Bye Bye Edgar

With all the other "stuff" going on lately, I almost forgot to mention a very important fact of our life right now!

We have contemplated for months now on the Edgar issue and what was the right decision to make for us and him. The last time we took him camping was Memorial Weekend and he showed signs of colic for 3 days and then after that trip, sometime in June he went lame again, the 3rd summer in a row for that to happen. The shoers think he might have navicular issues. Derek did not have much time over the summer to ride anyways, that shitty-ass employer he used to work for kept him busy with a lot of OT over the summer. But summer ended, Oakley came back home to us, and Edgar was still a bit "off" and we had to make a decision.

Edgar is still 100% rideable but he is not 100% sound and he should not go camping, to avoid any potential colic issues. I posted on Facebook that we were looking for a home for him, as I did not want to sell him or advertise him to just anyone, we really had hoped to find a friend or friend of friend type home, he's just too great a horse to give to anyone! An old school friend contacted me almost immediately through FB and chatted with me that he and his wife might be very interested. Timbre's wife Jennifer had a horse and they recently had bought a pony for their son, Timbre was feeling a little left out and wanted a nice solid horse to have around incase he felt like riding with his family. I was so excited because that pretty much summed up exactly what we wanted for Edgar. I told Timbre I would not pursue any other home for Edgar until he told me yeah or ney on taking him.

They came out to look at him a week ago, there was one incident when they were there. It was dusk outside, we saddled Edgar and Derek & Jennifer rode him around. Timbre then went to get on, but he had his toe right in Edgars belly so when he attempted to get on, Edgar panicked a little with all that pressure on his belly and he spun around, Timbre made a good 3 or 4 second attempt to stay on but with both his legs still on one side, he didnt have much of a chance! He kinda fell off and hit the ground face first.. OUCH! I felt sooo bad, Timbre was okay and he did get up and made a 2nd successful attempt to get on w/o incident.. whew! We talked to him and told him what happened and why Edgar panicked. They were not upset about it, Edgar just has super sensitive sides. A week later (this past Sunday) they drove out and picked up our Edgar to take him home! They are very happy with him and I think it will all work out and it sounds like Edgar now has a permanent forever home, I really just could not be any happier about the whole deal. Edgar will still get ridden but will not be expected to handle really hard riding. Timbre is worried he might not get a chance to even ride Edgar because Jennifer likes him so much! :) I was sad to see him go, but a big part of me was really happy because I actually hate to see such a good horse sit and go to waste when he could be utilized still and we hardly have time right now to ride the 2 we got! :)

Derek & I had set out a week ago to get our yearly supply of hay. What a fiasco that was! The entire situation was one big cluster of frustration.. I could turn this into a huge post with exact details but lets just say, originally the hay was supposed to be delivered to my barn for a set price.. well that price jumped $600 making it unfeasible to do. Next plan was to drive to Buckley to get the hay instead of our usual trip to Spokane for the same hay. Brandon (hay dealer) tried to tell me I would be getting 10 bales short of my normal load.. he and I had a bit of heated discussion which involved calling the farmer in Spokane to help clear up. Brandon caved in finally and told me he'd have my 200 bales and to come get. We drive down with 2 trailers intending to pick up those 200 bales. Brandon is not there but guess what, he only has 183 bales! So I load up 180 bales leaving the 3 wet ones behind and pay for only 180 bales. I'm not real happy because he shorted me 1 ton of hay!!! Actually should have been super pissed off, but there was so much turmoil over this hay, I just let it go...

We safely made it home (after stopping and adding air to the trailer tires!) and we have it all basically put away except a couple tons that will go to our house instead of my parents barn. The bummer of it all is that this hay dealer bought up all of next years crop of Blue Grass, so I will not have access to this hay any longer for the super good price and will have to be just like everyone else and pay regular prices for my hay... It was good while it lasted but nothing last forever, right!!

Happy Birthday Cooper!!

Yep, today our Cooper is one year old!! He is the most rambunctious, obnoxious, high energy dog I have ever been around, but I love him to pieces; he is quite the character! He LOVES to get out and work with dummies and now that fall is here, Derek is itchin to get him out hunting..

My apologies for the month long abscense from this blog... It's not like I dont have the time at work to write, I just havent been too motivated to sit and recap my life the past few weeks. It's been a super crazy 8 or more weeks, something going on every weekend and I think I'm now ready to just lay it out there.

Where to start, well here's a quick weekend rundown of my Aug/Sep starting with first weekend in August. 5 days camping, bachelorette party, 5 day riding/camping, 3 days camping with family, labor day weekend including a HRC practice day, Jen/John wedding, CHC Prize Ride, 3 days Hunters Safety Class.

I've talked about some of that already, thank goodness! Labor Day weekend we opted NOT to go anywhere.. For 1) we just couldnt afford to go anywhere with the recent unemployment status and 2) we really needed a semi low-key weekend to ourselves! I invited Crystal to go riding with me at Lords Hill, we had a nice ride except the part where my pants (that are only a yr old and fit JUST FINE) ripped! They are jeans that you have to pull up into your crotch a bit in order to spread your legs etc so as I went to get on a rock to get on my horse, I didnt pull my pants up, and in the midst of my leap, I heard "RIP". Sure enough, I had torn them and then as I got back on my horse after lunch break, they tore some more... Pisses me off cuz the jeans were NOT too tight on me, heck I could pull them off my ass and grab a handful at my thighs. It was a little odd riding with split jeans, just doesnt feel natural :)

That same weekend we took Cooper to his first hunt retrieval practice. It was a pretty hot day (if you consider low-mid 80's hot and I do!). The first practice was with ducks/dummies thrown in the pond to retrieve. Cooper was really hesitant to go in the water at first, Derek had to coax him in, but once he was in, he eventually found his marks. We have A LOT of work to do. We think Cooper was suffering from shyness, he wasnt sure why all those people were there watching his every move so he was a bit timid at first but I was really happy he did make a couple water retrieves successfully. After that we took him out to the corn field for land retrieves.. Not so great there. He was hot and he was not going out far enough for his retrieves so we have a lot of work to do on that too.. but that's okay! We were 100% happy with his first training day and the progress he did make. We are not 100% happy with where Cooper is at for the money we put into him but thats another topic and one I am not going to blog about.

We did take Cooper out to my parents to work him in the pasture a few days after that, he did really good and I actually enjoy training him with Derek. He is such a great dog and so eager to please, he is trying. I think he works better for me! LOL

With all the attention Cooper craves on a daily basis, I somehow find a little time to give to Ellie and Russell. Russell is not quite so grumpy towards Cooper these days, but one of Coopers favorite games still is to get Russell all pissed off by jumping all around him when Russell is relaxing on the chair! It is pretty funny but they both get to barking so much you cant hear yourself think.. if only they could do it silently.

I give Russell and Ellie spa day every now/then to comb out the constantly shedding hair. Not sure they consider it a spa treatmeant, but I put them on the table, brush them out and trim their nails.
Somewhere in the midst of all those camping trips, we picked up our 4 new baby kids, Nigerian Dwarf Goats!

Eenie

Meenie
Mynie
MoJust for perspective, Mo is full grown for the most part as he is a year old and the other baby kids are about 5 months old, so they are not much taller than our dogs! They are really great little boys, eager to greet us at the gate.

To start, we had them in the yard to eat down the brush and stickers growing, it took them about 5 days to realize they could eat the brush! They were raised on orchard/alfalfa hay, so when they were put in the yard and not fed any hay, they started to get a bit skinny and I got very concerned because they were NOT figuring out what to eat.. but FINALLY they took to the brush and you cant keep them out of it now... whew!

Jennifer & John's wedding was 9-10-11 :) It was a beautiful wedding, she had asked me to be her maid of honor and had no other girls standing up with her. I was so honored for her to ask me, we've grown back to being close friends again and it was really nice that she trusted me to be there for her. I hope I was all she expected from me! :) It was a 4-day event.. lol Not sure Derek realized what he was in for, but it consumed that weekend. Thursday afternoon was rehearsal then dinner then drinks, I had to fight back tears just from the darn rehearsal! I failed..

Friday the boys spent the day together, a little golf at the driving range and then some drinkin. Us girls ran errands for half the day and spent the late afternoon at the nail salon, gettin pretty! I had a pedicure, only the 2nd one I've done in my life. The first one was for Carrie's wedding. My feet are SO hard and cracked, I was really embarrassed. The gal had to SCRUB and SCRUB the bottoms of my feet to get them clean, she used this file thing.. she really earned her $ that night! But my fingers and feet were much prettier when I left. We went out to a bar afterwards and met up with the guys to hang out. Saturday of course was the wedding. I had stressed A LOT prior to the wedding on getting a nice enough outfit to qualify to even stand next to Jen, I think I succeeded ok. By no means could I compare to her, but I didnt feel like a troll either!

The sandals I found to wear were incredibly uncomfortable.. I did not have proper time to wear them in so I stood there in pain, hoping it would not last too long so I could go sit! lol It is not easy finding really nice pretty sandals for these big ole size 11 wide mammoth feet, especially when summer is basically over... Sunday we had brunch down in Seattle to watch Jen & John open their gifts. By Sunday evening, I was exhausted! Jen looked amazing though, I cant wait to see their wedding photos. I'm hoping there is a good pic of Derek and I from the wedding.

The horse club had our annual prize ride the following weekend, since Derek is still unemployed he was able to help flag the trail on Friday with Oakley. I was proud of Derek for helping because he had to carry those flags on Oakley and they both did really great with it all. We rode for 4.5 hours and realized that was the first time Derek had been back in the saddle since MEMORIAL Weekend! The only bad part of it all was that his saddle clearly did not work on Oakley, as we discovered when the saddle came off after the ride. Derek is a bit sad about it, he LOVES LOVES his Tucker...

This past weekend was my Hunters Safety Course out in Sultan. A 3-day event! I had to be in class Friday from 6-9pm, then Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 9-2. I had a lot of built up apprehension about going, I had no friends to go with and was worried about feeling out of place. I knew I needed to take the class and pass the test to qualify to buy a hunting license but I was still really worried about it. I also knew I would have to handle guns I was unfamiliar with. As I sat alone at my table Friday afternoon, a guy came in with his 2 kids and a friend of the kids.. they sat at my table and I was really glad that they had. They were all really nice, the guy was maybe 4-5 years older than me and his 2 kids were 11 and 15 and then the friend was maybe 14. We all joked around and had nice conversations, I thanked them on Sunday for making my experience a lot more enjoyable! Me and 2 of the boys took our "Field Test" together on Sunday, we had to walk around an outdoor course with a rifle or shotgun in our hands and show we could handle ourselves in a safe manner as a group. The 3 of us passed that section just fine. We then had to go inside for our written test. I knew I did pretty good on the test, felt like I might have missed a few since there were a few questions I was a little unsure of but used what I thought was the most logical answer.

After 10 minutes I walked up to see how I did and I was told I was the ONLY one to have scored 100% on my test!!! I was shocked! I mean not super shocked, I did feel I did pretty good, but I was suprised to have not missed 1 single answer.. Of all 26 in the class, about half of the class was adult men and I beat them all... I was pretty damn proud of myself for doing so good and hopefully I can retain it all. I did text Derek every now and then during our breaks over the 3 days, asking if he knew this or knew that etc about hunting rules! Of course he knows it all (well thinks he does anyways), so not sure why I even bothered asking him! LOL I learned a lot.. and now look forward to getting out and hunting, hopefully my back will handle it okay. The 2 boys that were taking the class with me, they both passed too!

October has drastically died down with scheduled activities, I am looking forward to it. Not to say there is "nothing" for us to do, oh we have plenty! We've neglected all the things we had hoped to get done this year around the place.. we have a ton of unfinished projects and a lot of dump runs in our near future. Its time to get organized and get on track with less clutter in our lives. Derek is still unemployed, but we are not stressing about it and just accepting that what happens is meant to be. It is NOT easy these days since unemployment was denied, but we will work on getting that decision reversed and moving forward to new adventures.