NOVEMBER 2024

November 2024 !





Time changes this weekend.  May as well get ready for long winter's nights with a stack of good horsey movies.....

So which horsey movies do you like?  Here is one of my favorites:





"LadyHawke"

The picture of the guy and the horse leaning against the building is hysterically funny! Love that one. LOL

My all time favorite horse movie is "The Black Stallion". I know it's really old, but I still like it. Another oldie but goodie is "The Horse with the Flying Tail".
On Saturday mornings, "Fury" was the gotta watch.

That's Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou", 1965. He got an Academy Award for his role and upon accepting the statue said there was a horse that should have gotten half of it.

I'll have to try to find that movie. It looks like it could be funny.

ELLEN:
Cat Ballou is very funny. Lee Marvin plays two roles in it. Another funny western is "The Villain", 1979, that has Kirk Russell playing the title role and includes a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ann Margret. Kirk's character is Cactus Jack Slade, who we named our donkey after.

How old is Cactus Jack now? He must be getting up there. He's sure had a good life.

Cactus Jack turned 27 last July 24. We got him when he was 18 months old to replace our Great Pyrenees dog who had died that was our goat protector. Cactus did a good job protecting the goats from stray dogs and managed to outlive all our goats. His job now is keeping an eye on Trinket. He gets sweeter the older he gets.  While fat, his health is good, his teeth are good, no laminitis.  And he is a smart little donkey!    He gets the same care as the horses, including shots, farrier work and teeth floats.  And you had better hand over a treat to him if the horses get one!  





Zippy, Cactus and Trinket in 2006.  Trinket continues to tell Cactus what to do.

What a cute little trio!!!

Sophie and Monster both turned 21 this year and both are wanting more cuddles and scritches than they have in the past. Monster's favorite spot to be scratched is under his tail. The other morning I let him out of his stall after feeding him his breakfast and turned to let Tiberius out of his stall. When I turned back around I was eyeball to his butt. It was a bit startling that such a big horse can move that quickly and quietly. He definitely let me know he wanted scritches. Sophie on the other hand has been taking about two steps out of her stall and then quietly turning her head towards me and lowering it so I can scratch her forehead. She's getting a lot of white hairs around her muzzle. I don't dare mention it to her as she reminds me that my hair also has quite a few silver strands. I love the quiet time with the horses.

A whole lot of years ago, we had a young horse that LOVED to be scratched between his hind legs. He would walk up and very deliberately turn around and back up to you, waiting to be scratched. People who didn't know him thought he was lining up to kick. Nope. Just scratches.
I remember when your horses were young. Doesn't seem like it's been 21 years.

That is exactly what Monster does. It's one thing when you watch him come up to you and get in position, it's entirely another thing when you turn around and, WHOOP, there he is! I spent yesterday afternoon washing, conditioning, and combing Tiberius and Sophie's tails. They both have big, massive tails and they both had a little bit of diarrhea last week and their tails were a mess. They also managed to pick up some small twigs and pine needles. Fortunately, while it wasn't super warm out, it was warm enough to wash their tails with the hose. The tails were still fluffy this morning.

It would be a bit shocking to turn around to see a horse's butt right THERE. LOL
Fluffy tails would be nice.

I think we'll finish up most of the leaves today. I'll be glad to finish that up for another year.

We are finally getting rain!! It's been very dry since the hurricane. Our leaves are all off the trees....sadly. I guess winter is sneaking up on us. With our rain, it is 43 degrees. We had a fun time dodging rain and getting the barn cleaned up this morning. The horses stayed out in the rain in the grass as long as they could. Grass was more important than wet and cold. They're all happily munching in the barn right now as we warm up.

I remember when Tiberious was born, he is the same age as Areion. Time flies. They are going to be 16 in the spring....

The only one here who actively goes after butt scratches is Cactus. Luckily he is only 37 inches tall, so nothing is thrown into our face. Daisy really enjoys an udder scratch. She makes more smegma than all the other animals here, making her an itchy horse.

Donnie is on the path to getting his knee replaced. He got his dental checkup this week, has to take a 'joint' class to inform him of all the exercises and such he needs to do, and has an appointment to make an appointment for the surgery coming up. Mid January to early February is the latest estimate of the date, unless there is a cancellation. I am not looking forward to those first 2 weeks after the surgery, it was quite painful for him last time. I do look forward to when he has healed up and we can go on hikes and such again.

The Christmas noose is tightening (Graymare would know that reference). I don't know what I am going to get anyone.

We've been getting rain since very early this morning, and it has continued on and off most of the day.

Wow! Time does fly. Areion? 16?!?

I hope Donnie's knee surgery goes well and that he recovers really fast. I've heard knees can be painful for the first couple of weeks. Look up Bill Engvall's DVD, "Just Sell Him for Parts". He'll make you laugh through the hard parts.

I've had a tall skinny maple tree that has been dying for the last couple of years. My neighbor gave me the phone number of a guy he knows that does tree work. So, I called him. He came about 45 minutes later, looked at the tree from my deck (the best place to see it), gave me a price of $300 to just get it safely on the ground. He said he could do it today. So, he went home, got his equipment, came back and in about 45 minutes the whole tree was on the ground, and he was on his way home.
It was good to get it down. I knew it wasn't healthy and if it fell there was a possibility of it landing on my neighbors' house, my garage, or a couple of other new trees. There was no way to drop the whole tree. He climbed up and took it down piece by piece. A real professional.
When the ground is frozen, Travis and his dad will cut it up and haul it up to their barn where they have a wood stove. So, I got off pretty easy for getting it down.

Wow, 16? Are you sure? I thought he was going on 14, but then again I'm terrible at keeping track of how old anybody is, including myself. I guess that means that Monster and Sophie must be 23. Well good for them. I guess Sophie deserves those white hairs on her muzzle..

This will be the first Christmas in 4 years that Dan is not in a hospital. That's something for us to be grateful for. I told the kiddos that they have to give me good hints as to what they want from Aunt Deb for Christmas otherwise their going to get socks.

Good for you ELLEN getting your tree down on your terms. Now hopefully you don't have a HOA that will have a fit for having a tree down in the yard until the ground freezes.

Have a great weekend everyone!

NO HOA!!! From everything I've heard about HOAs, I would never own a house in one of those. There is a property owners association, but belonging is optional. It also does not have any authority at all over individual homes.

The guy managed to put the pieces of the tree in a fairly small space, so it doesn't look too bad. It's at the bottom of the hill, so not seen from the road. The only people who would see it would be somebody in a boat and this time of year, there are very few of those left in the water.
I think the guy got another job while he was here. I had called my neighbor to let them know why they were hearing a chainsaw outside their house. They have a huge cottonwood that needs to come down and wanted to talk to the guy about hiring him to take that down. It hangs out over the water, so they'll probably wait until there is ice on the lake so the tree trash falls on the ice, making it a lot easier to clean up. It's going to be a BIG project.

WOW!!!! What a SUNDAY! Tuesday I will hit the big 8-0. To my surprise, 22 cousins and 3 neighbors met at a local Italian restaurant to celebrate! Based on past family history of celebrating milestone birthdays, I wasn't totally shocked, but certainly pleasantly surprised.
I have the best family and the best neighbors anybody could ever have.
The cousins drove 2 1/2 hours one way to get here, and they are now on their way home.
One neighbor couple drove me to the place under the pretext of taking me for a birthday dinner. When we walked to the area where we were to be seated, there was the whole crowd.

I am a very grateful person today.

ELLEN:
Wow! What a nice surprise! And happy pre-birthday!!! You are the second person I know who has turned 80 in the last little while. You really do have nice neighbors and family.

Getting rid of dead trees is a big problem. We had three removed not long ago and it cost about $1000, so I guess they weren't too far off from your guy. The power company came thru the summer before last and poisoned a tree in our yard, killed it, and then never bothered to come back and remove it. So now we have to figure out how to get rid of a tree that not only will hit the power lines when it falls, but probably our garage as well.


INDYAPP:
I am so glad Dan will be at home for Christmas! That must mean he is getting healthier!

Areion was born in April 2009, and I was thinking Tiberious was born the same year.


My new riding partner that I rode with several times last winter had terrible news. Her horse, Rocket, had to be put down due to heart failure. It is very sad, Rocket was such a sweet horse and Ivan got along with him really well. My regular riding partner has basically given up riding, so I am now without a partner. I don't think Rocket's owner is going to get another horse. Rocket was 20 years old. Ivan is 20 years old. I hugged him extra hard today.

Happy Birthday ELLEN

I came home from work one day last week to see little orange utility flags in my yard??? Turned out to be marking telephone line. I figured it was just the telephone company finally getting around to marking lines from the order for when my well was dug a month ago. Better late than never I thought. Then Saturday morning while I was out working in the barn I saw a truck for the company that does the marking park in the driveway? I went out to ask what was going on and was told they had an order to mark for gas lines as Nipsco was retiring my gas line. Wait. What!!! Come to find out when I had the house built 20 years ago on the existing basement a new plastic gas line was installed but the old steel line was not removed. Nipsco has decided it is now time to remove the old line. Evidently when the gas line was marked for the well, Nipsco discovered the old line and decided it was time to finish the old job.

NIPSCO is not known for being prompt.  They came and put in a new pole by my house... THREE and A HALF years ago.  They left the old pole there.  So, I have the new pole and the old ugly one and so far, I haven't been able to find out who owns the old pole to remove it.  Believe me, I have tried.

Well, friends, I am now a racehorse owner!  Sort of.  My cousins gave me a very nice gift card for "My Racehorse".  It is an organization where they set it up so ordinary people can purchase shares in a racehorse.  I'm probably one of 300 or 400 people in the syndicate.  I lay claim to the bottom 3 inches of their tails.
They are 21 and 22 months old, so they aren't named yet.  One is in training with Steve Asmussen, the other with D. Wayne Lucas.  
This is gonna be fun to see how they do.

A few hours later:
Neighbors took me to dinner at the hotel this evening. Beef manhattan made with their leftover prime rib, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Oh, YUM! There is plenty left for one or two more meals.

I guess this is going to be a birthday week instead of a birthday day. LOL

Good Morning,

Happy Belated Birthday Ellen. I hope that the day was everything that you wanted. We all hate the next number of these birthdays but the alternative is not great, lol.

I'm behind as usual. This a.m. I have a doctors appointment, for a consult only, as my iron level is quite low and my Rheumatologist ordered iron infusions but I have to have an Internest order it here. I have been waiting since Sept to hear back from Dr. Prabhu's office. Finally called them and they couldn't find a rec for me from either my doc or the specialist. I got a call the next day as my doc contacted them that same day. She sent all the info in Sept but it didn't get to them.

All is good here in Yarmouth. Waiting for a lot of rain to happen, hasn't so far this fall and it is scary. Lots of dry wells and we are getting not winter soon. SO far I have water but hold my breath!

I'll try to get back in here when I come home. Can't dilly dally this morning on here.

Donna

Hi Donna. It's always good to see you here.

We have a dusting of white stuff all over everything here this morning. It isn't supposed to last too long, but it's proof that winter hasn't forgotten what to do.

My Christmas shopping is almost done! I think this is the earliest I've ever had this much done so soon. Plenty of time left to get the few remaining things. Thank you, Amazon.

Snowing here. Probably won't amount to much, but it's coming down hard right now. Pretty. Now go away.

DONNA:
Good to see you! You are right, those numbers with zeros after them are kind of hard to admit to. Sixty didn't bother me, but having turned 70 this year, it kind of floored me! The alternative isn't good, though..... And I am amazed that several of my contemporary friends have turned 80! I used to think that was old, LOL. Not anymore.


ELLEN:
Wow! Your birthday week keeps getting better! A racehorse! What a great gift, no one would see that one coming, LOL. Let us know when it gets a name and if it gets into any races. You realize your part of the horse will cross the finish line last. I think I would rather have the nose whiskers.

INDYAPP:
Wonder why they think they need to remove the old line? It doesn't sound like it is hurting anything to leave it. I hope they don't make a big mess in your yard.

Donnie's knee surgery is now scheduled for February 11. I look forward to his new and improved, painless knee, but sure don't look forward to the weeks after his surgery. He is having a total knee replacement. The doctor said it was way past time to do it. Hopefully it will straighten his leg back to normal, he walks like an old bowlegged cowboy.

Good Morning,

Well I saw Dr. Prabhu and had a going over by him and his resident. I left with a req for blood infusion which I brought right over to Ambulatory care. The other things I left with were information sheets for colonoscopy and gastroscope. That same morning I had a call from day surgery to set up the dates for these two procedures. Colonoscopy on Dec. 6th! Gastro in January. Long over due for the colonoscopy so we will see if I have polyps.

My cleaner comes on Friday a.m. and she comes earlier these days so it's a rush to get showered, wash my hair and get out of the bathroom before she arrives, lol. My house isn't dirty by any means but she dusts, vacuums, washes the floors and does whatever I ask for into hours. Today I'm getting her to help me put my tires back in the shed as had the winter ones put on yesterday. Supposed to rain for the next four days, we will see!

Ellen, can't wait to hear about your adventure with this racehorse. Two inches of the tail will be telling as that's the last thing to get over the finish line, rofl.

Have to go, Later all

Donna