A Young Girls Dream

When I was a youngster, still a child, probably a teenager, but just barely so, I would go to the state fair every year.  Usually for my birthday, which always fell on one of the days of the fair.

I would ride a few rides, loved the carnival games, had to go to the livestock shows, and occasionally attend a concert.

I didn't have a horse of my own then.

The one ride I always rode, even though I was "much too old" for such silliness, was the Carousel.

My mother would always ask, "Really? You want to ride that?  Seems kind of boring for a girl your age."

But I always did.

I would wait in line, watching as the little kids went round and round.  I would look at all the horses, and choose which one would be mine.  Then when it was my turn I would race to my chosen mount, hoping to get there before some snot nosed little urchin beat me to it.

Then the music would start and round and round we would go.  For the first time around, sometimes even two times, I would see my parents, or grandparents, waving to me.  I would sheepishly wave back, not wanting to be rude.

Then I would close my eyes, and the world would fall away.  The sounds of the fair and the carousel music would fade off in the distance.  I was no longer in the city at a fair, on a silly ride.  I was a cowgirl, racing my pony across the open plain.  My heart matched his hoof beats; his mane and my hair whipped in the wind as one.  I would spread my arms wide as if I was flying (like Alec in the black stallion) and then I'd become a girl ship wrecked on an island, racing the only friend I had across the beach.  My vision would change again, and I was the girl in Tam the Untamed, riding my silver horse through the Australian bush, with a herd of Brumbies on our heels....and bad men just a little further behind.

Then the ride would begin to slow and I was snapped back to reality.  My dream for the day was over, but not really.  In my mind the dream was right there, just a sigh away.

Just a girl and her horse.

It is truly all I ever wanted to be.

Goldfield Ghost Town Trail

I wish Goldfield really was still just a ghost town, but it isn't.  It is a relatively cool tourist trap located at the foot of the superstitions.

Today CW and I trailered out to the desert behind the tourist trap, which is all state land, and saddled up for some more trail riding.

I have be testing out other saddles on Trax, trying to find something that isn't quite as tight on his shoulders, so today I used Killian's big 7-D Rope saddle.  It actually fit really nice, and I think now I know more of what I am looking for for Trax.  I don't mind this particular saddle, but it is a hard seat, and built more for a man than a woman.  However, we rode for 2 full hours up and down some pretty serious terrain, and I was never uncomfortable.  But if I could find something that wide, with a padded seat, and a little bit higher cantle that what my Circle Y is, I think it would be perfect.

Anyway, the down side to this saddle is the extra wide saddle horn which my horn bags will not fit over.  I grabbed a rear pack to tie on the back, and attached it.  As I saddled up my might steed, when ever I flopped the pack around a little to make adjustment, he jumped around.  I opted not to try out a new saddle, and a rear pack, on a new trail which is loaded with Cholla cactus and really big rocks.   I removed one side of the bag, it flopped down on Trax's flank and he proceeded to have a nice little bucking fit right there next to the trailer.

Now I have to give my horse credit.  He looked more like one of those little rocking horse toys because he kept his entire body in a ten by ten area, never running off, just bucking in place about 20 times.

I thought, "Great, is this what the ride is going to be like?"

Once I removed the vicious fanny pack, I lunged him in a quick circle and he was fine, so I bridled him up and got on.   Perhaps it was the whole Fanny Pack thing that bothered him.  As in "Only dorks wear fanny packs lady!"

In AZ much of the desert riding is surrounded by barbed wire and has special gates which allow horses and people in but not motorized vehicles.  I had no clue how Trax would react to one, and I have not had to deal with one yet, so I was "excited" when I saw one for us to go through.  Now there was a wide open gate right next to the horse gate, but far be it from me to pass up a golden training opportunity.  CW went through with Cody first, I thought about getting off and leading him through but decided to save that for if he gave me a really hard time.


My horse is awesome.

Just saying.

He watched Cody,  then walked up, stepped through, with out ever even a hesitation.

Like I said....awesome!

And away we went.   One of the things I enjoy about riding with CW is her ability to push my just outside my comfort zone with out pushing so far that it ruins my confidence.  Cody is a trail eating machine.  I don't care how steep, how narrow, how rocky, how overgrown, how anything is on a trail.  He barrels through like it is nothing.  He is the most sure footed, confident horse I have ever seen.

Now Trax is a really good trail horse as well. He rarely ever gives me any trouble, and seems to be quite good at these big rocky hills I have been taking him on.  He climbs right up, sometimes at a walk, sometimes at a trot, sometimes even at a lope.  I let him chose his pace, after all he is the one doing all the work.  When we go down he chooses his path carefully, and takes his time.  I also think this level of difficulty is teaching him to pick up his feet.

So we started climbing, the first really big hill was a choice of less steep to one side, but the trail went over solid rock which angled down to the side at about a 15% grade, or straight up that same grade.  We chose the straight up. It just looked safer.

There was a lot of this and a couple of times I felt that small knot in the pit of my stomach, wondering if we could do it.  Trax said, "Of course we can."

Here is one of the medium difficulty hills we climbed.  This is from the bottom (obviously)

Same hill from the top.

I hate that the pics don't accurately show how steep it is.  Or maybe it just feels steeper when you are going up it.

Not steep at all here, just loving how green it is.

Superstitions back behind us

Just thought this looked cool

So as we are riding along, there were some times when I thought that Trax was showing signs of fatigue.  His head was down and he was plodding along.  No sooner would I say, "I think he's getting tired,"  and he would pull his head up, put it into overdrive, and proceed to show me that he was no where near being done.  

Here is a very short video of one of those times.  This looks like it is on flat ground but it was really about a 3 or 4 percent grade. 

http://youtu.be/wXTmnS1HQlM

.

It isn't exciting unless you are me and totally in love with your paint horse. 

This was taken on the road that the tourist trap uses for their jeep tours.  Some of our trail was two track like that, but much of it was single file, drop off on one side, and 10% grade on the other.  Those were a little hairy too, especially when there was cactus growing into the trail.  Today we learned that side passing away from the cactus is a good thing.   I ended up having to use pliers to remove about 20 cactus thorns from his heel bulb at the end of the ride. 

As we were making our loop back around and on one of the sections of single trail we hit a patch that was very steep which we had to go down.  Trax and I were in front and I was just letting him pick his path, but at this point he moved to the side of the trail, stopped and turned back to look at Cody.  His message was clear, " You go first friend, and I will follow you."  As soon as Cody went, Trax followed him right down.   It was kind of cool actually.  

It was a pretty hairy path, less gravel than slick rock, and Cody chose his path wisely and Trax pretty much followed his exact foot steps.   Once we got to the bottom the trail widened again and they raced side by side up the hill.  Goofy boys.    Then Trax fell back in front and all was good.  

Just another pic. 

I know that some people say that you shouldn't let your horse run up the hills.  I'm sure there is a good reason behind it.  I just feel like if my horse feels like he needs the extra umph to be able to cart my butt up that grade, he is welcome to go as fast as he needs too as long as he slows back down when we get to the top.  Trax always does, so I have no complaints.

So it was a pretty uneventful ride, although a lot of fun, and great conditioning for both horses.  However I am going to have to put bell boots on him from now on, because he got a pretty good cut on one foot right next to where I had to pull all the cactus out.

No ride would be complete with out the gratuitous sweaty pony shot.

As I look at this pic I do recognize that the breast collar is slung a little low on him.  Remember this is Killian's tack and there for just a tad large on Trax.   However even low slung like that it did its job and kept the saddle from sliding back at all.

I really need to get something like Nuzzling Muzzles, helmet cam, or Mugwumps bra cam, so that I can take video going up the stuff that scares the crap out of me.  Ok, well that is a slight exaggeration, because if it scared the crap out of me then I probably wouldn't do it, but you get my drift.

So that is what I did this morning, now I am going to saddle up Big K, and ride him down to watch the roping boys on my street.  I'm sure there is some sort of work I need to be doing right now, but I'm dressed for riding...no sense wasting that!

Dakota

Easter 2007, I decided that I was no longer doing Easter baskets for my boys. They were old enough to not want or need them, and truly all that chocolate was kind of crazy....well made them kind of crazy.  Plus they were terrible about leaving little foil wrappers laying everywhere.

At the time we had been in WY for about a year.  I had to give up my cat Pringles when we made the move from Arizona, and I was feeling pretty lonesome with out any animals.  Since we were not allowed to have a cat where we were renting, I decided we would go adopt a dog.

So we made the trip to the two animal control locations in Casper.  I knew I wanted a lab, so that is what I was looking for.  Color was not important, temperament was vital.

At the first location there was a big chocolate male.  He was full of energy, about a year old, decent breeding, a little out of control.  He had spent his entire life in a back yard with very little human contact.  I knew he was trainable but I also knew it would be a lot of work.  I also knew that my husband (now ex) would probably make me take him back if he did too much damage.  Also being that the house was rental....I wouldn't have a leg to stand on.  Still I did not rule the big boy out.

At the second location there were a few labs.  Most were the skinny, hyper, field bred types.  Super high energy dogs.  But then there was another one, another chocolate.  I wasn't looking for a chocolate to take the place of Easter chocolate, but I thought it was funny that I kept coming back to those.

This one was a girl.  I could tell just by looking at her that she had decent breeding behind her. She was an owner surrender, due to moving and couldn't keep her.  She was excited to get to come out of her kennel and jumped all over me, but when I said, "Sit"  Her butt hit the ground.  She was 3 years old, past the puppy destructive age, and obedience trained.  I knew she was the one.

We signed the papers, put a leash on her and took her to my Jeep Cherokee.  I opened the back and she jumped right in, and proceeded to bounce off of every window like a maniac all the way home.

"OMG! What have I done?"  I wondered. (Just for the record, She never lost that habit)

When we got to the house the first thing she did was jump up on the couch and make herself at home.  Mike had specific rules about dogs on furniture.  However, she was a smart girl and only had to be told a couple of times not to get up there.

Her name was already Dakota, and since I didn't hate it, we didn't change it.

From then on Dakota became and integral part of our family. She was house broken, never got into trouble while we were gone, and loved loved loved to go hiking.

The next door neighbor bought a little Golden Retriever puppy.  Dakota loved that puppy and would dig holes under the fence just big enough for him to come over and play.  They had a great time tearing up every single dog bed we bought for her, which was always a lovely mess to come home too.

She was famous for her "butt scoot" run, which made her feel super fast.

Dakota's biggest thrill was going camping.  We had a big school bus that we converted into a motorhome of sorts.  When she would see the buss in the drive way (we stored it elsewhere) she would just go crazy!  She would run in and out of the bus, "helping" us load it up, and then would refuse to get out for fear of being left behind. She should not have worried though, she would never have been left behind.

At the campsite I never had to worry about her wandering off.  She never went far and always came when called.  She spent most of her time in the water.  She was a typical lab who could care less what the water temp was.  If there was water she was going in, ice cold, or luke warm.

This was taken right around New Years, it was a balmy -16 that day.  The water was warmer because we were close to the power plant but the air was almost unbearable. Dakota did not care about temps. She just wanted to swim and look for ducks.

When we took her hiking in the mountains she would run ahead about 50 yards and then come back to where we were, then run ahead, and then run back.  She hiked at least 20 times the distance we did. She loved snow too.  She would tunnel through it and roll and just have the best time.

Eventually we brought home Mason, and she was happy to have a friend.  He was younger and she took great care of him.  They were best buds.

Two years later, Mike and I split up.  We had moved to a house in the country by then, and I had Danny, the horse. So when I moved out I only moved one street over, where I rented a little trailer on five acres.  I could only have one dog, so I had to choose.  Dakota and Mike were hiking buddies, I don't care for climbing mountains and neither did Mason, so I took Mason and he kept Dakota.  However I did baby sit her for him often.

Even after TC and I got together Dakota often came to stay with us for a few days.

When TC and I made the decision to move to AZ, Mike approached us and asked if we would take Dakota with us.  She was starting to struggle with the cold of WY, and showing some signs of arthritis.  Plus, he wanted to start traveling and didn't want to be held down by the responsibility of a dog.

So we agreed to take her.  She has been with us here for a little over a year, and I while I think she actually misses the snow, she has a good life with us, and gets to spend as much time as she wants in the house.  She has never broken a rule, never gotten in trouble.  Not once...not ever.   She sleeps at the foot of our bed at night, and never makes a peep.

last fall

Well she did anyways...she doesn't now.

About two months ago she start stumbling when she walked.  It was random, no way of predicting it, and I assumed it was just her arthritis.   Then she started limping on her front foot.  I gave her half of a Rhimodyl, and then had to leave for the weekend to sell tack.  TC called me later and said, she was having trouble walking. We assumed she was having a reaction to the low dose of Rhimodyl, and so of course she didn't get anymore.  She was still eating and drinking,and TC was able to get her out side as long as he helped her by giving support on her sides.  By time I got home Sunday, I had to actually lift underneath her and support her weight, and her feet would often fold up underneath her.

I was convinced that she had Valley Fever.  It can attack your joints and so I took her to the vet Monday morning and had her tested.  For some stupid reason, because I was so sure I knew what her problem was I guess, I didn't have them run a full blood panel.  I took her back home waiting for the results, and within 24 hours she quit eating or drinking. So I rushed her back and we did the panel.

She is diabetic.    We also had the Valley Fever results back.  She also has that but the titers were very low. So low that the vet said at the current levels he would have been taking her off the VF meds if she had been on them.  On top of that there is some deterioration of her spine.

We started her on insulin, and she immediately started doing better. Was eating and drinking, and more alert.  She has an appt on Wed for a recheck.

She won't be making that appoint, I don't think.

Dakota can no longer walk at all. She cannot even sit up to pee or poop.  She cannot even help us help her out to the door.  She weighs 85lbs.  I can no longer carry her in and out to go to the bathroom.  Even then she just lays there and lets everything just dribble out.

She is so miserable, I can tell.

As I type this I am waiting for the vets office to open so I can call and ask to bring her in this morning.  I have made the decision that unless the vet is super confident that he can get her to walk again, she won't be coming home with me.   The one thing I like about my vet is that he is honest with me.  If he thinks he can help her we will say so, but he will not waste my money or my dogs life, if he thinks he cannot.

Its funny, well not funny, but ironic.  We have Butch who is at least 13 years old, has lupus, and is on prednisone.  We always thought he would be the first one to go, not Dakota.  Not our happy healthy girl.

It is time to call now.  I guess I will finish this when I get home from the vet.

The last picture ever taken of my girl.  The prognosis was not good.  The vet said we could try a neurologist, but but since we cannot isolate what exactly is keeping her from walking, we could get thousands of dollars into it and not be any further than where we are.

I made the call and stayed with her till the end.

I am sad but feel a certain amount of relief as well. It was so hard to see her lying there like that, wanting to go for her walk, but not having the ability to do so.  She was depressed I could tell.  

As always it was the right decision, but it sure doesn't make it any easier.

Picket Post Trail

If you head up US 60 from Apache Junction towards Globe, just past Florence Junction is a sign for the Picket Post Trail Head.  I have driven past many times and always thought it would be cool to go check it out.

Now I have a riding buddy....who boards her horse with me.  Which isn't to say that I don't have other riding buddies, but this riding buddy is a cross country trail fanatic and I mean that in the most awesome way.

We had planned on heading up to Payson but I have a show to get ready for (to sell at, not compete in) and my time is really limited right now so I decided I could not really go for all day trek.  We opted for the Picket Post which only took about 20 min to drive to and was, in a word, AWESOME!

It was every bit as awesome as I had hoped it would be and we really only explored the tip of the iceberg.

I took my "trusty" steed Trax, and she rode her Walker, Cody.  I gained a lot of respect for her horse on this trip.  He is as sure footed as any mule, and seems to have endless energy.

I will let the pics do most of the talking here in just a minute, but I want to tell a little bit about the trail.  This is a very rocky ride.  I would not recommend taking a barefoot horse up there without boots.  Luckily Trax has shoes on now, and I was happy for it.  I think he was too.  It starts out with lots of little ups and downs, the trail is a two track and their are cows foraging around you as you ride.  As you go the ups gradually become steeper, and there are less downs than ups.  I cannot even begin to guess what the grade of the climb was and I was a little unsure of how my horse would handle it.

Once again I under estimated the magnificence of my pony.  He rocked those rocks and climbed those hills pretty easily.  I let him pick his pace going up the hills.  If he wanted to trot or lope to get up them, who was I to argue, as long as once he got to the top he slowed down before vaulting over a cliff.

Those two were taken before the climbing started.  The next 3 were taken at about the half way mark of the "up".

If you follow that ridge down to the point and then imagine what lies below that...that is where we started out

We could have ridden over closer to that mountain but thought we chose a less steep hill.  We were wrong. 

Ear Shots! 

This is a pic of my riding buddy.CW

We pushed onward and the next climb was huge and very steep but the horses seemed ready to go for it, so up we went.  About half way up poor Trax started puffing pretty hard, and then it seems as though he was limping.  I thought maybe he had a rock so when we reached what we thought was the top we stopped and I checked his feet.  No rocks, but perhaps a bruise.

Then we turned around and there was yet another very steep hill behind us.  We opted not to go any further this time, simply because both our horses are out of shape.  No sense killing them the first time around.

So we turned around and headed back down.   God performed a miracle that day because suddenly Trax's limp was healed!  This is at the bottom of the last hill we climbed.  The pic doesn't accurately show how steep it was, or even that it goes on around the bend and then up another fifty feet or so.

 Heading down we had a hard time keeping up with old 4WD Cody.

Coming down we found a second trail and followed it, but all it did was loop back around to the original trail that we had followed.  But we passed this which in real life looks like someone left a giant pile of stone marbles laying.

At the trail head again we weren't quite ready to quit so we wandered over to the "Arizona Trail" which is more for hikers but horses are allowed.  It is narrower though.  We saw a cave which turned out to be a tree (LOL) and then we just kind of meandered and followed that little one lane trail.

It took us out to the US60 and we could have crossed under it through a large culvert, but opted not to.  Instead we followed a wash for a bit then bushwhacked it up a hill and then we saw the coolest little "place" for lack of a better term.  I assume it is there for the cows, but it had stone walls, a cistern, windmill, and a long water trough for livestock.

We had to get pics under the trees.

And then we saw Don Quixote tipping his hat to the windmill.  (and I have had that song in my head ever since)  I cannot explain to you why I thought of that except that when I think of Don Quixote I always imagine a drawing I saw of him which depicts him as being tall and scraggly and he is facing the windmill here.  

After that we either had to go back the way we came or blaze another trail. We chose to blaze and Trax lead the way up a sheer rock face and never once took a misstep!  I was pretty dang proud of my horse.  He was a perfect gentleman the entire ride, he handled some pretty tough terrain and never once did I feel unsafe, or like he was going to go out of control.  I do however think it is time to start looking for a different saddle for him. As much as I have loved my Circle Y, I noticed today that it is starting to put a lot of pressure on his left shoulder.  Not sure why, but of course horses bodies change through out their lives, and saddles do get worn out. So maybe it is just time.  

Of course every ride ends with the sweaty pony pic.  

If you are ever in the area and looking for a good ride, I would recommend this trail, however it is not for the faint of heart.  I cannot wait to go back and take one of the other trails!

Its About Darn Time

I'm still so busy I have no idea which direction I am going in half the time, but even with that I still have managed to get more riding time in this week than I have in months.  

I think it was Monday, a nice over cast day I saddled up a paint horse and we hit the desert.

He was super thrilled about having to go at first but once we got to the desert he did really well.  I put it in over drive and he just went.  We hit some uncharted desert this time through some gates and almost all the way to the main road the connects my "town" to Apache Junction.  We did some gratuitous fence checking for the owners (leasers) and had I actually had tools with me, I would have even stopped to fix a spot which someone had cut. 

 The weather was gorgeous, he was feeling good and we pretty much loped or trotted the entire ride.  We went 12 miles, which I felt was pretty good since we had not been out there.  It was an uneventful ride but I did get a few cool pics. 

A few days later one of my boarders CW, sent me a text and asked if I wanted to do a trail ride with her. So on Thursday we went out again. This time I took Killian and Sassy.  She was on her horse Cody  I don't have any pics of this ride but I can tell you that her Walking horse lives up to his name.  He really moves out and Killian was doing his best Eyore imitation. Sassy chose this trip to pick random stopping moments, which dang near ripped my arm out of my socket.  I finally had CW get behind her and smack her on the butt. After that she kept up just fine.  

I really enjoy CW's attitude about riding. She is just a little bit older than me, and her theory is that if her horse says, "I can't" she is bound and determined to show him that he can.  Her horse is pretty gosh darn broke.  We didn't ride too far because I didn't want to over do Sassy. She is doing pretty well right now, and I want to keep it that way.  

However, we have decided that next week we are going to trailer up to Payson and ride the Mogollon rim.  I will take Trax for this I think. Trax moves out better so we will be able to keep up.

Today was another big day for us.  The place where I bought Melody was having sorting practice and I decided to go. I didn't get to Friday night, and I have really been wanting to try Trax on it.  I have not had Melly in a trailer since I brought her home and she banged herself up loading.  

Yesterday I loaded Trax, and then asked her to load.  It took some doing but she finally went. I wish I could get her to back out. She is so long in the body and insists on trying to turn around, which gets her kind of stuck, so then she vaults herself out of the trailer.   I finally removed my rear tack, and collapsed it completely and loading became a dream.  Unloading is still like launching a potato out of a canon!

This morning we headed out early and I was pretty nervous.  I shouldn't have been it all went fine, but I tend to get nervous on the way to new events.  

Once we got there I warmed up Trax first and was a little surprised at how mellow he was. It took very little to get that nice easy lope out of him, and I was really happy with how he felt under me.  Then I warmed up Melly who of course just needed to limber up those old bones.  

I watched a few rounds of sorting and then gave it a shot. These cows were really fresh, and wicked fast. Melly did great inspite of me and it was nice to have someone shouting out pointers as we worked.  I learned a lot about proper gate position and heard a lot of "Drop your hands! Let her do her job"  My biggest problem is that I still am a little heavy in the hands, and need to use more leg and less hand.   I did get better as we went.

It was a little disheartening to sort with a 9 year old boy who totally out rode me.  Of course I did learn later that the horse he was riding was his dad's competition horse, but still the kid was good.  I mean really good.  

I did about 4 rounds on Mel, and then decided to get Trax.  I loped him around a little and then asked if I could do a round really slowly on him.  Another gal joined up with me and gave me some guidance while we slowly pulled cows out of the batch.  Trax stayed calm and with each cow I asked for just a little bit more from him.  By the last cow, he was getting right with it, and doing great. 

In the time I have been working with Trax I have been trying to get him to move his feet with a little more "purpose" behind it.  However without having cows to work, all he knew was that I was just pushing and pulling him around.   Today I gave him a reason to move his feet with quickness and he actually responded.  

He cut left and he cut right, keeping his hind end in place and although it was only once, it was progress and I was super happy.  

I gave him a break and then we did another round.  He did pretty good gave me another nice cutting move and then about half way through he fell apart. He got a little too hot and instead of stopping when I needed he ran through the gate after the cows, and I knew I had lost him.  I did get him stopped and asked the gal to wait a minute while I got control of him again, and I did sort of, but it was never as good as it was in the beginning. We finished the run and then I took him back to the arena and loped him back to me mentally and we worked on stopping again.  He finally gave me a gorgeous stop so I got off and loosened his cinch.  I was pretty happy with my boy.  

I did two more rounds on Melly, the first one was good, the last one was horrid, but it was all me.  I was hot and feeling a little dizzy and decided to call it a day.   Here is me and my "team".  I am excited to keep on this path with these two.  I think if I take it slow with Trax he will actually be quite good at this, but I can see where teaching him not to leave me mentally just because he is having to work hard is going to be vital.  However, I think that if I can accomplish that it will be huge in the bigger picture for Trax.   

I got some good advice, and I have things I know I need to work on when ever I have a chance to work the slow cows here close to home. 

I have one other thing I want to show you all.  Its a saddle that I have been working on.   I bought it at a yard sale, I knew when I bought it that it was not a high quality saddle, but I had someone looking for something like it so I went ahead and purchased it.  Then I got home to tell her and found out that she had purchased another saddle from someone else.  

Here is the before pic

I wish I had a close up of the conchos, they are like silver painted plastic and the whole saddle was sprayed with a clear spray paint.  

I spent a good amount of time trying to get that clear coat off so I could oil it, but once I did that I could never get a good even color on it.  So I ended up having to add some color, and I also took off all the cheapo bling and added some good stuff.  

I am not in love with how it turned out, however, I put it on FB for sale when it was done and have someone who says she loves it and is going to buy it next week.   Here are the after pics.

I have one last thing to show you, just because you can never have enough cuteness.  We have kittens here now, from the cat who used to live next door but now lives with us.   The dark one is a calico her name is Ellie, and she will go to live next door.  The solid Orange one is Tank, and I want to keep him. He reminds me of Mason sometimes.  The Orange and white one is named Go Go, and he is going to live with BEC.  His name is Go Go because he is quite the explorer. He was the first leave the closet where they were born, and the first to climb the barricade.  They are so much fun, and I live for early morning kitten play time.  They live in the saddle shop now, and I love having them out there.  So I leave you with Kitten Cuteness. 

A little bit of Saddle time

We finally got a little bit of rain....ok so more like record levels of rain in a single day, which cooled things off nicely for a minute but then when the sun came back out really cranked up the humidity.  But I did take a minute to enjoy some of that coolness and took Killian and Sassy for a little jaunt.

Sassy had just had another Electromagnetic therapy session for her shoulder, and it sure does make a difference for her.   Her feet are pretty much completely healed and as long as I keep her toes short, she stays pretty sound there. However, if she does not get her exercise her scar on her shoulder adheres to the muscle again and gives her issues. Also she seems to have a knee that bothers her on occasion.  Its always something with this mare.

It was sprinkling just a little, which felt pretty awesome, and I went ahead and made her wear a saddle for the trip.  I want her to get used to being saddled again, as I want to start putting actual rides on her pretty soon.  We made it around the block with no issue, other than Killian being a complete bone head and wanting to push through my hands the entire trip.

When we got back to the house I tied Sassy up, put on her Back on Track Knee Boots, and let her stand and "soak".  Then I took Killian back out.  You should have seen the look on his face!

"WHAAAAAT?"

My arena was under water, so we stuck to the dirt road in front of the house and practiced trotting and stopping, loping and stopping, and if we were leaving the house and loped a way he gave me a nice easy lope and a beautiful stop on the hind end.  If we were headed towards the house it was more like "I'M MAKING A RUN FOR IT AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"   Finally he gave me a good one, in the right direction so we called it quits.

I didn't think I was going to be able to sort on Friday because the arena said if we didn't get more people it wouldn't happen. I managed to round up two other gals so we got to go.  I didn't take Killian this time which required Miss Melody to carry me down the road and too the arena all by herself.  She only spooked about 10 times but they were little spooks and I was ready for every one.

The other two gals were late so the Arena Guy (Teele) and I did a couple of rounds together. When the other gals showed up, he let us have at it, so we did 3 way sorting teams.  Mel did so good, and I was quite proud of her...for a while, then she started acting like she was afraid of the cows when ever they headed towards her.

At first I was going to just push her through it, then a light went on and I took her out of the pen and got off.  She was too hot.  We had been sorting non stop for an hour.  Usually you sort a round and then take a break while someone else goes. We weren't doing that and I had been out there longer than anyone.  I walked her around, gave her a long break, let her relax, and then we went in and did 2 more rounds. She did really well again, and I stopped there.  After that I just watched the other gals go.

Then came the time to ride home in the dark.  Since I am not sure if she has night blindness or not, I had a headlight on my cap so we could see where we were going. There are no street lights in our neighborhood, and there was no moon either.

This is when I learned that a single light moving around on the ground in front of her was much scarier than the dark, so I shut it off and we headed home.  This time I kept her in the middle of the pavement.  I felt that it was safest there since I knew that nothing would touch her feet there.  If a car came we simply moved to the side of the road and waited for them to go by. She handled the headlights coming at her fabulously.  I was quite proud of my girl.

The next day CNJ asked to come and use my arena (Oh CNJ I almost forgot to upload your videos- will do that today) and so while she was here riding her mares, I pulled Trax out and rode him.

Back when I had saddled Sassy it had rained on my saddle pretty good so I had taken it to the shop and and started cleaning and oiling it, and decided to go ahead and make the repairs it has needed for a long time.  Well it is still out there assembled, so I used the old cutting saddle on him.  It is the first time I have ever ridden him in anything but the Circle Y.  Trax is very sensitive in the flank and so I have always been leery of using a rear cinch on him.  I know that being a rope horse he has had one on him before, but not in a long time.  However he handled it just like a broke horse should, so as usual my worries were for naught.  He was a good boy for me and we had a nice ride.  It was short and sweet, but I was happy.

Then CNJ got her surcingle out for me and ground drove Sassy for me.  My goal for that is to get Sassy moving more off her hind, and off of that front end.   I had tried it before but couldn't really get a good movement from her.  CNJ got gorgeous movement out of her.  She looked so nice moving, and once again I fell in love with my little mare.

By then the mosquitoes were eating us alive and it was time to go.  I'm hoping to get some riding in this week as well.

The saddle shop is coming right along, got my first cleaning and repair job in.  It is amazing how many saddles I run across that come out of the factory with the Blevins Buckles on backwards.  This causes the strap to hang down into the stirrups which can be very unsafe.  I have learned how to reset the copper rivets, and turn them around.  The saddle I am working on had that problem but not anymore.

Eventually I will get mine back together.

Now I have to go, TC is hounding me to get off the computer.   First blog post in weeks, and he acts like I have been here for hours! ARGH!

Being Unemployed sure is keeping me busy!

I cannot believe how little time I have now that I am unemployed.  I mean I am constantly on the go, and every day is a full list of things that either needs to be done around the place or errands that need to be run.  

A lot of my time is spent in advertising, or shameless self promotion as I prefer to call it, or responding to emails or private messages on facebook.  TC had our hired hand (yes we actually have one of those) insulate  and panel the future saddles shop and then install a bunch of saddle racks too.  I bought 9 off the internet for a mere 8.00 a piece, which was a smoking deal as far as I'm concerned.  It is all done now and the racks are up.

I actually have 10 saddles in the shop now, every rack and every stand I have is full, and I'm pretty impressed with the line up of "inventory" that I have.  A few of them still need a lot of work before I would even consider selling them, but most are cleaned, conditioned, and repaired and ready to go.   I am, of course, going to be adding some western decor to my shop as I run across it and will probably make an actual sign this week.   I also have 2 people who are very interested in saddles that I have, so hopefully those deals will fall into place soon.

Bonanza Boarding is officially rolling now with our first boarder.  His name is Cody, I call him Big C because he is a tall boy.  He seems to be pretty sweet, and easy to handle. We are having a few discussions on respecting my space, which his owner is thrilled about. She is not enjoying the bad manners he picked up at his last home.   I took the advice of A and added a photo clause when I wrote out my contract so I am allowed to show you these.

We have another potential boarder coming to visit in the morning and since she is close friends with Cody's owner it is very likely that she will be coming to stay.

I have been working on building my own website, mostly for the saddle shop, but also for the boarding.  I still have a long ways to go and until I pay for an upgrade it will only let me post 4 saddles at a time, which is quite frustrating.   Anyways, http://bonanzaboarding.weebly.com/ is the link.  Please go check it out and then let me know what you think of it.  I need all the constructive criticism I can get.

I have not done any riding in a week. The last time I rode Melly felt really off, and Trax was sort of blah too.  Or wait, maybe that was me that was feeling blah.  I don't know, it was just a real let down after the awesome sorting I did just a few days before.   I wanted to sort this week but life REALLY got in the way this time.   Well there is always next week.

Today was my grandaughters 7th birthday which I hosted at our house.  It was a ton of fun, and of course all the girls wanted to ride.  Instead of pulling out Killian, I used Melody.  After all, who better to carry around 4 little princesses (literally in princess dresses) than the Princess Mellypalouza herself.   I rode her a bit to warm her up, and she did great. When we did a few shoulder moves, one of the girls asked if Melly knew how to dance.  Well she kind of does, so I showed them a couple of her "dance" moves.  They thought that was awesome.   Then they all took turns riding her in the round pen.  Melly did just great, and I was quite proud of her.

Well now it is the start of a new week.  I smell and need a shower and after the multitude of high pitched squeals we have had to endure today, am pretty exhausted as well.

Hope everyone is enjoying the last of their summer!