December 2013

Welcome to December!  I think we have survived Thanksgiving, now it is time to get ready for Christmas.  This year I am definitely putting up our big tree, it has set in its bag all lonely and forgotten for the past two years while we used a tiny little pre-lit tree.  We were late and lazy getting the nicer tree up.  This year we have sworn to decorate earlier.  We are bringing Big Green out of the closet, putting him outside for a few hours to shake out possible stink bugs (the bane of my Fall existence), and decorating him in the next few days.    This is how he looked a few years ago:




RICK said:

What is Santa going to leave for Foops this year? I fear that it'll be a new roof for our house. Yeah ... I know ... really exciting!!


I have asked for a new breast plate for Ivan and Areion.  I am tired of the one we use slipping over and hope to get one to match their blue bridle.  Other than that, I haven't asked for anything.  I don't have a clue what to get Donnie yet.    In a less material wish, I'd like good health and happiness for everyone, good feet for all my horses, and a marked increase in my ability to ride!   

So what do you want for Christmas little Foops?

At the moment, I am wishing that I get all my Christmas projects done BEFORE Christmas.  

    

Gosh here it is the best time of the year, We have been so lucky:joker: 

My family is well and ---I don't know how to give thanks. aw heck I do!!!!!


Happy wishes for all FOOPS

  My wish is easy....lots more riding time and lots of soothing lotions for my red dry skin! and someone to boot me in the arse to make me put suntan lotions on also!
S!ome fencing stuff would be awesome too if Santa can spring for some!
Hubby wants to borrow Snoop and put him to work pounding posts:lol: 

We did some shopping today and then helped the kids and grands decorate their Xmas tree and had hot chocolate with whipped crème.....came home ad fell into bed with my feet up. Listening to hubby and Otto the bulldog snoring!   

No big wishes here either. Maybe nice pair of winter PJ's, good health and steady employment for the kids and grand kids.

Check out my daughter Amy's web site. www.etsy.com/shop/craftworld She makes handmade kid or adult hats, really good quality. She is so crafty, I can hardly sew on a button. LOL

It was a busy weekend, son in law Nathan, grandson Rodney came down and put a ceiling up on the enclosed patio. What a great help those 2 are, we couldn't do things around here without them.

Buck season starts here today and things will be crazy with hunters all week, then the Christmas party is Saturday night. I'll be dashing about cooking and making the guys keep their muddy boots out of the kitchen. LOL This is the one time of the year when I am glad I don't have horses on the farm any longer, I was always worried that some stranger out in the woods was going to shoot a horse by mistake.

Have a great week everyone.

Love & prayers for all.

I bought a bike at a yard sale yesterday for ten bucks for our bike shy Brenna....she said the only way she would ride a bike if a monster was chasing her! But I have convinced her that she needs to help Gram lose some weight, which is definitely the truth...but I told her I don't like to go fast like the others do and sometimes I'll hit a hole and fall off my bike and I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of everyone, and she said "me too"....so we have decided to practice together until we can keep up with the others. Her Dad and MOm has been trying to get her to ride for years now....last night after we helped decorate the tree, I told Joey that I love to bike ride but I ride slow and easy and no one wanted to ride with me, and Brenna spoke up and said "I'll ride with YOU Gram! Joeys' mouth sagged and stayed open forawhile! So I am taking my bike in for an overhaul at the bike shop so I can start riding with her. When the others go for a trail ride we will ride bikes for awhile.....but I'll keep her getting on the horses too.....Joey says she has taken to me like flies on you know what! LOL I think every kid wants to ride a bike and be like everyone else....but she's afraid she can't keep up but with me, she's not afraid of disappointing someone cuz I go more her speed. We got some more hay in today and hubby crawled back to bed....his legs r hurting today
Trudy glad you feel better now, and I hope Rick does too, and I hope Carol is enjoying the nice warm weather, and that Beech isn't too iced in AND we need to hear how everyone's weekend was. Me, I ate way too much!

I'm glad to hear that everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. Now the rush is on for Christmas!! I skipped shopping on Thanksgiving and on Black Friday, but I did go out on Sunday. I was looking for a dress to wear to a Christmas program that my company bought tickets to for a fund raiser for the local Salvation Army. I spent 4 hours at the little mall that is close by looking and what I liked didn't fit, what fit, I didn't like after I put it on. I ended up with a new sherpa lined flannel jacket and work gloves for Bill and new barn boots for me. I'll just wear something from my closet, and if anyone doesn't like it, they can look at someone else. pfffttt.

What is Santa bringing me for Christmas? I'm wishing for a rain check for a garage in the spring. I had hoped for an attached garage but it looks as if it will be too costly for that as I would have to have a LOT of fill dirt brought in. So it looks as if it will be a detached one a little distance from the house so I don't have to have as much excavating done.

CB forJess. My 20 year grand son has to run 2 milers. He told me that last week they were running and a real "oldman" laid back for a mile and 1/2 and then came really running coming in first. I asked an he said could not remember oldies time but his was 12 minutes.
I never tried that myself way,way back.

What happened---No one is posting or do we have a problem?

CB, that's a great idea about the bike. You'll both enjoy that.

Hi all,
 Busy, busy here.  We took Kazi and Daisy to Va Tech to have their feet done.  Kazi got another pair of the glue on aluminum shoes, Daisy just got a trim.  We are taking another horse with Kazi to give Donnie a little break from trimming them all.  Daisy was very good for the cute little girl farrier who did her feet.  Kazi got her usual farrier and vet and did well, too.  We got home after dark.    Kazi is still limping, but no worse, so the new shoes are considered good for her.   Her hoof angles were good.  

Tomorrow Donnie and I go to the dentist....ewww.....


TRUDY:
I meant to tell you that a cat trying to hack up a hairball in the middle of my bed at 3 a.m. will wake me up instantly and send that cat flying out of the bed!   I understand why Ace can wake you up!

GRAYMARE:
Do you have baby names picked out? Do you have an approximate due date for Faith? I have forgotten when you sent her off to meet her man. It took me months to find Areion's name. She is lucky we don't still call her "Speck". That Speck is now about 15.3 hands tall.

CB:
 Good job with the bike fearing little girl!  We bought a bike last summer for Annie to ride, but she showed no interest at all in it.  We are giving it to an angel tree girl.   It's been sitting in my living room for 6 months.  I am sure there is a young girl out there who would love it.

INDYAPP:
 Good luck with the clothes problem.  I hate shopping for dress up clothes, too.  It either looks like it is meant for a teenage girl or for a very old lady, and I don't want to dress like either!    They will have to bury me in my jeans and sweatshirt....hopefully fresh out of the laundry and not fresh out of the barn...

you won't see me in a dress very much at all....give me a good comfy pair of jeans and a tank top, and when the weather is cool, a flannel over my tank top and I'm good to go....
Have any of you heard of the Cowboy Churches they have now. Jeans and boots are a very proper attire to wear....my kind of church and they have arenas behind the church with pens so you can ride your horse to church ifn ya want. They have riding events, rodeos, team pennings and sortings and cuttings, roping events....and compete against other cowboy churches.

OL Man...Jessi goes for a run every day....its always ten miles or more.....she makes me tired just thinking about it. She blows most of the guys in her unit away! They just had their PT training for the base and there was only 1 guy who was tall with lots of leg beat her! She was pretty pumped.....there was about 200 competing/doing their PT. I'm not sure what she is doing her mile in as far as minutes....but she was doing really good. She went for training at the officer training Academy in Colorado and she had the opportunity to run with the troops and left them all behind! She thought about going to officer training....she doesn't know yet...but she was there for some class she had to take. That girl loves to run! When her troops screw up she makes them run run run! They usually don't give her or anyone else any more flack! She has the option of riding the cart while they run, but she runs with them all the way, she says after that they all behave themselves.

Yep Ellen, I'm looking forward to biking with Brenna. I think it will be lots of fun.

Man, I found out tonight while feeding that the electric fence is working! Dang that hurt! I was taking Max his grain and he got excited and came forward and wasn't able to stop and hit me into the fence. I actually have a red burn from the thing.....he is getting a brand new feeder made of fortiflex tomorrow to hook over the fence, instead of a pan in his pen for his grain. Bad part of it was I couldn't even correct him right away....I was trying to get my arms to stop tingling!

sweet deams y'all

I spent yesterday cleaning. UUGGHHHHH Missy & Joel are coming up from Maryland on Thursday for the weekend and some deer hunting. Since I did absolutley nothing last week, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I moved the big house plants to their December home, so the Christmas tree can be set up in the bay window, got out a few decorations while I was moving the plants around. Can't wait to decorate the tree, my favorite part of Christmas.

CB: You should see how people dress at our church, it's anything and I mean anything goes. Some of the girls, if they were my daughters, they would NEVER go to church looking like street walkers, but Pastor says "he doesn't care what anyone wears as long as they are in church & hearing The Word."

INDY APP: It is difficult to find clothes for me also, a nice pair of black pants and a dressy sweater always fit any occasion, in fact, that is what I'll be wearing to our MOPH Christmas party this Saturday.

RICK: Hope you are feeling better.

ARK: I had a Quarter Horse whose's grand sire was Speck Deck, a son of Top Deck. LOL

Off to get my hair cut this morning. Good thing, I scared mself when I looked in the mirror this morning,  I have Tammy Faye Baker hair.     YIKES....

CB, we have Cowboy Church here and our program takes our live in kids…..I chaperone once a mo. Pastor Billy is great and many are right in the arena in prayer circles horseback. The singing is natural and heartfelt, reg hymns, not acid rock music……………After our service, the team roping starts. The kids LOVE it…….one of our 6 yr olds sang Jesus Loves Me one night. It was PRECIOUS. Pastor asked "who knows that song?"…………….

TRUDY, you made me laugh about your hair………I BET you don't have Tammy Baker "dressed for my own funeral" eye lashes………..my hair is always clean and always fits under a baseball hat when it has to. Real style there……………LMAO.

ARK, Faith is due mid Feb……………Yes, I have names ready for the headlines on delivery day.

MMMMMM..................chilly out there this A M.................back in with a good hot java,
5:30 A.

I love that brisk air.......spark medicine to move.........LOL Starting tomorrow night we are going back to night temps of 28-30F so Thursday I will prob move even faster............taking my vitas in good faith and giving Faith hers, too..........................

Everyone have a great day. God bless.

Hello?

Helllooooo!  

We ran to Galax to go to the dentist today, about 60 miles away. I kept telling Donnie to get home from work as quick as possible so we wouldn't be late....as usual. So he got home and we dashed off, on time for once. When we got there the receptionist said we were a little early....24 hours early. I had marked the calendar wrong. They only had one time slot open, so I told Donnie to get his teeth cleaned, I will wait. Six months.  

It was such a pretty day, much too nice to be going to the dentist. we got home before dark and I put up the horses while Donnie soaked Daisy's feet. She has a little white line going on. Donnie came out much wetter than Daisy, who thinks it is a stupid idea to stand with her foot in a bucket of liquid. He would put her foot into the bucket, Daisy would kick it over. They finally got their act together and all four feet soaked, along with Donnie.

Ivan, Areion and I are having our weekly lesson tomorrow instead of Thursday. It is supposed to rain on Thursday. I think it rains every Thursday. It's the law.

Today, I was going to embroider a pair of towels as a gift. I wanted to be sure the design had the right colors, so I did a sample. That went perfectly. Then, when I was ready to start the towel itself, all sorts of things went wrong. Just little nonsense. I just acquired a brand new Christmas hand towel. No big mistakes, but I wouldn't want to use it for a gift. So, tomorrow it's back to Kohls to get another towel. Maybe two.

Tomorrow, I'm going to get my outdoor candle lights put in place before the gound freezes this weekend. The last time I had them out two years ago, we got so much snow they were completely buried. You could just see the glow of the lights from under the snow.

I am here just had to get myself signed on ...... nothing exciting, just enjoying myself.

as it should be Carol....just enjoy life. We are so darn busy trying to get this new place set up we don't stop and smell the roses very often. We do get a ride in here and there tho, thank goodness. Today I spend doing laundry at the kids' house and hubby is off collecting his pallets which I think he probably has close to a thousand of the darn things.....but he tells me he can use them to build all kinds of things....so I'm keeping mouth shut in hopes he REALLY can do that!
We have to also get a few groceries in for the bad weather ahead...we already got hay and grain and dogfood now its food for us that we can eat with not too much of a fuss. We have a gas stove to cook on and heat with so am not too worried. We will fill up all the water tubs for the animals tho, JUST IN CASE.

So that's my excitement for the day ....laundry and groceries. Tomorrow I go for my injectios in my foot...yay to cortisone is all I have to say.

Ellen, I would have more than little mistakes....I am not a sewer at all....I admire you being able to do all the making of things...wishhe I could.
Well it has started here, one of the folks who got a doxie pup called me in a frantic .....her pup was constipated. She brought her over, I gave her fluids and oil both ends...and walah....she all better Now. They didn't have the money for a vet call...which I can understand...I miss my vet in Idaho if I need something, I could always make payments, but I don't have that here yet. She also changed her diet on my urging.

CAROL:
Taking any crafty classes this winter?  I hope the weather warmed up for you.  I saw that MN is really getting some cold weather now.

ELLEN:
I think yesterday was one of those days.  One of my friends would say that Mercury was in retrograde  .  Whatever.  It was just a mixed up kind of day.


It was so nice and warm today, no wind and no rain.  Our lesson went really well.  I had a short lesson on Ivan, then Lori did Areion's lesson, then we rode the two horses together for the first time!  Areion and Ivan were so good, no drama anywhere.     We rode them in the arena, then went out into the barn lot pasture and rode all over it.  This was Areion's first ride out of the arena and she only eyed the compost pile she sees every day, but didn't spook at anything. Lori is good at making Areion move on when she starts looking intensely at something.   Ivan did great!  I almost need to be twins so I can ride both of them at once.  

I took some pix with my iPod, but it is somewhat hard to take good photos of two horses when you are on one of them.  

 First ride together

Ivan sticking tongue out at Areion  (Neener, neener, says Ivan)

 Spookette crossing between Ivan and Areion.  A three legged black cat may be worse luck than a regular black cat....

 Ivan in profile


They were both so good during the lessons.  It was lots of fun!

Ark, it's so nice that you are now enjoying both horses. Next summer is going to be a lot of fun for you.

I officially have one pair of hand towels done, and one big towel. They're all okay, but I have to learn to do a better job of choosing colors.

My outdoor candle lights are in place, along with the timer that turns them on and off automatically.   The ground isn't frozen - yet.

Good going ARK…………..both horses look really good.

CB, whew, I'll bet puppy mom was relieved.

Ugly cold rain here……….Faith is back in for the night…….blankie on, eating and eating good hay.

I assume it's ugly down at CAROL'S, also.

ELLEN, hope you got your towels straightened out………...

Oh, ELLEN. Looks like you got your towels going on a roll now……………..

yep, glad I'm where I'm at and not back in Idaho...their temps are dipping into the single digits at night and only in the teens and 20's days.....I'll take our lil cold spells here for a few days instead of months of yucky cold. Got my groceries, tubs are filled to the brim, extra tubs filled, everyone is getting ready for the STORM. Wal Mart was quite crowded today...everyone getting ready....some guy was stocking up on dogfood....his buddy asked him what he was doing, and he said well if his power goes out he always can eat a can of dogfood! OKAAAAY.....I'd rather have cold spaghettios myself, and I must have said it outloud cuz they were both looking at me and then they both took off and lo and behold when I got to the pasta isle there they were stocking up.....seems they have both eaten cold spaghetti before and liked it! I was chuckling as I walked away and left them to their spoils of "hey look at this kind" ....lol
The sick puppy is doing fine today ....thank goodness.....I had gotten a huge bag of IV fluids...4500 cc's...when I left ID.....good thing too. Doxies can't handle the high protein dog food...it really plays havoc on their systems....if they are fed this they need oil in their diets daily. They can get so bad, they will have seizures.....I always give a card with my puppies telling folks this, but....you don't have control once they go out my front door. But I made a believer out of this owner!
ARK, you are doing so great. Is Donnie going to ride with you now that you have two great riding horses? You will have a tough decision on which one to ride otherwise. They both sound like they are becoming great horses to enjoy.

Ol Man:update...I asked Jessi what she ran the mile and half in and she did it in 11 minutes and 36 seconds for her PT test last week. She is definitely way out of my league! LOL