Christmas card fail

The weather here in ND has been unreal this year. Not only is it December 12th and we have no snow but yesterday I rode my horse outside in only a light jacket. We had planned to take our picture yesterday and it was a complete fail. We got to the farm and I hustled to grab my monster and get him ready as we were losing day light. I got the majority of the yuck off him but he was looking dusty so I figured I’d photoshop him the correct color. I tacked him up and handed him to my mom as I ran into the house to grab my camera. It was no where to be found. A quick and frantic search of the vehicles still no luck. My mom said she could use her little point and shoot and take some pictures. So we went with that. We got on the horses and positioned them by our evergreen trees and snapped a few and then…battery died. So then we used hubby’s phone camera. It was just nothing but fail. I’m hoping we have something I can sort of work with. It was later in the evening I quickly glanced down into our creepy basement and saw my camera bag. I had forgotten that I had it down there as I was taking pictures of the chest of drawers I’m refinishing. I’m such and idiot so of course I burst out crying about the failed pictures yet again.


But anyways after the failed Christmas card attempt hubby wanted to ride a little bit, so did I, So we rode out into the field to the west of us. Piney is obviously feeling better about life. But when he is feeling better about life it means he doesn’t want to listen to me. At.All. I asked him to speed up with a little leg, nope, he wasn’t having any of it. He ignored almost every one of my cues. At one point I felt like one of those barrel racers with my legs flapping straight out to the sides trying to get him to go. Before we left I thought “hey maybe I should grab my dressage whip, or a crop or something” but figured “nah, he’ll be fine once we get out following Duke.” Not so much. He was like 6 lengths behind Duke the whole way. No wonder he was never a world famous race horse! I could barely even get him to speed up to walk next to Duke. I had flashbacks to one of those dude ranch trail rides I was on as a kid where I kicked and kicked and kicked to get the horse moving and he just stood there until the wrangler had to come pony me the rest of the ride. If hubby wasn’t having a bit of “baby” rearing problems with his horse (Duke wasn’t full up rearing, he was just hopping up a little bit. I am beginning to wonder if it is his bit or tack that is bugging him), I’m sure he would have had to pony us around. I am certainly glad that Piney doesn’t have the “typical” naughty horse behavior like rearing, bolting, bucking, etc. But I am starting to think that this extremely lazy behavior is just as bad if not worse. I can’t blame the fella. He HAS had almost a year off, and I think he’s only been ridden a handful of times this year. I’m sure if I get out the whip and we start working a bit more regularly he might remember that work is fun! And oh yeah my mom means business!! It seems that I only need to carry my whip and let him see that I have it for him to get a little more pep in his step.

If only it was still light enough to ride when I got off of work I would get some time in the saddle, especially since there is no snow and ice! Maybe this year will be a fluke and we won’t get any snow! Hahah…year right. I have a feeling we are gonna get hit HARD it’s just a matter of time!

life is good

Busy, busy, busy. That about sums it up. Hubby wants to be entirely moved out to the farm by December 31st I’m thinking more along the lines of January 31st. We’ll see who wins this argument. We have gotten a lot of stuff moved out to the farm and we even stayed there last Saturday night. We went out to dinner in town and had planned on just eating then heading home, well we ended up staying for a couple beers and then we started meeting some of the locals, and before we knew it, it was closing time. Everyone came up to introduce themselves. It’s so nice living in a small town because everyone is so welcoming. I knew a few people from when I used to live in the area a couple of years ago, so it was nice to see them again.


The horses are doing well. I can’t believe how fat my husband’s horse is! I need to go and take pictures of him. He looks pregnant! His horse is very sweet and likes to be scratched and interacted with, but he’s a bit of a crap head when riding him. He’s very spooky, I think next spring I’m gonna work with him on desensitizing. He’s also VERY barn/buddy sour. So that’s something else we will need to address next spring.

I rode Piney a few weeks ago! It was just a quick jaunt around the yard and down the road a little ways but I rode. I brought him in from the pasture and he decided that he doesn’t like the 4ft gates we put up. so we managed to get through them after a little talk about life. Then I brought him into the machine shop…I mean barn. Hubby has been fixing the four wheeler in the barn because it’s the only building with electricity and a cement floor at the moment. Once in the barn I looked over our saddle collection, (we have 4 there right now and I still have one more at my parents place) and decided that I missed riding in my dressage saddle so I picked that one. Except we had a bit of trouble girthing up. Seems someone has a great big hay belly. Which is funny because his ribs are showing. But I got him all tacked up and went to hop on…apparently someone is extremely out of shape and couldn’t even sort of get into the saddle. I had to go searching for my step stool but once I was up there life was good. We headed down the road a little ways and then turned for home APARENTLY someone has for gotten who the boss is. We had to have a little conversation about who is running the show. He was full of himself! I am so glad that Piney being full of himself doesn’t involve rears, bucks, bolting, jigging or any other naughty behavior. It was just wanting to go to the barn…slowly…and it was not wanting to listen to me…slowly. We spent some time walking and trotting in the area in the yard that I hope to put an outdoor arena next spring/summer. After I got his mind back to working he was great, but I was losing daylight and I decided to call it quits. He is a good boy, he just needs to be reminded after having almost all summer off, that I’m the boss. I can tell that he is feeling better than he was this summer. He’s actually happier now than I think he’s ever been. I also noticed when girthing up, that he didn’t try once to bite me. So I think that he probably did have ulcers from living in a barn. Being on pasture and having the ability to graze 24/7 did wonders for his guts! I just can’t believe how good he is feeling these days.

Last night I had to run out to the farm to pick up something and take the water reading to send in. Rural water is going to take some getting used to! But I went out to check the horses, It was about 8 and of course pitch black. I looked off to the corner an I saw the white ghost face of Duke and started over that way, as I got closer I saw two blobs on the ground a big one and a real little one. As I got even closer the ltitle pony blob got up, but the big blob didn’t…start to panic, keep walking, blob still down, heart beat increase, walking faster, then the big blob rose and then started walking to me. I being a hypochondriac put my head against his stomach to listen for grumbles, I checked to see if he was sweaty, I listened to his breathing, and everything was fine. Apparently he was just laying down for a snooze with pony boy. (who by the way he can’t stand) I stuck around and watching him a bit more, and he was eating and then I saw that he was drinking. BTW we got our automatic Richie waterer working and it.is.awesome. SOOOO glad that the place came with it! and SOOOOOO glad that we were able to fix it! I was hauling water buckets from the bathtub in the house for a few weeks and I was not a fan of that!

Anyways, this weekend we are doing our Christmas card pictures. I am definitely going to include the horses in the picture. And I hope to get them posted on here once I get them!

what kind of sick people...

I’m not sure if anyone was following the story of the 5 horses, trailer and tack that were stolen from Southern Arkansas University in November. But they arrested an 18 (her 19th birthday is today) freshman from SAU in connection to the crime yesterday. They found 4 of the horses in bad shape, tied to a tree and barely surviving on nearby pine needles. (One of the light colored horses was spray painted camouflage). Sadly one of the horses, a sorrel gelding named ‘Credit Card’ had been brutally slaughtered and they only found his remains.


The girl is being charged with three felony theft charges since three of the horses were worth over $25,000 as well as three additional felony charges for thefts between $5000 and $25,000 and some felony charges for transporting stolen property over state lines.

You can read the affidavit here.

She WATCHED Credit Card get shot, have his throat slit and then watched him get quartered. Her reasoning for killing him? Because she had been in a romatic relationship with his owner and it went bad. Are you kidding me???? I had relationships go sour when I was her age I didn’t go around killing their horses, dogs, fish whatever. I didn’t even key their car, or anything remotely crazy. How do you even think up this revenge plan? She kidnaped the other horses because apparently their owners treated her badly. Are you for real? Who does this? Her MOM helped! Her mom’s boyfriend was the one who shot and killed the horse then chopped him up. Why did this happen? When I called my mom freshman year and told her my boyfriend broke up with me she didn’t drive down so we could poke holes in his tires, or kidnap his roommates dog or anything crazy. She told me that life goes on, there are plenty of fish in the sea. What kind of messed up family plots revenge this extreme? A seriously messed up one, that’s for damn sure. The more I read about this case the angrier I get. She wanted Credit Card dead…how can you be that hateful? That screwed up in the head? That you want someone’s horse dead?

Sorry for the extremely poorly written post, I just needed to vent a bit about this.

I want a pony for Christmas!

We bought this pony tonight! Sadly we don't get to keep him as he is a Christmas present for my Hubby's 4 year old cousin from her parents. I love him! His name is Inky!

You may think it's funny, but it's snot.

Piney and Duke have settled in wonderfully. They are both super relaxed and seem very happy. However today I went out to check on them and noticed that Piney had a LOT of yucky, yellow snot in his left nostril. It's disgusting and I have no idea what it is and its making me a very worried mom. It wasn't there yesterday and in the entire time I've owned him he's never been sick before. I of course googled the symptoms when I got home and sounds like it might be a respiratory infection, but it could be a million other things. So looks like I'll be calling the vet first thing in the AM.  If anyone has any advice, or thoughts of what it could be I'd gladly appreciate any input.
I HATE when things like this happen. It makes me feel like such a worthless horse owner and that having Piney at home was a bad idea. When I was boarding I had people to ask, and people who could take care of him for me. I have a lot of horse knowledge, but I still feel like i don't know anything. I feel so unworthy of horse ownership sometimes. Grrrrr I shouldn't feel like this!!

Guess who's home?

Yep! He arrvied yesterday at about one in the afternoon. He was supposed to arrive Saturday night but hubby had some trouble with my pickup on the voyage out there and ended up having to replace the radiator. I'm just glad it happened on the way out there and not on the way back with a trailer full of horses. I stayed at the farm to get some painting projects done with my mom.

I’d like to tell you that Piney hopped right up into the trailer and was a dreamboat about it. But that is not the case. In fact when we get a chance looks like me and Mr. Pinecone will be working on trailer loading. Hubby woke up early and went and gave the monster the Tryptophan that I had sent along with him. Last time we used it, it seemed to help mellow him out about trailering. It wasn’t as powerful as the vet administered tranquilizer that was needed a few times but it helped him relax. Well he waited a few hours and loaded up the truck with all of the stuff we had there. The trailer he used was the same one we used to haul him up there. It’s a 70’s model WW 4 horse/stock combo. He was going to load his horse up first, since his horse weighs about twice what piney does, then close the middle divider and put Piney in the back. Well hubby’s horse hopped right in like an old pro even though he hadn’t been in the trailer in about 5 years .Then it was Piney’s turn. He wasn’t having any of it. He wanted nothing to do with the trailer. Even with his buddy up front he would rather walk home than load in to that trailer. Well he unloaded his horse and then they tried to put Piney in first. It ended up being a 3 man job. Yes a 3 man job to load a horse into a trailer than has probably been loaded and unloaded dozens of times during his career as a race horse. But they managed to load him up front close the door and then get hubby’s horse into the back compartment, and off they went.


Unloading went much better. Hubby’s horse hopped right on out and so did Piney. We will definitely be working on the trailer loading situation. It’s his only flaw! The horse is a dream to work with unless it’s trailer time! But one I got him unloaded and took a good look at him, I turned him out in the pasture and he started happily grazing. I might add that he looks good! He is still ribby, but that horse can have constant access to food, and grain twice a day and he would still be ribby. He is in need of a good grooming as he has some mud balls in his mane, and his tail, oh his poor tail, it needs some tlc! When I dropped him off it was huge and thick and long and beautiful. Now it is short and wispy and it just looks sad. I wish I had just 20 minutes to spend with my boy but sadly I am way too busy. Plus he is too busy scouting out his new home to even come near me to let me give him a kiss. But It is a huge relief to have him home and happily munching in his pasture.

LOVE THIS!

OTTB Designs posted this picture on their facebook wall.

That giraffe horse looks JUST like Piney! I love this idea and I want to do something like this next halloween! I can't get over how much this guy looks like Piney...especially that face!

Also. Piney might be coming home this weekend. That is all.