new diaper bag, bottle scrubber and pacifiers. It took quite some doing to find the bassinet sheets, but we managed to find a few. Thankfully. The only thing we haven't been able to locate is those little hand mittens, so we are going to improvise and use socks. Oh another thing we can't seem to locate is those crib protector pads. I can't find them anywhere. It's like they disappeared off the face of the earth or something. Oh well, another improvise and we will just use the receiving blankets instead of those. I can't think of anything else we need. It's been a chore getting prepared to get everything together for Collin. But we prevailed!

So tomorrow is the day~ So watch for pics of Collin..... ;)

Grandkids~~~

Gregory and Hannah







Can we say...... Ham's??
Just pull out a camera and the photo shoot commences. They are a riot also a Pair of Devils when they want to be. ;) They are cousin's, but they look a lot alike I think.

Shots Day.....

They all got wormed first. They must have actually liked it because they weren't trying to wipe it all over me this time. LOL

This is Cassie and her OH so concerned look. She just wanted me to go away so she could eat her dinner. She really didn't care one way or another.

This is Cotie's "concerned" look. He's almost to mellow. Is there such a thing though? Really?

Then they all got their shots. The foals got their first one, I was Really surprised at how well they did. Out of them all, Tink gave me a fit, only because she didn't want to be on a lead of any kind. Then Peppy, he must still be mad at me for taking mommy away, boy he was rowdy. He even reared up, the stinker. Only I was not going to put up with the nonsense, so we just worked it out. When he realized I wasn't going to give up cause he wanted me to, he settled right down.

Shasta, Dusty and Tonka were so uneventful they didn't even need a lead over their necks, they had one anyway, just in case, but for the most part, they were fantastic.

The one that gave me a fit?
G-R-A-C-E..... Have I ever said how much this mare and I don't get along? I really don't like her much. She took off like a someone had shot her in the butt. GRRRRRR..... So..... she didn't get to eat. When I went to get her out of the other pasture, she started to run, I was like Nope your not gonna and played this game of not approaching her. Snagged her and then went to give her her shot. You would have thought the needle was 10 inches long. She shook her head, tried to do whatever she could to remove it. So I pulled it out. Reattached it to the syringe and popped her with the wormer to give her something else to think about, then redid the shot. What a Major brat. The OTHER adult horses, I didn't need a lead or anything, I just walked up and popped them with both. Including Cotie, he really doesn't care about things like that. But this Grace and I - hmph, I think she and I need to do some working, cause this isn't going to cut it. I told David yesterday, if he hadn't liked his horse so much, she'd be going down the road, cause I surely don't like her. He needs to get out there and spend some time with her, she's being a major wench as of late. Even went so far today as to kick at Zelda. I yelled, she stopped. GRRRR...

Which makes me think I'm going to build Zelda a separate pasture of her own. There's no need for her to be beat up by any of them and since she is getting up there in years, she can't get away as fast as she used to and she's loosing herd status. Pisses me off that Grace is being so mean to anyone that's in her area with her. Did I say how much she and I don't get along? LOL I liked her better when she was in foal, at least she had a more even temperament.

Now where to put up Zelda's new area. Hmmmm......

The boys

Peppy and Tonka sharing a secret.






Tonka was watching a kitten in the pasture.

Cotie

Mr. "Fugly" himself. He's starting to get fat, even though I've cut his feed back significantly, he's still gaining weight. He is also slightly butt high again. I really need to get some decent pictures done, one of those things that are on my "to do" list.

Food Fight

The EACH have their Own buckets, but that is just to easy! They all have to eat out of the same bucket. When the first one is done, they all move down to the next and continue until all 5 buckets are empty. They fight a little over who's turn it is to stick their head in the bucket, but it's not much, it's usually just pinned ears and get out of my way. LOL they are bad.....


They do the same thing with their hay. They will eat one
then move on to the next. Even if there is a Kagillion piles
out there. They crack me up!

Just some pictures I like...

The picture on the left is of Sandy and Shasta.

The picture on the right is of Dusty.











Left is Cassie, Right is Tink with Dusty just behind her. The goats in the neighbors yard had her attention. :)









A flowering bush that borders the front pasture on t he left, and a picture of Sandy on the right.

"Elly's Mom"

This is Slydone Got Lucky, aka Miss Elly.
To some, Miss Elly may look like a typical red dun filly. But, she's much more then that to me. This is the story of how Miss Elly came here to be with me.

Some years ago, my mom and I were looking at horses. She wanted one of her own to ride so she could go on trail rides with me. While we were looking at this one particular barn, we spotted a gelding that was a stunning red dun. Well I had never seen a red dun before, so I didn't know what color he was. He was actually a bit more orange then Elly is, but she's close. Anyway, I had inquired about the gelding that day, and was told he wasn't for sale, sadly, because my mom took to him right away.

We eventually found a horse for my mom, but she wasn't a good horse for her, and not comfortable to ride at all, so we started the search again. All the while she kept saying, I sure wish I could find one like that one we saw. I had promised my mom, that I Would find a horse just like that gelding she had fallen in love with.

So as I was surfing on the net one day, I found a pretty buckskin mare (I know, definitely not a red dun, but Hey, I love buckskins!) and bought her. I thought, AWESOME, I can train this older mare to saddle, she's nice and gentle, loved my mom and would take care of her. She still wasn't the red dun that she wanted, but she would definitely be a good horse for her to tool around on. Well, I had just gotten her under saddle and going really well. We were just about ready to have my mom take her first test ride, with me holding her in hand just in case my mom spooked (she rode as a kid for years and LOVED horses) But as fate would have it, my mom passed away before she was able to take that first ride. The buckskin who's rump is pictured left and was the intended for my mother, is Sandy. She is my "The" horse. Elly is right there in the same category.

Elly has a "typical" red head attitude, she has a stubborn streak that can resemble that of an Irishman's on occasion, my mom was a red head. Stubborn, very intelligent, great sense of humor with a LOT of common sense. They both share(d) these "red head traits". Elly was found by visiting a friends website under the horses she had for sale at the time.

If you would like to find a pretty red dun with a lot of cow sense, go to www.strawnequine.com and tell Paige that I sent ya! : ) Anyhow, we picked up El last year and El has been "my" horse predominantly since. I wonder sometimes if Elly doesn't have a bit more of her name sake in her some how. My mom's nickname was Ellie. So that's how I became "Elly's Mom". :D