Wordless Wednesday

Dirt anyone?! DD got a face full when her lil cousin showered her with it!



I'm thinking she likes dirt...My silly niece!!

Great Friday Night Rodeo~!!

This whole getting into the grove with a new horse while running events has been kicking DD's butt! This poor girl just could not get out of the mindset of riding her old horse...BUT after much practice I think she's finally getting it!

Thursday night we took her to an open barrel race and exhibition which she ran her 3 exhibitions at a slower pace of course and then for her open run she ran almost up to her full speed and had a 21 second run!! On a full sized pattern! WHOO-HOO!! The fastest run was by an older girl who clocked 18 seconds, so I was pretty proud of my girl!

Friday night she had her junior rodeo, we were pretty pumped for this night as we were sure she would do better than the last 2 weeks...First up was goat tying and she got her's tied but I can't remember her time! Next up was Barrels, she ran pretty good but was a bit wide coming out of barrel 2. She ran a 22 second and then ran an exhibition and tightened up those turns but still had a 22 LOL! It was exactly the same time as the first run down to the milliseconds...Strange?! So coming home on the exhibition run she lost her stirrup and Krissy went to stop and hopped sending DD bouncing in her saddle and almost up over her horn but she caught herself with her elbow, that hurt a bit and she now has a nice shiner on her elbow! So Flags was next and she placed 1st place with an 8.28 second run! She had the same issue coming home and almost bounced over her saddle again! So Poles was last and she ran a great pattern and ended up with a 27 second run which is her best personal time! She actually could have had a faster time but she practically trotted home in fear that she was going over the horn again! The fastest run on poles that night was a 26 second and that was by a high school girl...So I'm thinking my lil old Cowgirl outdid herself that night! She was beaming with pride and so were we!

This is a series of pictures I took on her exhibition run Friday night.

















LOOK at these strides! AWESOME~!!


















Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE this new horse! She is so sweet with DD, she has great manners, stands still, isn't jumpy at the gate, doesn't spook, just truly a great horse! We are so blessed!

Wordless Wednesday

Natural Horsemanship Clinic

After DD's rodeo Friday night they had a guest clinician come and give a demonstration on natural horsemanship with her horse. I'm sorry to say that I do not remember what her name is...*crickets chirping*...Not my strong suit, sorry! I do know that she said she broke her back 8 weeks ago while judging and a kid on an out of control horse t-boned her and her horse Maggie. Luckily Maggie was not injured and she is finally on the mend from her injury, I sure feel her pain!

So Maggie had not been messed with since her accident but she brought her and used her for her bridleless demonstration. She was very interesting and Maggie was not on her best behavior...when she was let into the arena she took off running and wouldn't came as the lady called her LOL! BUT as soon as Maggie made eye contact with her she would come! Very cool!

So she used DD and her cousin to help with her laying the horse down and mounting demonstration. The kids thought this was SUPER cool!

The Great Stud Escape~!

Most of you know why many horse people don't want to have stud horses on their property...Well I have a stud colt, 2 actually but one of them is two years old this year and he's proving to be a real handful lately...

Saturday morning the Hubby and I were getting ready to leave when I notice 2 of my "up front" pasture horses whinnying about something. Well I just assumed they were talking to my other horses in the back pasture as they often do. But then the Hubby says to me, "I've been watching them trying to figure out what they are so worked up about...Do you see Bubba"? ME: "NO...actually I don't...Where is he"?! Hubby: (pulling me out further from where I was standing) "Look over there"...And there he was...NOT in his pasture!! Nope he was all the way across the field standing next to Rita and Bella...Great just what I want to do! Chase around a hopeful stud! SO the Hubby instinctively goes straight and grabs a bucket of feed thinking he can shake it and Bubba will come running. UMMM...Excuse me?!?! HELLO!!! I DO NOT bribe my horses!!! So at this point I was a *teeny* bit irritated because he knows the rules and this is a big one!




So I head over and grab a halter (of course I grabbed my camera out of my truck on the way *giggles*) and head out there and proceed to tell the Hubby that he is not going to come for that feed we just need to halter him! So the Hubby takes the lead with the bucket of feed and heads out there, I'm hobbling along through the freshly turned under pasture in my flip flops trying to catch up! So finally Rita see's us and she starts heading to the front of her pasture and Bubba takes off along the fence chasing her. So they get stopped and the Hubby goes to walk up to Bubba and makes some comment about "he's being to antsy to halter because he has other things on his mind" So he plops the feed in front of him, I guess thinking this would get him to stand still?! But nope of course not because he just wants to be where Rita is! Hubby had luckily laid the halter on the ground so I scooped it up and walked right up to Bubba and haltered him...YEP...That simple Hubby...WHY oh WHY do they always have to make something bigger than it is?!













So I head off with Bubba but quickly handing him over to the Hubby because of my flip flop issue, I've had toes stepped on 1 to many times! Bubba was none to interested in going back to his pasture but we got him there and his friends were glad to have him back! He ran the fence line and whinnied for a couple of minutes then he just went on about his business. We never did find his escape route...We are assuming he just slipped through the wires after having stuck his head through because he does have silver rub marks at the top of his withers.










Needless to say he must go in soon to be cut!

Finally an Answer

Finally today was my follow up appt from my Discogram, it was originally scheduled for June 4th but I was once again rescheduled....I tell ya it gets a little old having EVERY single appt changed! But I was glad for today to come!

My Dr has confirmed that I do have Disc Degeneration in the L3, L4, and S1-L5. However with the L3 and L4 I did not have positive pain response which he expected me to. The S1-L5 is where my pain is coming from but he was not expecting that! He said the degeneration in the other discs were worse than that level but that is the nature of this "disease", sometimes you will have degenerated discs and not have any symptoms at all while you may have one that doesn't appear to be as bad that causes tremendous amounts of pain. Which is my case.

After going over the treatments I have already done over the last 2 1/2 years he said I am not likely to get any relief from anymore of those types of treatment. Another option is surgery, basically there are two types of surgeries for this and they are spinal fusion or artificial disc replacement. The last choice would be to leave it alone and live with the pain, which obviously I do not want to do...I've had enough, I'm ready to get on with my life doing fun things, riding horses again!

So I am scheduled for surgery August 25th, for the artificial replacement which is a better scenario of course pending insurance approval...I will be in the hospital for 5 days pending everything goes accordingly and my Hubby asked lots of important questions as my mind drew a blank while we were sitting there. It is possible that the insurance company may try to force fusion basically because it's cheaper. But we will go through an appeals process if they deny. My Dr isn't sure what they will do as I already meet their strict guidelines for the surgery with my history. So for now I am praying for the right outcome and I know God will take care of it all.. I'd love to hear any feedback if any of you guys have had or know anything about these procedures!

I Just LOVE this new Boot Planter that DD and I found!!!

Chronicles of the Mystery Bush....

Three and half years ago when we bought this ranch I was given a ton of "lessons" in things to care for on the property by the previous owners. Among that list was needed critical care for some bushes that are along the side of a detached garage that is behind the house. I got the impression that these bushes were high maintenance and they needed to be pruned every year to grow right etc...However the woman never did tell me what this bush was. So this started a family battle on guessing what it was!

The very first family gathering I had out here was Easter of '07 and all of us ladies of the family gathered around the bushes to try to figure out what they were. You see we are all very avid flower and garden lovers and I think my Granny is the queen bee and she pretty much knows it all. So she gave me her opinion of what they were and lo and behold a fairly new married into the family Aunt pops in and proceeds to tell my Granny that she is wrong! So from that point on the quest began to find out just exactly what these flower bushes were! So I took to careful pruning of the bushes and nothing....Nope not one single bud of a flower was to be seen!! So the next year again I pruned oh so carefully....And again...Nothing! Now after these two years have passed I'm just flat out annoyed because I *really* want to know! So this third year I decided I was done with them! Not gonna touch them because they don't like me and I don't like them!

One afternoon my brother came to visit and we were out back so he and his wife could pick some lilacs to take home and I pointed out the two bushes (there used to be three, but the smallest one died off) and told him how I had worked so hard on these dumb things but I was officially done with them and their dead stalks coming up out of them! He says to me "well that's the problem, you need to leave them alone....Those *sticks* growing up out of them that look dead, that's where the flowers will bud on"....HUH?! Brother say WHAT?! Apparently he had one of these where he used to live and since he's not a flower kind of guy he never touched them but did notice enough that they always bloomed on these dead ends!

So I did just as he said and did nothing and much to my amazement over the course of the next few weeks they started budding these things that to me that resembled the surface of a horse apple on a horse apple tree! They were bright green and then after many days they started blooming these white blooms that then after some more days they would start to turn a very light blue. Finally after each bloom was fully bloomed it would turn this really pretty rich blue color!! I was dumbfounded! I mean I think I'm pretty knowledgeable about flowers but I can't remember ever having been around this flower.












So I did what I do best and Googled it! Quickly I figured out this mystical flowering bush is a Hydrangea! I now understand why the previous owner was so adamant about me caring for these bushes as they are pretty special! I am amazed to learn of all the different colors they can be and how you can actually alter the color of the flowers by changing elements in your soil! So I have decided that I will be transplanting and purchasing some more in various colors to plant around my property!












So after all of my research I finally got my butt in gear and cleaned up the whole area that was over grown with weeds due to my decision to neglect them....It now is all ready for some colorful mulch and some more plants where the third one was. Oh and I am glad to finally have an answer for my family, however I cannot remember now who's guess was right LOL!!

These pictures were taken with my HTC EVO during the start of a massive storm so the wind kind of interfered with any chance of getting still pictures of them LOL! That pile in the bottom corner of the first picture would be the pile of weeds I pulled out...Not to bad, right?!