Please note -
the most recent entries are at the top
If you want to read this in Chronological order, start at the
bottom and work your way up.
Thanks.... the management!
Click here
for Journal 2007.
July 12th,
2008
Well, it's
been a bad couple of weeks.
And I have
gripe to post about.
The
GRIPE: (scroll down to skip) After emailing back and
forth several times, I
thought I'd had a good perspective match for one of the horses.
The big confirmation would be how the horse reacted to her. So on Thursday when I received an email that the buyer was tentatively
confirming for a Sunday visit, I arranged for the vet to come out and
draw blood for a Coggin's Test. A Coggin's test has to be
done before the horse can be legally sold/transferred to a new owner.
Anyway, it was to be a long drive
for the buyer and I figured they might actually bring a horse trailer
with them (I would if I was drive more then 2 hours to see a horse).
So I take 1 1/2 hours off work so that I could rush home and meet the
vet (and pay the farm call fee ($$$$$)). Then rush out the next
morning so I can take the blood sample to the lab, and rush out at
lunch to pick up the results (which were NEGATIVE (GOOD)).
All so that I can have the paperwork ready for him should it all work
out.
Well.....
This is my gripe - AFTER ALL THAT EXPENSE (GAS, VET FEE, TIME OFF
WORK) - the perspective buyer never called or emailed (and yes they
had all my contact info and directions to here). It would have
been more considerate of the buyer to just email and say - "I can't
come, I can't afford the gas." Or, "I've found another horse that's
closer." All of those I would have understood - but to NOT CALL
or email - it's inconsiderate.
Yes, I know
it was a "Tentative" confirmation - but there is planning on BOTH ends
of a meeting such as this and the one that is going to "not show"
should be considerate enough to let the other know.
Oh well
- now that I have "VENTED" (without the beer) - on to other subjects.
I'd forgotten
to mention below that we'd lost a stray/wild kitten that was roaming
the property - she went in to the front yard when the dogs were out.
She wasn't one of ours but I was hoping to catch and get her spayed.
Ian came home
of summer camp and I wound up taking him to the doctor on Monday due
to his having two ear infections.
The morning
of July 2nd, when I left for work, I found Howler by the side of the road.
He'd been hit by a vehicle and had passed over the Rainbow Bridge.
He and the little kitty are now buried close together.
I'm in
Physical Therapy for the next several weeks for correcting problems
with my shoulder. The Therapists are taking great delight in
exercising and manipulating the joint and the bones around it.
In the eval I was surprised at how much the joint moved and in so many
different ways.
June 28th,
2008
Well, it's
been busy for the last several months.
Ian just got
back from summer camp - and he seems to have enjoyed it immensely.
He worked on a number of badges and even though he didn't complete the
swimming badge he did improve greatly on his swimming skills.
Which is good since we set up the easy up pool about 2 weeks before he
went to camp.
Yes, Ian is
now a teenager - YIKES!!! I hope I can live through out
the next several years.
The good news
though is that I don't need surgery (according to one doc) for the
shoulder pain that I've had for several months. I had x-rays and
an MRI and the diagnosis is Tendonitis. Which is good since I
don't really have the leave time from work to take off for anything
major. I start Physical Therapy next week.
Since March
I've had to spend my tax check and the rebate check on car repairs.
Both the cars needed a little TLC. The biggest one that was a
bit scary was when the alternator went in the van. It totally
cut out - everything. The only problem was that it was 11 PM at
night and we were on a narrow 2 lane country road with NO lights and a
long walk between the car and the nearest house. Oh and I was
doing 45 MPH at the time that it all cut out. I nearly had a
heart attack.
I did however
get a little money set aside from the above for putting in a new fence
- this time around the front yard. So now we have everything
fenced - though the front yard is more for the dogs (and keeping
uninvited guests away from the house), it can however hold several
horses for a few hours if I need them to "mow" the lawn.
Speaking of
mowers - I really did the red mower up good - that was an additional
repair bill that came out of the tax checks. We are still
working on it and it should be up and running - probably by fall.
Thanks to Terrie though - she's lent us her green mower to use.
And her mower isn't going in the pasture.
One other
good thing that happened is that we were FINALLY able to get better
Internet access. We are using a wireless broadband company and
I'm pretty satisfied with them. I've been able to get a little
home network going for a minimal expense (bought gradually). We
now have 3 computers, 2 printers, and an Xbox on the network.
Plus Ian can play his Nintendo DS Wi-Fi games and Ken can connect his
PSP as well. It didn't take me long to dump dial up and I can
work on the laptop (my computer) from anywhere in the house.
I finally got
some new pictures of the horses - I'm hoping to get them up on the
site soon.
Here's what
usually happens when I show up in the pasture - they all come running
up. From left to right - Strider, Inshallah and Tansy.
Oh, the other
big happening. Ian passed the 6th grade. The school had a
little graduation ceremony for their promotion to 7th grade and going
to Middle School. I got video of that - though it's not the best
since the lights were down in the gymatorium.
You
know the one thing about not updating the site as often - I can't
remember all the things that have gone on.
As I remember
more I'll put it down here.
March 8th,
2008
I've been avoiding updating the website. The last part of 2007
was a little depressing. With the passing of Teza things just
weren't the same. And then Ian pre-teen hormones kicked in and
things just seemed to snowball after that.
Ian's issues came to a head in January when
we were called by the school 3 times in one week. After he
worked through the various punishments - and a decision from us to
remove him from the bus - Ian has seemed to straighten out and we've
not had any more "conversations" with his teachers or the principal.
After Teza's passing, I have kept to my
promise to keep the pasture population down - I've not adopted any
more horses.
Ian is still enjoying boy scouts (right now
I'm sitting here typing this while attending a Pancake Breakfast
fundraiser). Here are the pictures from the Medical Reserve
Corps Emergency Exercise that the scout troop played victims in.
Ian had a ball with the make up and even tried his best to save the
gooey wound.
Not too long after the pancake breakfast
Ian went through a Board of Review where he was quizzed concerning his
knowledge of Boy Scouts and whether or not he qualified for a raise in
rank from Tenderfoot to Second Class. I am proud to announce
that Ian passed the test.
Ian went for his first week long boy scout
camping trip. Boy was that a hard time for me - it was the first
time he was away from us for longer then an over night camping trip.
And it was during the week of his birthday. But we muddled
through it. Ian loved it except for the fact that the trip was
during one of the rainiest weeks of the year - it must have rained
every day at the camp. He came home with everything (and I mean
EVERYTHING) soaking wet and STINKY!!!!!!! I had to wash most of
this stuff two or three times with Febreze to get the stink out of it.
And his tennis shoes (brand new before going) had to be tossed in the
garbage. But he enjoyed every minute of it.
One of Ken's more "enlightened" statements
to me on the number of horses we had was that if I got the number of
horses down that I could have as many dogs as I wanted. I took
him up on the offer and adopted a Boston Terrier around the 1st of July. His name is
Otis and he's a perfect fit with the household. He was a rescue
found wandering around on an Interstate entrance/exit ramp. He
had some nasty skin problems but luckily not mange. We worked
through those - but he wasn't too keen on getting a bath so often.
2007 was Oklahoma's statehood centennial
year. So there were a bunch of different celebration going in
the state. The only one that Ian and I went to was the Oklahoma
State Fair. I don't like crowds all that much and it's usually
HOT. At least it wasn't hot this time. Ian got his first
(and numerous) turns on the various thrill rides. I'm proud to
say that Ian didn't throw up or maybe I just didn't feed him correctly
(GRIN). I got LOADS of pictures and I was also surprised by how
adventurous Ian was with his rides. Only once did he look like
he was regretting going on a ride and I told him it wasn't any problem
in not getting on if he was a little scared.
Oklahoma also had a Centennial Cattle Drive
and it came through fairly close to our house. I didn't make it
home in time to see them as they went by but I did find them early the
next morning as they were leaving their overnight camp.
Another event for Oklahoma's Centennial was
a visit from one of the last working Railroad Steam Engines. It
came through town on a VERY VERY hot day and I felt so sorry for the
men who were working with the engine. It was approaching 100
degrees outside and they were having to keep the engine pressure
up so the fires were being stoked. It was huge - much bigger
then I thought it would be. Thankfully they had parked the
engine in the shade of a highway overpass - well it was better for us
tourists but it was still awful for the engineer.
Also there was an old fire engine that is
waiting to be restored. If it could talk I wonder what stories
it would tell.
Ian still is enjoying basketball - he
played again for his school team this past fall. They won as
many games as they lost but the thing is that they enjoyed playing.
Of the continuing saga of the loafing shed
- we didn't escape damage in 2007 to the loafing shed. Mother
Nature provided us with a really stiff southerly wind during August
(while some tornado's were a few miles west of us) which relocated the
back/north wall of the shed. It again came off in one piece but
this time contacted the ground on one corner, bounced up and over the
electric cross fence, flipped over and landed flat with the nails
pointy end down (yeah!) about 40 to 45 yards north of the shed.
It took us a bit but we got the wall moved all in one piece up
to the round pen for storage until we had time to plan to put it back
up. We ended up only having to replace the headers and 2 sheets
of the corrugated metal siding. We paid more for the addition of
metal strapping/screws and lag screws to shore up the construction
then it did to replace what was damaged. We thought and thought
and finally figured out a way to flip the wall up in one piece and
install it back on the shed without having to disassemble it - we had
the wall up in one afternoon and then Ken went to installing the metal
strapping and addition lag screws. By the end of the weekend -
it was done.
I'm glad to say that both the roof (from
2005) and the back wall (2007) have withstood the most recent tests
Mother Nature could provide (knock on wood).
The most surprising thing about the shed
damage is that the wall (9 foot by 18 foot) didn't touch the electric
fence when it tried to take flight.
In October of last year Ian helped another
boy scout with his Eagle project and garnered a number of donations
for the local city animal shelter and worked the adoption fair as
well. I mention this because we adopted another dog (yes I know
that brought the total up to 6 dogs). This one is Sparky - a yorkie terrier mix. He's had a long life but apparently his
former owners didn't want an older dog. We adopted him from the
shelter just days before he was due to be put down. He was in
the shelter because he'd been hit by a car (but was going to recover)
and his owner's couldn't/wouldn't be found. I couldn't bear to
know what his fate would be if not adopted (the shelter was over
crowded and the management was going to enforce the time limit rules).
And it was likely he wouldn't be adopted since he needed a special
attention for his injuries. So, well sucker that I am, I adopted
him.
Of course
Punkin couldn't be out done for Mama getting a cute picture.
We
were lucky in early December when the state of that massive ice storm.
While friends to the north and south of us were without electricity
and water for nearly a week, we lost power for only 8 hours. And
that was several days after the storm came through. We did
however lose telephone service for nearly a week - seems one of the
junction boxes in the area got flooded/iced over.
Christmas of last year was small - it's the
first year that we'd not used the credit cards to buy Christmas
presents. We were a bit busy so it was well after Christmas
before I was able to mail any presents to family. However,
Ian did make out like a bandit getting a good number of things off his
Christmas list. He spent most of the rest of Christmas vacation
glued to the computer and his new video games. He also go a bow
and arrows from Santa Claus - and a bale of hay for a back stop - now
if we can just get a few less windy days for some target practice.
Ian had big plans for his Christmas money - however, since he got into
trouble within a couple day of returning to school after Christmas I
took the privilege of spending it away - all his Christmas money went
into his savings account.
So far this year everyone's been well
(knock on wood). No flu yet, no injuries (thankfully).
The one thing
that hasn't gone well was the dogs. Scruffy's behavior with the
rest of the dogs over the past year and a half has gotten worse and
culminated in an altercation on Valentine's day where she nearly
killed Sparky. Sparky ended up spending the night at the vet
hospital. This ordinarily wouldn't have been too bad except for
the fact that Scruffy didn't break off when Ken intervened and then
she went after Ken once he got hold of Sparky.
Unfortunately, we euthanized her due to her unpredictability and
worsening behavior. We'd tried to work through her problems with
the other dogs the whole time she was with us but she never would get
to the point where she felt comfortable in their presence.
She'll be missed.
Sparky, for all of his age (and he's fairly
old showing gray in the muzzle and around the eyes, as well as age
spots), recovered well from this brush with death. I believe
he's got of brain damage (from being hit by the car) and eye problems
(possibly both from the car and age). His personality has
returned though we do still have to redirect him on occasion when he
gets that "chip on is shoulder" about bigger dogs. The other
dogs just ignore him.
The two indoor cats have been moved
out to the garage with the rest of the cats (all have been
spayed/neutered). I got a little upset that even though I
provided numerous scratching posts - they started to use my antique
dresser as a scratching/claw sharpening post. Then, I found out
that they've also used my good saddle pads/blankets and my practically
new Aussie saddle for claw sharpening too. I'm planning at this
time to put a wire closet around my horse stuff in the garage so the
cats can't get to them.
It is nice to get them out of the house -
now I can actually hang my horse/dog tapestries on the wall and put
the sheers up behind the curtains. Actually - there are LOTS of
things I can do now that I couldn't before due to the cats.
They've been nasty to me at work recently
(GRIN). They've assigned me to work on the ISO team (process
improvement/quality management). So, in order to get ready for
an audit of our work processes I had to clean and straighten my desk.
Now I CAN'T FIND A THING!!!!!!! It's all been filed, tossed,
stuffed in a lockable cabinet (and yes I have to be careful opening
the cabinet (GRIN)). On the day I got the desk cleaning finished
I took pics just to remember what it looked like. And I can
attest to the fact that a clean desk is a sign of a sick mind.
I found some pictures from the rain storms
of 2007 while I was editing this page - we ended 2007 with about twice
our average rainfall. It was great - the pasture stayed green
throughout the hottest part of the summer which helped the farmers get
loads of hay for baling.
Ah yes - my hubby and his sense of humor -
we were servicing the lawn mower in the garage.
I think he didn't like the fact I was
taking pictures.
That's it for now. I'm gonna start
editing pictures to post on the various pages. The pics were the
only way I could remember some of what went on since the last time I
posted to the website.
Missy
