Cooper

4 more days until we go pick up Cooper!! We are getting pretty excited. Jim sent me that picture of Cooper with his daddy Earl. He should look a lot like his daddy and has a lot of bird scent instinct. Elroy, the owner of Earl really likes our pup and says he should be a great fit for us.

Ellie and I continue to do pretty good with her obedience.. she really doesnt listen much to Derek though, I keep telling him he has to do leash work with her for her to respect him, I think she looks at him as low-man on the totem pole! :)

This past weekend was our annual Cousins Carrie Celebration, although this year it didnt have much Carrie vibe to it. Not sure why.. We went to a comedy show, it was pretty fun but I just was not feeling it so much this year. Yesterday was her 29th Birthday, I've been thinking tons of Carrie lately, thinking how unreal it sometimes all seems.

Who's killin the dog??

That's what my neighbors were probably wondering last night! Some of us thought it would be fun to get our dogs together for playdates and the first one was at our house.

Wendy and her dog Patch were the first to arrive and Ellie was TERRIFIED at first! She ran and ran and screamed bloody murder.. It was completely safe for her, she got chased a bit, more of a friendly chase really.. Patch just wanted to play with her and was probably curious as to the big noise coming from the little dog! It took her a while to warm up, she did not become 100% comfortable but it was a good start. It is a really frustrating situation, I want a dog that just loves other dogs, so I really hope this helps in the long run and she gets over being afraid and timid. It's definately going to take some weekly work on our end.

Wendy took a couple pics, of course the dogs hardly stood still for clear shots, it was a lot of effort to get this pic of them all! :)

Angela & Roxie, Barbara & Sky, Piper & Ellie & Russell, Mom & Sarge, Wendy & Patch

Okay, so it might not have been BEES!

Dr Bridges was out and saw the scabs on Edgar, she doesnt think it was bees because none of the bumps were anywhere that rain could not get to, such as under the belly or under his mane. She says it is a form of rainrot fungus.. ewwww! I've seen rainrot before and it didnt look like that, so I dont know what to think, she thinks he is lacking something in his diet and needs a supplement.. $$$$$ of course. I'll come back to WHY she was even out in the first place a little later. :(

This past weekend was the annual Winery Ride in Eastern WA. We went last year, which was in Benton City and that was the first time that Edgar Colicked on us. This year the ride was moved about an hour north to Zillah WA which was nice for us. The location was good, big open field as usual. Our horse club group of friends included Wendy & Jan, John & Barb Scherrer, and then Adam, Tracy, Josh & a friend of Tracy's. We were able to all park around eachother which was really great. We had an awesome potluck on Friday night, which turned out to be a much better dinner than the $25 catered one we paid for on Saturday night! Our catered dinner was cold, not very tastey at all AND the part that irritated me the most was that there was no drinks provided.. well if you drink coffee or tea, then there was something, but since I dont drink either, we were left having to drown down the dinner with our own saliva... I was pretty disappointed that they decided not to provide anything to drink..

The entertainment was okay.. when you were eating dinner and listening to him sing his karaoke (yes he had a computer with the lyrics) he sounded okay as the background music helped drown out the slightly off-key singing.. but once we left dinner and headed back down to camp, we could really hear his voice off in the distance and not so much of the background music.. OHH not so good! Was almost comical how "off" he really was, but I know those that went up and spent the evening dancing, didnt seem to care and had a really GREAT time!! So much so, that Wendy met a new "friend" who is a boy, who was sure to leave her with a few kisses to remember him by as she packed up and headed out Sunday.. He happens to be the owner of the vineyard that hosted the ride.. seemed like a nice guy and I hope it turns into something great for Wendy, she deserves it! :)

There were a couple other disappointments, one was the porta-potties.. the darn things were so crowded inside with the seat, mens urinal and hand washing station, that you had to sit sideways to reach the seat.. and not much room to do your business! And the stock water that was provided Friday night was taken away on Saturday night, so those that came unprepared had to walk a pretty good distance with their horses to get to water. I always bring my own water, with the troubles we've had with Edgar, I like to be prepared. The good thing with our horses is that they are not finicky water drinkers, if they are thirsty they will drink.. trouble is keeping Edgar healthy so he wants to drink!

Last year we had tried to rig up a highline pole, that was about 70% successful and 90% PITA! This year, Derek built us some trailer ties that stick out from our trailer, so it is like the boys are highlined to the trailer. It allows them room to move around, lay down safely and was a lot cheaper than the ones you can buy. They are pretty close to being a perfect little fix and will get lots of use in the future. :)

Now, on to the boys.. As soon as we pull the horses out of the trailer Friday afternoon, Red was amped up! He came out of the trailer snorting, head up and a bit prancy. He soon settled down, when he had food infront of him to eat. It was a 7+ hour ride for the horses, since we had to wait for our horse-poolers to show up in the morning and then had a few stops along the way. We had given Edgar a dose of UlcerGard prior to hauling him and that seemed successful as he was colic-free through the weekend. For the drive home, I opted not to give him another dose. The shoer had recommended that treatment to try, seemed to work well.

Saturday morning, Edgar was calm as usual. Red seemed calm as usual as well.. that is until I got on! Then it became a whole other story.. I could feel all this energy inside him, I really felt like I was on a ticking time bomb.. He reared up slightly when Edgar walked away from him, he was prancing, he was flighty and I only put about 5% leg into him before he would over-react. He was a plain 'ole SHIT who was afraid of his own shadow! Poor John, his horse was acting up as well when his horse's companion walked away, his horse reared up, his back legs gave out and he was almost sitting, about went over backwards, John bailed before any serious injury happened. John was okay, thank goodness, but when his horse went down, Red went sideways and spun around. Almost all of the horses were amped and being stupid at this point, people's nerves were twinging and we all just wanted to get moving. We finally did and I spent 80% of the ride, wondering when I was going to get dumped. It honestly was that bad with Red... I was really disappointed he was such a turd! He was jumping/spooking when I coughed, or when I raised my hand, for the entire ride. When we stopped at the first winery, I had to keep him walking cirlces around Edgar. Since many horses (not just those in our group) were full of extra energy and prancy, he was reacting to that a lot.. see he is the type of horse that if another horse even looks at him wrong, he jumps away from them, he's been like that since I got him. So when a horse prances by him or turns their butt towards him, he about jumps out of his skin and when you have over 300 horses going all different directions, some calm, many not.. well he just didnt know how to process it all and he was unable to relax for the entire ride.

I had to keep constant pressure on the bit to keep him walking calmly, I had to ride next to Edgar the entire time because he got really upset if Edgar was too far away from him. Normally I would not allow him to be so attached, I would force him to walk away from Edgar, but since his back was humped up for most of the ride and there was chaos everywhere, I decided it was safer to just give him something stable and solid to use as guidance. The bad part of this ride was that there was a lot of work going on in the apple fields that we were riding through, many workers out doing their thing, tractors and big trucks constantly going past us.. well he was NOT a fan of those tractors. More than once he freaked out and spun circles when a tractor came up by us. At one point, we were riding on the outside of the apple orchard in an isleway between the road and the trees, with about 20' drop down to the road.. a tractor came down an isle and he freaked, spun around to run the other direction and realized there was a cliff there, thank GOD he stopped, I saw my life flash. The tractor stopped, then the workers were moving the ladders right there was well, so he was way over stimulated and I thought it might be my day to come off the big red horse! But we managed to stay on the entire 5.5 hour ride. I was a lot frustrated overall, but it was probably the biggest ride he has ever been on, it was a long haul AND he's been cooped up in the sacrifice area at home, so the combo of all three things made for a crappy riding weekend..

Derek on the otherhand again, was on the steady rock solid Edgar and was able to enjoy his ride. The only part he did not enjoy was my very short nerves that day, I will admit I snapped a few times at him, not intentionally. His nerves were short as well and it was a challenge at times to not just resort to being mad at eachother, but we ended the ride positive and still talking to one another, so that was an accomplishment! lol

To add to the stress of the weekend, we decided to bring the children with us as well! Glutten for punishment.. But it was not that bad. Ellie actually was far more behaved than Russell, he has become such a bastard.. he doesnt listen for shit! Now that I am doing things the "right" way with Ellie, really makes us realize how much crap we let Russell get away with and what a spoiled monster we created!!! There were a lot of dogs there, we took the dogs for a walk on Friday night up to registration, she was doing a lot of barking! She did NOT like all the other dogs, they just pissed her off.. She did more barking on Friday than she has done the entire 3 months we have had her.. seriously. :) She slept fairly well with me in the bed, it was her first time ever not sleeping in the crate, Fri night we were up 2 or 3 times with her and Sat night she only got up once.. that was pretty darn good. While we rode, we put them in the horse trailer and as far as I could tell, I dont think she spent that time barking.

Fri night she was introduced to Moe, Adam's Aussie. She wanted nothing to do with Moe, she barked and snapped at him many times. Saturday night she hung out with us after dinner and was slightly interested in him, only snapped a couple times as he reached his paw out to scoot her little butt over to him.... he's a bit of a horny old man! :) By Sunday morning, she was ready to play with Moe. Unfortunately there was no safe off-leash area to turn them loose.. too many horses and moving trucks.

Whew, I'm still not done with this story! We loaded up Sunday and headed home. After the not-so-great weekend, we decided we would not come back the following year. We enjoyed camping, and spending time with friends for sure.. but I'd rather spend my money on going somewhere else that is not so chaotic.. much better riding that way.

We pulled the boys out of the trailer and put them away, Edgar immediately acted as though he wanted to roll.. I just assumed it was because he needed a good fresh roll, which is pretty typical after a weekend of not being able to. We went in the house, unpacked the camper, watched a little TV and 2 hours later went outside to feed the horses. Edgar jogged around the corner, buckled his legs and acted as though he was going to lay down.. now I realized this was NOT just him wanting to roll.. SONOFABITCH! Edgar was clearly colicking. I grabbed the banamine, gave him a dose and then we walked him for 45 minutes as he kept attempting to lay down. It was a pretty aggressive attempt, he would start to speed up, his body would cramp and twinge, his legs would buckle, he would walk like he was loosing function of himself, we'd keep him up then he'd continue to walk calmly for maybe another minute and start all over.

After 90 minutes of no-relief from the banamine, I called the vet. She was over an hour away, so we just continued to walk him. As we waited for the vet and walked him, he seemed to be getting better, he would lay down and not attempt to roll so we let him lay there. But then his cramps started to get bad again and he was almost violently attemping to lay down and would immediately go into a roll.. so we struggled but were able to keep him up and walking. The vet had phoned and asked if it would be easier to just meet at her clinic, I told her it was not at all safe to haul him the way he was acting. When she finally arrived, he was back to having smaller cramps and laying down calmly. She gave him a shot to help alleviate the cramping, took his vitals which were normal with only slightly elevated blood pressure. 30 minutes after the shot, he was still cramping so she tubed him and filled him up with water, electrolytes and some other stuff. He fought that pretty good, gave himself a bloody nose but by the time she was finished tubing him and watching him another 30 minutes, he was on the road to recovery.. By the time she left, his cramping appeared to have stopped and he was finally slightly interested in his grain. We watched him for another 30 minutes, then I allowed him to graze on the grass for an hour, watched him for another 20 minutes and then went in the house.. 2 hours w/o any cramps, yeah! At midnight I went back out to the barn, he was tired and not quite himself, but I gave him another round of banamine and felt secure in heading off to bed.

Woke up and called the vet, he was still not quite 100% but seemed out of the woods still, so he got one last round of banamine, his grain (which he wasnt too interested in) and then a tub full of really soaked hay. Monday evening he again snubbed up the grain and went straight to his hay (although he didnt initially eat his grain, he was eating it all up by the time the next feeding came around). This morning, he nickered finally at me, ate his grain first and had normal poop piles.. I think he is 100% now.

What a pisser this is! I was pretty upset that he had colicked this badly again. After a lot of internet searching yesterday, a lot of communication with the vet and others online about the situation, there are 4 things I am going to do different. 1) I am going to give him a dose of Tape Worm wormer incase he has them. He is given a wormer every 2 months, but tape worms require an additional dosing with a different type of wormer. 2) I am going to start him on either a daily general supplement and/or an ulcer supplement. The vet says ulcers would NOT cause him to cramp so badly, but I am not convinced that he doesnt have ulcers that may have contributed to the 2 smaller onsets of colic he showed over the summer. 3) I am going to continue to give the dose of UlcerGard paste prior to long hauls. 4) I am going to start hauling him with hay. It is VERY possible the major bouts of colic are because he was hauled such long distances w/o any feed. That is a big disruption in their digestive system. He is used to either grazing all day or having almost free choice hay, so to put him in a trailer for 6-8 hours w/o hay, could be the problem. I had previously thought hay could cause horses to choke while hauling, but the vet, my shoers and other reputable haulers, all provide hay.. so I guess that my idea of "better to be safe than sorry" may actually be "my safe has now become my sorry"! :(

So that is the weekend in one big nutshell. :) I am hopeful for Edgar, I have to stay positive because we MUST find a way to keep him healthy, he is the perfect fit for Derek and I dont want to have to sell him.

On a positive note, Ellie last night finally showed great progress with her obedience pals. She did not growl or snip at all!! and within a minute, she became submissive and rolled on her back when the other 2 dogs approached her.. a GREAT sign!!! Then all 3 girls were allowed to run loose around the room and she was so cute as she thought about playing, but was unsure.. she occassionally came to me and I had to walk away from her and encourage her to go play. This is all so great, but now that she realizes they are her friends, she is much more distracted in class which gives her more opportunity to learn to "leave it".. all in all, she is doing great and I love the time her and I spend together.

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... :)

Pics of the Pooches

I took a few pics this morning before I left for work.. I love this one! Ellie is 4 months old now.
It is tuff leaving these cute little children behind every day..
We love this little girl... I hope she stays this size forever!
Chillin out in the "fasha's" chair!

Cooper was born!!

Of the above litter, 7 of those are boys & 2 girls.. We are not sure yet which one will end up being Cooper, but we've got plenty to choose from. Remi started having her first pup on Monday evening 9/27 and in about 4-5 weeks, we'll be able to have our pick. Whichever pup is the birdiest or shows the most promise towards the hunting instinct is the one for us.

This past weekend we wanted to drive down to Rainier OR to meet the trainer that Derek wants to send Cooper to for 3 months next Spring. The horse club was staying down in Grayland WA for our annual beach ride so we decided to leave Saturday morning, stop down with the club and spend the night with them and then head down to OR Sunday morning. The plan worked well.. we had a great potluck dinner Saturday evening around the fire and somehow managed to avoid any real serious rain.. until Saturday night when it just downpoured for hours... I was so thankful for having a camper, although I did briefly wonder how Tyler was doing out in his small tent.. turns out he didnt get wet at all.

When we first got to the beach, we could hear the surf, the wind was blowing pretty good. So we asked Scott & Barbara how far to the beach. Barbara says "Oh just over the little hill/burn over there" Scott shook his head and said "its a little further than that!" He informed us that we'd have to take the longer route because the direct route was blocked by a very large 2' deep puddle. So we walk down towards the little hill.. crest it.. well Shit! The beach is atleast a 1/2 mile away and thats via the direct route. So we start following the very soft sandy trail which is running parallel to where we really need to be.. after 10 minutes my lower back was on fire! That sand was not fun to walk in. Another 10 minutes later I stopped and told the guys "f it" I had no idea how much further we would be walking parallel and I could hardly stand the pain, it wasnt worth it. So as I stood there and the guys continue on, I could hear Derek up ahead whistle that he wanted me to continue on as the trail finally turned towards the beach. So I trekked on and after maybe an almost mile's worth of walking, we reached the beach! I found a log, sat for 10 minutes and immediately felt relief. I was glad I walked out there, although I did wish I was riding and not walking. After 10 minutes of sitting my back amazingly was 100% fine and I made it 3/4 of the way back before it started to even slightly pinch. It's hard to imagine it being on fire all the way out there and then no pain practically on the way back..

Derek and I laughed and decided that Barbara's idea of the ocean being just over the little burn is equivelant to Scott's idea of what a hill is!!! :) lol Next year we definately want to bring the horses down.

So the dog trainer, Butch, has a really nice place! His kennels are very professional looking and clean.. he was hosting a Hunt Test trial day on his property that day, which was great because we were able to see a few Boykins work and met with a few people, but it was not good because he didnt have time to focus on us as the point of going down was to get some questions answered. When we asked him what day he wanted us to come down, he picked the day. He did spend about 10 minutes off/on with us, so we basically got what we needed, although we probably got more than half of what we wanted to know answered by his wife when we were getting ready to leave! :) We met up with the co-founders of the Cascade club, which is the newest HRC (Hunt Retrieval Club) starting in Western WA. I had spoken with Anne on the phone a couple times, but had not had a chance to meet her yet, funny we found eachother down in OR! Neither of us knew the other would be there. It was a long day but well worth it for the information we received. One thing we learned that we were not at all aware before, is that our dog will be trained with a collar.. I have mixed feelings about it I guess. He is a GREAT trainer, he is the one that trained Earl (the daddy dog) I just didnt realize this is how many hunting dog trainers do it. So we are going to have to buy the collar.. good thing there is some side work coming in to cover these costs :)

Ellie and I start basic obedience in 2 weeks! As far as commands, I dont think she or I needs the class much, although I'm sure I will get some good ideas and help through the class. But she could use the socialization and forcing her to focus on me when things are "busy" around her. She is getting pretty good now at stopping what she is doing if we call her, she comes when we ask 90% of the time. I took one pic recently.. I have been so out of it on taking pics.. I need to try harder to document the things going on around us.

This pic was taken about a week ago, she is really starting to look the part of the Aussie. Not that she didnt before, but her face is really developing and moving away from the puppy form. She and Russell are hilarious together!! They play and chase all the time, I tried to get video but it was too dark to see. She makes us laugh daily and we are sure that Russell loves having the company and someone to play with. I'm wondering in 7 weeks how much he'll still love us when we bring him another puppy..

Since we put in the gate in our entry way and the dogs now go in/out through the doggy door when we are at work, Ellie has finally figured out that the front door is where she is to go when she needs to poddy! I am so excited, last night was the first time we have had the slider closed (which is almost always open so she has quick access to the outside for poddy business) and she walked to the front door, out the doggy door all on her own and came back in a few minutes later!! She's been accident free for probably a month and now that she's starting to figure out where she must always go for poddy, we can start keeping the doors closed and keeping the flesh eating mosquitos out. We've been waiting for this day for 2 months.. it definately pays to own smart dogs, I dont think I could handle a Marley type dog. :) and in 2 months, we start this process all over again.

So Derek sent me a text this morning, wants to know what I think about naming our Boykin "Leap of F8 Cooper" I love it! If I havent mentioned already, the plan for the future (I'm talking a couple years down the road) is to get a female Boykin with great hunting lines and breed a few litters. So he says he wants to name our female "Leap of F8 Autumn" because our kennel name will be "Leap of F8"! Oh so now we are kennel.. hmm news to me.. LOL But I do like the Leap of F8 name, so I guess it works for this imaginary kennel that someday could become reality.. according to Derek the number of dogs we now own qualifies us as a kennel! :)

The horses are still being ignored for the most part and are still on pasture for now. Edgar is still off on his shoulder, we are hoping he recovers so we can take him to the Winery Ride which we have now paid for already... I am hoping to get someone out today or tomorrow to take out the rest of that Walnut tree, we are putting in the top rails on our fencing tomorrow, things are slowly progressing. My goal is to have the horses home within the next 10 days, good luck with that! I realized this morning that I never made the time to finish painting the house this summer.. hmmm! Good thing its only color, cuz it probably wont get done this year now.. maybe there is still hope, but it is a small sliver.

I have been busy utilizing my awesome craft/sewing room! :) Every morning before work I have about 45 minutes before I have to leave and I used to watch TV during that time. Now more often than not, I am in the room working on a project. I started a new one, cant wait to finish it and be able to post pics. I cant quite say what it is since both projects are gifts but when I can, I will! I've been doing okay at keeping up on the kitchen and not letting it get out of control, and the laundry too.. trying to be a better "Betty Crocker" type person, sometimes I fail miserably!

Oh and on a final note, I am really pissed at myself.. I washed Dereks apron as it was a bit dirty/greasy after our prize ride weekend and then.... I dried it!!!! :( DAMMIT. The canvis type material shrunk and the top layer did not, so now there is all this loose material flapping around, its like it had a massive weight loss and there is just all this loose skin that just doenst look right hangin around! I put it back in the wash this morning, will see if the water will help stretch it back out... :(

Mission Impossible.. Accomplished!

Yep, I got the craft room finished, the apron completed (did a pretty good job on it too!), house cleaned, laundry mostly completed.. yep we were ready for our company and the busy weekend ahead.

Rick & Kristen came in late Thursday evening, they as well had a busy weekend planned so I didnt feel too badly that we could not focus all our attention on them. Friday, Shana came up and we went out to the tree farm to ride the flagged trail for our annual club prize ride. I rode Red and she had to ride HotRod.. we borrowed him for the day since Edgar is still lame on his shoulder. I knew it would be a slight challenge for Red, he hates to have brush around his legs and sure enough I had to get him in the bush many times on that ride to adjust flags.. considering we are the tallest ones, we tend to get needed often. :)

He was definately irritated at me for asking him to go outside his comfort level.. his lips were smackin a lot, but he had his ears forward and he seemed happy to be out. A few times I had to remind him what "WHOA" meant, he was a bit anxious but I'm sure it had more to do with brush on his legs than him being overly defiant. Towards the end of the ride, I asked him to sidepass to the right to get into some brush and he had a little tizzy, struck out his front leg with a clear message saying "Hell No Lady, I'm done!" :) So when I put more leg into him, instead of going away from the pressure, he went into it, sidepassing the wrong direction and then got his gangly legs hung up on themselves and the 6" embankment, yeah... we went down!

All the way down.. I screeched as I thought for sure I was coming off, plus it startled me pretty good. He's a big guy to go down and I'm a big girl to get back up! My riding buddies for the day were up ahead of me, so they all missed the fiasco. Red was on his side somewhat, I was just waiting and he started to attempt to get up, it wasnt pretty.. because he slipped a couple times on that darn 6" embankment that was underneath him, so it was sloppy and really bouncy back/forth but he made it up and my ass remained in the saddle. My gut has a pretty nice round horn bruise, but that is the extent of the battlewound. Shana came trotting back to see what the commossion was about, but she missed the entire show.

Minutes later I again asked Red to get into some brush to finish off our ride and he was a little less irritated and just did what I asked.. He worked hard that day and I was really happy he did so well, doing something he just hated!

Shana, Derek & I got up at about 5:30am Saturday to get ready and head off to the tree farm for the day. Shana & I worked registration until about 3pm, while Derek helped wherever he was needed and then later cooked up some really tastey burgers with his stylin apron on! The day/ride was a success and the rain held off, amazing!

Derek & Shana setting up signs

Shana & I at registration sportin the flashy organge vests with Kathy and Del in the front.

Derek and Earl cookin burgers and Dennis servin up cookies!

The day was not over for us though, we left the tree farm and headed straight to my brothers for some dinner and cards. When he invited us days earlier in the week, it sounded great.. and it was great, but we were exhausted.. mostly Derek. He actually went home after dinner while I stayed to play cards and hitched a ride home with my parents.

Sunday the boys had plans to play golf and us girls were going to go riding. Kristen hadnt been out in about 5 years so she was really excited about it. The weather seemed questionable but OK and just as she got in the shower, the showers outside came down! We held off for a while then decided to heck with it, we were riding rain or shine! Loaded up the boys (I rode Edgar, wanted to feel how bad his shoulder was and see if he was okay, which he is not yet) and she rode Red. It rained on us as we took the horses out of the horse trailer at Lords Hill and 5 minutes later, it quit and we had nice clear dry weather for the entire ride. The guys were not so lucky, although they didnt get rained on much, it had rained so much that the course was 5" of standing water so they cut it short at 9 holes. As we rode, we witnessed the falling of a random tree in the woods, I think Edgar was ready to run for the hills when it started to fall.. :)

Oh and I was pretty excited over the weekend because on Thursday I had an email that a trainer had a 'ready-to-buy' client that wanted to come see Oakley as soon as possible. So I arranged with Shannon for a Monday afternoon showing, I talked to the trainer on Saturday and all seemed very positive. I was excited, waited all day Monday for a call from either Shannon or the trainer.. nothing. That evening I sent a text to Shannon who then got back to me, she said the showing went great. Oakley was a perfect angel, he didnt do anything wrong and the 11yr girl that is the one looking for her first horse, loved him. It is now Wed and I have yet to hear from the buyer or the trainer, so not sure what went wrong or why they decided not to buy him. Maybe they are just mulling it over but I am dissappointed because it seemed so promising and perfect.. oh well.

Oh and the tree! Well.. the guy that we decided would take the tree, came out Friday afternoon when Derek was home from work. I was still out riding. So I get home at dusk and the guy is just getting ready to leave, he looks like someone that lives out in the woods, a little quiet and odd. After he pulls out of the driveway, Derek just shook his head and said "If your dad was here, he would have kicked this guy off the property". So the guy was supposed to take out the tree is small sections, he told me 2' pieces. Well he was taking it down in 8' sections which would be OK if he knew what he was doing. But the guy apparently did not and as Derek watched him from inside the house, he realized he had better get outside and supervise before the guy killed himself or wrecked our property. He wasnt listening to the ideas Derek had to make the cuts and he then put himself in a position that when he cut a big branch, he was right underneath it on his ladder, the branch swung around, swiped him off his ladder and his ass landed on our shed awning (busting the roof piece) and then the branch landed next to him, busting another section of the roof. Derek told him after that, "Hey why dont we de-limb what is already on the ground and get that taken care of before cutting any more down". So they did and then it was dark so the guy left his ladder and the 8' sections and went home. I called the guy the next day and told him he could have what he had cut down, but we were uncomfortable with how the tree was coming down, so he could not work on it anymore and we would get someone else out.

What a joke! I am thankful the guy didnt get hurt, I have someone else interested and he is a commercial tree faller, so they should be coming today or tomorrow to take a peak and tell us exactly how he intends to take out the rest of the tree safely so we can decide if we are okay with it. I thought I was be super sad when the tree came down because it hangs so nicely over the yard, but now that the bottom branches are all cut off.. it is amazing how much it opened up to seeing the pasture now and the light it lets into the yard and even a little into the house and I am no longer sad about taking it down. I'm not going to miss the tree as much as I thought I might!

We've got the divider wall up in our entryway so the dogs can now come into the house. So far so great, no poddy's on the wood floor. Ellie is really doing great at 'come'. Not sure what the turning point was, but all the sudden she just gets it. I have now moved on to "down".. not as in "off" but down as in lay down. She is doing well at that, my goal is to eventually get her to "sit" from the down position.. that one is tougher. I work a little on it, but once she lays down, she hasnt figured out that sit means to get back up. If we leave the front door open and the back door closed, she has finally figured out to march her behind up to the front door and go outside as we want to now discourage her going out the back slider and only to go to the front door.

Our Boykin pup Cooper should be born about any day now.. I'd say within the next week for sure, if not sooner. Apparently her belly pretty much drags on the floor.. we are still hopeful that there is atleast one boy inside. :)

The fenceline has not changed in 2 weeks, maybe next week we can get started back on that, but what I really need is a dump truck/trailer load of gravel... Fall has set in around here, foggy cold mornings and I am eager as ever to get the boys home.

Big pat on my back..

yes, I deserve it! I finally decided to conquer, tackle, getagrip, deal with........ the craft room!! That has been a splinter in my side for a very long time, well 2 years actually. We've been in the new house that long already and I had boxes of STUFF just everywhere. If you had been to my house and seen that room, you would have not even known the carpet color, yes it was that bad. I would temporarily move things from here to there when I needed to find something. I needed some motivation and I finally found it.

We are having company this weekend, our nephew and his wife, Rick & Kristen who will be sleeping in our spare bedroom but then cousin Shana is staying over Friday night as well to help with our upcoming horse club Prize Ride, so I wanted her to have an option of either airmattress in living room or in craft room And then next month we are hosting Taco Night South of the Border social with the horse club and I know some may want to see the house, so it was just time. :) Whew was that a chore! I was secretly happy that Derek had to work both Saturday & Sunday for his employer because I hate just sitting around the house when he is gone and find I am most motivated when I am alone actually.. when he is home I am much more content to just sit around.. hmmm, does that mean I'd be skinny if I was single?? :)

It took me all of Sunday (about 6 hours) and then I finished it up last night. It looks AMAZING! I mean it's not like super awesome, but there is nothing out of place... Everything is in a bin or on a shelf and my craft table is 100% cleared off, I can get into and close the closet doors! I even was so refreshed and excited about my new room, that this morning I did not stick with my usual morning ritual of getting ready then watching a recorded show for 45 minutes before leaving for work.. no I went in that craft room and started working on a project! Yes that time of year is here, projects are starting to come into my head for the holidays and Derek has me committed to a project. He decided this past weekend that he wants me to make him an apron for this coming Saturday.. see he is cooking at our prize ride and he wants his very own custom apron.. so I now have what 2 days to get an apron made, finish spotless cleaning the house (due to company coming Thursday) finish all the laundry, go to a mtg tonight.. doesnt sound like a lot but basically I have just a couple hours tonight and then all of Wed after work.. thats it! But I am Superwoman this week, so I will find a way to get it done.. Oh and I'm fairly certain I will also have to find time to cook dinner Wed as well since Derek spends a few hours every night working out in the shop on a sidejob that he has to get done.. :)

and since Derek had to work this past weekend, we didnt progress much further on the fencing.. well nothing you can see anyways. Saturday dad spent a few hours at the house with me drawing the line and marking all the posts where we will nail in the 2x4's and 2x6's.. so now we just need to get those top rails nailed in and we will be another step closer to bringing the boys home.. looks like we are still a couple weeks out on that since time keeps filling up with other shit to do! :) I do love the busy life though, I just wish I didnt have to work fulltime so I can get a lot more side projects accomplished.

Oh and I did buy new batteries for the camera, so lets hope they work so I can start taking some pics. :)

Funny story.. we have been planning to cut down the very beautiful Black Walnut Tree that hangs over our yard, the unspeakable! I try not to talk about it infront of my parents because I know they dont like/agree with the decision. Well on Sunday, we had them over for dinner (mmm, Derek cooked up another round of smoked ribs!).. anyways, the guy calls me that plans to take down the tree. We are giving him the wood if he does all the work. So I'm on the porch chatting with him and dad was out there so when I get off the phone, he says "Let me know when the guy is coming out" I said "Oh cool.. so you want to be here then?" he says "Yeah so I can hold him off with a shotgun!!!" LOLOLOL I got a good laugh on that one.. quick thinkin there pops.. it was hilarious. I do feel a tinge of guilt, but dad did say he would like to be there, probably just to watch the guy and ensure he doesnt destroy our shed or anything else. The guy is taking it in small pieces and most likely will come by when we are not home. I did notice yesterday that Marc has started coming out and cutting up the trees downed in the pasture.. which is great! It will look a lot different once all the fallen trees are taken out and we can get a true visual on our new pasture.

I am sitting here thinking about that darn apron and how I just want to get home, turn on my tunes in the craft room and sew that thing together!! :) So if I dont show up at the horse club meeting tonight, you'll know why.. lol

I do have another project I need to start on ASAP. A gift for a friend.. should take me about a week, I will start on that after this week is over. I will be riding on Friday (most likely in the pouring rain) to help for our prize ride and then working all day Saturday in registration while Derek cooks up some tastey burgers and then Sunday was planning to take Kristen riding while the guys go golfing.. so either we will be riding most likely in the rain or I'll be chillin in the house on Sunday.. thats up to Kristen. :) I have a christmas project already in my head for our gift exchange, need to find the pattern online for what I plan to make. I will try really hard not to overwhelm myself with projects this year, we actually are quite excited for the holiday season this year and already looking forward to getting a tree up! I know.. it's only flippin September but we didnt do a tree last year because I was just too bogged down. And when we cut down all those trees 10 days ago, well the smell was so refreshing of the downed trees, it reminded me of Christmas and I am excited.. and we will have another puppy so Derek is excited for his christmas gifts because he has a whole list of things he wants for his new dog! lol

Speaking of which.. Cooper should be born in about 2 weeks!! Well, please keep your fingers crossed that there is atleast one male pup born.. and the othe pup of ours Ellie, well she is doing pretty good too! She was put on a leash yesterday for the first time, yeah she didnt like it! She went for a car ride too, she was a bit stressed about the situation but she'll get used to it. Every once in a while she realizes she has a voice and uses it, very cute because it scares her about as much as it startles us! Still struggle with "come" but now that I have the leash, I can use that to my advantage to help teach her. She's a hair taller than Russell, but he defiantely outweighs her, I think he always will no matter how tall she gets. We've started integrating the doggy door into her life now, when she is outside and we are inside, I shut the door and force her to figure out how to come in the house through it.. a slow process that will take her a little time to get used to. Within a couple weeks, we'll put up the baby gate so they will have access to the entryway when we are gone.

Oh another funny story! Saturday morning when Derek got up at about 6am, the smoke detector out in the hallway by the kitchen was beeping about every 90 seconds, obviously letting us know the battery had died. I didnt think much of it, Derek let the dogs come in the bed and I went back to sleep. Well I got up about 7 to potty and Russel got out of bed and followed me into the bathroom and then followed me back into bed.. very odd! He NEVER gets out of bed on his own, he could usually care less about where I go.. nothing interupts his sleepy time! So I get up about an hour later and he seems to be stuck to my side like glue, just wouldnt leave me. I took the kids out to potty and back into the bedroom. He followed me into the bathroom again and as I turned the shower on, he was right there. I stepped in to the shower and he followed me in! WTHeck.. poor guy, it was starting to click that the beeping was really upsetting him.. He would not get out of the shower.. LOL it was rather sad but hilarious. He showered with me and followed me back to the bed when I was done, I had to now dry him off too. After I got dressed I immediately went in search of the ladder (the damn thing is on the highest peak of the vaulted ceiling) to turn the beeping off, pour guy was panting he was so stressed out. One of the children piddled under the ladder, I am not 100% convinced it was Ellie.. Russell was so upset I think it is possible it was him.

I did finally get the thing turned off and later that day we bought a new battery and bought some backups so we dont have to put him through that again. Derek wondered if maybe there is a dog vibe or something that comes through the detector that would purposely stir up a dogs senses so a dog might awaken quicker than the human.. good thought?

Moving Forward..

we started with our permanent fencing! That has been a long time coming.. tore out all the t-posts and field fencing (Thanks to Marc for taking all that off our hands!) We could have maybe sold a little of that for a few bucks, but oh well.. I just wanted it gone and he was happy to oblige.

This past weekend was Labor Day Weekend, I joked on FB that I didnt get the memo that you are supposed to rest over that weekend, not work harder than normal! Oh well... we had shit to get done. :) I always like to take Fridays off over holiday weekends so that I can get that extra day. Plus, we had originally hoped to be able to go camping, but that just was nowhere near a reality. I did manage to squeeze in a ride on Friday at Mann Rd with my friend Rachel and Wendy. I was not at all happy to feel that Edgar is "off" again! I'm fairly certain it is in his shoulder... He seemed to strain his shoulder/leg a few weeks back when Derek was riding him up the big hill at Lords Hill, then he seemed fine for the Ladies Ride, I didnt notice a limp and Shana didnt feel one.. but as I rode him 2 weeks after that he definately was limping.. GRRR! So he now has more time off to recover.. I am guessing he re-strained his shoulder out running in the pasture or maybe his leg got stuck in some muck or something.. there are some soft spots out in the pasture under all that new clearing that was done. I will be happy to get him back home so I can monitor him and ensure he is not out being a silly horse! :)

So that puts us back to the fencing.. Saturday we had set aside to get the fencelines cleared, get ready for Sunday & Monday when dad's fencemen would be there to set our wood posts. Marc came over to get the wire and he mentioned he had a chainsaw with him.. OH you dont say!! Well it clicked that we have quite a few trees that needed to come out before the fence or it would be too hard to drop them later.. So we spent the next 4.5 hours downing trees with the help of dad and the tractor! I didnt count, but I think we took out about 12 trees.. many of them were small leafy bundles of trees, so it's not like we took out 12 big Evergreens! But the entire pasture is riddled with branches and leaves and trunks.. Marc plans to come back in the future and cut it all up for wood. It was perfect getting them down though, a few leaned towards the neighbors quite badly and I always worried about the potential of having to utilize our homeowners insurance on someone else's home! Those particular neighbors never once came out to talk with us or see what was up, they just stood in the window (like we couldnt see them) and watched us.. very odd! Oh well, guess everyone cant love us! lol

We tried to watch a movie Saturday night, but we were so exhausted and the movie was super slow, we called it quits at about 9pm.. I do believe that is the earliest we've gone to bed in a VERY VERY long time.. I'm talking years! I also think the previous weekend hay-ordeal-lack-of-sleep had finally caught up to us.

Sunday morning the guys showed up bright and early at 8:30 am to start setting posts. We busted our asses all day.. all of us! My parents were there, dad on the tractor for most of the day.. mom and I never really stopped moving.. we didnt play the "oh we're just the weaker women" We filled in where necessary and the 6 of us finally stopped after the first half of posts were set. Quite a few neighbors stopped by to see what all the commossion was about.. we had chainsaw going all day Saturday, tractor all day Sunday, a big dumptruck was in the driveway that Derek had to paint for work, wood and flatbeds filled our driveway.. The company that provided the wood sent us some 10' posts instead of the 8' I ordered (no extra charge) so the privacy fence section looks like we are building a fortress! One of our horsey neighbors stopped by and said "Are you bringing a Stallion home?" LOL I think she was serious... It will all look normal once the posts are cut down to size.

On Saturday afternoon Derek had attempted to drive the dumptruck back to his work with me following, to get it out of the way instead of waiting for his co-worker to come on Tuesday to get it. As we left the driveway, I realized he was struggling with getting the truck into the higher gears and I could hear him grinding just a bit, then he'd come to an almost stop in the road to get it back into lower gears and start over.. we rounded that first corner on our road and as he again had to come to an almost stop, I was really glad to see him pull in a driveway, turn around and put the truck back in our own driveway! LOL Nice try... but we'll leave the dumptruck driving to the CDL pros...

Late afternoon on Sunday as we were finishing up, a little escavator showed up at the house and Derek/co-worker were able to finally pull up all that old concrete from our yard pile that I have been less than enthused about since it was placed there. The concrete was the old foundation strips from under the mobile and when they pulled the mobile out, needed somewhere to put the concrete and we didnt have a plan at the time for it so it went there.. Derek always wanted to create a raised flowerbed over the concrete, I was not a fan but we were kinda stuck with it.. so now that it's gone, we can tractor out the rest of the dirt and have a full yard again which eventually will turn into the garden area Derek plans to establish in the future. We joked this past weekend that projects always are classified as "eventually!"

Sunday evening we finally finished that slow movie.. The Soloist. Good movie but I was dissappointed.. didnt feel like it really went anywhere and just was hohum overall. The guys showed up Monday at 8:15 and we spent the rest of the day setting the other half of the posts.. that was A LOT of posts in 2 days! I paid them for 15 hours of work.. I think they were happy to be done, they worked really hard and I'm grateful to have gotten it all done. The rest of the fencing we can do on our own with my dad's assistance and guidance. Our concrete purchases were more than double what I had initially thought would be needed so that put a big dent in the pocketbook. BUT those posts are not going ANYWHERE!! lol

We were just exhausted Monday night, but so happy to have this phase of the fencing done! I'd ideally like to get the horses home in a week, but I dont see that happening just yet, we still have a lot to do plus we want to bring in another truck/trailer of gravel to expand the sacrifice area and plan to permanently fence that too, to match.

Ellie update: She is doing great! :) She can now jump onto the chairs (even though she sometimes whines like she cannot), she is sleeping great and finally goes in the crate w/o acting defiant about it.. lol She is still not up on the cuddling thing, but occassionally she'll slow down enough to snuggle up.. She is 15 weeks old today and now that she's had her full set of puppy shots, she'll start learning what a leash is and venturing out into the world. She 'sits' pretty darn well, she is learning 'wait' and 'stay', we still struggle some with 'come'. Might need obedience training classes to help me to teach her that. She comes running most times when we call her name, but other times she just looks at us and says "Yeah, I dont think so, I'm having too much fun on my own!" We call her our little "squeeky toy" because she squeeks a lot!

So whats up next? More fencing.. we need to nail in brackets to all the posts and then measure/cut every 2x6 for every opening between posts as they are not perfectly set at 8' lengths.. maybe get the boards up by the end of the weekend and wire to follow down the near road. We also have a couple guys interested in taking out our Black Walnut tree by the front yard.. we've listed it for free on CL to anyone that will take it down. It is a BEAUTIFUL tree!!! I really hate to take it down, even the neighbor is sad we are removing it, BUT it is more annoying than beautiful and I'm hoping someone can get out sooner than later to remove it.. Cant finish the sacrifice area until it is gone.. I will be sad when it is gone, but I will be happy knowing my flower beds are not being destroyed by leaves and I'm not out raking every day in the yard and in the corral.

Tootles for now.. I will try to remember to get some new batteries for the camera so I can start posting pictures. :)

Small World

One of Derek's co-workers had spent this past weekend over in Spokane at a wedding.. Apparently, he was right behind us when that first tire blew about 30 miles outside Spokane! He had no idea it was Derek.. As the tire pieces went flying and rolling on down I90, he said he was very impressed that the driver was able to get the truck/trailer off I90 so quickly without causing any accidents. :) Derek said.. "Well it wasnt my first Rodeo!!"