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Have You Been Wondering Where We Are?

Have You Been Wondering Where We Are?

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Where is everybodyI hope so! We had to leave town for a while, because our covers were blown…no, not really. Well, we did leave town, but it was to attend a friend’s wedding in Phoenix. We stayed with our kids in the southeast part of town, and all the rest of the family & friends were on the west side of town, so we spent a lot of time in the car. We haven’t been able to spring for the satellite internet service that goes with you wherever (despite the Kid’s pleading), so our internet access was a little scarce.

Anyway…so after a week away, ignoring you all again, we got home to find out we had no site. Network problems, again, apparently. Bill thinks they’re trying to get rid of us because we are grandfathered in to a sweet hosting deal. I have to admit, it sounds suspicious.

But for now, we’re up and running again (knock on wood). All our critters were fine when we got back. The weather here is awful, especially compared to Phoenix, where it’s spring already. We are really looking forward to spring here! We have lots of fun horse-related things planned (and some horse-related projects, too). Our next big adventure, we think, is to go ahead and buy the horse across the street (Champ). We’ll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, please accept our apologies and those of our hosting company (if they are indeed sorry). We’ll try to get this issued resolved one way or another, and start posting more often.

Kid on a hay rake

Kid on a hay rake

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Kid on a hay rake 1915
Jack on Hay Rake: 1915, courtesy of Shorpy.com. Photo used with permission.

Boy, things sure aren’t what they used to be. This picture was taken in 1915 of an eight-year-old boy driving a hay rake. Eight years old?! Looks pretty dangerous to me but that’s how things were back then. This photo comes to us courtesy of Shorpy, a website that features old-timey photos. Click on the image for the larger version.

We’re Still Here – And It’s Still Cold.

We’re Still Here – And It’s Still Cold.

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Frozen fountain 20 mi from our house, 4 days ago

I know we haven’t been writing, but frankly, there’s not much to write about around here. It’s all about trying to keep the water buckets thawed and the stalls clean enough for horses without spending any more time mucking them out than absolutely necessary. We’re certainly not riding, because it’s too darn cold. Although our horses have pretty good winter coats, they don’t seem to be enjoying this weather much either. Even Sinbad, who purportedly does not like to be in a stall, spends a lot of time in his stall voluntarily (albeit with the door open). We hurriedly do our chores in the afternoon at peak temperature, then later in the evening let the horses in to feed them oats as quickly as possible. Right now it’s 10:00 am and the horses are still in the barn. We need to go up there and let them out, but it takes soooo long because they really don’t want to come out. We have to coax them out, sometimes with a halter. Then they stand around the barn gate looking like they want to go back inside. I really don’t blame them; nice, warm, dry stall or barren, muddy pasture? (There are round bales of hay out there, though, I assure you.) It’s kind of a depressing time of year.

C’mon, spring.

And Now For Something Completely Different

And Now For Something Completely Different

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NaNoWriMoWell, not completely different, because here I am offering another excuse for neglecting Our First Horse. Here’s the thing: I mentioned a few posts ago that in November I was going to write a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short – it’s an annual event every November). Well, here it is November and Bill and I are both furiously writing our novels; the goal is to have 50,000 words by midnight on November 30. This means we need to write an average of 1,667 words a day. My novel, at least, is going pretty well, but the problem I find is that I’m having trouble writing both the novel and the blog. I come to my “dashboard” page to write here a couple of times a day and think, “dang, I don’t have time for this.” So that’s why we haven’t been writing. Sorry! I’m going to try to write more here, but I’m not making any promises until December 1.

So since I can’t think about anything but that stupid novel anyway, I’ll write about that. It’s about a woman and her horse (so technically I can write about it here, since it’s horse-related). But that, I’m afraid, is all I’m going to tell you about it. In fact, I may be the only one ever to read it. You wouldn’t think that someone who puts her writing out there for all the world to see (literally!) would be insecure about writing, but I am. I read back over what I’ve written – either here or re-reading the 6,000 words of my novel that I’ve written so far – and sometimes I think, “Wow! I wrote that! Cool!” And sometimes I think, “wow…i wrote that…ick.” There’s just too much of the latter and not enough of the former for me to be confident about sharing more than a few paragraphs of commentary.

But, if I change my mind and find a publisher, you’ll be the first to know. You could say you read me here first! 😀

Our Third Horse

Our Third Horse

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That’s right…I said third. We’ve been warned that horses are addictive, and that appears to be the case.

This horse is not actually ours. He belongs to a friend of a friend, and because of dispute involving pasturing and neighbor dogs, his life was in danger where he was being kept (long story, but the neighbor of the horse-sitter threatened to shoot the horses). So he’s staying with us for an indefinite period of time. His name is Sinbad, and he’s 26 years old. He is a complete sweetheart, and we’re told that he’ll let anyone ride him. We haven’t tried yet, but only because we haven’t had time.

The biggest challenge so far in getting a third horse has been dealing with the three horses trying to establish a pecking order. We thought Moonshine would be the pain, because she is so bossy with Valentine, but it turns out that she kinda likes Sinbad and Valentine is the one bullying him. Our guess is, Moonshine is optimistic that Sinbad can help her with her…er…”needs,” so she’s tolerating him (until she figures out he’s a gelding, and then she’ll be just as mean to him as she is with the worthless Valentine); and Valentine has decided that the new guy will be at the bottom of the totem pole because he’s tired of being the one getting bossed around. So for the first couple of days, poor Sinbad spent most of his time in the far back of the pasture, sneaking in for some hay and water when the other two were either locked in their stalls or not looking. It’s much better now. He’s been here for five days now, and as I write this they are all three eating hay near the barn, about 30 feet away from each other.

We hope this will turn out to be a really good arrangement for us. We have riding privileges with Sinbad, so if he’s as easy as everyone tells us, Bill will have a good horse to ride until Moonshine is fit to ride. Or until we get a fourth horse that we will actually own…then the Kid will have a good horse to ride too. Then when Sinbad goes home, we’ll have to get another horse…

Yep, they really are addictive.

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Me – Mikki

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Me – Mikki

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We were tagged by Show Your Pony to share eight things you might not know about us. Since there are two of us, we’ll both go. (Do we only have to do 4 each? 🙂 Just kidding…) But after a year and a half on this blog, I can’t imagine there are eight things you don’t know about me already that you’d want to. But here goes:

  1. One of my first horseback rides was at Girl Scout camp. They asked whether I was an experienced rider, and either out of pride or naiveté, I said I was and got a horse named Charlie Brown. He proceeded to take me under every tree on the trail going after grass to graze, because of course I couldn’t control him. I got a good chewing out by the camp counselor for misrepresenting my riding skill.
  2. Another memorable ride – although I don’t remember this horse’s name or even who I was riding with – was a ride from the woman’s home to a nearby park. To get there, we had to ride across Phoenix city streets (there were almost no cars). That mare was pretty well-behaved, until we got to an intersection that had recently been painted. There was nothing I could do to convince her to walk across the bright white “right turn only” arrow. That thing completely freaked her out.
  3. I’m going to write a novel next month. Wow, does that sound awe-inspiring or what? It’s not as cool as it sounds, but I should just let people think it is. November is National Novel Writing Month; check out www.nanowrimo.org for details. Basically, people all over the world try to churn out a 50,000 page novel in 30 days. No one else reads it, unless you want them to. It doesn’t have to be any good. It’s just kind of a challenge to yourself. If you succeed, you get a cool certificate. If you don’t, you tell yourself that next year, you’ll do it, by crikey!
  4. I have a tattoo. It’s a rose, and says “Bill.” That’s only shocking if you really know me. People who know me in person are always shocked. I guess I don’t appear to be a tattoo kind of girl. Anyway, just play along and say, “No way!” in your head.
  5. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up. Then when I grew up, I wanted to be a lawyer. Then I worked for lawyers for 18 years and decided that wasn’t such a cool job anymore. Now I think I just want to be a cowgirl. 😉
  6. When I was growing up, my grandma’s nickname for me was Grace. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment. I do, however, think it was fitting.
  7. The first time I rode my horse, Valentine, I fell off. Well, not exactly while riding him; when I got off, my foot caught in the stirrup and I kinda fell out and landed on my back. Nothing was hurt but my pride – but Bill did get the whole thing on video. And no, we will not be posting that footage. Ever.
  8. I met and had my picture taken with Patrick Swayze at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show in 1992. I’ll have to dig that photo up and post it here.

So, I guess you’re supposed to tag some more blogs here, but I think everybody we know that’s animal-related has already been tagged. Except for these (and I think it’s fair that Bill and I share these, don’t you, since we know all the same blogs?):

Bridlepath

Coppertop

Hoofbeats

Horses, Cows and Goats, Oh My!

Horseshues

Triple H Horse Farm

Mired Down in Real Life

Mired Down in Real Life

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Not that horses aren’t “real life,” of course, but lately our non-horse pursuits have taken over. Apparently some of you have noticed – wow! How flattering! We appreciate you all, and promise we’ll be back soon. In addition to work, school, parent-teacher conferences and my birthday (the big 2-9, again…), we are working on a huge, non- horse-related video project with a deadline of Sunday. Weird deadline, I know. It’s for our church; it’s our pastor’s 20th year with the church and Bill and I got suckered into willingly volunteered to produce a video montage of his 20 years there. (Just kidding; it’s very time-consuming and stressful but we’re happy to do it, it’s gonna be great). So we should be back next week. In the meantime, here are some upcoming topics to look forward to:

  • Putting up hay for the winter – we spent one recent Saturday in a hay field collecting freshly-baled hay.
  • Learning to train in a round pen – can’t wait to have time for that!
  • An overnight trail ride – if we can get Valentine in shape in less than two weeks, I’m going camping with him along with my best horse buddy, Shari, and some friends of hers in mid-October.

…and on a related note:

  • Why you should own and use a riding helmet.

See ya’ll soon!

3rd horse – should we or shouldn’t we?

3rd horse – should we or shouldn’t we?

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Three horseshoesWe’ve been toying with the idea of getting another horse. We have two now and our barn is setup with three completed stalls. Here’s our reasoning: we could use a practice horse, one that’s well broken (bulletproof, as they say). Our horses are awesome but they need work. Sometimes one of us just wants to go for a ride. A third horse would let us do that. Also, once we whip our horses into shape for trail riding, what’s the kid going to do? We can’t just leave him home. He needs a horse to ride, too. And speaking of the kid, he’s a little afraid of our two horses. They’re young and energetic. He’s heard of my fall on Moonshine and Mikki’s wild ride on Valentine. If we had an old, broken horse for him to ride maybe it would increase his confidence. Plus, we’d love for him to have the experience of owning a horse as a kid. Not many kids get to do that. I know I wasn’t able to but I would have loved it.

The cons…well probably the biggest con at this point is the expense. Horses are cheap but maintaining them isn’t. We’re hoping to get a good deal for our winter hay in the next week or two and we’d have enough for a third horse. Supplemental feed is reasonable. The shoeing is expensive, though, as is medical care, as needed. We’d need aother saddle, but that’s a one-time expense. And then there’s the age thing. If we get a 20-25 year old horse, it could live 10 more years, or 1 more year. Also, the kid hasn’t especially expressed an interest in having his own horse. I fear Mikki and I would be stuck taking care of it. It’s not hard, since we’re already caring for two others, but I want to teach responsibility.

What do you think? Should we do it? Not that we’ll listen to advice or reason, since we tend to purchase/acquire animals on intuition emotion anyway. But I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Our Horses Got Loose Tonight!

Our Horses Got Loose Tonight!

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Police CarTalk about an exciting evening! We stayed up late tonight because it’s Friday and we’re night owls. At 11:21 someone pulled into our driveway. Someone coming by unexpectedly that late at night is rarely good news, and this was no exception. It was the father of our horse friends, the Watsons, wondering if we were missing a couple of horses. Bill, who answered the door, said no, of course not. Why would we be missing any horses? “Say…what color are they?” “Black,” replied Mr. Watson. Uh oh. It suddenly occurred to Bill that we had put our goats out in the pasture earlier and when we brought them back through the gate to return them to their pen, we might, just possibly, have forgotten to close the gate.

So Bill came back in to tell me that the police had our horses rounded up down by the road. He ran up to the barn to get their halters while I changed out of my jammies (hey, it was coming up on midnight!) and ran down the road after him. You would not believe the sight that greeted us! About a quarter mile down the road from our house, in our church parking lot, were flashing lights (the police), a half dozen cars, and about a dozen people. As I got closer, a wildlife officer, who had also responded, drove by and said out his window, “Y’all lose some horses?” (Duh!) And there, about 25 yards from the busy highway, were our two fugitive horses, tied to a telephone pole.

Oh, and if all this weren’t embarrassing enough, let me remind you that we live in a small town. In addition to Mr. Watson, there were at least three other people from our church that we know well, in addition to our other neighbor, Mr. Raper, watching from his porch. Ack!

Amusing as this all was – and since it turned out okay, it is really quite amusing – it was also quite a scare. Those horses may have been out for more than two hours. They wandered a good half mile from our house, and ended up right next to a very busy highway. No one but Mr. Watson and Mr. Raper even knew we had horses; I’m not sure how Mr. Watson ended up in the mix, but thank goodness he did, otherwise who knows where Valentine and Moonshine would have ended up? (Do they have a horse “pound?”) And that’s the least scary outcome. Several people there commented on how good-looking our horses are – some less reputable person could have come along and decided they wanted them for their own. And the worst possible scenario, of course, would have been if they actually walked out on the highway and got hit.

Let me tell you, we were thanking the good Lord the whole time we were walking our runaways home. And we probably won’t forget to close that gate from now on.

Someone Un-Spoiled My Horses!

Someone Un-Spoiled My Horses!

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Bill was kind enough not to mention it, but I abandoned him and the livestock again – for 28 days this time! I was in Arizona with my older son and his family for the birth of their second child. Our granddaughter, Bailey Brooke, was born May 11. She’s beautiful – of course! I really enjoyed spending time with my son, daughter-in-law, grandson and granddaughter, but it was hard being away from my family back in Tennessee (2-legged and 4-legged) for that long. I even missed Valentine’s birthday, on May 18.

I’m back now, and although some people may scoff, I know my babies missed me. Okay, the dogs were more open about welcoming me back, but Moonshine and Valentine were happy to see me too, I could tell. It was something about the look in their eyes, and the way Moonshine tucked her head into my shoulder and just left it there.

That, and probably that Bill instituted a no-spoiling policy while I was gone, without my approval. Our friend took care of them while he joined me in AZ for 10 days, and she does NOT spoil her horses – so she didn’t spoil ours either. No sleeping inside all night with hay and water, they just stayed out in the pasture all day and all night, with about 10 short minutes in the stalls in the morning for oats. I think her no-frills way of caring for our horses (perfectly safe, by the way) appealed to the lazy side of my dear husband. I have to admit, it’s sort of appealing to me too – I haven’t had to shovel poo since I got back – but I still don’t like the idea of them being outside all night long. It still makes me nervous. But we’ll see. Paranoia may win out in the end.