We did get to ride a bit this past Monday. We saddled up. Toby goes nuts when we leave the pasture area without him. He is eyeing us closely. He is so attached to having his momma with him.

Before we could get going, the hubby takes a call...

And talks and talks....................................... Bunny is getting a little anxious and starts to walk away.


The weather was nice. It was a little sunnier than I had expected. I forgot the sunscreen! I am pink today.
We rode to a friends house up the dirt road from us, the horses love the attention they get from the neighbors.

Heading back..........................Hubby and Bunny from the back....
Hubby and Bunny from the front... Bunny being patient , hubby not being patient while I snap the picture...
The view of the old homestead with the hill behind our house...


Back in the pasture... isn't the little boy, Toby, so cute?? We always ride in the pasture when we return so that Toby gets used to us on top the horses.


After our ride we placed a blanket and saddle on Toby. He just stood still. He is such a good boy.
We did imprinting with him when he was a baby, but it has been a long time since we placed anything on his back. When he was about 5 weeks old, I had tied my flannel shirt around him to have him know the feel of something around his girth. He took that well and actually seemed to care less. I think he takes after his mellow momma quite a bit. He is 2 now and we really need to get him to be more respectful. He thinks we are his buddies a little too much. More later on our progress with this little guy.

It's all good, we had a great time riding. And I can' wait til tomorrow when we ride again.
YEEHAW!

Years ago in a land far far away(in Calif) I was getting things ready for work the next day…I knew I had to get gas and I don’t like doing that in the morning…..So I decided to get it that night. It was dark and a little cold. So I put on a dark hooded sweatshirt and pulled the hoody tight. When I got to the station, I got out of my little vw station wagon and went to the other side where the fill was. As I passed the passenger door I noticed something stuck in the handle.. The kids had toys called transformers…This one changed from a robot into a gun..can you guess what shape it was in? So I pull it out of the door handle and waved it around. O.K. its dark outside and I’m in a dark hooded sweatshirt waving a gun around. I threw the gun in the front seat and headed for the cashier. Gee, for some reason he was acting a little nervous. I gave him my ten dollars, I told ya it was a long time ago, so I pumped the gas. When I finished I got in the car and headed home. Oh, Look, I said to myself, there are 3 police cars headed this way with their red lights on. There must be a heck of an accident somewhere near here. So I’m driving home and I played back the last ten minutes inside the block that was inside my hoody. I heard a knocking and it wasn’t coming from the vw,s engine compartant I got so nervous my knees were knocking. I didn’t look back. Relieved to get home and in my bed, I decided right then and there to get my gas in the morning for now on.Oh Yeah and be careful with what kind of toys You buy your kids

I’m sitting on the porch with laptop in hand. I sit back and close my eyes and imagine a wagon train slowly moving across the valley creating a lot of dust. People were different back then. I picture the wagons in a circle at dusk. All the men sitting around the campfire, exhausted from the days long journey. The women all gather by a wagon and talk about the day’s events. They talk about the children and the animals. Maybe even about the dreams they have of their new lives in front of them.

The men are talking about the large cow patty they saw on the road a few miles back and of course, they argue over who smells the worst. Then one of them gets up and disappears behind a bush to relieve himself, while another grabs a branch to make a sound like a snake behind the first guy.

I’m sorry, I guess things haven’t changed. Please disregard!!!!!

Tomorrow is friday! Where did the week go?
It actually started Saturday... it had rained the day before and the ground was quite wet. We ended up working in the garage. We cleaned the garage out. We redid an old "chicken hotel" for the chickens to be able to roost in a more appropriate place instead of the old TV stand that was in their cage. At mid morning we found out a good friend had been in a bad quad accident. There was nothing we could do but wait for more information.
Sunday we worked in the yard a little, we did not get the tomato plants or any of the garden done that we were hoping to, but it was in our thoughts. HAHA. We came in and watched Nascar racing and vegged out a little. Then we found out more about our friend. He had gone over the edge of a trail. He tumbled head first down about a 4 foot drop and landed on his side on a pile of rocks, then the quad came down and landed on him. It took 4 hours before rescue crews could get him out to an area where he could be life-flighted to Phoenix. That was all we found out for then.
Monday we got to ride the horses... yeehaw! Pics in MY next post! (Seems hubby is hooked on blogging cause he is sitting at the desktop computer writing his own at this moment.)
Later Monday we found out that our friend had gone into surgery for his broken hip. Apparently it all started when he was rounding a curve on the trail and ended up going over the edge. The buddy he was with was able to pull the quad up off him and our friend was going to try and climb up, but he realized he could not move, One foot was turned the wrong way. There was no cell service, so the buddy had to leave our friend and try and get a call out. Our friend was able to right his wrong way foot with his other foot and prop it up with a rock for a little more comfort. The ambulance and fire truck could not get close to where he was, so they hiked in and worked on him, there were some cowboys that came in and ended up getting some nearby ranchers to help out. Finally, 4 hours later our friend was loaded in the helicopter had about a 10 minute window to lift off or weather would ground them again.
Tuesday, back to the grind of a work day, then home to do a little laundry and gather things to bring to the hospital.
Wednesday.. to the hospital with hubby and a few other buddies. The drive is not too bad, it only took about an hour and 45 minutes. Our friend is doing quite well. He says his hip, which the bone that goes into the pelvis was broken, has pins in it and he is already walking pretty well. He had broken 9 ribs and that was what the doctors were most concerned about. Until his chest stops bleeding they cannot let him out. Looks like it will be Saturday that he will get to go home.

Today was... back to work for both hubby and I. It is month end, so I am under pressure to get as much accomplished as I can (each month is the same). But I love what I do. One more day, then it is weekend and we will go riding again. We plan on trailering the horses to somewhere we have not been to before.
Whhhheewwwww. Can't wait til tomorrow is over!

Cowgirl/mom is only 5’2”. So I spend most my time looking at the top of her head. She doesn’t have a problem with being short. I like it because if I need to hide something I just put it up high. Being short didn’t hold her back from raising 5 boys and a daughter…When it came to disciplining she just reached up and slapped them in the knee. She hates driving a car….she has to have a big truck….so she can see better, she keeps telling me….but, she gets very frustrated when she tries to climb on her horse. I think her jeans are too tight. Oh well. Now I won’t tell you how small her feet are, but her last pair of tennis shoes are hanging from my rear view mirror. Soooo… its true, good things come in small packages….

When cowgirl/mom and I first moved in together, it was very scary for me. Even though we been together for a long time, living together was different. I didn’t know what to expect. Everything seemed normal to me until one day I walked down the hallway of our small apartment and heard what sounded to me a lot like thunder. She was in the bathroom and that was where the noise was coming from. I froze by the bathroom door. I couldn’t move…over and over again I heard that loud rumbling. Oh my gosh, what have I got myself into……oh wait,,,,, its not what you think…. It was the toilet paper roller spinning at a high rate of speed, over and over again. Now I don’t panic easily. One day when she was at work, I bought and installed bearings on each end of the roller. Years have gone by and now I have hooked up our toilet paper roller to a small generator and with cowgirl/moms help it powers the toaster in the mornings and I toast my pop tarts with it. I want everyone to know,,,, I do change an empty toilet paper roller and I put it on the proper way…..sure, it gives me more power. But I do it just for her.

Looking out at the horizon just as the sun sets from our back porch we feel thankful for what we have. Kind of wishing it was 50 years ago. A simple way of life was how I saw my dreams. Most of the news I would get would be from friends and neighbors as they would drop by and share their experiences with us. Today, we hear about everyone’s problems from all over the world. In between commercials the news tells us all the negative things that happen each day. Of course they put their own twist on things to make them interesting enough for us to want to hear.

When momma cowgirl gets interested in something she goes all out. Her blogging keeps her busy most of her free time. Being the kind considerate hubby I am, I take some interest in her new love, I mean hobby. I was very happy to see all the comments that she received on her thoughts. so i forced myself to read more blogs. Ok it wasn’t really that hard, but hey I am a man and need to complain.

What I found out was the blogs I read were just like the neighbors and friends dropping by sharing their life experiences with us. Wow! I was impressed. so as I sit on the porch, watching the sunset, I don’t have to wait for people to drop by. I just turn on the old lap top and hear about their day. Yup, I’m thankful for what we have.

I am taking too much time sitting here reading other's blogs about their horses. Me thinks I better get going and get my chores done so I can get back here and read more.
I am going to go out and groom the horses and I will have to get some cool pictures of my baby, Toby, his colors are vibrant now that his winter coat has shed off. His dam is our Palomino and his sire was a big beautiful Tobiano Paint. I have pictures to share of the conception HA!
Be back later!

Work is about 7 miles away, to the center of town. For the first 3 miles this is the beautiful country side we have enjoyed, then we hit the north end of town where there is actual stores and fast food places. About a year and a half after we were here we heard that an investor had bought out all this beautiful land off a cattle rancher. They have very limited cattle that they work now and I hardly ever see a cowboy even out there rustlin’ them from one field to the next. What a shame I had said, yet that was progress. Well, now that the housing market is so bad, thank goodness, the investor cannot go forth with their plan of putting homes there. The plan was 2500 homes on lots nothing smaller than an acre, a golf course and a hotel, but in the $500,000 price range (yea right). That price tag would never had made it here even when the market was booming, what the heck were they thinking. There looks to be no end to the housing market crisis so I am pleased to know it will be a long while before they destroy
my drive to work.

We have had horses for almost 4 years now. We have wonderful horses and have been fortunate that we can ride them as well as we know how and they are kind to us and mind very well. But it is time that we take riding lessons to be proper riders for our horses sakes. I feel I am quite comfortable in the saddle but my husband would like to have more knowledge so he can feel more confident when atop our beautiful quarter horse. She is 21 years old , 16.1hh and acts younger than our 10 year palomino. She was used in camps for kids for many summers. She definitely likes to go out and do the trail riding thing as long as she has another horse with her. We have worked with her about being barn sour and she has come along with that just fine.

So, in 2 weeks we start our class through the local college here. We had taken a class with this instructor a year and half ago for training the new, stubborn, or finicky horse and had a wonderful time and learned a ton. It was just in time for us because we had just had our new colt. We did have some input from other horse owners about imprinting and such, but the class did wonders for us green horse owners.

I can’t wait for class to start, it is but a few miles from home and it would be nice if we could ride there but it is down the highway where there is a small bridge that only has 2 lanes and no room for horses to cross. If we wanted to, we could probably go through state land, but it would take us a bit out of the way. So we will trailer them there.

And I plan on having a great time, I will take pictures (if I remember my camera) HA.

Here we sit in a hotel room in not the best of areas in Phoenix. We are here to go see the DiamondBacks play (baseball). We are here more for the concert after the game..Trace Atkins, yeehaw! We are here to celebrate my birthday with these events.

We hit the Jacuzzi and pool at 9:15pm last night (after running around the city looking for a walmart or the like to get a bathing suit), it was 82 degrees here and it felt good to get wet. We were the only people in the Jacuzzi or pool. I guess all the other mass of people that are coming to see Trace Atkins have afforded better hotel rooms.. HA!

We ate the continental breakfast in the hotel that was not all that bad. I had some good orange juice and a hardboiled egg and what I thought was a plain mini breakfast muffin…. eck, it turned out to be blueberry (I know, I know…who doesn’t like blueberry). Then back up to the room to watch mundane tv.. or better yet, check out blogs. LOL.

Noon now and while I sit and read others fun blogs the hubby says he is a bit hungry. We wonder if we should go ahead and eat lunch, then snack before the game or snack now and eat later. He decides we should wait til closer to the game to have an actual meal so he goes down and gets his snacks. I comment to him when I notice the chips and three musketeer candy bar….. mmm something sweet and something salty. He nonchalantly and quite seriously looks at me and says, “the veggie machine was all sold out”. Oh my gosh, he keeps me laughin’. Ok, so you had to be there. What is worse, it took me a bit to get what he meant.

This is Pookie and I riding (this was when she and 4 of her brothers came out to visit us last December)...

Go-go Bunny Two Shoes is on the left, Jackie on the right. Which one is Pookie, which is Momma??

Late last summer we had an epidemic of these mangy things. The chickens love it, they run around like crazy trying to catch them, but one could not walk without getting a bunch on your clothing. These grasshoppers we have are big huge. One day when I was helping get groceries taken out of the back of the truck, I saw a grasshopper and it had 2 heads.

It was on a small mound of straw near the back entrance, it seemed to just creep away from me, not like the normal skedaddle they would normally do when one walks up near them.. I thought, wow, what a good silly thing to put in the blog. So, in the house for the camera I went and out again, I lean down and snap the picture and realize, this is not one grasshopper with 2 heads… it was 2 grasshoppers …um, ya know.

Geez, LOL at me!

I am in a small horse club locally in our little town here. I am supposed to write the newsletter each month. I had volunteered to do this last June. I was faithful and had my newsletters out in the first few days of each month. I loved doing this for the club, it kept me involved.

Now I feel bad that I have not done one in three months and I still had not even published January’s issue, tho it is done. Tonight I vow to get out the old January issue and I will work on the 3 missing ones. They really only take about an hour and half to complete once I have all the components I want to place in them. To find good articles on information about horses can be a challenge. I can go to the internet easily, but to find articles that are not copyrighted, or that have been published with author unknown is hard to come by. I include a kids page, so at times to find something that youngun’s can have fun with is another challenge. Along with the article page and the kids page, I include a funny page, an upcoming events page, a feature on a club member page and the cover page.

I have my work cut out for me tonight.

Any suggestions on where to find some funny horse jokes??

I happen to like a little bit of all different genres. But I tend to listen to country more than others. There is a new song by Billy Ray Cyrus that he sings duet with his daughter Miley called “Get Ready, Get Set, Don’t Go”. I actually like this song, Billy sounds a little like Bruce Springsteen, but too bad Miley is the co-singer, it would be so much better with someone that can actually sing.

Another thing, I have not heard a sexy song since Billy Currington’s “Doing Something Right”.

But now there is a song out by James Otto called “Just Got Started Loving You”. I must have listened it to about 25 times last night on my Zune player while laying in bed. When I first heard this song, I loved the feeling I got when listening to it, I didn’t even care if the singer was an old man of 50 something… HA , wait, I am 50 something. Check the video below, you will see he is not all that great looking and I was hoping for a much sexier video, but the song does it for me. (evil grin).

mmmm mmmmm

We get interoffice email thru outlook about which doctor is going to lunch, which assistant will cover which hall and other changes from the master schedule published in email each day. also, each day I have to announce to the office when I leave the building to get lunch, this really is a courtesy announcement and a way of letting people know you will be out and about town. Most times I offer to pick up whatever another may want while I am out. Then we all also have to announce when we leave for the night. Thank goodness we do not have to announce when we have to pee. Hah

So anyway, yesterday we got a great little email. It read: “RATTLESNAKE …There is a rattler outside the back door of the main building.” We in the back building run to check it out only to find out that it is a bullsnake, albeit a very large bullsnake. And within minutes 2 doctors and 3 assistants come out, they don’t run this fast to get to a patient waiting for them in the next room (just kidding). The first doctor out the door nonchalantly bends down and picks it up and asks one of the assistants to go get a pillow case. His plan was to bring it home and let it out on his property.

He brought the snake back into the office, walks through the front lobby past the patients that are totally aware of the snake matter now and for the most part, not a one blinks an eye about it.

Gotta love this small town!

Next week I will be starting to work 4 ten hour days a week. Unfortunately I do not get to have Friday off. That would have been too nice because my hubby has Fridays off. The only available days to pick from to have off was Tuesday or Thursday. I chose Thursday. Which is pretty good for when I want a 4 day weekend, I need only take a Friday off.

And hey… 4^th of July is on a Friday this year… yeehaw!

I have already been making a list (yes I tend to make lists and bad as that is, I save these lists forever it seems) of all the things I want to do on my days off. So far, it is all work that grace my list, but I have to start tackling it sometime, so I can feel fulfilled and enjoy life with things in order. HA! That will be the day.

I know when I used to tackle things in the past when the kids were little, it seemed that I made more chores for myself if I gave the kids chore lists. It was better just doing it myself.

So, next Thursday we will see if I actually accomplish something or if I just veg out. I hope for the strength to do at least one thing on my list.

I guess that means it must be spring.

I hate spring cleaning. I have so many things on my list of what I want to get done, let alone the normal things that one is supposed to do when it is “spring cleaning time”.

A few weekends ago I sat and watched 3 of those home and/or landscape improvement shows and of course that is the worst thing that I can watch. Because, dayyyyumm, now I have added even more to my “things I want to do” list. I know time will let me forget the enthusiasm I had when I first watched the shows and my desire will wane and I can remove a few things off that list.

But I really would much rather be outside with the horses or doing a project, anything to not be stuck in the house.

OK… time to get off my butt and get out there and muck those stalls.. which is not on my list.

When I called to make the reservations for camping this past weekend, I had originally called to the fair grounds, which in turn gave me the phone # to call to actually make the reservation. I called that number, made our reservation and figured everything would be great. We packed and left first thing Saturday morning. We arrive at the fair grounds, drive in and at the entrance is a sign that says the park manager is located in space 15. We make our way around to that space and out comes a guy in his leather pants, his red, white and blue bandana tied backwards on his head, his Harley Davidson parked near his trailer. He looks to be 60 years old, but I think that is just because he has a swollen, bubbly nose from too much drinking in his life. Anyway, he says there is no openings when I tell him we had a reservation. He gives a call over to another camping site and we are told that our reservation is for that facility. Which is 10 miles away. We figure we might as well go there.

We arrive other there at 9:30, I check in, letting them know how upset I was to find out that they did not ask which facility I wanted to be at when I first called because how was I to know that I there were 2 to choose from. They apologized and said they had a lovely spot for us there. They also told us about the amenities they have, which are cable hook up, water electric, there is an exercise room, a laundry room, a craft room and a giant big screen TV room. AND this place was a 55+ age community. What a crack up, I was fuming and laughing at the same time. So, we go to the spot that they have reserved for us and there is already a camper there. Back to the office we go. This is really getting FUN!

They ask us if we mind having a spot where we must back the trailer in, we said FINE. We look on the little map they give us and it is the tiniest campsite they have. It is also on the corner of which 2 streets exit at to proceed toward the exit of the campground. Can you spell NIGHTMARE.

The dog had a nice first trip out.

We have gotten several calls from the foster child we had and that was placed with another family a few weeks back. Early last week she calls us and says she wants to come visit us and that maybe one of these Fridays she can come over after school. We agreed that we would like to have her visit us one day.

Last Friday the hubby meets me in town to buy groceries, mostly for the little camping trip we were doing. Because I had a 2 hour lunch that day I went ahead and followed him home. I drive up the easement and just as I get past the entrance gate to our property, there stands the foster child. OMG, we were stunned. There was never a confirmation that that would be the Friday she wanted to come over. She ended up spending the rest of the day with my hubby, but the new foster parent had no clue that we had no clue.

It’s nice to know she wants to come visit, but golly… call us first and confirm!

As you can see, I have tweaked my layout again. I get on these kicks and will sit and rearrange the xml from a template that I like and make it over the way I want and here you are, a new look. I am not sure how long this will last, but enjoy it while it's here.
The only thing about doing a new look, when I pull up the new template all the widgets are reset to the defaults, which mean I have to redo my sidebar again. Luckily I like simple.

y'all come back again soon.... maybe there will be another new look.

Gosh , it is already May and this will be the first time this year that we get to take the toy hauler out to go camping. Hubby called me yesterday and said that we would be going camping at Linx Lake this Saturday. And I am quite excited about it... then after he got home from work last night hubby looked at the racing schedule for the little local dirt track at the Fair Grounds and they are having one of the divisions of the cars that I love to watch race this Saturday night, so instead of Linx Lake, hubby asked me to see about staying at the Fair Grounds and then we can just walk to the race. Calling now.....

Yeehaw, there is a empty spot and we can actually get parked by 8 am that Saturday morning. Another great thing about staying at the Fair Grounds is there is usually about 30 horses that get stalled there during this part of the year gearing up for the horse races that go on there, so we get to go visit each of them.

We will be taking Tank, our puppy. This will be his first vacation with us. Can't wait to see how he does.

Happy campers we are!

Ok, so I had a small punch biopsy on my face last week and Tuesday April 29th I was to go in to have the nurse to take out the one measly old stitch I had …which is something I could take care of myself. But first go back to the night before this, Monday, I had pulled on the horses corral panel to try and straighten out one of the stalls and ended up scrapping a good chunk of skin out of the palm of my hand on a screw sticking out of the bottom rung of the panel. Now, back to Tuesday… when I am in to see the nurse for the stitch removal she notices my hand and says she can get it cleaned up, but also asked me when was the last time I had a Tetanus shot. I can’t remember if it had been within the last 5 years, so the doc says to just go ahead and get the Diptheria/Tetanus/Pertussis combo shot. I was told that this shot gives a bad reaction and can make my arm slightly sore for up to 2 weeks, but not like what I was experiencing. Tuesday nite was not too bad, and Wednesday at work I could tolerate the pain, but it was beginning to get a bit stiff, but I was told to use heat on it. So last night I slept with the heating pad on it. By 2:30 this morning I could no longer move my arm at all. I got to work this morning and told everyone that I no longer have a functioning left arm. They all said I needed to be seen right away… so I tag myself in (I work at the medical center) to see the doc and find out that I should not have used heat on it as much as I did … and it looks like the injection was given into the muscle, but a little too high on the arm which made this a pretty bad reaction. Now I get to take a muscle relaxer and ibuprofen all because I went to get a stitch out.

See if I ever go to the doc again when I can take care of the problem myself…. LOL