July 2012

Eileen, I'm ~110 miles almost due west of Waynesboro. It's safe to say we're about half way between Nashville and Chattanooga.

Are you talking the Bucksnort Ride? I've heard a lot about it but have never been there.

I haven't looked at our drought status but we should've at least crawled out of "Severe" after the rains we've had the last two weeks. We went from parchment brown to Yahoo! green and now have to bushhog & mow. Fine by me as, burning diesel & gas to mow is cheaper than throwing hay every day; I was going thru hay like it was winter

I love the milder winters down here but, mercy this heat/humidity is leaves a lot to be desired. I have a cooling vest with ice packs in it; I don't know how I'd get stuff done at the barn without it. All the fans do is blow hot air around

IndyApp, glad you're home but yuk, not nice getting woke up in the middle of any night much less when you just hot home. Glad only one horse was out and nobody's hurt.

I don't know what Pot Bellied baby pigs can eat; I used to feed Calf Manna, cottage cheese and lettuce to my pigs but I was feeding them for future use on the dinner table; I wanted plenty of meat and not much fat. I only did that one year; after my husband called me at work to let me know the "pig loaders" said those were the easiest pigs they'd ever loaded, I hung up crying over my the papers on my desk and vowed never to do that again. I was raised on the farm where things got eaten all the time, I surprised myself being such a big Wuss

Ark, what happened at the ACTH? Do you have pictures? I went to post pics from Photobucket on Saturday, and got an error message telling me I'm not allowed to use an "outside source" because I'm a new member. Free Forums won't let me upload pics to an create an album either. How long is the waiting period before one can post pics in this manner? I found a pic small enough to load directly from my PC but it loaded as a thumbnail.

Okay, about photos....

This website can download directly from your computer using the BROWSE, then SUBMIT QUERY, then SEND after the screen changes. The photo posted from this will be thumbnail sized, but can be enlarged by clicking on the photo's name. This will download it to your computer where it will appear larger. The photo will not upload to this website if it is too large, so reduce the size of your photos. You should use 72 pixels/inch and a 4x6inch or less size and it should work.

The way to post an enlarged photo in your post is to use an alternate photo site and print the URL in your post. ImageShack is a pain, but works well if you can figure it out. You have to have an (free) account with ImageShack. I haven't tried Photo Bucket or some of the other photo places, but they probably work, too.

I think new members have a week's waiting period before you can download photos to the Gallery on this website.

This website does have a limit for photos, so eventually I will have to clear out the old ones. We should not have reached that yet.

Any other questions? We will muddle thru getting this website figured out. We can do it!

yesterday's ride....

We got to the ACTHA ride with an hour to spare Saturday morning. There were 50 riders and horses. We hauled Lori, my riding instructor, and her mustang, Tonto, to the ride.

Ivan was 'up', but pretty good. He traveled well with Tonto in the trailer. We were in the last group going out on the trail with our friend, Joanne, and her TB, Noble and about 6 other riders

The first obstacle was one of those cowboy curtain type things with swim noodles hanging and sticking into the sides and had some flappy plastic on the top, which was fairly low for a tall horse. Donnie and Annie watched about 20 horses attempt to go thru it and only 2 or 3 did it well. Ivan aced it! He went right thru it without batting his eye. He remembered the one we had when we first got him over 4 years ago. He actually tore it down 3 times and demolished it finally. Anyway, he did the first obstacle perfectly and I thought we would have a good chance of making a better score than in our previous ACTHA rides.

Noble refused the first obstacle and Tonto objected, but did it in the time required. Ivan actually did it best of the three.

So we rode on. The next obstacle was over a mile away. Ivan was a bit jiggy, but relatively good compared to the bad times we had a few months ago. Lori was having some jigging problems with Tonto, so dropped back to the last in line in our group to work with him. Remember, Lori is a stunt rider who has been in one movie and other media things. She is a very good rider. She worked with Tommy Turvey for 4 years.

We got almost to the second obstacle and those in our group in front stopped to wait on the later ones, with Lori being last. She was letting him walk in the adjoining pasture, thinking he had calmed down and he was walking on a loose rein. He put his head down to scratch his leg or something and then exploded into bucking. He bucked 6 times and Lori tried to stop him with a one-rein stop, but he got off balance and she flipped off of him. When Tonto tried to regain his balance, his front foot hit Lori's left eyelid and she landed with a thump. The first I knew it was going on was when Tonto rocketed past us.

Poor Lori was conscious, but flat out in the pasture. Her nose was bleeding and her eye looked like she had been in a prize fight, all swelled up. We found some of the glitches in the ACTHA ride's planning then. It was a half hour before the rescue people could find us, the communications were terrible and a vet reached us before the rescue squad. Luckily, Joanne had some first aid stuff with her, including an ice pack. Tonto ran around and then came back, either for Lori, or for the horses he knew. He was finally caught. Lori never figured out what spooked him, but he might have been stung. A rattlesnake was spotted beside the trail a few yards on up from us and we wondered if it had any relatives.

The ambulance hauled Lori back to the ride headquarters, leaving us with figuring out what to do with Tonto. Lori was afraid to let anyone else ride him, he has a history of bucking off strangers. Finally a nice man volunteered to pony him back to camp. I had to go back, too, since Tonto came in our trailer. Another glitch was lack of facilities for riderless horses in camp. So Joanne and I followed Tonto and the nice man back to camp and didn't get to finish the ride. We had to babysit Tonto, who was very well behaved after dumping Lori and running.

Lori was in the campground headquarters looking beat up and depressed. She thinks she is okay, but really should have had herself checked out for a concussion. No insurance. Today she says she feels like 3/4s of a million bucks, but I bet she doesn't.

So my 7th ACTHA ride didn't go quite as planned. I think we rode a total of 2 miles, out and back. Ivan was very good on the way back in, no jigging. He was with his friends and only one other horse, then, though.

We hauled Lori and Tonto back to his stables, and discovered ourselves nearly out of gas in the truck. So Donnie had to borrow Lori's car to run to town to get gas. Apparently the gauge wasn't very accurate on a hill where he had parked the truck the night before and he thought he had a half tank of gas. Nope. It was a long day.

Wow! Ark, what a ride, or almost a ride. I sure hope Lori is okay after a couple of days rest.
Maybe your next lesson with Ivan will be to pony another horse alongside.
Like you said, there seem to be some holes in the ride plan that might be filled a bit better on the next one.

Ark, Great Scott, I don't even know what to say

It sure does seem like the flawed part of the event was where EMT reaction time was concerned.

I sure am glad your friend is walking and talking but, like you, I don't think she feels like 3/4 of a million bucks either

She sounds like a tough little Trooper. Do any of you have a friend in the medical profression that might examine her for free or nearly free? How about your vet? No kidding - he/she could tell if something were wrong enough to where she ought to go to the hospital. There's nothing saying her eye lobe might not be fractured

Regarding ponying - that and carrying double were some of the first things my horses had to learn when they were younger. I never made a habit of carrying double but, you never know when a horse would pull up lame and you might have to carry that rider out of the woods with you, plus pony their horse.

It sounds like Ivan did really great and should've had a bag of carrots waiting on him when he got home - some of the bag anyway

My day was "stimulating" but not nearly as exciting as yours. I was mowing the path in the grove of trees behind the barn and felt something stinging my ankle. Evidently the ground bees got really honked off at me after my third pass and decided to express their anger by stinging me. There were a good half dozen stings on my lower leg but a capful of Benedryl took care of that. I didn't plan on the Benedryl knocking me out for 3+ hours; that was a waste of part of the day. We've been here nine years and this is the first time I've ever run into bees back there. The die hard riders on my local forum are all running into ground bees, no matter where they haul to ride so, the bees are bad everywhere.

Kenny has already gone thru a big can of wasp killer IN the barn and around his workshop

I get what you're saying about the uploading of the pics and I thought I was reading right when I saw this forum's picture limit hadn't been reached yet; indicating that there is a limit in the albums. I'll just wait the seven days so I can load from Photobucket - lollol

Hot/humid here today. This is getting old. They are promising a break toward the end of the week..... They better not be wrong. LOLOLOL

Stay cool gang!!

Ouch...I have met up with some of those yellow jackets on some rides...they are not fun...they seem to wait till about the 3 or 4 horse passes by then they come out full bear and mad as a hornet...and they are mean when it comes to stinging...geeeesh I hate then little boogers.
TWHrider...I got kind of confused when you said `110 miles west (you must have meant east) of Waynesboro and half way betweeen Chatenooga and Nashville...hmmmm but no matter. I was talking about the Buffalo Trail ride on the Buffalo River. Not sure how many more years I will be going. The trails are not near as nice as they used to be because of logging, floods, and tornado damage but they sure try to clean them up and find new ones for us. I like to go out on my own as I hate riding in large crowds, and by the time that the week is over I have about covered most of the trail that I like. \
Ark, glad that you friend was not hurt any worse than she was it could have been a real wreck by the sounds of it.

<sigh> Eileen, Yes, I am east but in my head I was looking at Waynesboro as west of me so that's what popped out of my mouth

I really am more-or-less half way between downtown Nashville and Chattanooga

I've heard from others that the Buffalo River ride isn't what it used to be. I haven't been on over nighters since we moved to TN. I was just getting my feet wet, meeting new folks on the day rides, when the horse in my avatar was diagnosed with Equine Metabolic Syndrome at 16. He's 25 now. It was about the same time I had a really bad accident that finally did me in for riding long hours on the trail, so I just hung up the bridles. I am happy I can still take care of the horses and trim the hooves on two of them - lol

Bee stings are itchier than the dickens today. We're out of Wasp killer, so no hunting the nest down until we get something to kill them. My usual kerosene torch is out of the question since it's so dry. We've finally gotten some good rain but it's still dry out there.

To echo Carol, this hot/humid is getting old. We, at least, have had enough rain to go from brown to green and I try not to complain about the humidity because it does put some moisture into the ground.

The horses have been out on the back 20 nearly six hours and haven't come up for water. That means I have to don my cooling vest, get on the 4-wheeler and go get them.

Becaussss my darling 25 yr old Heart Horse, Duke with EMS, and several colics under his girth is the alpha and won't bring the other three up for water. Guess who's the one to go down with mild colic from not drinking enough water? Why yes, that would my beloved Duke. I almost think he's had a mild stroke and has taken leave of his senses a little bit. I've gone thru more Banamine, all for Duke, since March than I have in my entire life of owning horses - 53 years of paying for my own horses, to be exact.

He's the main reason I quit my part time job once I could get on S.S. It all got to be too much taking care of him and the other three and trying to get to work in time. My boss was ok with me being late but that's not how I am so I retired all together. I actually have more money because I'm not buying lunch every day and a tank of gas stays in my car at least five weeks - lol lollol If I need something specific at the tack shop, I call Kathy who gets it ready and Kenny picks up what I need on his way home from work. I wasn't kidding around when I said I wasn't coming off this hill for anything, once I stopped working

YELLOW JACKETS are downright EVIL minded I've bailed off my tractor on more than one occasion ... usually would get popped on my ankle or fingers. SEVIN dust is good to put down the hole if you can find it. And the SEVIN spray is deadly to them also.

I'm in outskirts of Memphis. Will get loaded in the morning and head east on I-40 / north on I-81. Hope to make it to Wytheville tomorrow night..."breakfast" in Dublin??

Love to all...Rick

Rick
I caught a bug over the weekend. I am incredibly sick. Donnie thinks I might have salmonella. If I am not better by morning, I am off to the doctor...or funeral home. Sorry I can't have breakfast with you.

Ark, I'm really sorry to hear that you are sick. Sure do hope you are better in the morning.

ARK...I'm sorry to hear you sick also. "breakfast/brunch" would be on Wednesday...IF you are able and IF I get that far enough along tomorrow. THAT depends on how many trucks are there ahead of me in the morning. I am NOT going to spend the night by 3 railroad tracks and have trains run through my truck all hours of the night. Nope...ain't gonna happen with me again.

I had dinner tonight with a "favorite" niece and her hubby here in Memphis. Haven't seen them in probably 3 years. It was fun.

Love to all...RICK

Good morning everyone. Life has been busy here at Manygates...George and "his" garden is keeping me busy in the kitchen, seems the hardest part is the putting up of all the veggies. Next year a smaller garden, I'm running out of freezer space and the corn and tomatoes are not even in yet. Maybe we'll have to buy another small freezer just for veggies.

Welcome TWH...it's great to see new faces posting.

ARK: WOW what a horrible experience on your ride. Hopefully Lori will see a doctor about that head injury, that's nothing to fool around with. Sorry to hear you are so sick...hope it's just a little stomach bug.

Ann/Sam/gdolmare is doing better. She is spending a little time on the computer so I know she is up and getting about a little. I'm sure her back problem was something that was festering for awhile and then the bending down to brush her dog was the straw that broke the camels back...luckily it happened at home and not on horseback or in the barn.

The postal office has a new post master and it's NOT me. They finally found someone who is transferring from Watsontown PO. She starts on Monday and wants me to work one a day a week & Saturday...we shall see how that works out. I can do 16 hours a week, just not 44 hours. George is happy, he was not looking forward to being the house husband and doing the house work while I was working all week. I was worried that all my clothes would end up one color or turning into Barbie doll size clothing...Ace is happy too, he misses his mommy when I go to work.

My crazy neighbors horse was down here AGAIN. The hottest day of the week and here comes Blaze flying down the hill. AAUUGGHHH George says "I'm not chasing that #$%^&^%$$# horse in this heat just let him go, maybe he'll go back home." That was until Blaze decided the garden looked like a nice place to eat some veggies and started leaning over the fence. George was up off the swing like someone hit him with a cattle prod. Needless to say, we chased Blaze into the pasture and closed the gates. Called the neighbor who then couldn't catch his horse. We had a good laugh as he chased the horse around for about a half an hour, waving a carrot at him. That man should not have a horse. Such a beautiful horse too, poetry in motion cantering thru the pasture. Made me miss seeing my guys in the field...

Have a wonderful day everyone. I'm off to put up more green beans....and make dill pickles this afternoon.

Love & prayers to all....

Trudy .. sounds like you are BUSY!!!! Glad to hear the post office situation has been solved!!!!

Ark .. hope you are feeling better today.

Another rainy humid day here in Minnesota.

ARK...Hope and trust you are feeling better. CANCEL any "thoughts" about tomorrow breakfast/brunch. I was up at 5:30 AM this morning and "moved" to where I was to be loaded....1st. truck for C/S Hulls... weighed in at 7:06 and pulled around to load out....and waited, and waited, napped, snoozed, and waited some more for a total of 3 hours..."I didn't know anybody was there...pull on scales." I had been read the "riot act" about Do NOT pull on the scales...let them "assist" you...it IS tight, etc....3 (**&^%$ hours . Now I remember kinda/sorta WHY I retired. I just don't have the temperment any more for that kind of stuff. I'm stopping for a few minutes break and then won't stop...except for fuel...until close to 10:00 this evening.

I love you all....RICK

ManyGates, thanks for the welcome Canning - ack. I tip my hat to you. The last time I canned I was Preggars and canning from the time my son's father went to work until he got home. Even made ketchup that year. After that season, if it couldn't go in freezer bag, it wasn't getting put up

It's always a treat to watch the "expert horsemen" that isn't try to catch their loose horse -- running and waving a carrot -- thanks for the visual

Ark, sure hope you're feeling better and you've just got a bit of the flu -- not food poisoning

Rick, seems the Roo-Ells keep changing in the "do this, don't do that" scheme of things. That's when you'd like to just pop someone but then you'd need a bail bondsman, they'd take away your I-pad and you wouldn't be able to post on the forum until you got home.

Once in awhile my ex-boss calls to give me the "guess what!" gossip and how some things never change. I always tell her to keep calling and reminding me part of why I retired - lol lol

It's 5:30 PM and still miserable hot/humid. Kenny walked in the house from work asking where his Nitro pills are (he had a big heart attack April Fool's Day). I had to verbally retrace HIS steps and he found them. He's the Parts Manager on the Ford side of our local dealership and there's no air conditioning even in his office. Not good, not good. Soooo he said he'd take his Nitro pill right before jammie time because he felt sure he'd feel much better just as soon as he had a beer

After all that, his Hypertensive Type A self can't sit still, so he took his beer and went out the door, to the barn, to re-fill the outdoor water tubs for the horses <sigh> Some day I really am going to whap him alongside the head with the cast iron skillet

Ark, where are you? I was expecting to hear from you this evening to find out how you are feeling.

TWH....yep...that's WHY I retired. Now, gotta try to remember why I'm doing this again....Oh yeah...Boss IS a good friend and he DID need help.

ARK...I made it as far as Exit 29. I'm timed out till 8:00 in the morning, so I'll be a blue streak as I go by. Hope you are feeling better

Love to all..Rick

Some of you may remember when my friend wrote a quick 500 word essay at a writers' conference. She now has a website and has started posting a continuing story that tells a lot more about that trip to Africa. This link will take you to the first segment of the story. Enjoy. http://joannaparrott.com/

Ellen, your friend certainly has a way of writing to make one feel as if they are standing right there beside her. That gives me the shivers as I lived in SoCal's Low Desert for five years and her description when stepping off the plane and making The Trek" brought back all those awful smells of dirt & sand when it's 100+ degrees and grass doesn't grow

I read as far as them getting to the compound, I'll pick it up later as I have to get back to the barn for the "second feeding" and prep the horses for turnout.

It's a good thing my "baby" is 17 because when I retired, they did too - lol lol I feed hay and give my 25 yr old metabolic horse, with hind gut ulcers his "Succeed", make sure they all have water then come back to the house for a bit.

The second feeding is their supplements. No grain here since 2007 as two of the four have metabolic issues.

My 17 yr old with genuine insulin resistance has hoof issues that I would run out of space writing the saga. The long and short is that three - count them THREE, qualified well-schooled barefoot trimmers and a farrier have sored him up in a major way by taking too much toe and lowering his heels too much.

Never mind that I've been trimming my own horses off/on all my life and know this is one horse out of every 1,000 that cannot have his heels lowered or toes pulled back "to spec".

I tried to tell that to each of these three credentialed and expensive people but nobody listens to "an old white woman with backyard horses"

So in trying to do right by this horse and get him specialised help (BIGEE-BIG cha-ching) while also saving my back with no discs on the bottom and my hands full of arthritis, I have only accomplished having a very sore horse.

It has cost me more in back-bending time/labor than if I'd trimmed him myself, the way my grandpap taught me when I was 12 --- I was 12 back in 1959 and it's amazing how smart grandpap really was and I didn't appreciate that

His flexor tendons are strained, his ankles and hocks are puffy and I am mad enough to spit nails and need that bail bondsman I spoke of to Rick.

This horse has been going out in front boots with pads since March with founder that was greatly exacerbated by Trimmer #2; can you say 8 - 9 degrees rotation on the LF, 5 degrees on the RF. It's a miracle the LF didn't sink. I had to drag it out of the vet but he admitted the founder would not have been as bad had Trimmer #2 not tried to make Joker's hooves look like some Geisha Girl's feet in size 0 slippers.

Farrier/trimmer #3 was doing a fantastic job re-habbing this horse until the trim last Saturday when it evidently was just killing him to leave those toes a little longer than what "spec" says they should be on a foundered horse.

Now Joker is going out in four boots with pads and I have to poultice and wrap his hooves every night. That means take those poultices off and clean his hooves to go in the boots every morning.

I announced to Kenny that I have had IT. "Third time's a charm", "three strikes you're out", and so on. I'm taking his hooves back.

My close-up vision has tanked, coupled with the arthritis, I can't trim him perfect anymore but at least I had him sound enough to where I could ride him a short way down the road without him gimping. That's more than I can say for the three Pros that have worked on him he struggles to get from the water tubs, down hill thru the paddock,into the front pasture.

The front pasture where everyone's in lock down partly because of him and partly because of my 25 yr old that won't come in for water and will colic out in that blistering heat. This way they have plenty of shade and they're all drinking double the water because they're close to the tubs.

Hmrph - got carried away. While this isn't the long version, it isn't the short one either. This was borne out of disappointment and frustration when you spend money you don't have, put your trust/faith in people that have gone to school for such things and this happens

Except for that teeny-weeny little thing ---- life if GREAT! The A/C is still working, the grass is green, I have hay in the barn and popsicles in the freezer

Julie, this is the place to come to vent about horses and their problems. We all understand those problems.

My friend will add more to the story each week. I don't know how long it will take for her to tell the whole story.

This is the place for folks to vent about horse issues ...... We understand and some are with you having been there/done that!!!! So, go ahead and vent all you want to.

Wondering about Ark this morning!!!! Hope she is OK!!! Maybe doesn't have access to the puter during the daytime.

Good day all you Foop peeps. It has cooled down again here for a while and I am one happy camper, This no A/C in the house is challenging at times. Usually you can manage the heat up here for the few days of the summer of an average year. This year us a real test on a persons ability to deal with nature and her little mean bad of tricks. lol I am fortunate to live in the country, where there is something underfoot other than concrete and pavement,..I do have a basement that is much cooler if one wants to sit and read. I do have a vehicle that is equipped with a/c if I chooser to go that route. lol I can get by.

Rick, hang in there guy...at least you know that it is not a permanent job this time.
Ark, sorry to hear that you got a 'bug' of some kind,.I hate bugs of any description,

I am in the hospital with a raging intestinal infection. No internet until Donnie brought my Kindle today. They have me in an isolation room and are wearing gowns & gloves until they figure me out. Ikky sicky.

Wow! Ark! Big prayers are headed your way! Keep us informed as much as you can.

WHOOPS Ark ... was afraid maybe you weren't at home!!!! Prayers going up for quick recovery. The gowns/masks, etc. would put me in a tailspin!!!!!! Hope they figure it out PDQ. Keep us posted.

Do you have somebody that will help Donnie with the barn chores while you are so out of the loop? (((( ))))