AAAHHHHHH!!!!!! :(

I need a punching bag right now! grrrrrr I am so mad..

I bought a dog pooper scooper upper and 17 ounces of dog shampoo that ended up costing me $155!!! I was running some errands (personal and work) on company time, heading back to work at about 4pm.. trying to get done so I could get home. As I'm leaving the feed store and pulling up to Hwy 2, I see a single dark grey car coming from my left and a line of traffic behind it, so instead of STOPPING, I step on the gas to get out and take a right... And of course as my foot is starting to press on the gas, I realize that grey car is an unmarked police car... I wanted to die and of course he punches on the gas and approaches me with the red and blues shining!

So I spent $30 on products and now will spend $125 on a G*DAMN ticket!!! It really makes you realize the difference 30 seconds can make. If I would have just hesitated in the store a little longer.. I was flaming hot mad, still am.

So little Miss Daisy, little miss perfection I will try to become behind the wheel.. GRRR

That Darn Derek...

Derek has been out looking for a new job for a few weeks now, putting his resume out there. He doesnt always get a call back for the position he is applying for, but when he does.... he gets the job! Every Time!!!

It just amazes me. Ever since he was a teenager, he has walked into an interview and walked out with the job. Literally. In the past week, he has had 2 interviews, including today and sure enough, the amazement continues. Unfortunately he had to turn both positions down as they were not paying him enough to quit his current job. I just think it is great that he is personable enough to get the positions. Heck when I am unemployed, takes me FOREVER to get a job, I get the interviews, but not the jobs... I must not be that great in person.. lol

He's going to College!!!

I'm packin the trailer with hay, gettin some cash outta the bank and sending my young boy off to college tomorrow... :)

I phoned a friend from back in my growing up years, I ran into her last year at Lowe's in Monroe, heck we practically lived there with building the house. Found out she was training horses and working as a shoer/trimmer of horses too.. So back then, I took down her #. Today, I remembered I had her #, so I called her up.

She lives in Snohomish at a place I drive by every day on my way to/from work! She puts a solid 30 days of riding on the horse, she is experienced and I know her which is a great relief. You hear all these horror stories of trainers that get abusive with your horse to get results and I dont have to stress about that. She has arenas, trails, trail obstacles, a track, pastures, round pen, all of the above to train/work him in.

So I'm loading him up on Tuesday to take him over to her place. She'll have him for 30-60 days, I may just let him stay for 60 just to get a little more solid training in him. I am SOO excited that I thought to call her, I really think she is going to do well with Oakley and he'll be exactly what I am looking for when he returns. It does kinda suck to spend any money on training, especially with the economy in such question and Derek's job being a bit unstable, but ya know what, ITS WORTH IT!!!! :) Once he comes back from training, we will have 2 very solid well trained horses we can take most anywhere...

What to do...

He's home... It was a long drive yesterday. When we arrived, Oakley looked really good, he is fit and trim, although I must say he is not under-nourished by any means, but he is underweight for my liking. He's looking like a nice show horse, but I like my horses with a little more bulk, so for now while he is here, I'll be working on adding a few pounds.

I was able to watch Amanda ride him and realized how eager I was to get him home and give him a try myself! Here she is on Oakley yesterday.

I did ride him yesterday for a few minutes in the driveway, he is lacking some basic skills but proficient in others. He does not have any bend/give or suppleness in his face/neck/front end etc.. He braces himself when you ask for a whoa, a basic concept he should be better at. You can certainly stop him, but he feels "green". He does know his leg aids very well and it felt good to be on him.

Derek and I talked all night about what to do, Derek feels very comfortable around Oakley, but we both realize Oakley needs some more training before he is ready for Derek. Today I decided to get on again, rode around the driveway, out in the back field working on bending and giving, backing and stopping etc. He is slowly getting better, I think Amanda probably was not firm enough and focused on other areas. Derek decided he wanted to give him a try, so he got on and walked a few circles in the driveway and felt very comfortable on him. Plus he looked good too! lol He practiced a few things he saw me doing. In reality, Derek could ride Oakley as it is now out on the trails. Oakley is far enough along for someone with basic skills to ride him, but he is stiff and down the road, its better to fix it now.

I got back on and decided to head down the road, by myself and do the loop trail in our neighborhood. I was gone about 40 minutes or so. Oakley did really good on the trail. There was one paved road/hill he was refusing to go down, but we worked through it slowly. He wanted to have a tiny attitude, but I remained calm and relaxed and therefore he did as well. He has a nice walk on him, I got him over 3 puddles with some effort, but no fighting.

I think what we are going to do is find a trainer in our area and send him off for 30 days at which point we'll return Blackie Smalls to Angela and Derek will ride Oakley. If problems arise on the trail with Oakley, I can always get on and set him straight while Derek rides Edgar. Derek doesnt really like Edgar, I think because Edgar is not personable, but he would be fine to ride him.

So there it is. We are still sligthly in limbo on the plans, but I think we'll spend the money and send him off, one month aught to do it. Here are a couple pics, one of me and one of Derek. Obviously I am too big for him, but he can handle me for now while I work on some basics with him until he goes into training or another plan emerges..

Oakley's coming home..

I received a call yesterday, when I saw it was Amanda, I had a feeling something was up. My first concern was that Oakley was hurt (Amanda is the girl leasing him) so I braced myself for some really bad news, but then she asked me if I would take him back...

NO ~ He is not a bad horse and she's not returning him for anything negative, he just doesnt have the competitive edge she is looking for in a show horse. She was working him on gaming and had plans to maybe work him on cows and QH shows in the future, but he is just too laid back and I think maybe not enough challenge for her. Which is a GREAT thing for us!!!!

I'm a little worried... He is not quite even 5 years old, but he has been ridden a minimum of 3-5 days per week for 5 months, so he is in shape and ready to continue riding. He has never bucked, reared or thrown a fit in his training, so he should be OK for Derek. But there is a slight reservation about it, he is young so putting a green rider on a young greenish horse, is typically the opposite of what I believe.

What I do believe is that Oakley had a GREAT foundation put on him (a little self braggin there! lol), he has been ponied down very busy roads, down the trails, he's been worked extensively from the ground and now he's had 5 months of riding in an arena, so everything in me says he will be a good solid horse for Derek, but I keep going back to the young part.... I am driving down to Longview WA on Saturday (tomorrow) to pick him up. I decided to go all the way down there so I can watch Amanda ride him, she can show me where he is at with his training and what she has accomplished.

If Oakley is not progressed in training as far as I think he should be, then we'll pay to send him to a trainer for a month or two and keep Blackie Smalls until Oakley is done with training. If he seems good to go, then we'll have to take BS back on Sunday.. I dont have room for 3 horses for more than a few days..

So life has thrown us a new adventure. Derek is worried he will not bond with Oakley like he has with BS, he's got it in his head that Oakley is young, he's seen the childish side of Oakley for 4 years now. I'm hoping Oakley left me 6 months ago as a teenager and will return to me as a young man! :)

Danielle and Collin and Sobe are making the trek with me down south, should be fun. I actually am very happy about getting Oakley back, this solves a problem we would have had for next year since BS was only available to lease this year. I do believe Oakley will be a fine horse for Derek, Derek just needs to establish some confidence in Oakley. Pics definately to come shortly!! Oh, I need to take my camera tomorrow....

Time to get more active!

If I'm going to work on getting my horse in shape, I guess I should do the same... Probably wouldnt hurt to try to become another shape, other than the one I am! lol

I started swimming again, water aerobics actually! I have not done them in over a year, since the pool in Snohomish closed, but I recently learned that Lk Stevens offers an 8-9pm class on Mondays & Wednesdays, so I started 2 days ago, going again tonight. I invited some friends, Molly & Kristen came on Monday, Angela also hopes to start up and possibly my cousin's wife Rachel. I pushed pretty hard and was sore because of it, but it felt SO GREAT to be back in the water!!! I bought a punch card, no backing out. On Saturday mornings they offer a class too, so if I dont have plans, then I'll swim on Saturdays too. If anyone else wants to join us, that would be great..

The days I am not swimming, I hope to get on the eliptical for an hour, just have to get Derek & another guy to bring the beast machine into the house.

I ordered Derek's birthday presents already, they are on b/o for 4-8 weeks, not sure they will be here on time for his bday even though it still is about 6 weeks away. I can hardly wait, this is the first year in a while I've been super excited about what I bought for him. :)

His job search has been slow going, he did go on an interview last week, he got offered the job of course (over his entire life so far, he has ALWAYS gotten the job he has interviewed for!!) but the job didnt pay what he needed and there was no guarantees they could get him paid what he needed anytime soon, so he had to pass. Work has been somewhat steady the last couple weeks, things seem to be improving, we'll see if that continues.

Well I should get some work done.. its almost 10am and I've done NOTHING the last 2 hours except pretend to work.. lol

What a GREAT Weekend!

If I had a little more money, life would be pretty darn close to perfect! Okay, reality check... Things are not always great 100% of the time, but if I could have weekends like this every week, things would be pretty darn good.

Friday night we spent the evening with George, Rachel & Samantha at the new hockey arena in Kent, the Seattle Thunderbirds new home.. against Spokane. TBirds won, it was a good game, could have been great, but there was not even 1 fight!!! bummer..

Saturday morning we awoke to the alarm to go to this "huge" tack sale in Snohomish, it was a complete let-down.. :( Oh well. Ran some errands and then headed home, loaded up the boys and headed to Lords Hill for a really nice, warm day (mid-high 50's) ride with 5 other horse club friends. Got home, unloaded, a friend stopped by on a whim to chat for a few, changed clothes and went to mom/dad's for a roast dinner, played some cards, headed back home to watch the free UFC fights (although I did NOT make it, was asleep within 30 minutes!) .

Derek with Blackie Smalls, putting on a new breast collar

Derek & Adam

Here are a couple pics of our group (minus myself) from Saturday's Ride...

Almost done with the ride now... BS's face always itches when he gets sweaty, so Derek found a way to make BS happy! They both really got into it. :)

Sunday morning, slept in for the first time in a long time, fed the horses around 11am (a few hours late!) brushed them out, decided last minute to load 'em up and head down to the Dubuque PUD Station parking area, rode for 2 hours (we did a lot of trail clearing and rode some nice old loggin roads until we had to stop at a section that was full of downed trees). Came home, cleaned the house, got the BBQ heated up and enjoyed having Crystal, Aaron & their new baby Josiah over for dinner and chatting. Watched some TV and here I am.

Crystal, Aaron & Josiah (JoJo)

Like I said, if I had money to live a little more comfortably and I could have great weekends like that all the time, life would be great! :)

Oh did I forget to mention that Saturday morning I checked email and got a message from our lender that our refinance did NOT go through!!!! GRRRRR....... We've been working on this for 4 months now!! I am flat frustrated. These F*ing Banks are just pissin me off, I REALLY hope that the banks figure some shit out soon, so average Americans like myself can help myself to live a little bit more comfortably in today's economy. I got my tax statement last week and wanted to poo myself, our taxes more than doubled with this new house.... This should be an interesting year, and one can only hope we have hit our low and will rise up soon! Sorry, had to vent just a bit.

Oh and here is a pic of Edgar, not to brag, but he is such a Beautiful horse!!!!

I never thought the day would come....

when Derek would venture out on his own for a ride! He called yesterday, he didnt have any work, which is a whole other issue :( he wanted to know if I would be upset if he went out on a ride w/o me. Of course I was bummed, here I was sitting in my office looking outside to a beautiful sunny 50 degree day, watching a movie while Derek is out riding the neighborhood and having a nice relaxing time. I never imagined he would get this into it... I thought he might enjoy riding enough that we would go camping together and ride the trails, I just never thought he would like it so much he actually WANTS to ride every chance he can.. amazing how life has changed in one year for us in so many different ways. I think this is our year for change and to refocus back on ourselves.

Back to Derek's work.. yes things have been slow. Not a good thing. He's been actively looking for a new job, but with the amount of unemployed people flooding the market lately, it's been a slow-go. He'd love to get into a new field of work, but has no training or education in anything else and we've relied on his pay, so breaking into a new field and getting paid well to do so, is going to be a challenge! I really want him to work for the US Border Patrol, I think he would love it. I have totally been into this new TV show on Channel 4 called Homeland Security.

Who needs a Chiropractor, when you have a.....

HORSE! :)

Almost every ride lately my horse has found something to spook at or jump away from. If you have never ridden a horse that spooked, you probably dont know what I'm talking about. But for those that do know, my horse likes to do a one-move jolt of my body almost every ride, which tweeks my back, sometimes cracking it, as it whips from one side to the other! Prior to yesterday, my back was aching a lot while I slept, but then I went riding yesterday and of course Edgar jumped when my friend Penny's horse jumped (chain reaction, horses are definately prone to those). I felt my back tweek/crack and last night.... I didnt sleep perfect, but I slept much better!

At the chiropractor we also sit in a "whobble" chair that rotates your back and loosens you up, try it... sit in your chair right now and move your hips back/forth and in a circular motion.. Well riding my horse basically does the same exact thing, so I get lots of Loosening Up while I ride.

Although I cant complain that my back is getting cracked for "free", I think I'd rather get it cracked the traditional way from the doctor... atleast at the chiropractors office, I dont have to worry about getting spooked right off the table and falling to the ground! Well lets hope not anyways! lol

No More Escaping!

Poor Poor Scout!! We finally got around to electrifying the bottom of the fenceline in hopes that it would persuade Scout that she does NOT need to leave our yard. :( Poor girl, we turned her out in the yard and stood on the porch watching her, sure enough within less than a minute she had touched the wire.... She yelped and ran with this sad sad look on her face straight from the fence, onto the porch and into the house! And she would NOT come back out... We coaxed her out finally with LOTS of praise and I walked around the yard with her following me to show her the yard was not one big electric bowl. She was happy to go back in the house.

When I went out to feed that evening, I opened the slider and she was eager to go outside, no zaps on the fenceline though, which was good. I really hope 1 time was enough to teach her. I'd LOVE to let her have her way and run free, but I have to protect her and keep her safe and the only way to do that is to be sure she cannot get out of the yard. I think she learned her lesson and she is not showing any fear of going outside.

Derek & I got in a nice ride on Valentines Day!! :) He even held my hand for part of the ride.. ahhhh. We rode at Bridle Trails in Bellevue, nice trail system there. Spent the evening at home, eatin dinner and relaxing watching a pretty dumb movie called "Idiocracy". It has Luke Wilson in it from 2006, pretty lame movie, but cute in some respects I guess.

We were supposed to have a doggy play date today, with John & April's dog Yogi, but they had to cancel at the last minute. We thought it would be fun to let all the Jack Russells run around together, maybe another weekend. George & Rachel did come up though. We suprised Samantha with her very own helmet and saddle so when she is here, she can ride. I put her name on the helmet and got some cute pics of her, she is a camera ham, she may just grow up to be a model, she knows how to pose and does it well. What a doll. She's learning how to brush and properly care for the horse, she had a nice ride on Smalls.

Presidents Day is tomorrow, I have the day off. hmmm sleep in, relax, maybe organize more of the craft room.. or get up to an alarm, go riding.. I guess we'll see in the morning how I feel.

A sign that things are settling down...

I have decided that if you base things off my blog, then you must realize that maybe things have finally started to settle down in my life! Life has been on the "down-low" lately, laid back, not a lot of craziness and change and drama and problems... :)

I want to post for my followers to keep you entertained, but I guess things have just been kinda boring lately, nothing too exciting to write about. I could tell you how my dishes are piling up, my laundry is scattered (clean & dirty) around my house, the floors need cleaning, I started to work on the garage cleaning/organizing it, we've been getting out and riding on the weekends, spending our evenings with our butts in front of the TV, work is all the same for me, work is slow slow for Derek, the dogs are behaving, horses are staying in their pasture...

I wish I could post some drama or excitement or something entertaining, but truth is.... It's kinda nice not having all that going on at one time, nice to be boring every now/then. Stay tuned, I'm sure the adventures will pick up soon.. spring is coming, I think..

Saddle Time...

Derek has established a goal. I think he just picked this # at random, no rhyme or reason for it, it just sounded good to him. He intends on riding 100 hours this year! It is doable, but we have a lot of work to get there. He loves his horse Blackie Smalls, they are a perfect match for eachother. Derek used to really like Edgar and wanted Edgar to be his horse, but now that he has Smalls, he sees the quirks in my guy Edgar and wants him no - more! Whew, thank goodness, for a while there I thought I would have to consider giving him up to Derek.

So although it is not a lot, we have conquered 5 hours of saddle time already and plan to add more this weekend...

Remind me again why I own 4-legged animals...

If it's not the dog getting out and running around the neighborhood, it's the horse! Someone pulled in the driveway this morning, apparently my horse was out. I dont know if he was out on the road, he had to have been close to the road anyways for someone to see him. By the time I got outside, he was hanging out at the neighbors nextdoor to us. I grabbed the grain, Derek grabbed the rope and we put him back in his pasture. He had busted through the non-electrified hotwire.. grrrr So instead of worrying all day about him, I just took the time to hook up the hotwire this morning before I left for work. When we put in the fencing to bring the horses home, I didnt think I would need to electrify it, I thought I had a "great" horse that would never test his boundary, apparently I am eatin dirt, cuz I was wrong! lol

So I'd like to see him try to get out now! He'll be in for a rude shocking awakening. Now that I have hotwire hooked up, I think I'll run hotwire around the bottom of the yard fencing to keep the small 4-legged mutt in as well, she'll be in for the shock of her life too next time she tries to escape and dig out of my yard!

Let there be light!

Happy Ground Hog Day, well whatever that means anyways.. lol I dont know if the groundhog saw his shadow or not, I can only hope that winter is on its way out.. I typically love the wintertime, but I'm thinkin as I age, I might just be starting to enjoy the warmer weather more and more... Is that a sign of old age?

I think I am just so excited about riding with my husband! and just getting more active this spring/summer, that I am itchin for the brighter, longer, lighter, warmer days! I am very excited to see that Derek is not only loving the riding, but he also loves just going out and being with his horse, feeding him and grooming him almost nightly. I just sit and watch him and smile, how can I not! To see someone else enjoy what I've enjoyed almost my whole life, is exciting!

So the light.. well PUD came out and installed a light in our yard!! Yeah.. so for those of you that complain it is too damn dark at my place at night, well problem solved.. It doesnt really light up the entire parking area, but it is light...

Oh and I was just informed that the damn hog saw his shadow.

Whats New...

My goats are going on vacation! I have been very stressed about their current living situation, they are confined to a small corral due to collapsed fencing at my parents from the snow and my farm is not goat-proof and will not be anytime soon. I sent out a plea to friends and family about possibly giving them away, I didnt know what else to do. Debbie & Phil (Andrea's parents) offered to take them in for me until I can get my farm back on track. So my goats are catching an afternoon flight on Saturday in the bed of my truck and heading to Barten's Farm in Snohomish to spend some quality time with other goats in a big pasture where they will get lots of attention and be free to run and play again.

The horses are home and I am Lovin' it! :) I so enjoy just going out to my barn and feeding them and spending time with them morning and night to brush or just sit and watch them eat. A true horse lover enjoys those sorts of weird things. We are hoping to get in a couple hour ride tomorrow at the tree farm, weather permitting. Although I did get the feeling from Derek he was riding rain or shine!

Scout.. little stinker! I have been turning the dogs out into the backyard when I go feed so they can run and explore. Well for the past 6 weeks or so, the ground has been pretty hard/frozen still so Scout has not been able to escape..... until yesterday! I'm in the barn doing my thing and I realized she is nowhere to be seen! Derek comes out and we can hear her collar on the other side of the wood fence, of course she doesnt come when we call her when she is "free!" so Derek says, screw it, she'll come home when she's ready! So I go back to the barn, he goes in the house. A few minutes later I hear her collar on the other side of our property at the the neighbors and I see her running all around his place. I called her and she came up to the pasture fencing and looked at me like "Mom I cant get through this wire, come help me". So I take some steps towards her to show her how to go around the wire and she turns and looks at me with this snarky attitude and says "See Ya BIIIIAAAATCH!!" LOL

A few minutes later she is running around in our pasture so I open the gate to the yard and walk through the gate like I'm going to the house and I can hear her behind me at a distance coming my direction. I turned to look at her and she darted off, so I continued to walk towards the house and by the time I got to the slider door on the deck, she was right next to me like "well aren't you gonna let me in, I'm freezing out here!" Oh that dog, how could I punish her.. I cant really because she did come when I turned my back on her and I dont want her to think coming no matter how she does it, is a bad thing.

Derek can say the darndest things!

Last night we were at Eric & Andreas to celebrate Andreas 26th Birthday. She had gotten 15 live crabs from a friend, so we had a feast! It was delicious.. As we were sitting around the table eating our crab, Derek was looking at his crab and talking about how he had gone riding that day and the day before and his tooshie was a little sore. Eric did not know that we had Blackie Smalls, he thought we just had Edgar. So Eric says to Derek, "Who did you ride?" Derek looks at Eric with this look of... Duh and says "Piper". OMG LOLOLOLOLOL We all busted up laughing at the table, almost in tears, everyone knew except Derek what was so damn funny!! Derek says "What?" Derek thought Eric said "Who did you ride with?" It was hilarious!

And Derek asked that I clarify why we call Blackie Smalls, Blackie Smalls. Well for one cuz he is black and for two, when he is standing next to Edgar, he looks very small... so thats how he was renamed.. My apologies to Steve & Angela (his owners), he can still be HotRod of course to you, but Derek is gonna call him his new name! :)

A Great Weekend!

The horses are home!!! I brought them home Friday after work, it was foggy so it got darker a lot faster than I wanted it to. They didnt seem to think the barn was as cool as I do, I had to convince them they wanted to stay inside the stalls to eat dinner.. lol A new pasture, new barn, they were just feelin frisky and spooky.

I had ordered some new stirrups for Derek and I, we ran some errands on Saturday and then decided we wanted to go for a ride around the neighborhood. We rode down to my friend Molly's place, she had her horse out as well, so the three of us rode for a little while, Derek and I rode over an hour, enough for his knees to start feeling it. It was the first time I had been on since October and first time for Derek in about 15 years! He was very comfortable on... Oh I should mention that his horse came with the name HotRod, but Derek decided for now, he wants to call him "Blackie Smalls". lol So anyways, Derek was feeling really good about riding B.S. (for short).

We set the alarm for 7:30 Sunday morning as we had a lot to get accomplished and we wanted to get in another ride. We woke to about an inch or more of snow, decided we didnt want to haul the horses anywhere, so we just saddled up and rode the neighborhood again, about 45 minutes today. :)

Our first big ride will be on Valentines Day, ahhhhhh. The horse club is having a ride up at the Heart Lake Trails in Anacortes, so we are going to try to ride 2-3 times a week to prepare our horses and ourselves for this ride.

So here are a couple pictures of Derek today:

Oh and we had wanted to work on the garage this weekend and getting it cleared up and organized, well now that Derek has discovered riding, I dont know if we'll ever get any projects done around here... hehehe

One More Thing...

Oh and I forgot to mention. See this barn is supposed to be a 36 x 24, so basically 2 stalls on each side of a 12' isle. Well those mats I talked about in the below post, are 4x6, sooooo I should be able to fit 6 mats in each stall to have a perfectly matted stall... ERRRKK, stop the truck/trailer again! Darn if those stalls are not 12x11.5 instead! GRRRR. :) So for now, I have 5 mats in each stall, leaving a big open unmatted section, until we can loosen up the wall and slide the mats under the ouside wall.... See this is what I'm talkin about when I say Plan C, Revision 5, every time we go out to finish up this darn barn or our fencing or anything that has to do with getting the horses home, something comes up and some darn thing needs fixing, tweeking, deleting.... Oh Happy Days!

Problem....... Solved!

Grrr.. I woke up this morning with every intention of bringing the animals home today.. Screeeeeeetch, stop the truck/trailer! It is 5:50pm and still no animals. Saturday I spent the day helping my cousin Marc with a workparty at his house so I had only today to work on our place. We woke up this morning to a frosty white ground, something we havent seen in a week or more, as it has been foggy 24/7 for almost a week. We went out to look at the barn and talk about our goals and intentions for the day and what needed accomplishing, and wouldnt you know, it was raining inside that barn! It was close to noon when we were out there and the frost was melting, so the entire underside of the roof and all the metal beams on the underside were soaking wet and dripping A LOT!! So that was the problem of the day.

We made a $175 trip to Home Depot and we now have a roof under the roof.. :) We/Derek, built a wood framed roof to sit under the metal roof in the tack room stall. I dont mind water dripping on the horses, but I cant have water dripping on my tack... After we put up the wood roof, we put plastic over the top of the wood so when water does drip down, it will hit the plastic and slide off out the back side of the stall. I hope that makes sense, my fingers are still frozen from being outside all day. We are going to just put a tarp in the hay room to keep the hay dry.

While Derek built the roof, with my occassional assistance, I spent the afternoon digging up 10 stall mats and moving them on my own! If you are a horse person and have ever tried moving a 4x6 dirty stall mat, you will KNOW what a PITFA that is!!! Whew, and I did 10 of them by myself! 5 of them were buried somewhat in the ground with grass growing over the top of them. As I sit here typing, I can feel my back stiffening up by the minute. I better get up and out of here before I get stuck in this chair...

Oh, so story of the weekend, still no horses home. I feel like Plan A turned into Plan B, but then Plan B needed modification, so we have Revision 1 and 2 on Plan B, then back to Plan A with Revision 1, shit now we are on to plan C but I think up to Revision 5... lololol

90% Completed Barn :)

The barn is pretty much done. I HAVE to thank those that helped get this thing loaded and set up with such short notice and so quickly.


Thanks SOOOO VERY MUCH:
Cousin Marc
My Brother Eric
My Mom & Dad
Marc's Father in Law, Bill
Thanks to George for helping us 3 weekends in a Row, and driving up from Covington!
His wife Rachel too of course, she and I spent all day one day burning while the guys cut wood


A BIG Thank You as well to my friends Mark & Molly for the use of their tractor for a week!!

We couldnt have done it w/o everyones help!!


The Barn is up and covered, we need to seal some holes in the roofing material, buy a 12' gate for the isleway to keep the animals out of the inside of the barn, dad is going to help us cut in a door for our tack and feed room, then we need to put a floor down in those rooms and finally install the mats in the horse stalls. It is workable as it is right now, we laid gravel down for the "sacrifice area" for the horses. This coming weekend, we plan to finally finish the fencing so we can hopefully bring the kids home this next weekend.... crossing my fingers.


Here is the load of gravel we bought, this is 2/3 of it. This was just this last weekend (1st weekend in January) it snowed off/on in flurries Saturday and Sunday as we worked both days on the barn that weekend... It was a cold weekend to be outside.

This is the very beginning of the process. I am standing on my deck looking out to my pasture

Some building process pics





Here is the completed project, YEAH!!

Technology I never wanted, but LOVE that I have!

I was driving today thinking about my blog and that if it weren't for Derek, I might not even be able to do this. Well I could still type things, but I certainly wouldnt be able to post pictures. Way back when.... when digital cameras were just coming out, I was ADAMENT! that I did NOT want one!! What did I need one of those silly gadgets for? I was perfectly happy with my clunker of a camera, although at the time it was an average sized camera, nothing too extravagant. To lift that thing now and look at it, WOW! lol Its a monster, it is huge.. Heck our first digital camera seems LARGE compared to the smaller one we traded for last year.

Derek was persistant on getting a digital camera and am I ever thankful he pushed and finally just got us to buy one... Oh I was stubborn and didnt want to use it, but from the minute I started using it, lets just say we've had the digital now for what... let me look back at my oldest dated digital pic..... Sept 2004! I have never gone back to the clunker and as a matter of fact, when I was packing up that camera before we built the house, I noticed it still has a roll of film still in it, unfinished. I really need to dig that thing out, finish the roll and develop it.. I might be happily suprised at what is on there, at this point, I have NO idea! I must admit too, I have NEVER developed ANY of my digital pics... I AM that commecial where all the pics fight over who is going to get deleted, although I do pull all my pics off my camera and they are all stored (and backed up) on the computer. I've printed them to my own printer, which is not a picture printer, printer! Did you follow me there.. lol I just print them through Word to fill photo frames and create cool things. Oh and for this blog... hehehe

The other thing I was adament we did NOT need was something Derek bought me for Christmas this past year and I just love the thing! It is a Garmin Navigational System... Well what I call it is a vehicle GPS, but Derek kept correcting me, apparently it is not a GPS, that's just what I call it. Basically I punch in an address, and the lady in the dashboard mounted screen tells me where to go! lol She shows me all the local restaurants, parks, shopping etc.. She's awesome! I never wanted one of the darn things, why did we need one.. but again, I just am lovin it, thanks to Derek. Maybe I should stop being so darn stubborn and just realize some gadgets can be very useful.

Lookie Lou - I Must Do!

I left work an hour early, okay well 1.5 hours early if I'm being honest.. lol My co-worker that lives in Spokane usually heads back to Spokane on Thursday afternoon, but he was stranded with I-5, I-90, Hwy 2, and White Pass all shut down. So I did leave someone at the office to answer phones.. I wanted to get out and check some of the flood damage and there were many others doing the exact same thing!

Snohomish is supposed to crest tonight at 10pm, it's already pretty bad in Snohomish.

Here is the Skykomish River in Monroe

This is the Valley between Snohomish/Monroe along Hwy 2

Some flooding off 88th in Snohomish, close to Pilchuck Vet

Here is Pilchuck Vet, not quite flooded in the building yet

Here are some pics of the Snohomish River in Downtown Snohomish and all the other Lookie Lou's..

Standing on the Bridge looking towards the River Road

Here we have the Lumber Mill just across the Ave D Bridge in Snohomish and the intersection for the River Road. I walked down to the River Road as well and took a couple pics of the water crossing the roadway and then right up next to the road.

Here is a picture overlooking the Soccer Fields on the road heading out to Lords Hill

Pilchuck Park & River here and some of the flooding from it. The people on the other side of the river have all their hopes into bales of straw, that is the only thing keeping that water from gushing in at this point.

I plan to watch the news tonight and hopefully find out just how bad Snohomish is flooded at 10pm. Sounds like they shut down Hwy 9 already, not a good sign!

Drowned Rats...

I dont quite feel like a drowned rat, but my horses sure look the part! :( The barn should be done on Saturday, so the plan is to bring the horses and goats home on Saturday afternoon... :) I have not posted pics yet because I want to post them when it is completely done and I can show pics of all the boys in the new barn!! I can say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my barn and I'm soooo excited to have somewhere to just go and sit and play with all my animals.

So we have had LOTS of snow, LOTS of rain, LOTS of cold and now record flooding, all within 30 days. Other than dealing with my animals and their situation, I love this stuff! Okay I dont really love the rain so much, but I love natural disasters. It is just amazing what the weather and water and storms can do. I feel fortunate to live on High Dry Ground!

Give me til the weekend and I should have new pics posted!

Portable Barn Project

We did it, we bought the barn! A scary undertaking, spending such a large lump of cash on something always makes me feel weird. But it is a good thing. Today online I found a VERY good deal on the wood we need to finish the barn, we are getting the wood for about 1/5 the cost. We have to drive to Tacoma to get it, but it's worth the drive. Poor guys, I think arms will be sore by the end of the weekend with moving gravel, spreading gravel, unloading barn off flatbed, setting up barn, loading 500 boards onto the flatbed.. I hope our friends and family still like us after the weekend. lol

Picking up the barn was quite the experience! We get down to Enumclaw, very nice people, but she neglected to tell me that the barn was in a pasture full of shin-high water! I was prepared, I had worn my muck boots, but Derek and George had regular work-type boots on and they got soaked... the panels were not under water, but we had to walk about 100 feet or so from where the panels were at to the flatbed, through big puddles of water. It took over 2 hours to load this thing up! We made it safely home, whew! I'll take some before, during and after photos this weekend of the project.

I am getting very excited now that I will have a barn and that I found the wood so it will be a completed barn. It has been SOOOO long since I have looked out my window to see my horses in my pasture! I cant even recall right now when they were at my house last, I'm thinking almost a year and a half.