June 2014 in Downtown Foopville

A COOL, and COLORFUL, tasty idea...

Hi folks. I just got caught up reading and I'm so tired I don't even remember what I read. I'll gave to go back and reread after I've been able to catch up on my sleep. Starting last Wednesday I was at at conference in Chicago and the organizers keep you on a pretty tight schedule both for the educational sessions and the social ones. Chicago is on Central Time and I'm on Eastern so that contributed to my exhaustion. The keep me up way past my bedtime. One night was a dinner cruise with fireworks afterwards. It was beautiful watching the fireworks from the water off Navy Pier.

However, while I was gone a big storm blew through and half of a 50+ year old tree fell across my driveway. So first thing on Saturday morning's agenda was getting it cut up enough to clear the drive for vehicles to get in. I didn't really mind driving through the lawn with my car to get around the tree, but there was no way the truck and trailer with 250 bales of hay that was scheduled to come first thing Sunday morning was going to be able to get around it. I had to have the tree cleared by noon because my company was having a client appreciation picnic in the afternoon for 150 or so people that I had to help finish setting up for and help at.

Sunday the hay came at noon, he was suppose to be there at 10:00. I've decided to add the Hay Guy to my list of those who are always late. Farrier and Vet are two others that appear on that list frequently. By the time we got the hay unloaded all I wanted was a shower and a nap. I got the shower but didn't have time to take a nap.

This morning it is raining like crazy. The weather guy said a chance of showers late in the afternoon. It's 9:30 a.m. I guess he missed that forecast, huh?

Wow, Indy! What a crazy time for you. As for the rain, it just barely missed us this morning. It went far enough north that we didn't get any this morning. But that's okay. We've had plenty lately.

It's noisy around here this morning. Neighbors are having two trees taken down, and the bug guy is here to prevent creepy crawlies from invading. His compressor is noisy, but it does a great job of keeping the spiders and ants under control.

Holy cow INDY, I wouldn't be tired, I'd be dead.  Is your new garage in process or is it finished?
We had our really big trees trimmed way down last year to insure they would';t fall on the house in a huge storm………….we get really horrible winds in our monsoon season.

ELLEN, I don't blame your neighbors for getting trees down if they're risky for house damage in your bad storms……………

Have a great day everyone…………….

Indiana has been struck with emerald ash bore, and LOTS of ash trees have been killed. I lost one REALLY BIG tree, and the neighbors have lost two. I was hoping to take them down last winter when there was ice on lake so we could just drop the tree on the ice, but everybody was busy then.
I also have two maple trees that I think maybe I killed while I was trying to kill the ivy growing on them. I didn't think the weed spray would kill the trees. Oops.
So, as a result of my stupidity, Travis will have lots of wood to heat his barn for football games next winter. He has a big pole barn and has one part of it set up with a TV, a sofa, and a few chairs where he and his buddies can be as loud as they want when they root for their teams.
Of course, it started raining again today, so the guys next door only got one tree down, and parts of the second one. Gee. I can't understand why he wouldn't want to be 80 feet up in a dead tree with possible lightning around.   

INDYAPP
It's always something, isn't it??   No rest for the wicked. You must be fairly wicked!   I hope you get some decent rest soon.

We could use some of your rain. We are dry as a bone. Thunderstorms keep going around us and missing us. That was nice while we were making hay, not so good now.

ELLEN
Sorry about your trees. I don't think we have any ash trees, but a tree in our yard has suddenly died this month. I have no idea why it has died, but it is disturbing.

Pretty evening here. The animals were all safely snug in their beds and we were getting ready to watch a little t.v. at just about dark.

So I was thinking about our lack of rain just after posting here this evening when I heard a loud bang.  I thought it was thunder or a lightning strike, so I opened up the kitchen door which faces the road to see if there were clouds building.  Instead I saw a red truck crossing our yard from the road in an impossible direction!  The red truck came from the house on the hill across the road.  The woman driving ran out of her driveway, hit a tree, crossed the road and flew thru the bushes on our side of the road into our yard.  I screamed to Donnie that there was a truck crashing into our yard just as she crashed into our poor truck....who was minding its business in our driveway.   Her truck pushed ours about five feet sideways, but didn't hit the horse trailer or our car two feet away from  our truck.   If the truck hadn't been parked there, she would have continued across our yard and run into the peacock's house.

Donnie ran out to see about the driver as I called 911.  The woman was trapped in the truck since the entire side of it had been crushed by the tree she hit.  She has some broken ribs and possibly a broken leg.  The door couldn't be opened so the rescue squad and fire department had to cut it away to get her out.  We had an ambulance, two fire trucks, lots of cops and crash trucks, besides an abundance of neighbors all in our yard.  It took over an hour to resolve the situation.  The woman was hauled off to the hospital.  

Our truck has substantial damage and my horse trailer will be sitting in our driveway for a few weeks, no trail rides for me for awhile.  Donnie thinks the truck can be repaired, but the woman's truck is totaled.  It is so lucky she didn't hit the horse trailer, it would never have survived such a whack and it is so old now, our insurance would never replace it with the same type of trailer.  We don't know what the woman's insurance is like yet.  Hopefully they will let us have a rental car so that Annie and I won't be stuck at home all the time for the next few weeks.

And we thought we'd just have a normal evening.....

ARK………..holy cow.  That looks like a movie scene. Your nerves must be shot!  The obvious question to me is,  what in the world happened?  Your poor truck.  So glad this didn't involve you guys or your animals……………..and glad the driver will seemingly be O K.  What a mess………….hope you get a rental car PDQ.  Prayers for all.

We're all curious as to the driver's story.

Whew! Talk about excitement, Ark! Like Graymare said, we'll be interested to hear what happened.
Maybe they can get your truck fixed quickly, and that the loaner will be a truck - with a hitch.

As for the rain, we've sure had more than our share this summer. It has rained on and off for days, and is still going. I think it's going to rain most of the day today. After a very long, very cold winter I was hoping for a warm sunny summer.
No tree cutting today for my neighbors.

We don't know what her problem was. The cop seemed to think she had
had an argument with the neighbor boyfriend. Whatever it was,
she lost control of her truck at the beginning of his driveway, ran
thru a bush up at the house, got back on the driveway, but lost
control and ended up back in their yard again before careening down
the hill. She hit a good sized tree and knocked all the bark off of
it on one side. That tree will die. Then she crossed the road as two
cars were passing and was lucky she didn't hit either of them. She
flew thru our bushes that are along the road, just missing a 2 1/2 foot thick
tree on our side, rolling on down our yard and hitting our truck in
the driveway. If the truck had been parked somewhere else, she would
have hit the peacock house or gone on down toward the barn and hit a
fence.

She wasn't in very coherent shape, was having problems breathing.
The boyfriend came down and said that the brakes gave
out......maybe......There were empty beer cans in the truck and he
is the neighborhood drunk. He is in his 60s and the woman looked to
be in her mid to upper 50s. The cop said he didn't think she was drunk, although she had admitted to drinking two beers a couple of hours earlier. The cop was nice.

The cop said he would be charging her with driving with impaired
equipment. I don't know if they will do an alcohol test or not. At
least she only hurt herself.....and her truck...and MY HORSE
TRAILER HAULING TRUCK!!! Our July 4th plans just got changed. We
were going to take Trinket and possibly Ivan to the parade. I guess
not now.

Praying her ins co gets right on this……does your ins co have to sue hers or will her ins co pay for your damages?……………Maybe she could be forced to pay for a truck rental rather than a rental car…..at least ask……………..seems to me a rental should be comparable to what you own………….

What a mess………………..take some medicine, go pat your horses…………...

U took pics that's good, get a copy of polie report and call ur insurance co with info...if they have ins they pay...if they don't unwill have ur company do a law sue for damages....if their ins won't pay for rental. maybe urs will....am so glad no one was seriosly hurt...whewwwwww.

We found we had some damage from the tornado while we were gone...it started pouring down rain and was raining...pouring inside camper. we didn't think to check our skylight covers...who looks up for damage! every one of our 5 skylight vent covers were broken out or flat gone! should have seen us trippin over each other and the dogs.....keystone cops for sure! lol

ELLEN, ARK & CB: WOW you guys sure have had some exciting times lately. Glad no one was hurt in any of the accidents.

Nothing exciting like that going on here, starting to get little veggies on the plants in the garden.

Tomorrow we will be giving the truck a bath and getting her ready for the big Lewisburg 4th of July parade on Saturday. We are number 97 out of about 250 entries. It's a fun parade with a huge turnout.

ARK: Sorry you guys will be missing the parade. Hope you can get a truck to haul the horses to the parade.

Love & prayers...

We haven't heard back from the police yet. He may be having problems getting her info because she was helicoptered up to Roanoke instead of being admitted to the local hospital. The woman's daughter stopped by to look at our truck and said her mother has 4 broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured hip. The doctors were considering operating on the hip. The daughter also told us that her mother was the one who hit that 2 1/2 foot thick tree on our side of the road a couple of years ago.   

We'll ask about getting a towing truck instead of a little rental car. We are supposed to haul Kazi to the farrier and vet next week. This really does put a glitch in our plans.

Lori is coming later this afternoon for Ivan, Areion and Albert lessons. Jane the endurance rider will get her lesson with Albert at 4 p.m. my horses get their lessons afterward when the arena will be a bit more shaded. It has been pretty hot in there lately. Areion was a pill towards Ivan yesterday and may be in heat. She was aggressive towards him and he is scraped up on his front leg. She may be an interesting ride with Albert here....

Ark, it sounds like she needs some driving lessons when she recovers. Trees and trucks are not usually used as a brake.
Has your truck made its way to a repair shop yet?

Good luck with your lesson today.

It's very damp and hazy this morning, but at least it isn't raining. oh darn. too wet to mow. (snicker)

http://biggeekdad.com/2014/05/beagles-experience-freedom/

Precious.

Awwww. That's so neat!

Nice video!


ELLEN
Truck is still in our yard. We are still waiting on the police report and should have it tomorrow. Then we can get our insurance involved and get the ball rolling to have the truck repaired.

Ivan was a major pill during our lesson. He really hates having Albert on the same planet as Areion. Even after Albert left, Ivan was still upset. I will try to do Ivan's lesson before Albert gets here next time they come. He finally got with the program toward the end of the lesson.

Boy, that sure made my face leak!

I watched 2 young mothers with youngsters at the pool today, they watched those lil ones closely and they could sure run! made me think of the parents leaving their babies in hot cars....my word, heartwrenching for us even to hear about it....but u could tell these moms carred.

Hey...I wish knew how to resize the above, but you get the message/humor I'm sure.

I sent the same to our Vet ... she's got a good sense of humor ... with simple question of "Do you have any of this on your truck?"

Here is her reply: "good one----i have come to believe that ALL these 'flavored' things MAY, on a good day, be scented, if anything as the 'oral afterburn taste' isn't anything like whatever the box says the 'flavor' is supposed to be....(don't ask how I know this...)
have a wonderful weekend.,,,,"

Now I DID one time demonstrate to her how to give a horse paste wormer and she was impressed. Of course...I'm tall enoug it worked for me.

HAVE SYRINGE IN ONE HAND ALL "COCKED AND READY"
1) Grasp horse under jaw with hand...
2) use thumb and middle finger to press into the gap in teeth
3) As soon as horse opens its mouth (it WILL if you grip tight enough) Insert syringe and quickly inject stuff.
4) Immediately push up on horse's head keeping a firm grip still under jaw...make it look at the sky with its nose pointed up.
5) HOLD up until the horse swallows the treat.

It helps if you are tall like me!! lol!! otherwise ALL bets are off!

Love to all...Snoop & Rick
5)

GRAYMARE: What a welcome home for that solider. Dogs are the best welcome home greeters. That made me cry too. Welcome home solider, welcome home.

Today we are riding in the Lewisburg 4th of July parade with the Purple Heart chapter. Spent yesterday washing the truck and getting her all decorated. She shines up nicely. They are having some Gold Star Mothers as the focus of the parade this year. Gold Star Mothers are mothers whose sons or daughters were killed in the war.

RICK: LOL I just knew that stuff doesn't taste as good as they make it out to taste to the horses. I always ended up wearing most of it, as my horses wiped their yucky mouths on me. Who tests it, to see if it really does taste like apples anyway?

Have a great weekend everyone.

Love & prayers for all..

NancyLee had this posted on Facebook....wow!!

This is the description that goes with the photo: "This is what a Tobiano Snowflake Silver Dapple Gypsy Vanner Horse looks like."

TRUDY:
 Congrats on the parade, TRUDY!  I bet you guys looked great!  Pix?

GRAYMARE:
 Awhile back Annie asked me if I thought dogs remembered people after they were gone for awhile.  She was thinking of her poodle remembering our dad after he died.  I told her I thought all animals had long memories of those they loved.  That video pretty much proved it to her.  Thanks!

RICK:
 Okay, you can do tall horses.  Can you worm a 30 inch tall mini who can turn herself inside out and backwards to avoid stuff if she wants?      Trinket is short, but not easy if she is so inclined...Luckily she has gotten better over the years.


Today Annie and ran in a 5K race sponsored by the local police department as a fundraiser for the Special Olympics.  It was nice and cool while we ran and the view of the river was great!  We both finished the race, not dead last, but not anywhere near the front runners.   One hill was a killer, but most of the race was level or downhill, thank goodness.  This is the one and only race for me this year.  It completes an insurance agreement and saved me $300 from our yearly cost.  I'd say I was a winner   .  Annie does it for fun.    

 Before race in our Super Running Suits.  They made us faster...

 Beginning of race.

  I finish 5K

Annie finishes 5K