I will try and make this a short story before I ask the title question again.

My hubby and I lived a few miles from the beach in southern California for almost our whole lives. We raised our 6 kids there. We met a great friend (I will refer to him as G) there who has always been there for us and so loyal. We lived in the same housing tract for almost 25 years. When we came out to AZ to sign the papers on the land we purchased, G came with us and made a purchase of land up the dirt road from us. We made our move here to Arizona and a few years later G followed us.   G is single and needless to say he met a few ladies in the last 4 years he has lived here. The last lady he met through a friend up the dirt road from him. She was involved, but wanted out of her relationship and evicted from her home. OK... long story so far... cut to the chase... This lady has a daughter that has horses. The lady was able to sell 3 of the horses, but the daughter wanted to keep the last 2. The day came when this lady finally made the (temporary it was suppose to be) move to his home. I and hubby decided we would help him out and keep the horses here for a while until she was on her own again.

Well.... 2 years later, we still have the horses. What bugs me the most, the daughter at first came by about once a month to pick out their feet and brush them and ride them. Then that time frame got more and more spaced out. I know G wishes things were different. I feel he does not want this lady living with him, but he does so like the companionship. 

So... my dilemna. Way too often, they don't have enough feed and I am pulling from ours to feed their horses. The last time the daughter came down to see her horses she rode each one for about 15 minutes. Considering she rides them hard and fast during this visit and the interim time from her prior visit to this time has been almost 4 months, I don't think this is too good for the horses sake. Then there is the time I call them to let them know that the farrier will be down if they want to have them trimmed. They say no. Then 4 months later I call again about the farrier, they say no. Then finally when I had the farrier out last month, they finally said yes. Needless to say the farrier did not look at these horses before telling G how much he charges and G wrote the check and left. So when the farrier got to these horses, the farrier saw how grown out they were and I know he got underpaid, so I put in an additional 10 bucks. 

Now when we took these horses in, they also came with about 10 horse panels.  One day about 3 months ago I got a call from the daughter and she asked if she could have 5 of the panels back so she could work with another horse for a friend. I was floored and a bit mad. I said the first thing that came to mind by telling her that I think that by us keeping her horses and caring for them these past 2 years for nothing that the panels are ours now. Of course, I felt bad by saying this after I hung up. My hubby called G a few days later and said the panels are theirs and they can come and get them anytime they want.  My hubby and I have often felt that maybe it is about time to ask them to move the horses to G's land (they have 2 acres). Then we always think that if we did that they may not want to come and help us when we go somewhere and we need someone to feed our animals.

They never came and got the panels. But I think there is a bit of a rif between G and us. 

I had to call the lady today to tell her that her horses don't have any feed again because when she got the last bale we had already fed her horses for 5 feedings of our feed (which really pissed me off because it made it so my horses missed a feeding and only got their grain and carrots for their Sunday night meal).    

So... to the question... What does one do in this situation?                                           

Man oh man.. it has been wayyyyy tooo long! It seems like the last few months have just flown by.

Updates on the home front are:

#1 is……I HAVE TO GO READING my favorite blogs!

#2 is…..We no longer have the little foster kids. There were so many issues that made us make a decision to have the kids moved to another home. First of all, these poor boys had to be transported 3 times a week to see their father for a 2 hour visit and the drive usually took about an hour and half one way, so these kids had to be in a car for 3 hours 3 days a week. Then they had the kids in therapy to learn how to handle seeing their father and how to behave in the car after “daddy visits”. The thing about therapy was that they did not do therapy right after a time with daddy so they could address the daddy issues they had… nooo, therapy became what they were doing at daycare and analyzing US as foster parents. We would get a call from our CPS worker that said they were concerned about the kids’ play time or that their nails had a little dirt under them or that the boys had said they did not have a bath the night before. Did the therapist ever call us with her concerns NOOO.  Also, mommy was going to be released from jail and the kids were then also going to have to visit her (so another trip into the 4th town south from us). We just could no longer have these kids have to be the ones to have to travel for these visits. And I just could stand the idea that they would be going back to homes with drug addicted parents, then back to foster care again. So we achieved that milestone in our lives.

#3 is…. The horses and my house were being neglected with having kids in the house, so I have been trying to do catch up on things that would get put on the back burner. It is nice that the weather is better, makes for being out with the horses so much more pleasant.

#4 is… I will have to write some stuff about our cruise and our recent visit to our kids in California.

But for now… I am going to do a little #1.

Take care and I will be back soon.