The Confidence Booster

I didn't write about my second fall this summer, but it wasn't fun. I only wound up riding maybe about 10 times this summer, and was left on the ground twice (one of those two being a pretty bad fall). That never makes you feel very good about getting back on again.

So last weekend I went to ride Hank again, but I was just dreading getting back on again. Before I got on him, I lunged him for the first time since the summer I got him. I was impressed with how well he actually did for not being lunged in almost two years. (Aside from me tripping over a feeder in the middle of the field and him proceeding to gallop around the field himself as fast as he could for several minutes.)

Finally, after having to tell myself several times that getting back on wouldn't be a big deal, I finally did. We had a good few gallops across the field and it was a nice "confidence booster". I'm more than ready to get on the next time I have time, but I feel like that is never!

Blackie: Part II

Today my friend Katie and I decided to see what else we could find out about this horse someone just seems to have left out with my horses. We both thought she had probably been ridden at some time but didn't know anything about her...

After detangling all the crazy dreadlocks shes had for months we decided to put a saddle on her to see how she would react. At first she was very jumpy about it but then she calmed down after we cinched her up and started walking around; she was calm to put a bridle on.

We decided to ride her in a small pen, as I don't actually have an arena or round pen to ride in. After putting weight on her I got on her first while Katie held the bridle. We walked in a few circles and then Katie got on and walked/trotted her. She was very nervous but good natured and responded to a bridle.

Later, after we had ridden her, we decided to lunge her for a while. She was not as smooth when we were riding her with a little work she could be a nice horse.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like anyone really wants to put any work into her; which is very sad. But she seems like a nice horse aside from being a little skiddish.

Katie and Blackie

Blackie: Who Just Leaves Thier Horse?

Around Christmas time my brothers friend asked if she could keep her horse at our house for a week while she went on vacation somewhere.

Six months later and the girl has not been out to see her horse once or come to get it. She is supposed to be paying board for it to run out in the hills with my four, but that has not come in either.

Did she just forget she owned a horse?

That's the start of my story with Blackie. I don't know much about her other than that she seems gentle, and being some girls horse she was probably ridden at some point, but I don't want to volunteer to be the one to test that. Shes black and some cross bred maybe with some arab but I'm not great at horse breeds.

 

Any thoughts on a breed? 

Old Horses: We Love Them

Fun Fact: It seems there are a lot of rumors on the internet about a horse that lived to be 62 years old and died in 1822. Wow! Officially the oldest horse ever recorded by Guinness World Records is 51 years old. Still, that's pretty old!

Recently I was digging through my dad's hard drive off his old computer, looking at old pictures and other miscellaneous stuff on it. (Pretty funny stuff!)

I came across a video I had taken when I was about 10 with my first camera of my horses. I had three horses then: Lucy, Dori, and Rebel. Dori and Rebel themselves were ancient, although definitely not 51. I was narrating the two minute video talking about my horses as if they were my best friends; it was super sweet (and I'm generally not the kind of person that thinks things are sweet). Not that that means I ever intend to show anyone my video!  

Its amazing how much technology has improved since I owned that camera. Back then I had blurry pictures and very very shaky videos with crackling sound quality. Now you can get all of those crystal clear.

This is Dori (photo out of the video). She was my first horse although not the first horse I had been riding. Nice horse for a little girl to ride around by herself but not much else. Of course, when I was 7 or 8 it didn't matter if the horse was ugly and old, she was a nice horse and safe to ride and that was really all that mattered back then. 

This is Rebel. Talk about old horses! He looks like a woolly mammoth from the ice age. I have no idea how old he really was but I can't believe this poor guy lived as long as he did with all the health issues he had.

Old horses, they tend to be stubborn and head strong, but we love them none the less. 

Have you had any horses you watched grow old?

A Cow Not Much Bigger Than A Cat

The baby calf on the left is Spencer when she was about 3 days old. She is lying next to our cat Jack. They are almost the same size! Spencer was born 6 days ago on Saturday, she was also born two months early. Cows gave the same gestation as people (nine months) and Spencer was born at only nine. The cows last baby was still nursing on her when this little girl was born.

Born at 18 lbs instead of about 70 it is a miracle she is alive! She's doing good and her mom is very sweet and putting up with everything. Spencer is nursing on the cow (with help) twice a day but the vet still has to put a tube down her throat into her stomach once a day as she is not yet strong enough to nurse by herself.

The vet says he's only ever seen one calf younger than this survive in all the years he's been working as a vet. We are very hopeful and she is doing good - talk about a success story!

Emergency Dismount

I haven't written in a while, but I finally have a good story and time to write!

My friend Shelbi and I were riding and after we ran out of sticks to jump over we still wanted to ride more so I decided to ride Hank bareback. Bad idea of course, I've now ridden him three times seriously bare back and been dumped three times! Yay! (I wrote horses bareback all the time when I was younger but I seem to have an unlucky streak with Hank!)
So he was being fine and I was galloping around the field by and all of a sudden he started bucking. Since he'd been acting good I wasnt really paying the best attention and by the time I'd realized what was happening he was galloping, well pretty fast! Shelbi was standing in the field holding her horse and I managed to get him to turn enough to head towards her horse thinking he'd get to him and stop. Wrong! Prepared for him to jump to a complete stop when we got to her I was so not ready for what happened next. Instead of stopping he slammed right into her horse and spun around and kept going. I'm just claiming that I pretty much did and emergency dismount when we hit her horse but who is really prepared to smash into another horse?! And the best is I was riding in short shorts (don't ask why!) so my bare sweaty legs stuck to his sweaty skin and half of me catapulted off and the other half stuck. Oww what a stretch! This was sunday and now 5 days later I can still feel it when I walk. Then I had to spend another 30 minutes riding the bucks out of him, but I think we were successful in the end. Now to try again when my legs recover!

Hank got a snazzy new halter. I think he needs to be a halter model; you know you think so to!

Its 5:56 am, what do you need?

I might have already been awake, but that doesn't warrant that I want to talk before the sun comes up when I have class then does it? I guess sometimes you just have to be a good friend sometime.

I woke up this morning to this...

I must have already been awake because my phone was on silent and it won't wake me up if it vibrates once, unless I know I need to get up. I look over and have other text that hadn't woken me up but I also have one from Clint (Amanda's boyfriend). I thought this was more than odd because I don't know why he would text me to start with.  I figured that he was going to tell me to stop making so much noise or something (he lives in the apartment below in the bedroom beneath mine) similar so I snapped back.

Turns out he really just did want to talk. He said his back was bothering him and he couldn't sleep. I guess he didn't want to wake anyone up so he decided to text me instead, thanks! Good choice though, while I'm not the most sympathetic person I am the person that would always talk to their friend in the middle of the night if they needed it.

Since it was 6am and I planned on getting up in just a little over an hour, to do homework that I'd procrastinated a lot on, I thought about just telling him to come up and talk. But I hesitated and didn't, would it have been odd to invite him up and have Amanda wake up to her best friend and boyfriend talking in the living room when I shouldn't have even been awake? I casually brought it up in the morning and she said I should have, but then again everything is always better said than done. With my past history of telling him how much I loved him (so I had a few to many drinks!) I didn't want anyone to have the wrong idea, and decided against it. Still, I feel like I took the easy way out and the bad friend approach. What would you have done?

P.S. I wrote this a few days ago and it somehow didn't get published. Oops!

Since When Is This A Holiday?

Cesar Chavez day has become a real holiday in California, they're even giving us a day off school. One of my teachers referred to the holiday as "Cesar Get Drunk Day"; and that's pretty much what it is. The people outside my window have been celebrating since 3pm YESTERDAY and are still at it now... Keep it up for three more hours and it will have been a 24 hour long party, and Im sure it will go all night.

Anyway, I'm not concerned about my neighbors; you can't fault people for having fun. (Nor am I sayin I don't like to have just as much fun...) I just think the holiday seems a little over rated. Most people would probably tell me not to complain about a day off school, and yes it is nice (especially considering Thursday's my longest day). But I guess when your not rich and paying for college it seems like I'm paying for a day of doing nothing. Does that make sense?

Anyway, this holiday just doesn't seem that important to me. Rather, it seems like an excuse to get drunk.

Someone seems to have lost their vodka in our parking lot...

On Another Note...
Earlier I mentioned that we were planting a "garden" on our balcony. Well, my radishes and carrots seem to be actually growing. Radishes are one of those things that taste good if you grew them, other wise you wouldn't want to eat them plain (although I am a picky eater...) and I love carrots either way. Amanda planted tomatoes, snap peas, and strawberries while Ashley planted a watermelon. I'm not sure about how you grow watermelon on your balcony along with the tomatoes but I guess we'll see...

Wow! My radishes and carrots are growing a lot!
Left to Right: Suicide Radishes, White Asian Radishes, Short Carrots

Can't You Keep Your Plans?

So I use the word awesome way to much, but at least I realize that right?

I had a fun week starting on Tuesday I drove to the state capitol for the  CCA (California Cattlemen's Association, a cattle rights activist group)   legislative breakfast on Wednesday. CCA does a lot of cool stuff but we got to listen to the governor speak about current issues and meet with legislatures which is cool to do even if it sounds incredibly lame and boring.
Thursday is my longest day at school and I had an accounting test that I didn't do well on, but I always seem to do well on tests either way so I'm hopeful. By Thursday we were all more than exhausted though and canceled our plans for that night. 

Last night seemed like a very long night.. Amanda left to go to dinner with Clint and they came back after getting in a car accident, both upset. We then all went to dinner as a group, but Clint was mad about his car getting smashed and that made the rest of the night awkward. We came back and after Amanda finished her homework we met Ashley and Nicole (her best friend) at the hookah bar. I think we all like going there more to hang out than really smoke, but we always have fun. Ashley bet me $5 that I would go dance with some guy who was dancing by himself, but I got up the courage and she owes me five dollars now. I don't care so much about the money, rather I just wanted to prove that I could... Do you ever do that? We came back and hung out and watched an episode of the first season of Grey's Anatomy but I was to tired to stay up past 2 and went to sleep about hour before them.

This morning I woke up to them getting ready to leave to go to their moms house. They left later than they expected but they still left around 12 and told me theyd be back in a few hours. We made plans to do a little shopping and find something fun to do tonight. Now its 9 here and they still aren't back... So about an hour and a half ago I made plans to go to my freinds house and hang out, but Amanda just sent me a text asking me if I wanted to stay and hang out with her. Which I do, and I'd probably have more fun if I stayed and did so, but I'm also a little angry that she can't make solid plans and keep them and that she also always expects me to drop my plans so she can make her own. She also was the one who convinced me to stay here and not go home for the weekend, she assured me she would be here all weekend. Oh and did I mention, shes leaving all day tomorrow too?

Maybe some day Amanda will learn to be a little more reliable, but most likely not. Oh well, I guess everyone has thier downfalls, and either way we're still best friends. Well, I believe I am off to Sam's house soon.

Boring Nights Can Turn Epic

Epic - adjective - heroic; majestic; impressively great 
As a word not commonly used where I grew up, epic was a word I learned after going to college where it seemed to be a word everyone used.

Whether people say epic where you live or not, last night was epic. 

We (Amanda and I) took a trip to Walmart where we bought some plants to grow, mostly vegetables. Then we headed off the the grocery store and came home with a lot of junk food and chips & dip.  After planting our plants we sat around reading magazines and eating until Ashley showed up, back from her parents house.

High off sugar, we danced  for hours until we were to tired to stand up any more when Amanda got a text from her (very hot!) cousin. Off we went to the bowling alley to hang out with Paul and his friends. Unfortunately, they weren't incredibly hot like him! On the other hand, they were all very nice and fun to hang out with. After after only three beers Amanda was slizzard (we've adopted this from her favorite song, like a G6) and loosing pretty bad considering shed beat us by a lot the game before. 

It was a fun night and we made some new friends that we may or my not meet again... 

Spring Break

Our school has moved spring break to March in hopes of getting people to leave for St. Patrick's Day (which is a huge event here). Amanda convinced me I needed to stay and hang out for break although I'm not sure why; I just seem to be very bored. Had I gone home I could have been feeding cows and galloping through the fields with Hank, but I'm stuck here updating the software on my phone and trying to make the choice what ten songs not to sync so I can fit my new music. And yesterday, well, I watched tv downstairs all day with Jason and Nate.

My plans for the rest of the week aren't all that exciting either. Prepare for my two interviews at the end of the week and just hang out. My aunt is coming up Wednesday to get breakfast, but that doesn't really count... It seems like everyone is gone for break and the four of us here are all tired of drinking. So that leaves not much to do... What do other people do on their spring breaks or when they have time off?

I make myself sound like I have a miserable life; I guess its not all that bad. There are alot more boring things to do. On the other hand, it doesn't leave me much to write about.  Anyway, today were off to make a garden on our patio!

Shhh, don't tell him he's not a dog!

My Bed Is A Racetrack

 I remember mentioning to Ashley the other day that she should just leave Rhoda in my bedroom when she leaves for class in the morning; she has class at 8 and I don't have class till 11. I always feel horrible when they leave and I later get out of bed to find out they've locked the dog up all morning while ive been home. However, it didn't prepare me to get jumped on at 7:30 in the morning by a hyperactive border collie who wants to play when your sound asleep. After she used my bedroom (including my bed) as a racetrack she finally decided she wouldn't really mind curling up at the foot of the bed and going back to sleep.

Our Crazily Insane Dog, Rhoda

On another note, I just checked my email and got an interview for an internship this summer! It would be working for our state fair (California) in the livestock rings this summer. Any job this summer would be awesome, way better than spending all summer hanging out with my family! On the other hand, that would mean very little horse riding time, and how sad would that be?

You know what I really hate? People that lie.
But worse than that, people that lie and do it all the time.
Worse than even that, people that lie all the time and don't realize how obvious their lies  are.
Maybe I'm just a little to paranoid?

Hoofprints and Footprints: Who's left them on my heart?

Sometimes, living in the city makes me feel trapped inside a very small box. All I want to do is open my door and see fields of green grass and my horses grazing on the side of the hill wishing I'd stop being so lazy and bring them some horse treats. Really, I just wish I could jump on the back of Hank (my horse) and gallop across a flat field and feel the wind against my face. Its been almost two months since I've gotten to ride and it feels like ages. Don't get my wrong, I like my life in the city (although its really not that large of a city, only 100,000 people. But hey, the town I came from had 3,000; its a huge change for me!) but sometimes I miss the grass, the echoing silence, and our happy California cows. But of course I miss my horses, they used to be my entire life.

Life is like a trying to follow a treasure map that has unclear pictures: sometimes it leads you astray to places you don't want to be and other times it will lead you to other treasures both small and large, but in the end  there will always be something good waiting for you at the end. I'm not sure where I am on this map of mine, but I'm sure time will tell.

Horses leave hoofprints and people leave footprints, some of these are ingrained into your heart forever others are temporary and fade with time.