Whew was I really feeling bad

I am feeling better now. I just had to vent a bit the other day.

Since we are not going to ever move I have some ideas for inside and outside of the house and I want to get on the ball ASAP!

First- get the trenchwork and culvert replacement scheduled. Then 2 things I would like to have done is a pull-out pantry to replace the mess that I have right now, and then have the office paneled in rough beadboard.

Home Depot has Posts and cement on sale so we can start replacing the t-post corners in the pasture and make them more secure.

We need to do something in the basement to make it more ulitarian and I'd like to get estimates on what it would cost to have the furnace moved to the basement and on-demand hot water. Just a few things to start off with.

Been working with Paha on the road. He does fine when a vehicle approaches slowly towards us but then there is always some a**hole who goes by so fast he throws up dust and gravel. At least when someone honks he doesn't jump anymore. If a vehicle approaches from behind he has not shown any fear (probably because Meins is always chasing him. lol) or hesitation. Meins and I have been working well also. With the cooler weather we have been able to go out longer. I may have to breakdown and get a new pair of walking shoes! Since I twisted my knee the other day I have been saddling him for our walks and putting my helmet on my saddle just in case I need to ride home.

So everyday I try to walk 5' farther than the day before. Have also doing some core exercises and am eating better too. I want to be a lean (thinner) mean riding machine someday again.........

Why do I feel so bad about this

Right now I am not feeling so good. Don't know if it's the meds or this damn thyroid thing or who knows. I hate when I feel like this because all I can think about is how much I am probably hurting my horses by not having anywhere for them to graze. This property is a true money pit. Seems like we try to fix something and something else goes wrong and bringing in load after load of fill just isn't working and creating other problems. The house is fine, we like the house, but this land cannot sustain large animals, it's virtually wet all the time and we are breeding some of the biggest mosquitoes around here! The ground is so soft they often sink to their knees and when it's wet to nearly their bellies. Eventually one of them is going to catch a tree root in the muck and break a leg and I'll be burying him where he lays.

This morning I tripped going into the shed I have to duck down to go into and really twisted my right knee. Now it's swollen and hurts like hell. Right now it's hell going up and down the back stairs. I am so hoping the thyroid dosage gets determined soon because I ache so badly I could scream. I know I am asking for too much by wanting to move. The brain and body just are not working together right now and that makes me pissed which gets me upset which makes me even more angry...........AAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.............................sigh!

Actually considered selling them and just forgetting this whole thing but I cannot bring myself to do it. Besides, with so many good horses ending up going to slaughter, I can't do it. Trying very hard to work with what we have and we are losing.

Ouch! Ok I am done venting.

Follow the leader

It never seems to fail. Meins and Paha can be waaay over yonder and I'll step into the pasture to do some work and the next thing I know is there are two noses snuffling my neck and shoulders. This is what I love best about spending time with them. Today I was raking manure (dry) into small piles so I can pick it up in the wheelbarrow tomorrow. So for the heck of it I raised the garden rake up over our heads, no one moved, soooo just for the heck of it I wanted to see what they would do if the rake was lowered onto their backs. You know what? They loved it!!! I scratched their tummies, which I thought was going to put Paha to heaven, and their rumps. Dropped heads, sleepy eyes, just plain relaxed. What's wrong with these horses? Why on earth do they trust a two legged so much? They keep me in such awe at times. These two, 1000 lbs animals trust me enough to allow me to come into their space and do all these crazy things with them. And then to just drop and lay down next to me is even more amazing! I know I've said it before and I will repeat myself; I am humbled, and ever so grateful, to have these two amazing animals entrusted in my care. I (we) will do whatever it takes to make sure they have a long happy, comfortable life with us.

Pic #1, Dom sitting in our hotel window overlooking the back of the Appaloosa Museum. #2, Dom riding Paha and #3, Mom saying goodbye to the boys before heading to Idaho the next morning. Enjoy!

Taking our time

Paha and I slowly getting back into walking shape. Well, I am, he's just along for company. I have to keep after him because he walks so dang slow! I always forget to grab the med length (dressage) whip and walk past it every time. We walked down the road til we (I) could no longer hear Meins and stood for a few minutes then came back and went down to the creek but those REALLY BIG FLIES were on us immediately. So we came back, I groomed him head to foot, took off his face mask and shook out the dirt and put that back on, checked feets, mane, tail and sprayed the bugger down really well. The flies love his white belly. Actually they have not been too bad, I try to stay on top of the manure and my next batch of fly preds should be coming soon. The mosquitoes are going to be the challenge this year with all the water around here.

Tomorrow Meins and I will take our walk and hopefully by the end of July I'll be riding him down the road. Still working on the dizzy spells. That's why I quite doing so many things and well, I'm getting better. If I fall asleep now it may just be for an hour or so, as to before I was actually going back to bed for 3 or 4 hours.

Working on a new quilt for one of my breakfast girls. Her house is decorated in Nautical style but I wanted to do something a bit different and more personal. MERMAIDS! So far I have most of the fabric picked out, seashore themed, and traced my applique pcs out. This is going to be a fast, fun one!

I'm going to go read my Trail Rider magazine, finish laundry and mop the floor.

Hope you are having a beautiful day!

The pic is of the Snake River in Lewiston, Idaho.

The Birds

WHOO HOO! There is a crazy, wild explosion of baby birds this year (could be because Sammy killed a raccoon and I got rid of an adult)! Grosbeaks, 3 varieties of woodpeckers, Cardinals and even baby Orioles! And the baby woodpeckers love oranges and grape jelly too! As do the Catbirds and some sparrows. We have even caught the hummingbird with jelly on his beak. For years we would only hear the Orioles and Catbirds in the woods but now they will sit in the tree above the deck and if you do not move they will come down for their feast. And THAT is a great honor to sit in the front row to watch such amazing entertainment!

Planes, trains and Equine things

We arrived home safely Monday evening and not feeling much better. Robyne went to the Doc on Wed and she has (possibly) strep and an ear infection. My Doc added cough syrup to my growing list of meds.

So I have Hashimoto's desease. My immune system is attacking my thyroid throwing everything hormonal out of whack. GRREEAAAAAT! I'll be leaving in a bit to have an ultrasound done on my neck to make sure there are no tumors looming there.

The boys and I are slowly getting back on track. While Klaus worked on the fence Tues. I moved some of the round pen panels around so they could graze on grass then before putting them back into the pasture we did a short session. Yes with both of them at the same time. Paha is such a follower. When I had them stop and turn Pa would let Meins pass and lead so I would stop them again and ask for the turn until they got it. Paha stepped out reluctantly in the lead and Meins wanted to nip to hurry him along but a snap from the whip made him back off. Just a slow casual walk around the R/P with Paha in the lead is all I wanted and got. We have been working on this for awhile. I have also "ponied" Meins off of Paha. No I was not riding Pa, he was tacked up and I led them around the pasture, trees, cones, barrel and then switched. Meins just does not want a horse that close to him in the rear. He got a couple of god slaps with my "hand" (the bat actually has the shape of a leather hand on the end) and he will behave, albeit with an attitude.

So that's it for today, happy Friday everyone and have a great horsey weekend!

On my way back home

Well the three of us are at Spokane airport and should star boarding around 12:30p. Jeanne is torn about leaving
.There are so many things to see yet and not feeling all that well did not make it much fun the last couple of days. We did try to take a drive yesterday but it started to rain so hard at one point we had to turn around and go back to the hotel. I'll truly miss the folks we met. Everyone here is so nice and were very helpful when Jeanne got sick.
We'll be back again someday. Idaho isn't going anywhere and Jeanne hopes to ride a section of the Chief Joseph Trail on Meins and Paha.
So until tomorrow my friends we will wave as we fly by!
Dom

The Appaloosa Museum

I love the inteactive kids area. Check out the "seats" around the table, very clever!

This head dress is nearly a century old and still quite impressive!

These are the carved wooden doors to the entrance of The Appaloosa Horse Club, which is next to the museum.

If If only you could really see and feel the detail on some of these items. This saddle in particular just fascinated me! It's so beautiful and functional as well. I guess when you have to ride through cactus country the horse and rider need all the protection they can get.

Lewiston Idaho

I just love these sculptures! They pop out at you all through town.

OH Goodness

The Quickcare clinic was quick this morning. I had lost my voice and my chest hurt, and some nasty stuff was..........well, anyway. I have a bacterial infection and was put on antibiotics.

I just wanted to cry this morning but being the troopers that we are we took care of it.

Went to walmart to pick up the perscription, then had a light breakfast and swung around to the museum to take a bunch of picks.

Not even noon and we both taking naps! Oh well, we are still planning to go down to the Nez Perce Indian reservation tomorrow and it's only 35+ miles so that's not bad. Enjoy today's pics.

Robyne and I ventured out this morning after breakfast and found the post office, a well stocked fabric shop and gift shop.

Then we came back to the hotel (we are both just dragging with these colds) and while she took some cold med I went over to the museum. I watched a 10 minute video about Appaloosas then went around looking through all the books of Appaloosa people and their role in the club and people who had a major impact in the Appaloosa history and the horses they represented. After nearly 3 hours, and a few purchases, I went off to the hotel and started to wind down only to get a call from Jennifer that Wendi Gunter had arrived and did I want to come back to the museum to meet her. HECK YEA! So I put my shoes and socks back on, grabbed the laptop and went down to meet her.

She is such a delightful, beautiful, talented artist. We spent a few minutes chatting, showed her some recent pics of the boys, she showed me the original she did of Paha, and chatted a bit more then we all said goodbye.

So although we feel like crap, we at least met up with the very people I had intended to meet from the get go.

Our room has a microwave and a fridge so we have stocked up with OJ and chicken noodle soups and lots of water.

WE ARE HAVING FUN AND NO STINKING COLD IS GOING TO MAKE MY TRIP SUCK!

HAHAHAHAHA!

ok all, talk to you tomorrow.

Lewiston, Idaho

What a beautiful part of the country! Miles and miles of farmed land, Spring wheat, granola (oats), camas and corn. Just as far as the eye can see. And then a cow will pop up, seemingly standing on the tip of a hill, but as you get higher and can actually see where he is standing it just gently rolls down into another hill.

My sinus infection got worse so we really weren't going to go down to Lewiston but DAMMIT how many opportunities will I get like this! The sun was out, we had a full tank of gas and said what the hell let's go!

We stopped at the Nez Perce museum and spent a while there and read about some fascinating history. They do not allow camera use in the museum so we have no pics but did get some brochures with some info on them and Robyne took some nice pictures outside the museum. As we got closer to Hell's gate Canyon my head got worse. We did drive along the Snake River for awhile and cross over it, stopped at numerous historical markers to take pics and if there wasn't any traffic behind us we just stopped in the middle of the road to take pics. lol Damn tourists!

So we had a nice day today and I took some aspirin and lay down for a bit while Robyne went down to the pool.

Tomorrow we may go up to Kibbie Dome and then in the afternoon we are going back to the museum to meet Wendi Gunter, Paha's artist.

So enjoy today's pics and we'll see what tomorrow brings!

Another dream come true

Today (Weds) was a very long day for Robyne,Jeanne and myself. Leaving home at 5am to get to the airport and journey off to Idaho. But, we made it! Poor Robyne got sick just before landing in Minneapolis, and I can honestly say I was not far behind. The lady across the aisle from us ran in the bathroom to get some wet towels and the water was shut off already! The flight attendant didn't have enough barf bags so he gave a trash bag. Ouch! Once on the ground and freshening up a bit we felt better.

The second plane taking us into Spokane was much bigger and we were in first class! That was nice (thank you Klaus). Plus Robyne was able to get some Dramamine and that helped a lot too.

It rained off and on on the way down to Moscow but we had a nice drive down (of course I was in my "navigation seat" and made our way to the hotel.

After resting up a few minutes we headed over to the Museum, of which we can see from our hotel room, and met Juli Thorson, editor of Horse and Rider magazine, Jennifer Hamilton, museum director and Katharine Bierlien. What a treat to get a personal tour from Juli and chat with Katherine and Jennifer, all who have helped me with my Appaloosa journey. Friday afternoon we'll venture back to the museum to meet up with Wendi Gunter, the artist who did Paha's image on a set of the museum's note cards. Pretty awesome!

Juli was willing to take us out and about and show us some highlights in the area and get some dinner, but Jeanne and Robyne could barely stand anymore and Jeanne was starting to feel a bit worse with a cold so we called it quits for the evening. So Juli drove us up the rise back to our hotel, raining pretty steady again by then, and said goodbye. I do hope we can meet her again someday, she was pretty awesome.

So Thurs we need to stop and get lots of vitamin c, a good breakfast and we are going to take a drive around the loop of the Indian encampments, and see a lot of where the Palouse peoples came from, the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition and more.

Enjoy the pics and we'll be back later!