BEES!

I forgot to mention, a couple weeks ago when I brought the horses home, I noticed Edgar had hundreds of bumps all over his body.. they didnt seem sore to him, they were just everywhere from his neck to his tail, with the majority on his rump. I called my vet to get her opinion but she was out of town, I thought maybe he had some sort of reaction to mosquito bites, but even that didnt really make sense.

The bumps all started to scab over, it definately hurt him to pick at the scabs. The shoer came out this past weekend and he immediately said "Bees!" They start as bumps, then scab over, then the scabs come off and you are left with a little bald patch of hair. He said this time of year, the bees get pretty aggressive and irritated and may have been hunkered down in a tree he rubbed against or just passing through his pasture when they hit him. Poor guy, he has hundreds :( I can only imagine he must have been running around bucking, no wonder his leg is taking so long to heal up from being lame. I just feel bad that he had to endure that.

Lets Go, Heel, Stay, Come, Here, Down...

Yep, those are the things we are learning in our obedience classes so far. 2 classes down and I am really enjoying it.

I was so proud to not have to carry Ellie into our 2nd class, she walked in on her own, although she did an army belly crawl through the doorway! lol But she did it and she was not quite as timid, she didnt growl or attempt to bark at any other dogs, she did whine a lot as she was begging me to save her! She kept jumping up on my legs and looking up at me and when I'd kneel down, she would hide under me.. it was VERY cute.. but very wrong! Trainer says I should ignore her, make her stay off me and not allow her to hide, I need to show her there is no reason to hide. One of the other dogs "Lady" tried to play with her and she snapped at Lady, almost into fight mode, I pulled her off and said NO.. trainer says I need to get her exposed to LOTS more dogs!!!

So who's up for some doggy dates???? :) I'd like to get her exposed weekly to dog playdates, I was informed of some local dog parks, might check with the horse club too, see if others want to get their dogs together with me. She's not going to hurt anyone, she just doesnt know how to play with other dogs or that its okay. By the end of the night, she actually was trying to play with "Lady" and acting like a puppy. I think living with the old man Russell, although they run and play daily, she forgets how to be a puppy infront of other dogs.

She is doing really good though with her commands.. she's not perfect yet with them all, but the trainer says that the first 2 weeks, the dog typically does not pick up much on it.. well I have the smartest one so she's doing GREAT! Atleast I think she is. We are having to change up our ways just a bit to conform with these new techniques, but it makes it better for us and the dogs down the road.

So the horses got in with each other the other night, we've had some stronger winds the past few days and not sure who did what, but one of my t-posts was bent over and the wire all amuk! Last night we electrified and I hope to not have this issue again. It needed to be electrified anyways, as Edgar has been rubbing on my t-post caps and stretching my perfect pretty fence out!! :)

Friday was my 37th Birthday, had a nice day with Derek out to lunch, then to see the movie Secretariat (which we both loved) and then to my parents for a great home cooked meal and some games.. The rest of the weekend was just blah.. nothing overly exciting and come Monday we both are sick! :( scratchy throats, achy head.. Lets hope it goes away before this coming weekend.. cuz we have plans!!

The boys are back in town..

yep, we finally finished the sacrifice area and were able to bring Red & Edgar home!!! I am so happy to look out my window and see the boys. Ellie does not know what to think of them, she is pretty leary as she ventures off the back porch these days, that's if she even gets off the porch! :)

I was able to get out for a really nice ride on Sunday with a few friends, we met up at Victoria Tract of the tree farm in Arlington, I had not been there in many years. The trails are pretty nice, I am sure Derek would like them, although it is a lot of up/down and this time of year it gets a little slick so I was riding "Bambi on Ice" is what it felt like :) Red has these big clunky feet which are a little long right now, he tends to get a little lazy so he was a bit trippy at times and then on the slicker trails, his legs are just all over the place. It makes for a less than peaceful ride for myself, I keep thinking he will eventually figure out how to walk a trail, but I'm starting to really wonder. I'm not ready to give up yet, but I would say it is the main frustration I have with him as a trail horse.

Here we are with Hwy 9 & Lk McMurray down below us. Great view of the lake and area. I am always amazed and it puts into perspective the area we live in, that we literally live in the foothills of the mountains and just how much undeveloped beautiful land there is around us. We need some trails in them there trees!

I really like this picture of Barbara & Dune...

This is the monument you ride to at Victoria. Sometimes on a sunny day, you can see the sun reflecting off of this from I5 around Mt Vernon area.

So what direction is it ladies????

Overlooking Mt Vernon and the bay from the monument.

The good news is that I cannot see a limp or stiffness in Edgar, so I need to get on him for a minute so I can determine if I feel that he is "off" since I cant see it. Hunting season started this past Saturday for duck/goose, so Derek spent both days out while Edgar stayed home from trailriding to continue to recover. Saturday morning Derek took the boat out, went to the Snohomish River and I get a call around 10am asking if I would bring him a couple spark plugs and a wrench.. apparently the boat motor would not start and with the new spark plugs, it still did not start so Saturday was a waste for hunting. As we pulled the boat out of the water, a big flock of geese flew right over the top of us honking away.. it was comical! :)

Saturday night we hosted a horse club social "South of the Border Taco Night" and it was a great time.. we ate yummy tacos, chips/dips and I even made a cactus looking cake.. turned out pretty cute if you ask me! I think there were 12 of us, we decided to play a little mexican train as well.. I always forget how much I enjoy playing that game. Ellie & I started our obedience last night. I was so embarrased though, I had written in my calendar 7:15pm (in Snohomish) thinking that the class actually started at 7:30 and that I wrote it down as 15 minutes earlier so I would get there a little early/on time. I show up at 7:25, 10 minutes late! Whooops ;)

Ellie was GREAT!! She sat at my side in a chair as we listened for 20 minutes, meanwhile other dogs were barking or trying to wander etc. There are only 4 dogs total, but probably better that way as the room is not very big to work in. I can imagine the chaos of adding a few more dogs. The thing I like is that they do not use treat rewards, it is all verbal praise. Ellie did growl under her breath a bit, her timid behavior kicking in, but I was proud of her. Even after she warmed up a bit to the other dogs being around her, she did nip at one.. The environment is not designed to have the dogs getting to know one another, so not sure how that will help her overcome her timidness if she doesnt get to interact. My hope is that the more she just gets out and about, the better she will accept new dogs and situations.

We worked on a few things and I have my homework to do with her for atleast 30 minutes per day, the more distractions the better so we might just have to start really getting her out and about. The main thing she needs to build is confidence so that she will walk out front or beside me instead of behind me. I am really excited though, I think she is going to pick up on these things quickly and although my opinion might be biased, I think she was the best dog there! :) The other dogs are a german shephard, a cocker spaniel and a dachsund.. all girls. Next week I will be ontime!

I did finish my sewing project although I had to limp my machine along. Looking forward to getting a new one in the near future and as much as I'd love to wait til Chirstmas and maybe get one as a gift, I have christmas projects I want to make, so it seems I will have to buy one sooner than later.

Oh Sunday, what a crazy day that was! So I mentioned I went riding in Arlington, well on my way home I was a few minutes from home when Toni called me. She lives in Spokane and has a horse over in Arlington on lease. Long story short, the girl leasing him is done with him and wants Toni to take him back. The girl refuses to pay to ship the horse back to Spokane and tells Toni she has 15 days to come get him or he will be taken to auction! Toni calls me and asks if I will go pick up the horse and deliver him to another friend of Toni's who will keep him at her place for a couple days until he can be moved back to Spokane. So I pull in my driveway at 4pm, drop off Red real quick and then head back out to Arlington.

Earlier in the day at about 3pm, I get a call from Wendy (who I feed for) and she wanted to know how to get to Lords Hill, so I gave her directions. Well as I am driving home at 6pm from moving that horse for Toni, I send Wendy a text asking how her ride went (yeah I broke the law). At 6:30pm I am pulling in my driveway and Wendy calls me, she is bawling! Oh shit.... Well her draft horse that someone else was riding, fell off one of the bridges at Lords Hill and was stuck in the mud bog there. I dont know what time that had happened, I didnt get a lot of details while on the phone with her. Derek pulled in the drive about 15 minutes after me, from being gone hunting all day. We go in the house and I try to reach Wendy, we wanted to go up and help. I felt just sick and terrible about the whole thing. Wendy would text every now and then, told me they had plenty of help. Then they were needing an escavator to dig him out, fire dept was bringing tractors to help pull. She was pretty distraught, I dont blame her. We decided we wanted to go be there for her, so we drove up there, but the horse parking lot was empty and the main parking lot was closed/locked. I dont know where the vehicles were parked, I have no idea how the fire truck got in, but I didnt want to bother her and get details on where they were located since it was her first time ever at the park. She finally text me at about 9:30, indicating that they just got Thor out of the mud and he was in the trailer on his way to Pilchuck.

What a scary situation for Wendy, I told her when she is ready I would take her up to Lords Hill and show her just how nice the park can be. The bridges I am fairly certain she was crossing and got stuck at, is an area horses dont even need to go anymore, she didnt realize the path she was headed down was just going to lead her to another parking lot. Thor is okay though, he is back home as of yesterday and her other horse Jake is good too. Poor Wendy, I know she was up late with Thor Sunday night, he stayed at Pilchuck overnight and Wendy had a business trip planned for Monday morning, she was on a plane by 7:15am! She sent me a text as she loaded the plane, she had arranged transportation of her horses to get back home for Monday and needed me to start feeding yesterday afternoon. She was going to cancel her trip, but Thor was doing great and recovering just fine and she knew he was in good hands while she is out of town. I am feeding through Thursday morning this week. When I went out yesterday, Thor looks great! Not a speck of dirt on him and you'd never have known that 24 hours earlier he was stuck in a bog.

The adventures never end! Oh and I did get an email back from the trainer that came out a month ago and looked at Oakley. I was curious as to why they didnt like him when they seemed so eager to come out. I could go into long detail on the BS she said, but basically here's the rundown. They are barn snobs who cannot appreciate that a pastured horse sometimes has nicks on them from other horses and she's not a top of the line trainer like Shannon to fully understand the movement of a great horse! Shannon has major companies sending her free things, wanting to sponsor her on the professional barrel circuit. Shannon trains and sells horse worth more than my vehicles. She tried to get me to second guess my decision to have him with Shannon and boasted about her own abilities. I did not take it personally, I thanked her for her opinion, told her the thing about the horse world is we all have different oinions and that's okay. Told her I stand behind Shannon 100%, good luck to her client in finding the right horse. Since this lady is local and I am assuming trains and gives lessons to 4H kids, I didnt want to burn any bridges or be uncivil although she opened the door for me to go that direction for sure. I am better than that and the horse world is a small one.. speaking of that, another thing. So when I pull in the driveway of the place to pick up Toni's horse, I didnt know the girl leasing him but I did know her friend very well. Lisa from back in the 4H days with Carrie! Lisa and I had just become FB friends a few days earlier and then out of nowhere I run into her at random when picking up the horse.. Small Small World!!

Back on Track

Yep after a crappy Wednesday, things are looking up already and its only Friday. Still cannot get the computer to turn on, I am not sure if it is worth the money to pay someone to pull the internal card out and retrieve our files.. hmmmmmm

But the guys were able to fix all those top rail boards yesterday and it looks great!! I was really happy as that 6" made a huge difference in how my fence looked and I am now happy with it. I still feel bad about the extra expense this put on my parents and myself, but shit happens. The guys also got half of my sacrifice area finished with the wire, should be done today. I will still need to buy 3 more gates down the road, looks like I'll be hoping for a bonus soon!

I kinda got mad that the damn sewing machine was broken so while Derek was working in the shop last night, I tore the thing apart! It felt like it just needed some oil... so I stripped the outside and continued to oil every moving part that I could find until 15 minutes went bye and I FINALLY FOUND the right part that needed oiling!!! YEAH YEAH YEAH for ME! She's running rough and I dont think my fix will last long, but it is working enough to hopefully get my current project finished and maybe a couple more. This handywork just bought me some time until that bonus I spoke of earlier shows up and I can buy a new machine as well as some gates..

I know for a fact the horses will be home by Sunday at the latest, I am hopeful I can get them home tonight or tomorrow... But the house has to be priority #1 since we are having company, it must be spotless!! :)

Ellie update: She is turning into a naughty little girl.. If we are paying attention to her or in the living room she is just fine, but if we leave her loose and we go outside or into the sewing room, she finds things to drag out to the living room! She doesnt really chew on those things, YET! She just likes to SHOW us that she COULD be a really bad girl if we dont pay attention.. LOL This is the first time in 3 months now that she is being a bit defiant and bratty.. :) She's just keeping up the tradition that every female we've every owned has had some serious attitude issues when they are pissed.. hehe

I skipped last weekend.

Well before the shitty day of today happened, I did have a good productive weekend! Even in the rain..

I started my part time job last week, did I mention I had one?? I found a lady in Monroe (conveniently lives on the road I drive home on most days). She was looking for someone to feed her horses on the occassions when she is out of town traveling for work. So when she is gone, I feed mornings and afternoons, clean stalls in afternoon and just keep an eye on things in general. It is EXACTLY what I had wanted to find in a part time job.

Wendy is a very nice person and we hope to build on a friendship with her and her boyfriend, show them the trails in our area since they just moved here.

Derek has been super busy in the shop lately, working towards making money so he can send his dog off for training next year. It was a nice Friday afternoon last week, so I came home and started burning the remains of the Black Walnut tree. When Derek finished up in the shop he came out and helped me, took about 5 hours but we got it all done and had a nice time just chillin out by the fire, having some one on one talk time and relaxing. I think we both needed the downtime.

Saturday I spent about 4 hours cleaning the barn getting it ready for the horses. It is spick and span clean!! had to drive quite a few piles of old hay and such to the back of the pasture to dump so I got soaked in the rain.. George & Rachel came over for dinner which was really nice to just sit and visit with friends. I felt bad though because we were exhausted and hardly made it to 10pm. We hugged goodbye with half closed eyelids! ;)

Sunday was originally supposed to be a day of finishing up projects, but we decided to take the day off. I cant even really recall what we did other than oversmoke some chicken, oh wait.. we did spend a few hours spreading gravel in our sacrifice area and then down the fenceline.. okay, so much for thinking we took the day off! Monday was Columbus Day which I had off and I did finally take that day to relax and went riding. Me, Wendy K and Kathy. Had a nice ride at Lords Hill and really made me miss being in the saddle.

This week has been busy and we are hosting a social event on Saturday at our place, Taco Night! :) clean clean clean.. that's what I'll be singing on Friday and Saturday.. good thing my sewing machine is broken because otherwise I would be struggling with wanting to finish my project vs not wanting but having to clean my house!

Shitty Day

I am certain today is one of the shittiest days I've had in a very long time..

I woke to a good day, I was in the craft room early working on my project, I am 80% done! As I'm sewing along, my machine starts to slow down while I am steppin on that peddle and the needle comes to a complete stop.. shit! So I load it up and decide I'll take it in after work, see if I can get a quick fix done.

The guys have been workin on our fencing top rails this week, I had anticipated coming home and having my sacrifice area ready to go. Instead I get a text from my dad indicating that all the rails were set 6" lower than they were supposed to be.. meaning all the rails/nails have to be sawed off, clips have to be purchased and the guys will have to be paid to redo the entire thing. I was really upset, started crying at work and felt the onset of a meltdown... My dad made an error and I'm not mad at him at all, mistakes happen. I was just upset because I have been stressed about getting the fence done so I can get the horses home and this served as another delay and then the thought of spending another $500 or more to fix it, I just was overwhelmed with emotions. My perfect fence was f'd up and after spending thousands to get exactly what we wanted.. it just became a blow to me and I cracked.

After work I drove to the sewing machine store and as I sat in the parking lot talking to my dad about the options we had, I was crying. I feel really bad that he feels bad for messing up and he is offering to pay to fix it and although I know it wasnt my error, I cant just let him pay for it all, so I told him I would pay him back for half when I can. I felt bad for crying, I dont want my dad to feel bad.. I think I just had a minor meltdown.

So I'm sitting in the parking lot of the sewing machine place, eyes are red I'm sure... I gather my thoughts, wipe my eyes and head in to the store.. I just figured that I didnt care if the guy saw me crying, I had shit to do and places to be.. He looks at my machine and tells me I could spend $130 for him to possibly fix it, which probably only cost about that much brand new, or I can buy a refurbished much older but better quality machine for that same cost or I can buy brand new for $300.. I walked out even more bummed because now I have no sewing machine to finish my project and not sure when/how I will be able to replace it!

I get home and realize I need to go move Edgar from one pasture to another. So I drive over to Roger's place, pull in the driveway and see Edgar is already in the pasture I was going to move him to and I cant quite recall moving him.. I 'know' I moved him, I just dont really remember doing it the day before.. what a waste of time that was.

Came home to pay my mortgage (yep it's super late!) and realized the office computer will NOT turn on. S.O.A.B.!!!! I cannot get it to turn on at all, I think the harddrive died!! GRRRRRR!!! Thankfully I backed up our personal checking account info to our external drive a week ago, so I was able to restore the files to the program on our laptop.

So here I am at the end of a really shitty day! sewing machine died, fence is a mess and computer is dead.. But, us humans are all still alive, the dogs are good and the horses are fat! :) What more could I ask for....

Wave, smile, wave, smile...

Derek & I partcipated in the Granite Falls Railroad Days Parade! Our horse club had decided it would be fun to get out name out there and it was.. We met up a bit too early, okay a lot too early. Which was probably my fault.. I think I suggested the 7:30 am meetup to decorate, we were done by about 9am with 2 hours to spare until we had to line up in town. Well we will know better for next time. But none of us were grumpy morning ladies, we all decorated with laughs and good times.

After the float was done, Derek & I drove home quick and grabbed the dogs, decided it would be fun to have them along since Jenny had her dog and Renee brought hers. Plus I realized it would be nice to have something for kids to look at and focus on instead of just us adults sittin on hay bales! :)

All the dogs were a big hit! Jenny drove the truck with miss Chleo up front with her, Derek had Russell next to him, I had Ellie and Renee had Katie. Ellie was bit freaked out at first, this was all new to her, she screamed just a bit when she met Chleo (who is smaller than her!) and she tried to run away, she didnt like Katie at first either.. but after just a few minutes, she was hanging out right next to Katie who is an Aussie as well. I was so proud of her, she sat next to me the entire time and only tried to get off the hay bale a couple times.. but when I asked her to stay, she didnt argue she just sat or laid there with me. I'm sure she was a bit stressed and freaked out with all the commotion, but she did sooo good!! Russell was really good of course, he just sat and chilled out, Derek had him waving to the crowd.

Ellie before the parade started.. Katie in the background

Miss Chleo lookin cute as can be!

I think our float looked pretty good and Derek & I are excited to participate in future parades. We had a great time. When we left the parade we headed over to Kathy's to see if Tyler and her were home, they were. Ellie screamed and ran again when she first met Brownie! Took her a few minutes to warm up and stop clinging to my side, I really cant wait til we start our obedience classes which was supposed to be in 1 week, however class was moved back another week.

I wanted badly to just sit and be lazy all afternoon on Saturday when we got home, but after only 1.5 hours of TV watching I was itchin to get outside and get some things done. So I mowed and raked (the grass is out of control, I typically never rake the yard but its been growing like weeds lately and so thick, I had to rake so it didnt look like shit!) Derek worked on his boat for a while and I started raking the leaves and branches into piles from the walnut tree. I still have to pick those all up, but they are ready to go.

I really wanted to get a lot done on Sunday, but I was feeling lethargic and lazy and my stomach and head were not feeling well either. So we got minimal things accomplished. Oh well, gives me something to do this week.. right? :) Overall it was a great weekend and now I am motivated to continue the hard work and keep up on getting the place looking good and ready for horses!

Diiiiing Dooooong.. the Tree is GONE!

WooHoo!!

so Dave pulls in the driveway, I had not spoken with him prior, only his girlfriend Amber. They show up with a flatbed trailer, help from Milo, chainsaws, straps, wedges, climbing gear including harness and tree spurs, ropes, hardhats, goggles.. this guy knows WTF he's doing!

We immediately felt confident in his abilities to remove the tree safely, plus he's worked over the years logging in the woods. I got some pics of him taking out the tree, some branches were tied off to avoid hitting the fence or the shed and we soon realized he was not going to stop until the tree was finished! Which meant he was cutting some of it down in the dark.. well we had a spotlight and the big PUD pole light which was sufficient.

It was actually kinda fun watching him work, Amber & Dave were really funny and sociable, our age, our type of humor with all of us giving funny digs at each other.. made for a great time really! The very last piece to cut down was the main problem we were concerened about as it had the big branch that was hanging directly over the shed. Dave left it attached to another main trunk section and attempted to get it to fall in the pasture.. the tree had a mind of its own and twisted (even though the truck was pulling it the right direction) falling on our fence.. It was still a great fall, even though it took out one section but it avoided the posts, only damaging the top rail and bending the wire down. The fix will be really easy and even with the temporary fix done, it hardly looks like anything is wrong. We dont blame the guy at all, he felt bad but we knew with that branch, something could happen so we are 100% satisfied with the little damage we did suffer.

I would have taken more pics, but it was approaching sundown when he started so I could only get what I got... This first pic and top pic were taken months ago when we decided to eliminate said tree... It was a beauty but now that I look at that top picture and see how much it hovers, I am pretty happy with my decision to allow this day to have come and gone! :)

This is pretty much what was left of the tree after dipshit was told not to come back.. Dave had cut a branch or two down prior to this picture, I'd say DS got only about 20% of the tree and the rest went to Dave.

Starting the tree removal process.. look out down below!

he just cut the top and you can see it falling off..

This is Milo (the helper) who cut up what was dropped as it was dropped.. It was really nice that he and Amber helped drag the smaller branches to our pile so Derek & I were not stuck doing all that work.

Our sacrifice area seems much larger now too.. well once we rake up all these leaves it will look like the sacrifice area again... the stump there, Dave plans to come back within the next few days and take that as well.. He got that whole tree down, cut into manageable sizes and loaded up on the flatbed in about 3.5 hours!

Look at all that light that can now come into the yard! Oh and the dented roof, that is from the first dipshit we had out to cut down the tree.. thats where he fell off his ladder after the branch he just cut knocked him off and his ass did a plant right there on that roof.. we had intended to redo that roof anyways, so no harm done.. the neighbors did come over yesterday while the real guy was there and said they just watched the first dipshit in amazement and wondered how much longer Derek was going to allow him to continue to cut on the tree!

So this is all that remains of the tree branches.. Looks like a bonfire to me!!!!! :)

BTW.. have I ever mentioned how much I love fall!! Funny time to throw that in, but when I look at these "after" pics I took this morning, I love the crispness you can see in the air... :)