November 2017

Packed, rolling, blowout...wheeeeeeee. waiting on roadside service.....ahhhhhh well.

Such is our life....go with the punches.

CB, what a nuisance! Was the blowout on the truck or trailer? I hope you don't have to wait too long for the service truck.

ELLEN, I did see young Chase take Denny out and you're so right, Denny deserved it, big time!

CB, you two live exciting lives, too much for me. Be careful and I hope all is well now.

3 hour wait....made dinner, walked the dogs, watered the horses, napped....lol
Blew on horsetrailer thankfully. At tire store now, got new tire...and then onward we will go...

CB, I hope you are back in Texas, safe, and hugging your granddaughter.

The weed eater/leaf guy and his son came this morning and blue leaves down the hill, and others up beside the street. I tried to burn the ones up top, but they were too wet and only smoked, so I gave up on that. He's coming back tomorrow to load them up and take them to his place. It's more work for him, but easier for me. The leaves were so late to fall this year and they all fell at once. HUGE piles of leaves. Getting the ones from the bottom of the hill up to the street is going to be a major work day.

We stopped near deming n.m. last night. Cute lit cabannas out from the main rest area. Got horses out for exercise, tied to trailer, fixed dinner, showered, then put them back in trailer gor the night so we could sleep good. They are really good travelers, patient, calm, eat and dtink fine.

We left the rest area at 3 am, went to bed at 7, beat rush hour traffic thru el paso. Possible we will get in tonight, or may stay over ine mor night.

Did you get there, CB?

CB:
Wow. Flat tires on a horse trailer are scary. Hope you have made it to your destination okay. You have nice horses.

ELLEN:
It has been kind of dreary here. I don't think I am prepared for winter, I want warmer weather. Did you get your leaves up?

It has been medical month. I think I am done. i had my yearly checkup today and a mammogram. Last week a colonoscopy and a week or so earlier, I got my dental appointment done. I am finished. Thank goodness. sheesh.

I rode both Ivan and Areion on Tuesday during a lesson with Lori. It went really well. Despite how chilly it was, both horses were calm and agreeable. If the weather holds, we are taking them to the New River Trail on Friday. I will probably ride Areion at least half the time if she is as good as she has been lately. We need to do some trotting to start getting both horses back in shape.

Donnie has been enjoying his new truck. It was making a funny sound the day we brought it home. We looked under the hood and found a big mouse nest in the air intake. It runs just fine now since the mouse nest was removed. I drove it today for the first time and it is just like the former truck.

Busy busy busy here in PA. Sunday was our Veterans Day service at church. Beautiful. The church really honors the Veterans. They honored a mom & dad whose son committed suicide after returning home from Afghanistan. So sad. He had severe PTSD and TBI. Such a shame.
Back to the church to tear down the Veteran display we set up for Trunk or Treat & Veterans Day.

Monday Bonanza had a free Veterans buffet and the had a ceremony for Karen & Rick Long the Gold Star parents. Honor Guard by the ROTC and a 21 gun salute by the Legion in the morning, they did the folding of the flag and in the evening they presented the flag to the Gold Star family. Very touching ceremony. It was so crowded. Over 1,000 people went thru the buffet. Abut 100 were here for the flag presentation. Quite a few people came from the church for the service. 6 of our Purple Heart Chapter members attended.

Tuesday I had Bible study that I almost forgot about. Thank goodness Dee called & reminded me. And the water treatment guy showed up and installed the new system. Hooray. soft water again.

Today I'm off to get my mammogram. OUCH...Don't forget to get yours, very important...then off to visit a few people in the nursing home that are on my visitation schedule & a stop at the grocery store.

Tomorrow a day of stay at home and rest up for the big Thanksgiving week.

Love & prayers for all...

Yesterday, there was a cut in a fiber optic line and I didn't have internet all day. I was glad to have my phone.
Leaves are done for the year. Weed eater/leaf guy and his son hauled them away, in a surprisingly short time. I will do that again next year. Two guys with big blowers can move a lot of leaves in a hurry.

Well today was a fun day!  Lori and I took Ivan and Areion to the New River Trail and did an 8 mile ride.  Both horses started out VERY fresh, but a couple of miles in and they were old cow ponies.   Ivan was such a pleasure to ride after he settled in, he got down to business and never spooked or acted up.  We had one dog rush us, but didn't get close,  saw three deer and a ton of squirrels.  Chase the dog had a great time trying to catch the squirrels and later found  what looked like part of a deer spine with some meat left on it.  He carried that stinky thing for 2 miles,  eating on it, then running ahead of us, then chowing down again.   We switched horses the last mile or so of the ride and I rode Areion, who by that time was pleasantly tired.   She didn't give me any problems at all.  All in all, a very nice afternoon!

 Riding Ivan

 Riding Areion

Ark, it looks like such a nice place to ride, with two good horses to do it with. It's probably a good thing you went yesterday. It's raining here today and seems to have set in for the day. No wind. Just rain. And more rain. And more rain.

Trudy, how is the new AC/heating unit doing with the heat?

Glad you're still in riding weather ARK............I'm sure it was fun.

Our weather here is good, too. Actually, it's still too hot. It's still in the 80's during
the day.

I had an odd day Thursday afternoon. A guy showed up from nowhere and wanted to
buy Eli. He was cocky and in the roping crowd and knew horses. He made me an offer and I said "no". He said I should rethink his offer and gave me his phone #.
I said "no". He doesn't understand the word, I guess.

That's all the news here.

A long time ago, a friend used to ask her daughter, "was it the 'n' or the 'o' you didn't understand". Cocky does not make a good impression on me. It was good that he recognized a good horse when he saw one, but he needs to learn some manners.

Rose, were you watching that Xfinity race?!  Wow!  There was some good racing between Byron and Sadler.  Jr. sure has a good team put together with his drivers finishing the season in the top three spots, and one of them winning the championship. Byron was worn out at the end of the race.
At 19, William Byron has a great career ahead of him.
I do feel sorry for Sadler. He gave it all he had.

Well. That was entertaining. I'd made bread dough and it was just ready to go in the oven when the electricity went out. It's been a wet windy day ALL day and evening. To my very great surprise and pleasure, the power company truck was here in about half an hour, and had the power back on in about an hour. I always feel so sorry for the linemen that have to get out in weather like this to keep the rest of us comfortable.
I am very thankful I decided to put in a gas fireplace when I did the remodel. I turned it on right away and the house stayed warm enough.
I put the bread in the refrigerator when the power went out, hoping I could save it. It is now in the oven and the end of this minor saga will happen in about 40 minutes.

ELLEN:
Homemade bread...yum! How did it turn out? Your rain is supposed to start here in about 4 hours. It's just now 8 pm. Looks like a big storm system. We had cloudy day for the most part, but no rain yet. Donnie got Zippy's feet trimmed. Two horses down, three more to go. He did Areion yesterday morning. Cactus was done not long ago.

GRAYMARE:
I don't know. I think I would be nervous about that guy and put locks on my gates. I am probably just paranoid, but cocky doesn't go over well with me either. And no means no.

When I was 17 years old and had my first horse, Sandy, we kept her for awhile at a nice boarding stable not too far from a TB racetrack in Northern KY. Sandy was a cute chestnut, 13.2 hand mare, probably with some Arab in her. When the race track was in session and couldn't house all the horses, our stable would sometime board the excess temporarily. So occasionally some nefarious characters would be around.
One time I was riding Sandy and a guy said he would like to race my horse against his TB, winner take the loser's horse. He wanted my mare to be used to lead young horses on the track. Uh-huh. I was young and probably seemed silly, but even I knew my little mare wasn't going to do well against a race horse. He wasn't happy when I said no. I told him I couldn't afford two horses. Creep. He wanted to steal a kid's horse.


I need to figure out what kind of saddle to get for Areion. I have one good saddle, a Thorogood, that fits her and Ivan and need another. Two horses need two saddles. Lori's saddle doesn't fit her anymore, it is pretty small, so Ivan has to use it and I am mostly riding in that one. I don't like it much. I want an English style saddle that doesn't have too wide of a twist, in the hopes that my hip problem will be helped some. I also want one that doesn't make my legs go forward, but more straight down. My not as good saddle, made by Whippy Co., puts me in a chair seat position, which is fine for slow riding, but not for a lot of posting. I do a lot of posting. And the saddle has to fit Areion. This isn't much to ask, is it?

Ark, the bread didn't rise as much as it should have under ideal conditions, but it tastes okay. It's more dense. I took it out of the refrigerator and put it in the oven as soon as it came up to temperature. It might have done better if I'd let it warm up and rise a little more before putting it in to bake.

It's good to have a good saddle. I have a 35 year old Prix du Sault, close contact. 17 inch. It is pretty close to the Prix de Nation saddle. It needs a new home. So far, I haven't even been able to give it away. Nobody is interested enough to even look at it. There is no damage, no scratches, tree is good. It comes with two girths, one new and one that needs some stitching. Leathers, and weighted fillis style stirrups. Interested?

Be prepared to be indoors tomorrow. It isn't raining at the moment but it has rained allll day.

Thanks, ELLEN,
But I hope to get a deeper seat saddle, more for endurance type of riding and probably synthetic. Your saddle sounds very nice, but I guess I will have to pass. It is hard to sell saddles. Connecting with that person who needs just your type of saddle isn't easy.
I have a Whippy endurance saddle that was probably made in the 80s that I really love, but the stirrups don't hang like I want. I wish there was a way to change that instead of having to look for another saddle.

The rain has arrived at 11:30 Sat night. It is raining pretty hard. We need some rain, the river looked low yesterday.

ELLEN: The A/C heating units are working really well. Our furnace hardly runs and our electric bill went down. I was keeping a close eye on that since we have the units running all the time. Seems it is cheaper to heat than to cool. Of course, the furnace is offsetting the heat also. We are loving those units. Come spring we are going to put one more in for the big bedroom (my ironing room) & the enclosed patio, we have propane heaters on the patio so might as well have A/C. At least your bread wasn't totally ruined.

ARK: I always rode in Bob Marshall saddles. I'll email you a web site to check out. The saddles would fit all of my horses. Cedar the horse that had back issues never had a problem with the Bob Marshall saddles. Couldn't ride him with my Circle Y or Double R saddle, they pinched him.

GRAYMARE: I also had a guy who tried to buy my Maxx horse at a show. When I turned down his cash offer, he offered me any of the horses he had with him. I said "if I wouldn't take your money, why would I trade my winning horse for any of your losing horses, do I look crazy?" Everyone laughed but him, he stomped away in a huff.

Does anyone have Dish? I've been watching Ride TV channel 248 here in PA. They have a series called "This old horse". It is so cool I saw a show on one of my favorite horses as a kid. Mr. Ed. I loved that talking horse. Did you know he was put down because of laminitis? So sad to lose him and Secretariat that way. They also have a series "Cowgirls", those crazy girl ride bucking horses. What are they thinking?

It's been raining here since 9 AM yesterday. YUCK...and the wind is howling.

Ark, years and years ago, I had a Stubben Sigfried. That was a REALLY comfortable saddle for me. I traded it after riding a close contact and realized how far my legs seemed to be from the horse. It had a little bit deeper seat and was narrow between my thighs.

Today is still gloomy, but isn't raining and isn't windy. That's an improvement.

Yes, there is still a Beech!

ARK - I've got a 17-inch synthetic Aussie saddle with no horn that I'd like to get rid of. Would that be of any interest? It's clean and barely used. And I still have the $720 price tag, so it was no cheapy (how did I ever manage paying that???) but I would gladly give it to you for all the work you do here.

Doggonit, the weather person(s) all said that today would be rainy, all day, and wouldn't you know it, the sun is shining and it's breezy and glorious out there. I say doggonit because I was looking forward to feeling no guilt for not getting the last of my two cords of wood into the wood shed. Sigh...

I've been following all the doings here. Awfully glad, GM, that you've bested the stroke, because I still want to be like you when I grow up. And so many other adventures...

None very outstanding here. We did have a bad windstorm here that knocked out power to 500,000 Mainers. I was lucky in losing mine for only a day-and-a- half, but friends in town -- and not far away, either -- lost it for five days. Some freezers had to be completely emptied -- though lots of folks here, maybe even the majority, have generators. I've resisted so far but am starting to rethink that option because we're likely to have more such storms.

Woodpile, woodpile, woodpile...

Hi, Beech! Good to see you.
About the generator, I have to admit to feeling a bit envious when the power went out last evening and the neighbors' generator automatically kicked on.
Did you get the woodpile moved?

Happy birthdaY, ellen!

Had thanksgiving dsy today cuz kyle could come and brought a battle buddy with. Nice weekend, good food!

Beech, glad u r posting, you yoo tose. Anyone hear from indy?

Thank you, CB. I'm glad Kyle could be there with you. I'll bet his buddy was ready for some good food too.

Rose, what did you think of that finish? I was glad to see Truex get it. It was neat that the Championship was won by the race winner.
I would have liked to see Kyle Larson get in front of Busch, but Larson is a classy guy and wouldn't have done anything to wreck him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELLEN and many more.