~~~Momma Rock

Brookie, the day she was born. She weighed 9 lbs 15 oz.

Brookie in pink, she is now 3 years old.

                                                                                                                      ~momma rock

~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?                                           

My son TRuck calls from work and tells me he is coming home early. He had phoned earlier in the day to ask me to call Ver*zon to see if they will replace his phone with a different style. He has replaced his phone 3 times in the last 4 months, the speaker keeps blowing on it and now it just shuts off by itself and stays off for up to an hour. So, I get Ver*zon to allow him to change to a different model, (thanks me). He is happy to learn that, but unhappy that he has to drive almost 40 miles to get to a Ver*zon store to do the exchange.

Anyway, he gets home, takes his shoes off and plops in front of the TV to play a little Xbox before he goes. Then back up again and I don’t really notice what he is doing, but he is up to something, I am sure I will find out later. He plops back down to play “Call of Duty”, but gets killed a little too much so decides he will hit the road.

He’s gone from the house about 15 minutes and I hear a sloshing sound. I realize the washing machine is running. I knew I would find out what he was up to. But I have never heard that kind of sound coming from the machine before. I hurry to check what the heck is wrong… oh my gosh… the kid is washing clothes… OK he washes his clothes all the time, that is not what I am concerned about. It is that he is washing a small load, have I not taught this kid better? Doesn’t he know that you are suppose to put in clothing until it packs it so full the clothes can barely move and put in as little soap as possible to get the most out of your time and money??? No one puts 5 shirts and a few pairs of socks in the washer…what was he thinking??? GEEZ…kids!

My left shoulder is a painin’ me something fierce these last few days. I had a TDAP (tetanus diphtheria, etc) shot there in the upper muscle because I got a scrape from a screw on our corral, but that has been too long to be having this occur now. Anyway, for the last week it seems to be getting a little more painful and I am sure it is not a case of Momma Shoulder. It could be that I have been doing more with the horses on a continual basis then ever before (YEEHAW), it could be that I am old (YEEHAW) it could be that I ran into one of the door frames in the house… yea there has always been a door there (not so YEEHAW). Or maybe it is all the above. Whatever it is, it will pass.

Movin’ on…

Got you ladies attention, didn’t I? Sorry, there not on a cowboy. When walking through Wal-Mart or other stores, I can’t keep up with cowgirl/Momma. She’s not very fond of shopping….Now, at the Equifest, it’s another story. The first reason to walk slowly is to check out the surroundings, anything from tack to cowboys. The second reason is those tight ass jeans. Her steps are a might shorter. Now I wouldn’t be complaining if I were able to walk behind her. I couldn’t seem to accomplish that. Hey, maybe she wanted to walk behind me so I couldn’t see her checking out other jeans. You know the ones that have broad shoulders and a cowboy hat above them. I don’t really mind much, cause I know who she’ll be bunking with tonight and every night. It was a good day even though we spent a bit much.

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!

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!

Just as the hubby goes out the door, there is a high pitched chirp I hear in the computer room, chit....one of the fire alarms' battery is going dead. That dang thing is going to chirp every 1 minute until a new battery is placed in it. CHIRP! I can't reach the thing to get it changed because the manufacturer of my home placed it too close to the high ceiling, even with the step stool thingy we have I can't reach it. CHIRP! But that would be no new news for all my family because they never stop teasing me about being so short. Maybe I can bring over a kitchen chair and put the step stool on top of that.......or maybe not. I think I want to go to work today in one piece.
Chirp.......chirp....chirp

Ok, with the strike going on we were a little tired of nothing, absolutely nothing on except reruns and we can only stand “Three and a Half Men” so much. We had heard about the Showtime hit “Dexter” and thought we would give it a try. Quirky to say the least. Actually it is kinda fun to watch a serial killer, who happens to work for the police as a blood spatter specialist, who is a bit of a wimp when not killing people. I think it is because he holds back so that people around him will not see aggression, I also figure he waits until he decides to kill the one he is wimpy toward. HA! We are still trying to figure it out a bit, but we sure seem to look forward to the next episode.

Then there is “Eli Stone”. A lawyer that has a brain aneurysm that causes him to imagine some pretty off the wall things that helps him with his cases or gives reason to why he has some cases. This is nother show that helps with the monotony of seeing the same old stuff.

I hate American Idol and wished they would put it on cable TV and not take up 3 nights a week for the dang thing.

Ok, then and again I end up watching non quirky shows, or as he refers to them, stupid, shows like “CSI” and “Rescue Me”. But give me quirky entertainment to take me away from the everyday life for a short while. Thank goodness for our DVR.

See ya next week Dex!

Written Feb 16th....

It is snowing today, it is just beautiful. There may even be enough to stick on the ground this time. Even though I get cold easily, I love this weather. I have yet to be able to make a snow angel since moving here a little over 5 years ago. Not so sure I want to plant my a$$ in the snow to do that anyway…. HA!

I remember one time, it must have been 2 years ago, it was a good snowfall and my husband was due home from work any minute… my son and I were outside making snowballs and were waiting for the perfect time to bombard my husband. We certainly gave him a big surprise. He got right into it with us. I loved it!

A few of my kids got to come out for the Christmas holiday and we went up to the snow to play for a while (I will post a picture later). That turned into more of a ” watch my youngest son play in the snow with his Chevy Duramax truck ”…. that kid!!

Written Feb 15th....

Is there a reason why when we get older we have such a hard time sleeping. Is it because we are sedentary a little more (well I am, hubby is definitely not during the day). I have a sit down computer related job, he is always on the go all over our county maintaining the roads.

He went in for his yearly physical and also mentioned the “not sleeping” part. Doc gave him a new prescription for a supposedly fantastic sleeping pill… did it work? NO, at least the first night it didn’t, then the 2^nd night was only a little better. So, now he is trying the Nyquil thing along with the pill.. let us pray this works!!!! He deserves to be able to sleep.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ anyone???