Exhausted

I can hardly keep the eyeballs open right now, but I'd like to post a few pics so I'm hangin in there just for my loyal listeners! ;)

Well I took on a new project, I think I am lacking so much mental stimulation at work, I felt a challenge was appropriate. I'll let ya know in a week or two if that was a good decision or not. So my task... CHC Treasurer!! I've been treasurer before, years ago, but things are different this time around, many changes have been made, new responsibilities, I just hope I dont regret this down the road.. Being Treasurer is a big responsibility and I thought I was taking the year off and relaxing with the club.. guess not! :)

Saturday night Jennifer Shana Andrea & I had a girls night up at Andrea's house. We had a good time of course, laughing and being silly, drinking of course! Spent lots of the night hashin out family drama, lots of tears shed regarding ourselves and our losses over the past couple years. Did not get to bed until about 2:30am, woke up at 7:30 so I could get home this morning to go riding with Adam & Tracy and their friend Amber.

I spent more time in the saddle today than I did in bed last night! Imagine that.. It was a warm day, we rode out of Adam's place again, Tracy was taking up an offer I put together for her to ride Blackie Smalls and it was very successful, hopefully the pair will be out on the trail many more times this summer together. We rode up to the lookout again, this time I had the camera in hand to get some pics.

Last week when we were there, the guys had pointed out "Seattle" and I was looking the direction I thought they were pointing and I was like "Oh, how do you know that is Seattle?" Derek was like, well the buildings etc.. Well shit I didnt see any buildings! lol So today when we get up to the lookout area, sure enough straight ahead is the Seattle skyline! I swear it was not there last week, maybe the smoggy/thick air was thicker last week and it was harder to see so I missed it. I got some pics

Here is Seattle in the background.. really not sure how I missed it the first time! duh
I tried to edit this picture to enhance the city which is to the right of this tree. But my computer was being stupid so I couldnt enlarge that area. Derek said he could see the space needle. It was much more visible/clear in person than my camera shot, same with the other pictures as well, in person... much better! :)
This is Mt Rainier

Our little group with Lk Roesiger and Mt Baker in the background

Oh and yesterday I took Oakley out to hose him off, he LOVES to drink water from the house, so here are a few pics of him playing in the water...

Here Moley Moley Moley Moley Moleeeeeeeey.....

GRRR. So I bought some mint leaves Tuesday afternoon, spent an hour chopping up the leaves/branches, put them in the blender with some water, then boiled and simmered the leaves in a full pot of water for 30 minutes... Poured the concoction into atleast 10 holes this damn mole has created. Wed morning the mole was nowhere to be seen, no new mole holes, I was feeling rather good about this deal, until........... I woke up this morning and looked out to see 3 new holes!! AGGHHH This little shit is digging up holes along my fenceline between the yard and barn and gravel paddock, he has created a hole in my barn isleway, in the stall and there are numerous big brown mounds in my gravel paddock!! I am ready to go postal on this F*ing animal!! I have never been so frustrated, I guess I am going to have to stand over a stomped hole with a metal pitchfork and shishkabob the thing when he starts to stir up his holes.

Where Do I begin??

What a Weekend!! extended weekend I should say since it was Memorial Weekend inwhich it started on Thursday for me. 5 days off work, a much needed break from the daily grind.

Thursday I loaded up Oakley and picked up Molly for a 2.5 hour ride at Lords Hill with some other friends, a quiet uneventful ride in the sun, Oakley did great of course! :) I loped him a little on the trail, OMG that horse has a terrific lope, I could go at that speed all day.

Friday I spent the morning cleaning here/there. Derek got off work early, so we loaded up the boat and headed to Lake Roesiger to give that a try. We were out for a couple hours, I had 1 fish on after about 1.5 hours but it spit out my lure half way to the boat.. Derek got skunked. We had intended to explore the lake a little more, but a little ways into our trolling, the boat started going slower and slower.. oh crap!! We hadnt charged the battery since we bought it and we were loosing juice! We turned around immediately and headed back towards the dock, decided to anchor out close to the dock so if we had to row, it wouldnt be far. An uneventful afternoon of fishing but I really am enjoying just spending the time with Derek and having a good time laughing and being silly together. ;)

Saturday morning we woke early after a late night of cleaning (yes Derek & I were up til about 10pm deep cycle cleaning our bedroom!) We headed to Lake Sixteen up out of Conway, Skagit County. We met Eric & Andrea there as well as Tony & Amanda who are Eric & Andreas very good friends. Amanda was in our boat, while the other 3 in Eric's boat. It was COLD! We got there at 8:20 am and the sun had dissappeared somewhere around Stanwood, so the shorts and tank tops were not cuttin it, we all had to wrap up in extra clothing. Within 45 minutes of trolling, I had a nice maybe 15" trout on that we got in the boat. We were feelin pretty good, thinking all the while that we were going to KILL the other boat on luck for the day. Meanwhile, we get ZERO bites or fish for the next couple hours. Andrea on the other hand has caught 11 fish!!! Noone else in her boat had caught anything at that point, and after her 11 fish, Eric & Tony decided to use what she was using and they all started catching fish. Meanwhile, us in our boat, well we are using every lure we could find/experiment with.

After a few hours, we anchored out to give that a try and here comes the other boat, mocking us and laughing (we all were laughing, what can you do!) and as they are passing us between the boat and the shore, BANG I think it was Tony that caught a fish.. damn!!! After he realed it in, they felt sorry for us I guess and came over the boat, gave Amanda some homemade pizza, a Corona and then Andrea decided she had plenty of fish for the day, so she handed me her lure and showed Amanda and I how to set it up just like she had. 5 minutes later I had a good bite, but then NOTHING. For another hour we still had Nothing!! :) We had contemplated ramming their boat numerous times and joked about how fun it would be to throw them in the water. lol

So we thought, maybe we are trolling too fast or too slow, so we start pacing the other boat, we are going along side by side, they pull ahead a couple feet, literally their boat was not even a full boat length ahead of us and then all the sudden BANG, Andrea I think it was lands a fish and when the fish took her hook, it jumped out of the water right away, again LITERALLY 5 feet from the back of our boat. Son of a BITCH! Seriously, lolololololol is about all we could say at that point. Andrea caught fish even after she gave up her successful lure.. so the rundown here is that our boat landed 1 fish in 5 hours (Derek caught a fish at one point but never got it in the boat) and their boat landed almost 20 fish. Amazing... I really enjoyed being out with everyone, we had a blast all the same.

That afternoon we had a BBQ at our place and rented the UFC fights that night. Everyone that came, brought a dog!! lol I should have taken a picture. Here is what we had. Our 2 dogs, Scout & Russell. Eric/Andrea brought Hudson (lab) and a rescue dog Andrea just brought in a Japanese Chin I think it was. A 9 pound dog, pour little girl was pretty fugly! lol I mean she was cute in her own way with her long small body missing half her hair and scabby back and bulging eyeballs. They have not named her so we kept calling her different names all evening, she was a cuddle bug though. Tony/Amanda brought a border collie mix dog. Amber/Jerod brought a lab. Danielle brought her Jack Russell Sobe. 7 dogs total and there was not one fight, I dont even think anyone really growled, oh wait Little Dog didnt like any dogs around her, she spent the afternoon rotating from lap to lap. Dog chaos, dogs everywhere running in/out of the house, it was fun!

Sunday we unhooked the boat and hooked up the horse trailer, headed to Adam's house in Snohomish for a 4.5 hour ride on some DNR land out his back door! :) His girlfriend Tracy was having problems with her horse, she has a mare that I believe is bored with trailriding, the horse is young and needs a bigger job to do, so she had to turn around and lead the horse home, but the 3 of us had a great ride. On our way up the mountainside, we saw a flock of grouse babies go flying off into the bushes and momma was freakin out a little, fluttering her wings and flew after her babies. I told the guys I had read stories of grouse attacking horses to protect their babies. Luckily that did not happen to us. At the top, we could see all the way to Seattle, no camera of course with me :) Derek rode Oakley and was having a nice ride. On the way back, we saw a deer on the trail ahead and then came across a tree next to the trail that had VERY fresh bear scratchings on it. I'd say it was within 24 hours if not that day, it was a little intimidating to see that. Then... my horse (the big Appy gelding) is lagging way behind, he is pretty tired at this point, but I see a grouse fly by Derek up ahead so I asked Derek what happened.. Well, Derek was on the phone chattin with Tyler and this grouse (not the same one as going up the trail) is in the middle of the trail fluttering it's wings and banging them on the ground and then all the sudden it flew up and came straight at Derek. He immediately hung up the phone and the grouse then flew off into the bushes, so he was pretty much heavily WARNED to stay away from her nest, wherever that was! :) It was quite the ride, some excitement. Derek ended up loping Oakely too that day and he just loved it and felt great with how smooth it was to ride. After the ride, we hauled the boys home and drove back to Adams for a Birthday BBQ with him, Tracy and Josh. It was a great day.

We had thought about going for a drive on Sunday, but we decided we felt so "unlucky" with our Saturday fishing excursion that we needed to redeem ourselves, so we slept in Monday, loaded up the boat and headed up to Anacortes to go fishin with Tyler at Heart Lake (same place we rode horses from a month or more ago). We spent a couple hours on that lake and the only thing caught was this poor unlucky croppy fish that Tyler somehow hooked in the belly! Poor little dude probably didnt even try to go for the lure, heck the lure is almost as big as he is!

We dropped anchor in that area and tried fishin for croppy, something Derek has never been interested in fishing for, but at this point we were desperate to catch something! We got lots of tiny bites on our little worm jigs, but no hooked fish. We ditched that lake and headed to Campbell lake a couple miles down the road that is supposed to have some nice planted trout, what did we catch??? Not a G-Damned thing! We fished for a few hours in the wind and cold, not much sun out that day in Anacortes.

So I dont know what the deal is. Maybe because the weather was changing, the fish were not biting. I had a GREAT weekend, just very unlucky fishing experiences.

Oh and to top it all off... on our drive home from Anacortes on Monday, we blew a tire on the boat trailer! We also have to buy guides for the boat for loading it out of the water, it is a pain in the behind.. so money needs to be forked out for the boat in guides and a new tire ASAP! The money pit of boat ownership begins..

Oh and we are battling a mole in the yard. He is REALLY makin me mad! He is diggin up some huge dirt mounds in the yard and gravel area of our paddock. The dogs are pretty funny, every time a new mound arises or the mole redigs a stomped mound, Scout stands at the mound and just barks and barks! Silly dog. Eric said that Sisco says to grind up some fresh mint leaves and boil them and pour that down the holes and that will solve my problem, anyone know where I can find some fresh mint???

The Daily Catch...

We bought a boat!! Yippy... We'd been talking about it for about a week, not seriously. But then we started browsing good 'ole Craigslist and I found a boat in Snohomish to go see. It is a 12' Sorensen. Here are a couple pics. It came with a cover over the front half so if you go out and it's raining or cold, you can put that up. It also came with a trolling motor and a 15hp motor, although Derek installed his trolling motor in as his is a much nicer one.


We have started living by the philosophy that life is pretty short and you might as well do what you can to enjoy it... and that's why we made the decision to buy the boat. We had some cash set aside to finish our fencing in the pastures, but opted to hold off on the fencing so we could buy the boat. The goats will just have to stay on vacation at the Barten's farm a little longer til we can get more money saved up. :) Derek and I have been looking forward to doing a lot more fishing together and this will definately get us out on the water. We might be tight every month and stressed about our financial obligations, but what better way to relieve your stress than a nice afternoon on the lake fishin for bass, trout, perch...

We took the boat out Saturday late afternoon for about 1.5 hours on Flowing Lake, got the main motor running good and the trolling motor running, we each caught a pretty nice trout, although Derek's was a little nicer in size than mine! But it felt great to be catchin fish again and just cruisin the lake in the boat was nice too. It's not a speed demon, but its perfect for us and I love the boat and dont regret it at all.


We got in ZERO riding this weekend. What a bummer as the weather was fantastic! High 70's if not even a little into the 80's. Oh wait, if you count Friday evening, then I got in 15 whopping minutes! We took the boat on the lake Friday evening and the main motor would not run, so we took it to my parents for dad to provide his expert advise. As Derek & Dad were foolin with the motor, I jumped on Oakley bareback in the pasture with just his halter and rode around. I kinda did the neener neener to Derek.. told him I was making up time since I'm still 4 hours behind him. lol We spent most of Saturday helping cousin Marc on his place and then Sunday morning helping my parents for a couple hours with their load of bark. We could have ridden over the weekend, but we were pretty excited about the boat and took that out instead.

Last night Derek played in 2 softball games. He was invited to play with the Audi Dealership guys from Lynnwood/Seattle who were playing the VW guys from Seattle! :) It was fun to see him playing again, it was not a serious game at all.. but he was still sore and walking pretty stiff this morning.. lol He was reminded why he retired. We mostly miss the guys/friends from softball and hanging out with everyone, but sitting around in 80 degree heat for 3 hours waiting for the next game... dont miss that so much. :)

I've been thinkin about Carrie a lot lately, been doing some crying. I think its the thought of summer coming and all the things Derek and I have been and plan to do and how much I wish she could be here with me to do these things with. I still want to call her and just "talk" to my sister, I miss that more than anything. The other day on the lake, one of the houses was blasting their country music and one of the songs from the funeral came on, I was cryin in the middle of the damn lake! Derek is a great husband, he understands me and allows me my processes. ;)

CRAP.. I killed the Camera!! :(

Good thing I have a back up! Although the backup camera is not quite as good.. I am not 100% sure I cant fix the camera, but I was using it off/on Saturday on our ride and all the sudden it just wouldnt close down when I turned it off. The lens is in the outward position and only buzzes, it will not close, it will not stay turned on, you cannot view pictures or take pictures.. it tries, but not hard enough. I am thinking on taking the camera apart, what harm would it do at this point.

We went to check on the horses Friday night, to be sure they were OK and ready for a ride the next day, all looked just fine. Oakley had been jumping the fence to get in with BS, so we just put them together. I figured it was safer that way, I didnt need my horse getting hung up in the not-so-perfect fencing! :) Saturday morning as we are loading up, BS is missing a back shoe!! Dammit... We headed up to the trailhead anyways. We rode on Blanchard Hill (Mtn) which is up at I5 exit 240 (Alger Exit), the trails are called Lilly & Lizard Lakes trail system. 45 minutes into the ride, BS pulled a front shoe as well.

A nice wooded section in the trail..

Derek said his horse had 2 flats. :) BS did just fine, the trails were not too bad for him to travel on. I was riding Oakley. The trail is basically a steady climb the entire ride! You are riding up to the lakes and then from there to a lookout over the bay area above Anacortes. You can see all the way to Anacortes from the lunch spot, see some islands, a great place to stop and eat lunch. On the way there however, we had a few tricky spots on the trail with rock faces to deal with. Oakley misjudged one rock face as we were going uphill and he went down on his chest (like he did a few weeks ago with Derek) and he calmly pulled himself up and continued on. A few minutes later we had stopped to let the horses have a breather and when I asked Oakley to go forward, he tripped on a tree root and down he went onto his chest again, it was like slow motion, he sat there for a few seconds thinking about his next move, then slowly got back up again. I felt like gumby!! As my horse's front end is dissappearing, I'm stretching back to keep from falling off. Those that saw Oakley's reaction to the situations were impressed that at his young age, he handles himself well w/o panicking. Some horses would scramble and cause more problems, but Oakley seems very level headed and you can feel/see him thinking about what to do vs just reacting.

Dropping down to a water crossing..
Coming out of the creek..

A little while later we went through a tight hairy situation of tree roots and rocks, a sign that was in the way, a dip... A few riders made it through fine, but then Derek went through and as he was passing the wood sign, he pulled his leg up to avoid hitting the sign, but his leg/foot got caught on the sign and jolted his knee, which created a big POP and he was in immediate pain. I got off Oakley and led him through, it was just too much for him as a young horse to deal with. Derek continued to ride with pain and when we stopped for lunch, he was hobbling a lot. We were very concerned he had torn his ACL, but he twisted while walking and it popped again, he said it was immediate relief! Thank goodness. His knees are still pretty swollen, but they are not in pain, just sore/stiff. Our in saddle time for the day was 5.25 hours!!

These are the roots in the "bad" section we went through..

Derek's toushy was a little sore, it was a great ride, challenging in some areas. Oakley did great. In the beginning of the ride, we came across a small creek crossing that he wasnt sure he wanted to pass over, but there was uphill on one side, downhill on the other, NO room whatsoever for him to be squirmy, so I immediately jumped off and led him over (which he walked over just fine) and then got back on. The next big creek we came across he kinda bolted through, but after that, we crossed quite a few creeks/small water ways and mucky areas and he walked through them all like a pro. I was very happy with how he rode on Saturday.

Lunch Break at the Lookout..

I rode Edgar on Sunday while Derek rode BS, just for an hour down the road. Edgar was missing 2 shoes himself, so really hard to tell if his shoulder was bothering him or if it was because he was missing a shoe on the side he had injured... I think he is 95% fine, so the plan is to get new shoes on this week and start riding him again and get Derek riding Oakley now.

I lost a couple more pounds! Not yet significant loss, but I'm working on it.... Sorry the blog may be boring lately, we've been trying to get in lots of riding, so thats the main focus of what we do lately! :)

Technology is on the Rise....

Well it is in our house anyways! Last night we had to drive a job Derek worked on to Lynnwood. As we're driving along I thought "hmm, good time to call a friend" but as I'm looking at my phone it is telling me "Insert SIM card!" W.T.Hell!!

For a few months my phone has been acting very BiPolar like! I say that because the damn thing's battery would last for one day, barely. The wall charger was not working or charging it for 2 days, so I took the charger and the phone to work and what do you know, it worked just fine there. Every now/then it would show NO bars, when I was clearly in a location that got service all the time. At home, it never rang anymore, just went to voicemail when someone called HOWEVER, the reception was just fine, I could make calls all day long in my house with perfect clarity. So back to yesterday, it is telling me to insert something that is already inserted and was never taken out! I finally messed with it long enough (15 minutes while driving.. bad Piper, bad Piper!) and it came back on, I made a call to AT&T to find out if I was eligible for new phones, Yeah we were... then it shut itself off immediately after the call and it struggled to come back on.

After we dropped off the car, we headed to the mall.. this shitty phone had to go! And when Derek heard we were eligible for new phones w/no penalties, his exact words "Daddy needs a new phone!" LOLOLOL He is so funny..

AT&T had crappy phones for lots of money and their service plans cost more than we currently paid with them.. so we headed to Verizon and spent an hour buying new phones/plans! :) We got a Deal and paid $80 for 2 phones! These are nice phones, WAY more phone than we will ever need, for the next 30 days we get free TV and Internet, no Shit I can watch TV on this darn thing!! I'm still trying to figure it all out, it is pretty fancy and much bigger than my last phone. Hopefully most of my friends/family have Verizon so it will be free minutes to call them. We also now have Texting in our plan whereas before we did not and had to pay per text msg. Oh AND we got Blue Tooths as well, so we will FINALLY be legal when we are chatting while driving! I never wanted one, still dont like them, but I guess it's better to be legal I know I certainly dont need another ticket!

Time Management

I'm hoping this week to start to get into some sort of pattern/rythm with trying to live life and fit everything in. I have been struggling during the weeks with trying to balance riding the horses, working out at the gym, shopping for groceries, cooking dinner, paying bills weekly, doing dishes/cleaning house, having some tv down time.. too many things to get done in one evening!

Derek & I got in a ride on Saturday at the Morgan Club with Barbara Woo, Chris Tornow, Jenny McCall & her neice Rochell. It was a nice ride, I rode Oakley 80% of the time. There was a brief period that Derek and I switched horses after lunch, but Oakley was tossing his head a lot, so it was easier for me to get on and work him on this ride. He has done great with creek crossings, as long the creeks are wide, he will walk right in with no problems, but we again came across a water crossing that was only about a foot or so wide and he had to jump it. There was no real battle this time with him, some hesitation, but I didnt "work" him on the crossing, just let him jump it and moved on. He was tossing his head for the 2nd half of the ride, I'm not sure if he was just being testy, if his back was sore, or if the saddle was hurting him. I'll have to watch him and see if he continues to do that and try to determine the cause. I'm a little worried about saddle fit on him, Derek's saddle doesnt seem to fit him perfectly and it would really be a tragedy if that is the case, it was an $800 saddle!!! Oakley should be gaining some weight now that he is out of training, so the saddle may fit better/worse as he fills out a little more.

Edgar is still a tiny bit stiff in his shoulder, so I'll be riding Oakley a little longer. Derek is going to back off of taking lessons for a while and just go back to riding horses... He's been pushed pretty hard in his lessons and unfortunately he is so concerned now thinking about what he is doing right/wrong, I think he's loosing out on the fun of just riding. So we are going to take a break and just let him ride. Derek is a good rider, I see it and so does the trainer. He'll only continue to get better with more hours in the saddle. BTW, we both are over 40 hours now for the year!!!

Blackies Back...

Well he will be tonight anyways! Here's the issue: Edgar is still lame. I rode Edgar on Tuesday in the rain, while Derek had a lesson with Luanne, the 3 of us rode around the track and I could definately feel Edgar limping. Although the next day I lunged him and he was not limping; however, he still is not 100% at tight turns. So he's still on vacation at the Monroe pasture I have. :) BTW ~ if any of my horsey friends need FREEEEEE pasture, there is plenty of pasture for another couple horses and the owners of the property are VERY nice! There are 5 seperate pastures that horses can be put in.

Well, back to the change of plans. The plan was to pick up Oakley from training (yesterday) and then I picked up Bandit (the big appy), I was going to ride Bandit until Edgar was good to go. We hauled both those boys to Lords Hill yesterday for what was supposed to be a nice ride and for the most part it was, but when we came to a very small water crossing (literally less than 2 feet wide of slow moving water) Oakley balked and refused to cross with Derek. He tried rearing a little, kinda ran off into the bushes. Derek was doing everything right and staying very calm, but Oakley was being a SHIT. So Derek got off and walked him over the water, inwhich Oakley jumped it and then he held onto Bandit while I got on Oakley and spent atleast 15 minutes working on that water crossing.

It was a battle! He would walk up to it (sometimes) but did not want to cross, he would sidepass into the bushes ignoring my leg commands, I was spanking him to get him to listen, I was calm, he just wanted to be an ass and when he did cross it, he jumped it. I got him over that water atleast 10-12 times, but he jumped it every time and it was a battle, he never once just walked up to it and jumped over, he fought me to get up to it, then jumped. So he needs some water work.. Derek got back on him and finished the ride with no other issues.

But it made us realize that there could be other issues that we dont know about just yet since Oakley is pretty green on trail riding, so Bandit is going back to Molly's house, Blackie Smalls is coming back to our house for Derek to ride and I'll be riding Oakley for now. I hate to put so much weight on Oakley, but he is in great shape and he's going to have to deal with it until I am convinced he is ready for Derek.

So I'll ride Oakley until Edgar is ready to ride, but if Derek & I feel that Oakley is not ready for Derek or needs more experience/time on the trail, then I'll continue to ride Oakley and either give Edgar the summer off or let someone else take him for the summer. Tomorrow we are riding in Arlington at the Morgan Club Trails, should be a good 3-4 hours worth of riding and it will give me a chance to see how well Oakley handles me on long rides and if he gets sore at all.

Plans are just all up in the air, it is very frustrating not knowing exactly what is going on. I love Oakley and he's a good horse, but he is still young and that is why I was worried about putting a green rider on a green horse, you just never know when an issue will arise. The trainer was pretty upset that Oakley had the issue, she worked him over the creek at her place and he crossed it many times with no problems, so if he continues to balk at creeks, she's going to come over and work with him on it and see what the problem is. She worked him to get him "bomb proof" for Derek so she didnt like hearing we had problems and I'm glad she's willing to help me work with him if it remains a problem.