Disappointed but looking forward to what's next

With every competition there has to be winners and losers that is what makes it fun to play. I did not make it to the next round in the Texaco Country Showdown and yes I am disappointed but I am looking forward to getting out and performing more, putting a band together is my next focus. Trying out for the Texaco Country Showdown encouraged me to find my look or image for performing. I have never been one who spend much time on girly things and this competition made me explore this side of myself and it was a lot of fun. All through my 20's and 30's I was trying so hard to be taken seriously as a horse trainer I didn't dress up much, I didn't like the kind of attention it brought. If one more guy told me to "just stand there and look pretty" I was going to scream. It's funny how the things that make you the maddest are also where your happiness lies. A guy friend of mine called me "baby girl" a while back and it hit me funny, a guy has never called me that before, and you know what, I kinda liked it. It made me think about the little girl I used to be and I realized I never got to be girly when I was young and now I get to be a cowgirl and it's great fun. Not covered in dirt like the real thing, I've had plenty of that but a cute clean cowgirl.

These are my work boots, I have worn boot's and spurs most of my life. If I had to run to town I would keep then on so everyone knew why I was so dirty, they are just a part of my boot. I even wore them to a bar once and was made to take them off, apparently they could be used as a weapon;0) These two events made me come up with the idea for my new look or my image singing. I think is suits me. Two necklaces $8.00 wrapped around my boots and it makes me feel like dance.

The weight and sound makes me feel like I'm still singing and dancing in my barn cleaning stalls with no one else around, it's comforting. Don't let the No's in life get you down, it's the Yes's that matter:0)

Space

I am learning some cover songs on guitar and I knew the first time I heard the song Space by Sara Buxton I wanted to cover that song. It was after my Dads passing and the song really hit me not so much about my father but about all the talks we had. We spent countless hour try to figure out how to get through falling in love without the hurting and I have come to the conclusion that you can't. It goes together, my father liked to say "life is like a rubber ball bouncing right along. He was very frustrating to talk to sometimes, fun and interesting but argumentative to say the least, he would take the other side in everything. When it came to my love life, this invoked many the arguments however and of course I was hurt buy this, I needed him to understand how I felt and he would say to me "I'm sorry honey but I see it from a man point of view and what you want from your man sound terrible to me, I would run from a chick like that, alway trying to change me." He didn't understand, why couldn't he understand how much it hurts when a man needs his space. No matter what situation I was in he would say "there is something you like about it or you wouldn't still be there." and he was right, irritating but right, I was forever trying to fix my man and my dad from their maleness. In the end of all our fun arguing and we did have fun at it, if I made my point and I would not falter he would actually giggle. We talked endlessly about the differences between us, I taugh my father about woman and he taught me about men. We are different for a reason and that energy bounces, the higher you go up, the farther you come down, and we are all afraid to feel to much for that reason, but don't lose sight of the fact you get to go back up again. The trix is, well if there really is one, I mean if you are in love or falling in love all I can really say is "good luck with that." lol but really if you get into rhythm with your man so that you bounce together but in your own space it works better cause lets face it who wants a man around all the time anyhow? We all need our alone time! It's that need woman have to feel connected that men don't understand and men's need to feel free that woman don't understand, well you can't change it trust me I've tried. lol So what to do in those times? when things get to close to the heart and he needs space and you need closeness? the song say it all, "I'll give you space." You have to stand up for your needs and the man really does wants to try again, he needs to miss you and he need to know he will lose you if he doesn't, that's what makes him feel, so have some fun with it. Get more pro active don't sit around and wait, do something you love doing that doesn't involve him, I know you can't disconnect from him and he is in your mind 24/7 but you need to go enjoy your life, he will love you for it. You only have a few of the really big bounces to get through before it starts to bounce along more steady if you set your boundaries right with the man in your life, well until life hits you again. When you are on the down bounce of life or love, trust and hold on, you don't want to fall off when you hit the ground and missout on the up bounce. I miss my talks with my Dad, life is to short to stay sitting on the ground feeling sorry for myself so I'm going to ride it with my spurs on<);0)

Windy

Yesterday was a great day! The weather was perfect and I was enjoying planting flowers when little Windy my two year old by Seven From Heaven started to follow me around, I have her grazing around the house to help me with the weed whacking;0)She is a curious little one and usually ends up getting into trouble. Braking water lines is one of her favorite things to do. She loves water, something she learned from her mother I'm Expressin Myself (Sabrina)when she was little. My water line gets hot in the summer so I spray my mares out in the pasture with the hot water, by the time it hits them it cool enough until it cools down so I can spray off the horse I'm done working with without scalding them. The mares fight over the best spot and Sabrina is up font, each baby learns, water is not so bad after all. Yesterday I was trying to water the flowers and she wanted spayed, nudging me knocking over flowers. I needed to go check my fence line so I decide to ride her, I have only been on her a few times but what the heck. I grab a halter and jump up on her bareback. I haven't jump on a horse with shorts and flip flops on in awhile. I was a little nervous thinking how much it would hurt if I slipped off but she seemed fine with it so off we went to check fences. She was great! I'm so glad I didn't sell her for practically nothing. She is a keeper this one, she's kinda a funny color but I really enjoy her company very much<):0)

Coyote trouble again

Walked out my back door on my way to plant some flowers and I caught a glimpse of a Coyote caring one of my chickens off. I ran back into the house and got the gun. It is quite a ways down to the barn from my house and the coyote was out in the big arena past that so by the time I got down there it was making some ground on me. I steadied the gun and took my shot, the coyote dropped the chicken and ran. I missed! but I did get my dead chicken back. Should I eat her? she doesn't seem to have much meat to her. I look for the hatchet but couldn't find it, took her into the house to find a sharp enough knife. My knives are all dull and now looking down at her in the sink she, doesn't look very appetizing and she kinda smells. I decide to get some sharp knives for the next time something like this happen so the gross part goes faster and I can make good use of the meat but today I'm not hungry enough and so I I go back to planting my flowers;0)

A day with Cody

It's has been weeks sense I have had the time to spend on my horse and the sun is finally out and it's a beatiful day. I try to get some photos of my babies out in the flowers but the only one who would stand still was yogi my dog.
I put Cody out to eat grass but he is pacing the fence again. I clean my stalls and see Cody still pacing, I go get him to put him back in his stall so he will stop pacing the fence now he wants to eat grass, not the grass in the pen, the grass on the other side of the fence. He has dropped weight lately so I let him eat a bit. I decided to hope up on him while he eat, I had my big rubber boots on that are a few sized to big on but if I kept my toes up they would stay on. As long as I was standing there he was fine to eat grass but once I got up on him he wanted to go somewhere. I just had his halter on and sence I tie him to the walker to eat grass he is a bit hard nosed and it's now hard to get his attention. I decide to ride him around the barn and work on his guide in this halter. As I round the barn the mares had come back and he losses it and starts to scream, thinking I'm going to spir him in the belly he starts to run back and jump from side to side. Now, I'm bareback, in big rubber boots and was being nice letting him eat the tall grass and now I'm going to end up on my ass in the dirt. I turned him out the road and thought a trail ride might do us some good and we headed down to the creek. It was a beautiful day and the first time I had wore a tanktop, my white skin shining in the sun, but a short ride to the creek and back wouldn't burn and these boots are starting to get heavy I think it's time to head back. It's about a half mile straight stretch back home and every time I hit the quarter mile Cody starts to scream to the mares. I turn him and lope him back down to the bridge, to the same spot every time. After a while I realize I'm the one who is getting tired, Cody seems fine spending the entire day walking home then loping to the bridge, at the quarter mile mark he actually turns himself around as he screams his fool head off. Well my guide has improve but my boots feel like they weight fifty pounds each and the sun has turned my white skin to red, this is not good. I have to get out of this, maybe if I tie him to a tree down at the bridge and walk home, rest a bit, get better shoes on and Oh a saddle, yes a saddle to save my pour back side! right about then I start to notice that not only is Cody running at spead to the bridge now he is also walking very slowly back home? And he is starting to scream to the mares sooner? This is not working? He is getting worce not better? Everything hurts, what happened to my lovely day? Cody starts to swing his head from side to side I hear him squeal and then think better of it and keep walking. We are past the quarter mile mark and he is walking relaxed. Wow we are around the corner and headed to the driveway. My mares are right there waiting for him, he walks right on by gets about halfway down the driveway and starts to scream. Knowing I really want him to get this lesson I turn him around and ask him to lope out the road. I lope him out only to the quarter mile mark stop and sit there a minute and then he walked all the way home without a peep.
I couldn't barely walk the next day and my sun burn is on fire but I feel pretty good about it now, I almost had myself talked into quiting, right when he was putting his thinking cap on. I would have still felt like I was run over by a truck, had a sun burn like no other but without the satifaction that I made my point. Gotten through to him that when I'm riding him I do not want him talking to mares! without kicking his ass instead we had a meeting of the minds:0) This is the second time I have done this with him but this time I went back to the same spot eact time, all the way down to the bridge. I think the same spot worked great! keeping it simple helping him think. Next time I'll be prepared with the righ shoes.

Cody's 2nd Filly born

One Night With Doc (Patricia)is a mare I raised out of a Flynn's Gayson ofaDoc mare Flynn's LiL Tejon I bought in foal to Doc At Night some years back. I always wanted a Doc At Night baby and was thrilled with this little filly, I was hoping for a black like her daddy but was happy she was so darn cute. She is my little fire ball, way to expressive for her own good, the top sports model I had been praying for, in my twenties and early thirties. You know the saying? Be careful for what you wish for, Well she is so expressive she is the first horse I ever sent out to be started. I traded Molly, one of my ROP students from a few years back for work done on a horse she was starting to show and needed some finish work done. Molly said the filly started fine, no real blow ups or anything but was quick and grab assy. I rode her three time and she was good, Molly had done a nice job. I stopped riding her with all the chaos my life went through that year and before I knew it my little supper star was coming three with only a few months on her.


She wasn't the kind of horse you wanted to ride with no one else around so I waited until I had someone here. We restarted her, this time putting her on the sheep to keep her focus. I could tell right away she was something else and knew I need to kept thing slow. She can be unnerving at first but she has this soft spot that is amazing to feel. Feeling bad that I let this horse fall behind but with my dad passing away I just didn't have it to give so I bred her to my Stallion Smart N Expressive (Cody) I put some more miles on her with every ride I knew I would keep this horse and finish her out as a older horse, she is the kind that would have tried to hard and blown out if pushed and so taking my time was the best for her anyways. She wants my attention and would brake out of her 30acre pasture all the time, my trouble maker, at first I thought she just wanted to tease my stallion but after breeding her I realized it was to get my attention. If I didn't do something with her for a week or so she would brake out, running around in all her glory. One time she took out my drip line and tie fifty feet of drip line into a knot and somehow managed to get it on herself like a harness. Every time I would catch her, there would be that soft spot again, you can feel her try even leading her, it's amazing, riding her is like flying.

I lost China's Fancy Boy to colic the other night and was waiting for the rendering truck when I remember Patricia was due to foal soon and I needed to check her. Yes, she had wax, she wasn't very big but she looked ready so I brought her in the barn. With staying up all night with Big Boy I was beat and needed to sleep, I would get up early to check on her. The next morning no baby so I put her out in the big pasture with the other mares.

That evening when I went to go put her in the barn I notice Sabrina had a babies by her side only Sabrina wasn't in foal. She had stolen Patricia's baby. I caught Sabrina and took her out of the pasture and when I got back Tejon had two babies nursing on her and Patricia standing off in to the side. Well If Patricia is rejecting it at least the filly's grandma will nurse her, I just have to get it to nurse Patricia's first milk. I pushed the baby over to Patricia and she liked it and let it nurse. She is really good and careful with her little filly. I have to go teach a clinic so I leave her out in the big pasture.

After my clinic I went out in the pasture to make sure everything was fine, it was dark and it took me awhile to find them, both mare are bay but I see white a big white shape, as I proach I see my paint mare I have adopted had broke into this pasture. She was two pasture over when I left but everything was fine both mare had their babies so I took BW and put her in the barn. Man, every mare wants this baby!

This morning Tejon had stolen Patricia's baby again and Patricia came running screaming up to me until I pushed her baby back over to her. Tejon wanted that baby and would try to keep it so I tied her up for a while and let Patricia have some alone time. Both mares are out in the pasture now with there babies at their sides. Not sure what to name her yet?

China's Fancy Boy passed away yesterday

I first met Big Boy when he came to me as a two year old to be started under saddle. He was still nursing on his mother and not halter broke, he was friendly,he had no manures because his owner had no clue how to hand horses, using grain to get them tame but never doing the work that needs to be done.
He was tall and lanky mostly white and wasn't much to look at. I had him in training for about a year. I always liked the stallion for his sweet disposition but he didn't fit into my program at the time because he wasn't an open horse, he was kind hearted but lazy and didn't have much desire to preform. He was perfect for his owner because anyone could ride him anywhere. The owner sent me another stallion to train that was a Smart Little Fred baby and he was a talented little horse and so we set our hope on him for the show pen and sent Big Boy home. Now when this little stud came in training I noticed his shoulder muscling was uneven and ask his owner about this, he assured me he had been seen by his vet and was good to go into training, the horse had and injury as a yearling but was sound. As time went by the little horse started having problems but never limped. He fell down running a large fast circle and them fell again a few months later. I started noticing something wasn't right in him back end but couldn't put my finger on what was the problem. I call the owner and told him I wanted him looked at but because he wasn't limping and could do everything I asked of him he didn't see the need, I was affaid to ride him the horse had already fallen down tree times. Then one day I put him out in the round pen while I went to town and when I got back he was dragging his front leg and couldn't bring it forward. I call his owner and he wanted his vet to see the little stud witch was fine with me. As the vet walked over and saw the little horse the first words out of his mouth where. This horse well I told you he would never hold up in training. I was so mad this was the end of our business relationship. I had broke this pore little horse down, he had never bucked or was mean just spooky, he tried so hard for me that his hip finally gave out for over compensating for his injured shoulder. The only problem I was having in his training was wouldn't stand still when I tried to mount but he was a fire ball of a horse so I didn't see the sings. Felt really stupid after.
Now five years had past and last year I ran into this owner by chance and he wanted me to help him out, he had always payed his bills and he given me quite a few horse in training in the past so I agreed to go pick up the stallions because he told me they had broken out several times and he needed time to put up another barn.
As I arrive at the ranch I see the owner had been busy breeding and had way to many horses on his land now. The place was run down, fence falling down and the stallions kept in a 12/12 stall that had never been cleaned. This was really sad, these horses had a shit mound all the way around each stall so high you couldn't get the panels to move and they where wired shut. Covered in their own crap, feet a mess and malnourished, they hadn't been let out of their prison in three years. I knew right then that these stallions couldn't come back here and so I kept my mouth shut about the condition they were in and loaded them into the trailer. The mares where better having pasture and he had some nice looking babies. All the babies where still nursing and not halter broke but the looked healthy. Big Boy's mane had grown down to his knees in a tangled mess of crap and had to be cut. He had an open sore on his flank. When I cleaned Little Fred all his hair on this back came off with the matted crap and he was bald and skinny.
I put the them out in paddocks to let them find them legs for about a week. Little Fred played so hard he made himself sore and had to put back in a stall and hand walked. The first time I got on Big Boy he remembered everything, it was like he had never left, he was skinny and out of shape but his mind was good, sweet and kind.
The owner of these horses came to me crying and said he needed my help, he had to get all his horses off his land because he was in trouble with the law and ask me if I would house them for him for a bit and not to worry he had money for everything. I did have many horse in training so I agreed to help him out. As things started to unravel and he started not paying trying to give me all the horses and I kept telling him I can't, I'm broke I can't take on these horses, I realized I was in a little bit of trouble. I decided to put on a sale and try to find homes for them. I halter broke the babies and found a home for Little Fred. I realized that Big Boy was a special horse himself and he passed his loving personality to his foals. I breed sports models horses, ones that excel in the show pen and are not suited for the general public but Big Boy is more like a Minni van and perfect for the average rider. I can sell that kind of horse in any market I thought. I decided to kept this lovely Stallion as a lesson horse and breed him to my two mares who are related to my Stallion Cody.
The Horse Sale was a bust and I returned the mares and babies back to the ranch but the owner changed the lock and I was unable to return all the horses. I hoped their owner would help me out seeing how much I helped him but I was left with two more horses to feed over the winter, I kept trying to find homes for the other horse up at his ranch and sold one but got kicked in the arm when picking her up. The owner reassured me when he got money he would help me out it was just going to take a little bit longer so I trusted he would, I mean really after all I halter broke all his babies some as old as six year for nothing and found homes for five horses, surely he would help me when he could.
Big Boy colic the other day and even with the vet calling him asking to help he refused and all we could do was keep him drugged and wait and see if he would pull through. I lost him in the early morning of 3/15/2011.
I'm not sure why thing happen the way they do but I do know it was my privilege to have shared a part of this horses life, one year when he was two and now this last year, he won my heart with his kind nature. I'm not sure if I have any mares in foal for I only breed two mares last week and it's early in the year. Nothing can replace a special horse and he was very special to me. My hear is heavy but I'm thankful to have given him his freedom to run and play.