Tomorrow.....

itWe are off to the Oregon 100!!!!

Today kinda sucked.  Work is really busy, so I was totally stressed out trying to wrap up things so that I could be gone.  When I left I had 51 hours in this week, not including the vacation day tomorrow.  OK then, no wonder I feel a little frazzled!

To top things off, I hadn't made it to the store to get food for the trip, Cartman needed a bath (probably last chance for a real one this year- as he'll be going to the trainer's for a few weeks after this ride.)  Then I noticed the truck was filthy, it had been sitting under a tree and had little pine needles and purple bird poo all over it (blackberries are in full swing here).  I hadn't packed anything in the truck and I still needed to do laundry. 

I settled into a little routine and started getting it together.  It was going pretty well.  I had finished scraping bots off of Cartman, slicked his tail up with Show Sheen and gotten him back out to the field with Girlie.  All the horses were fed, the beet pulp was soaked, the fly masks were washed and hanging with care.  When what to my wondering eyes should appear... 

Wait, wrong story.  What did not appear... was the strap for the Hi Tie.  The one item I could probably not stop off and pick up at the feed store or mall.  The tie is adjustable and has a panic snap so you can safely tie your horse to the flexible arm of the Hi Tie.

I got up into the bed of the truck and started undoing all the totes of gear.  I went thru the tack tote, then the horse care tote, finally my camping tote.  No luck.  I opened up the hay bag and felt all around the hay and under it.  I went through the whole pick up, every little nook and cranny, even the gun safe/goldfish cracker holder.  No tie.

I went and dug my headlamp out of my gear bag and did it all again.  I went through the tack room, looked under and behind everything.  Feed room, same story.  No tie!!!

Finally I accepted the somehow I must have lost it as I packed up from Bare Bones.  Totally irritated with myself at this point, I gave up and headed to the grocery store.

I think that I can fashion a temporary strap using an old trailer tie that has a safety snap on one end and an old lead rope.  I will just tie the rope to the trailer tie and cut it at the appropriate length.  Then clip the trailer tie to the Hi Tie arm.  It will look hideous, but after they see my Hi Tie the mismatched pair of Ariat boots aren't going to be so bad.

And that brings me to what I hope is the last of today's trials and tribulations.  One of my old comfortable Ariat boots broke its lace a few weeks ago.  I purchased a new one at the Wilco Grand Opening sale and tonite was the night I tried to install it. 

Oh lord, who'd have known lacing a boot could be such an ordeal.  I'd never actually paid any attention to how these boots are lace, but let me tell you its no criss cross, back and forth lacing job on these babies.  No, the laces are set on top of the bottom of the opening, with a little leather flap in there to boot.  The new laces are a little thicker than the original ones, so they are hard to force through the holes and don't slide.  It  took me about 20 minutes to get one lace in some sort of order and really would have been easier with a pair of needle nose pliers.

I can't imaging how they mass lace these things at the factory.  It was such a pain that after the first one was done I stopped.  I'm debating whether having one brown lace and one black lace is such a bad thing. 

Well off to bed now, gotta get up early tomorrow and hit the road.

Labor Day Rides

I got two rides in this weekend.

Saturday Cartman and I did a solo ride over on the jogging path.  It was pretty warm and he got a good workout jogging and cantering on the trail.  His canter is definately improving, although we still need better balance on the right lead.

I rode for about an hour at the jog/lope and then walked for about a mile to cool out. 

Sunday Michelle and I hauled up to the trails and did our our outer rim trail.  There are some really good hill climbs on our standard path and today we let the horses jog and even lope some of these.  They are getting really fit and can make a lot better time than a few months ago. 

Also, I've noticed Cartman has gotten where he can jog on some of the winding, twisty trails, whereas last year we had walk all of these sections.  He's turning into a real dependable trail horse :)

I'm starting to plan out what needs to be done before the OR100, in less than two weeks! 

 

 

 

 

 

I got one more noxious task completed for winter- by hand no less!

In other news, Certified Girl appears to have an abscessed tooth, or something.  I noticed her jaw was swollen Sunday morning.  Pulled her up to the barn and called my vet.

He came out a few hours later and "tried" to examine her mouth.  She was less than cooperative, despite getting enough tranqs to actually set her on her butt two times.  Between the swelling, the halter and her 'tude we finally decided to just see if the lump will drain.  Then start anti-biotics.  Hopefully it will heal up this way, but the next step would be yet another trip to the clinic in Gresham to see a dentist.  As I think the only way to get in there that far back, with all the swelling, is going to be with her knocked out completely.  Sigh.

Girlie had already lost at least two of her teeth at the time of her last dental work a year ago.  The dentist noted that another was getting ready to come out at that time (on the same side as the lump).  She quids hay pretty badly and I have to feed her fine hay from now on.  She is in good body condition though, so hopefully this issue will resolve without a lot of fuss.

Today I cut out a circle of an Animalintex pad and taped it to her jaw with Elastikon.  I pulled it off when feeding this evening and it is really looking like its going to burst soon.  She has such a high pain tolerance, she is eating and bossing Cartman around like nothing is wrong. 

Hopefully it will have burst in the morning and I will start her on the Uniprim powder then.

I, Wanna Rock 'n Roll All Night!!!!

Actually, tonight I just wanna sleep :)

Yesterday Cartman, Dazzby and I took a friend, S., on her first horse ride in years.

We went up to Winlock and rode the trails for over two hours.  It was great fun and S. seemed to have a good time, inspite of the one incident. 

Dazzby and S. were in front and we took off for a little trot.  As I watched Dazzby seemed to get faster and faster, she was pulling away from Cartman and I.  She broke into a canter, I started to get concerned.  I wasn't sure if S. was up for cantering or not!

Suddenly I saw S. get shaken loose a little, and thought "Uh oh,  No."  Just as quickly Dazzby came to a complete halt.  C and I jogged up, I'd tried to stay back so as to not encourage a race. 

S. and the saddle were perched way up on Dazzby's neck and wither.  She had a big grin on her face.  Whew.  I told her to jump off and we re-adjusted the saddle.  She said that everything was fine until she layed down on Dazzy's neck, apparently S. is a speed demon- who'd have known???

When Dazzby felt her get loose she put on the brakes.  I swear this mare is priceless.

We continued on our ride, no harm done.

Obviously I have some work to do on saddle fitting the western saddle to Dazzby.

Later in the day Todd and I celebrated our Anniversary by attending the Kiss/Motley Crue concert in Ridgefield.  It was AWESOME!!!!

Here are some photos from the day:

these beauties are flagged for logging.



Motley Crue

Tommy Lee plays upside down

Kiss arrives.

Paul Stanley doesn't look his age- he must work out A Lot!

The Demon

Paul flew through the air on a wire, and played mid crowd- on a platform.

I want these boots!!!!

They closed with I Wanna rock 'n roll all night!!

Sat/Sun Ride Pics

Saturday Michelle and I headed up to Winlock to ride the trails.  We left the house at 5pm and were on trail by 5:41pm.  It was a great evening to ride, it had been around 90degrees and hot all day but was just starting to cool. 

We ended up riding for 2.5 hours and covered quite a bit of trail.  M's young horse Twister did really  well for his first "trail" trail ride this year.  Cartman and Twister are two of a kind, all about playing and being goofy young geldings.  They kept trying to get closer and closer together every time we stopped to graze.

Sunday we went to the jogging trail to do a five mile jog.  It was about 90 degrees so we headed out into the Cowlitz River at the half way point.

M and Tucker head for the sand bar.

Looking back at shore from the sand bar.

When we got home I hosed Cartman off and then gave Certified Girl a bath.

Girlie will be 24 years old in January