Bowling with dad

Maggie and I wanted to take Peter bowling today but we found out that it would be $60 for pizza and bowling for 2 hours or almost asmuch to bowl and rent shoes for one game. I was amazed. I had no idea.

So instead we have used a coupon to go to the Incredible pizza company in Euless. We are having a blast for half the price.

Summer is here, the craziness has begun

I have been so swamped since the last time I posted. I can't even remember when the last time I posted actually was, that's how long it's been.

Maggie left last Friday for vacation with her grandparents in Nantucket. She enjoys going to the island with Meg and Lori every summer. I think she missed last year because we could just never work it into the schedule, so we were double determined to get her there this year. Shawn was supposed to go with her and they were going to go for two weeks. But, at the near last minute, his new boss rescinded the approved vacation that the old boss had given him and he is now stuck not being allowed to take time off all summer. It was really horrible and I felt bad for him. Fortunately, Meg and Lori still wanted Maggie to come and they changed the dates so she could come up. I haven't talked to her much this week, which tells me that she has had fun and is really busy. I will pick her up tonight at the airport. I am hoping she feels like going riding tomorrow, but I think she may just want to hang out at home and chill.

For most of the week my friend Karen has been here visiting from KY. She was my activity assistant at Red Banks Nursing facility in Henderson, KY when Maggie was just a baby. Her boys were 3 and 5 when we met. Now Maggie is almost 12 and her boys are almost 14 and 16, so we've known each other awhile :-) She had to have foot surgery and was told she can't walk on her foot for 4 weeks. So, I suggested she recover at my house. I thought she was coming next week,but I was confused...she called me last Friday and said she was coming Monday. It was fine. I had nothing planned for this week, but I was really bummed that she and her boys missed Maggie. We did a few things that required being on our feet, but mostly we just hung out. I ate out alot (that was bad, bad bad for my wasteline) and we went to see Star Trek the movie, which was great. I bought Peter rock band 2 for the Wii and the boys enjoyed playing that as well. It was a super laid back week.

I rode for about 10 minutes this week. Too much going on to ride much. Dana came over and we fed and rode a bit. One of Karen's kids rode Dana's pony and he seemed to enjoy that as well.

I did just get an email that seems to indicate that Liberty and I might not actually have placed 3rd last weekend. I'm not sure if it went out to everyone or if it just went out to people who had a status change. I will know later. Of course, I'm disappointed, but that's the way it goes sometimes. The ride manager was really gracious and told everyone to keep the prizes she gave everyone and she's going to get new prizes out to everyone. Sometimes this happens with NATRC rides too. I never minded having to change ribbons much, but when I'd won something cool, I hated being asked to send my prize to someone else, especially if it's something I had already used and something I really liked. I know that ride managers probably suffer a lot of pain when they have to make these changes. I know how I'd feel if it happened to me.

Liberty choked on me this week. He hadn't done that for a really long time and I was worried about him. Usually I have to put a hose down his mouth to get the pellets lubricated and get him cleaned out but this time I used dynamite relax and release and it worked great. I squirted relax into his mouth and then I squirted release onto his throat and massaged his throat. The combination of both seemed to remove the blockage much more quickly than any time I have ever used water to clean him out. I will have to start making sure he and Fiera are separated at feeding. They were playing musical buckets and that seems to be when they have the most trouble. I also had bought a bag of low carb feed made by Dumor as I wasn't able to get over to Grapevine to pick up feed and the texture seems to be different.

Karen left today and Maggie doesnt' get back until late. I'm not sure what I'll do when I get done for the day. I may go ride for a bit or I maygo home and enjoy a quiet house...except that it's liable to feel lonely after having company all week.

Maggie at the Airport

Maggie and Peter are at the airport. I just heard from him that it is so crazy that even though they were there 2 hours early, he may not be able to get her on her flight. Also, there are no other flights to NY today to get her to Nantucket. It's ugly all the way around. The flight was even late...Meg and Lori (Maggie's grandparents) are helping him sort it out. They say since she's an unaccompanied minor she might be able to get on earlier. Another attendant told Peter that they would begin to pull the people for this particular flight, but Peter says it's so jammed that he doesn't see that actually happening. He told me to go ahead and go...I'm just praying she makes her plane.



I am headed out to my trail challenge. I'm nervous about leaving while her situation is up in the air, but Peter told me to take off, so here I go...

Vacation This Week

I have been on vacation this week and I can't believe how quickly the week has flown by. Monday I took Deli to a Christian riding camp called the Flying G Ranch http://www.flyinggranchtexas.com/. She will stay for the summer and if she works out as a lesson horse I will donate her to the camp permanently. Tuesday Maggie and I hung out in the am and watched TV and played with Sims 3. We're really into Bones right now and I still like to watch ER. I have them on the DVR. In the afternoon we ran errands and went hiking on the horse trails near our horses. I wanted to scout them before we rode the horses down the road to the trails. Yesterday Maggie went to her dad's and I took Bonnie down to get a haircut from the lady I bought her from. We were going to ride (I didn't haul down to her house as I was going to ride Freeley) but I forgot my helmet and Bonnie took forever to be trimmed, so we hung out, trimmed, chatted, went to lunch, trimmed and chatted some more. Then I drove home in a terrible storm, which was no fun. Today Maggie and I got adjusted at the chiropropractor and then had pedicures. We checked on the horses in the rain storm and then came home. maggie is packing to go to Nantucket and I have been surfing and watching reruns of ER. Tomorrow I go to a trail challenge by myself. It will be weird not to have Maggie with me.

On Parking and the summer heat

I have a huge pet peeve. I have a parking place at my barn and it's painted off as a no parking space for me. Today I showed up and a huge truck was parked in my spot. I couldn't pull straight into my field to get my trailer b/c it was backed in so far that the hitch was in my way. I went into the guy who owns the place...no problem, it was a patient (he's a chiropractor) and he was leaving. So then I come back later, and there is another truck in my spot...not backed in just quite as far so I could get in and out, but still there. Not a patient...probably a worker at the other business as I was there an hour and no one came out. So, tomorrow back to ask the land lord and the other renters to stay out of my parking space. The land lord said I could have it and I have been there longer than the other people. I realize this sounds really silly, but the lot is really full and there is no where to park. My spot is in the shade is ideal so I get why they park there, but it interferes with my ability to get in and out of my field and that upsets me. I hate the idea of showing up to haul somewhere and being stuck on the outside b/c someone parked in my spot and kept me out...Like I said, just a pet peeve and needed to vent.

LIberty wins Indian Territory

Liberty took his first blue ribbon in novice heavyweight horse at the NATRC Indian Territory ride Memorial Day weekend in OK. I was shocked, amazed and terribly pleased. There were 10 novice heavyweight horses to start and while I knew we hadn't had any huge mistakes, I didn't realize we were really doing that well. He had great P&R's, even after the really hard trot up a rocky hill and he is getting more patient at obstacle work. It made me realize that we are making training progress and that the 2nd placings at Pole Canyon wasn't necessarily a fluke. I just swelled with pride at my little horse.

The ride was amazing. Indian Territory has always been one of my favorite places to ride. I already blogged about Saturday and have just been so busy I haven't gotten around to blogging about Sunday.

The obstacles Sunday started with a trot by and we were required to trot on the gravel. My horse is barefoot and this is a rocky ride, but he came through with no problems. I had started to boot him on Saturday, but since I have never really ridden him in boots and didn't know if they would stay on, I didn't want to risk losing a brand new pair of boots or making his feet sore from a rubbing heal strap. The first obstacle was the horsemanship judge hiding on the power line. The second obstacle was a transition, which he did fine, but I failed miserably by being off balance. It was great though b/c I knew exactly how I'd done it wrong and the cards just confirmed it. It's great to finally be finding some self awareness. We had to sidepass in hand, which he did really well considering I had never practiced it without a stick and he had a sidepass in the saddle which was more of a backwards, forward, wiggly movement than a true sidepass. But, my silver lining is that he stood still for me to pin a ribbon on a tree and he moved into an object in a sort of sideways motion...something he has previously not been willing to do.

Some of the ironies I found to be that when we lost points for backing, it wasn't b/c he backed too quickly (like we lost points at pole canyong) it was for not being quite straight. Our vet judge does her back judging differently than most of the vets and that was troublesome to me. As an aside, we need vet judges very badly, so I will learn her system and play her game just like we figure out everyone else's systems, but I confess to not liking it much. She judges the backs by 1, 2, 3, etc. He was a 1 at check in and a 2 at checkout the first day. She said that he not sore, but his back was tight, and we lost a point. I confess to being bothered that I lost a point for being stiff, but not sore. We were climbing hills. Heck, I was stiff too. The second day he went back down to a one...but of course, you don't get the point you lost back. The flip side is that if she judges everyone consistently, it shouldn't be a big deal. It's just different.

Liberty is really settling into being a mature horse. He's showing a willingness to listen and I think he's beginning to enjoy our partnership. This summer, my new challenge will be city riding. That should make riding real trails a piece of cake.

Indian Territory Saturday

We timed out at 700 to start our novive 18.1 mile ride. It startedout cloudy, though it didn't look as though it would rain. This is a rocky ride so pacing was a lot of starting and stopping between the walk and trot. We had mostly natural obstacles. The first one right out of camp was a steep uphill observed by the horsemanship judge. Later we had another steep uphill of rock that were a series of steps. The vet judge asked us to put the horses front feet up on a rock. We usually ace this as he likes to step up on rocks. However right as I went to ask him to step up, the horses in front of us started to leave and Dixie ran into Liberty's backside. So, we blew the obstacle. Major bummer. Later we had a mount, which went well. He's super turned on by treats for mounting. I always had to back up to a ribbon and then trot over a bunch of brush. The back as decent, if rushed job. The trot was not good as we smashed the sticks to pieces. Our P&R's were both good, and since it was a hot day, I was very pleased. Liberty has been calm and cool and mostly well behaved and easy to rate He improves every ride.