JANUARY 2021

Hello 2021!!

Yes. Happy new year and peace and good health to all..............

Ark, the pictures are great! The last one might not be exactly pretty but certainly expresses the thoughts of most of us.


Today has not exactly been a sparkling start to a new year. It has been gloomy and wet ALL day. Rain. Freezing rain. Snow. Freezing rain. Sleet. Frozen and slick everywhere. I got a lot of knitting done.
Indy, how much snow do you have? We don't have anything but slick on the ground.

Ark, has CB shown up on Facebook?

Happy New Year friends! I hope that you are all well and happy. These days are so challenging and I keep you in my prayers. Jim and I are well and have been relatively untouched by covid and feel fortunate. Of course we are affected in restrictions and activities and plans curtailed, but small potatoes in the big picture. I am so fortunate to be able to ride the trails still. We take precautions at the barn. I haven’t read back yet to check your posts but am hoping all is well

ELLEN:
 I saw CB post a New Year's greeting, so I guess she is okay.  

NANCY LEE:
 So good to see you are out there riding trails!!!  Tell us about your new horse!  


I got in a small ride in the arena on Ivan on Jan. 2nd.  No New Year's Day ride here, it rained all day and was in the 30s.  I am a weather chicken.   Ivan manages to roll in the mud at least once a day.  Brushing just doesn't get the grime off and it has been too cold to think about bathing him.  He thinks he will die when he gets a bath anyway.    
 He was really good during our ride.  We used his hackamore and he seems very sensitive to cues with it compared to his snaffle bit.  I may start using it more often.   The only issue with it is he snorts more with it on than with the snaffle, I guess it presses his nose or something.   Anyway, here is a photo of him on Saturday with his new (and definitely not improved) coloring due to mud stains.  

Hi Ark!
Iván looks good !  Just yellow
Well, until a couple of weeks ago I was part boarding for about two years with a woman I met 30ish years ago when I boarded Omega around the corner from her place. She has become a good friend and now needs to semi-retire the horse I have been riding.  I figured that if I wanted input to the horse I would be riding I would offer to buy one that we would share.   So she will be using my horse for a couple lessons per week and I will use him about 3 times.  Dusty is an 8 year old QH, red dun, and a good boy. He is a favourite at the barn. There are a couple of little things to iron out but he loves the trails which is all I am interested in.  

I really did not think I would ever own another horse at this stage, but here we are.  I am thrilled with him

Happy New Year Everyone!

NANCY LEE your boy is beautiful!

ARK Ivan looks wonderful, stains and all. He looks very relaxed and as long as you both are enjoying yourselves, a little dirt never hurt anyone.

ELLEN we didn't get much snow, but ice, that's another story. Lots of people lost power on Friday. Many still do not have it. I'm fortunate that I have not lost power YET. I say yet because I have this big limb hanging from the power line. The limb is a good 4 inches at the base and at least 30 feet long. I've called it in to the power company but they're not going to do anything about it until they get what is already broken fixed. It's a waiting game to see who wins. Gravity or the power company. I've a number of other big limbs that have come down, some on the fence for one of the horses's fields. Fortunately I can block the horses off from that field so I don't have to fix fence immediately. Probably won't get fixed until spring when the weather is nicer. I figure it could be worse. Something could have come down on my brand new fence. That would have made me cry.

Stay safe everyone.

Great pictures to look at ARK & NANCY.............I'm happy for both of you.

We had a really sad thing in our horse world out here..........one of our prominent shoers
committed suicide this week end. He wasn't my shoer but "in the gang". I remember him as handsome,
funny, helpful to almost a fault, very skilled as a shoer and in most of the prominent barns,
a great reining trainer, an all around fine man. I can't think, no matter how hard I try, why.
Just another sign of how stressful our society is...........and proof that we can never really know
about what goes on in another's mind.

I hope everyone is fine here.................

IndyApp, thank you! I think he’s pretty neat.
Good luck with the fence. We have had a lot of ice here too and the footing was treacherous for a time but getting better with snow sticking to it now.
Graymare-thank you!
That is very sad about the farrier. We never do know what is in anyone’s mind and what they are going through that they aren’t sharing. I try to remember that although it is easy to assume everything is fine with others It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own lives and challenges. I know I do.
It’s good to be chatting again with you all

Graymare, I'm so sorry to hear about your shoer friend. I can only imagine how bad things must seem for a person to choose to end it that way.

Nancy Lee, I'm always glad to see you visiting here. Please stay and tell us about your rides.

Indy, I sure hope the power company can get to your dangerous limb SOON. Do you have NIPSCO? Over the last few years, they've done a better job of restoring power more quickly than they used to. We don't lose power quite as often either.
In our neighborhood there is a transformer that seems to blow a fuse now and then. I've been amazed that they have sent out a truck within about 30 minutes and get it fixed right away.

Ark, dirty horses are still fun to ride. It takes a lot of effort, but my dad used to be able to use a round rubber curry comb and get them almost as clean as with a bath.

Thank you Ellen. We do pretty well for riding here. Hills and forest. Not mountainous but nice territory

Ark, just curious, have you tried any of the waterless shampoos like Cowboy Magic or something?

GRAYMARE:
I am so sorry about your farrier friend... Depression can hit some people really hard....It is so sad.

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ELLEN:
I really don't mind Ivan being dirty at home, but would be fairly mortified to have him in public! Donnie used to say I would clean Arkady up before cleaning the house when we had people coming over.. I think I have an old rubber curry comb somewhere. I will try to find it.

NANCY LEE:
I have tried spot cleaning with Cowboy Magic a time or two. Doing an entire horse would be an expensive bath . Tomorrow I have to take Areion and Daisy to Virginia Tech for farrier work and Areion is about as dirty as Ivan....sigh....I am preparing to be mortified....It is too cool to give her a bath. I have some Cowboy Magic, I may try to get rid of the worst of her messy stains.

Your new horse is so pretty!! I am so happy to see you riding! It must make you happy to be out there on a trail ride, it sure does me.

Yes Ark, I have been riding Helen’s horses but it is wonderful having my own horse who is my type and I enjoy his personality which makes it special. I am fortunate

Well I got to bring my brother home from the hospital today! Yeah! He has a really bad haircut from where they had to shave the back of his head / neck for the surgery, but it will grow back. He's in this stiff collar so he can't move his head but he's healing. For this I am very thankful. His dogs were so happy to see him but at the same time they were very careful around him too. They seem to know that he is fragile right now.

ELLEn, I have I & M power. They are usually pretty prompt getting things fixed. I'm not going to rush them as long as I have power because there are still a few around here that do not have it at all. We are to have pretty mild weather for the rest of the week so hopefully it will all work out.

INDYAPP:
 Hurray, your brother is home!!  I hope he feels much better very soon.  His dogs probably are sympathizing with him because of that collar.....



(Just kidding INDYAPP's brother!!)


We just got back from taking Areion and Daisy to have their feet trimmed at Virginia Tech. They acted good, even got on the weight scale. And how much weight have they lost in 7 weeks, you ask?? Daisy lost 25 pounds, which is good. Areion, whose every bite I have monitored, weighed, and worried over...lost 7 pounds. Seven itty bitty teeny weenie pounds. Her manure piles weigh more than that. So she is now in Daisy's luxury stall where she can't steal hay from Ivan, nibble on nearly invisible grass in the barn area, and hopefully will be getting more exercise. She has to lose weight.

YAY INDY, your brother is finally home.............I hope pain management is helping
or, working.........It sounds as if he has awhile to go but at least he's home............
Being home is medicine in itself..........

Indy, I do hope your brother does well and will feel much better fast.
Dogs do seem to have an understanding of things like that.
About 9 or 10 years ago, I was babysitting with Casey, the Maltese. I took her with me to see a friend's newborn baby. I went prepared to not take the dog in the house, but the mother told me it was okay for her to be inside. I was holding the baby, and Casey was as curious as could be. Normally, she would have been bouncing and licking everybody in sight. But, without me doing or saying anything to her, she was extremely respectful and only reached out with her nose to gently get a smell of the baby. Then she backed off and kept a distance.

Why is it that undecorating the Christmas tree isn't nearly as much fun as putting it up? I have decided that I will donate this tree and get a new one next year - a smaller one. So, I'm pulling off all the lights which takes a lot longer. At this point, it looks like a tree explosion in my living room. Hopefully, tomorrow will see the mess all cleaned up.

I LOVE the Cone of Shame cartoon. I expect that is exactly how he feels. He got to sleep in his own arm chair, welcomed home by the pups and the grandkids came over. The best homecoming he could ask for.

Bill and I went out for dinner for the first time in a year last night. We went to Texas Roadhouse and determined that the only real difference post CoVid from PreCovid is that everyone was sitting in their cars waiting for a text to come in and eat instead of being jammed into the foyer. Bill and I thought it was a great system. We called in that we were coming, by the time we got there we only had to wait like 5 minutes in the car. It looked like all the tables had the plexiglass shields so all the tables were full. Just goes to show that we adapt and life does go on.

This is not the United States that I know...................I can't believe what is going on..................

I am praying for unity.

I'm praying for the same thing, NANCY.

We should be hearing from ROSE soon regarding her new horse.................

We need Rose to show us her new horse. There has to be some good news somewhere.