~Momma Rock

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?                                           

I promised a little blurb about our weekend adventure to the Equifest. It is my day off today and there is so much I should be doing, but I don't know where to start, so here I sit writing and reading.*smiles*

Saturday, June 7th......What a great time we had. This was actually our “horse riding class”. Our instructor had us attend this instead of class. I am glad he did. We learned a lot, we got to a check out several clinics. The first one we chose was about lameness and hoof care. We learned about treating abssesses, um abcessiss, no abscesses, yea that’s it, which we had not been doing completely correct before and that alone was a good thing to learn for us.

Then we went to a safety class that was put on by Rocco from the show “Cowboy U” (I love that show). I forgot what Rocco said about when it was going to be on again, I will have to check it out on the internet. Anyway, Rocco and his horse showed us things to do to be safe around horses.

Then we went into the large arena where Rocco introduced us to his best wrangler at his ranch. They had set up several jumps to have this wrangler, who was riding bareback, to show us the agility of the wrangler and horse. The topic was about the importance of warming up your horse before going out on a ride of any kind.

Rocco went on and on about how lucky he was to have the best wrangler there ever was to work his horses and be a part of his ranch.... that wrangler is a GIRL!! Did you hear me...a GIRL! YeeHaw!!

We ran into people we knew and would gab a little. I over heard hubby mentioned to one of our friends from class about how we have had 2 round pens and have not used them for anything other than to stall a horse or two when we needed. We just did not have the dedicated time to use them as round pens., so we ended up taking them down and using the panels to make separate stalls for each horse. Anyway, hubby also said that we have enough pipe fencing material to make a round pen again (I don't think hubby knew I was in ear shot of that comment).

So then off to the next arena....
This is Clay , a John Lyons instructor,

he trains horses throughout the US. He had a nice paint from a lady in the audience that he was showing how to take care of problems/habits that an older horse has been allowed to get away with or a horse that has just not had any training. This paint was pretty well behaved. He was very much a one sided horse, being comfortable with some things on one side only. The lady had this horse for about 8 months and she has a long way to go.

Then back to seeing Rocco for more general safety things. Again we see people we know and gab... LOL

Oh, oh… there was also a tack swap meet and we were able to pick up a beautiful headstall / reins and bit set (we only needed the reins, but we can always use the extra headstall) which were only $35, a nice fleece lined cinch for $5 and replacement stirrups for $20 (one of mine our old previous dog, Rambo, got to and chewed off some of the leather). Woohoo, a good day!

I like going out on the weekends cause I get to wear clothes. Ok, not that I run around nekkid all the time, it’s just that I wear scrubs every work day. So it is nice to dress in my wranglers, wear my new bling bling belt and all. It almost feels funny to wear normal clothes.

So after the equifest, I kinda ease into .... "so, we do have enough to make a round pen?" I ask hubby and we decide that yes we need to put up a round pen again. Cool, I love working outdoors when the weather is nice!

Chit.. that reminds me how much work I need to do.

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!