You've Got To Be Joking...

Or otherwise titled “The making of a barrel horse”

In keeping with the farm denizens spirit of this month, meet Joker.

 Ignore the hair on both of us...It was humid...

Yes, that’s really his name. He’s a 9 year old Palomino Quarter Horse gelding. He is absolutely without a doubt one of the prettiest horses I’ve seen. I might be a little biased here because he is decorating my pasture and I’m training him. When I was a little girl playing with Barbie dolls, I had the Palomino dream horse. I can’t remember the toy horse’s name, but I lugged it everywhere and spent more hours playing with it than Barbie. When the opportunity to play with a real live Palomino came about, well, I couldn’t pass it up. Joker is about 16 hands high and weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 lbs. What can I say? I like my men and my horses big. J Since this is a family-friendly blog, I’ll get back to my story…

Joker is full of piss and vinegar. He’s stubborn and opinionated. And we get along just fine since that’s my personality too. I’ve mentioned on this blog that I have been barrel racing. I learned on a great little horse named Sheba who belongs to the roommate and have been polishing my technique and teaching Joker his job. That is to say his job is to slingshot my butt and his around those barrels as fast as he can. He and I have been learning a lot about each other and how much I’ll let him get away with (not much, since Mama carries a riding crop in the saddle with her and makes sure that he knows I have it). I think as our career progresses, we will be a fine team.

Tired Horse, Taken After a Barrels Lesson

A Horse and Her Boy

In keeping with the featured denizens of the farm, the featured farm member is Abby!

You have seen Abby before. She is the horse that we got Anthony for his birthday. She is 22-25 years old and has the sweetest temperment I have ever met in a horse (unless you have her feed bucket in her hand). But we have noticed more than that. She and Anthony have developed an amazing attachment. He rubs her nose and loves on her while she's eating her dinner. She watches him while he plays in the yard. When she's sure that he's happy and having fun, she settles down to graze.

Yesterday, I caught her so that Anthony could ride her for a little while. He brushed the parts he could reach and petted her neck. Then I saddled her and put him up in the saddle. We went around and around the pasture until he was tired. And so was Abby. We unsaddled her, brushed her down again, and then Anthony ran off to play in the sand. Abby stood there for a long time, just looking out the front gate. I was worried because she was behaving kind of oddly. As soon as Anthony came in the back yard, she started walking around again and acted a bit more like herself. I mentioned the behavior to my room mate (her former owner) and she clued me in. Abby was watching Anthony play and wanted him to come back to her. Missy said that she has never seen that horse bond so fast with someone. Abby listens to him and responds to him when he is riding her solo.

Abby hasn't always had someone to love her. When she came to us, she was about 400 lbs under weight and Missy had her on a weight gain program. She had been starved nearly to death by the man that Missy rescued her from. She was born Texas Go Girl (and is a registered AQHA mare) and is the granddaughter of Go Man Go, a famous racing quarter horse. She was shown and then used as a broodmare until her then-owner got mad at her and decided not to feed her anymore. Now, she's getting fat, happy, and loved by a little boy. What more could a horse ask for?

Anthony and his Abbyhorse

Catz

Since it seems to be taking for me to get my garden set up for the summer, I thought I’d introduce the denizens of the mini-farm over the next couple of posts. You’ve already met Buddy. Since the last post, he’s gained a good 3 or 4 lbs and is now the biggest puppy in the litter. I am trying to help my friend find good forever homes for the rest of the litter. So if anyone is interested in a puppy or knows anyone interested in a puppy, shoot me an email at the link at the top of the page. I am a big proponent of responsible animal adoptions. In fact, two of today’s featured citizens were adopted from animal shelters into our home forever.


Pixel (Or Miss Pix, PixiePoo, Pixy, Princepesa, Princess, Pooh Girl)
Adopted November 2000 from Brazoria County Animal Shelter
10 years old, female (duh!)

Likes: Long naps in sunny spots, food, more food, Mommy, cuddling with Mommy when she’s in the mood, and racing around the house first thing in the morning.

Dislikes: Small children, Monkey (see below), Oreo (see below), dogs, and pretty much anything else that annoys her on any given day.

I adopted Pix after my kitten Jetty snuck out the front door and got hit by a car earlier that year. Dad decided that I needed a new kitten and surprised me with a trip to the shelter to look at cats. Convinced that I wanted an older cat, I walked past the cage of kittens and went to see what they had. I wasn’t really impressed with the older cats, but I fell in love with the fuzzball of a kitten in the kitten cage. She’s been by my side since and I have dragged Pix to and from college, to California and back, and had a baby, and bought a house. Needless to say, she’s a well adjusted cat.

Monkey (Or Monks, Monkeybutt, Monkers)
Adopted August 2006 from the San Diego Humane Society
4 years old, male

Likes: Mommy, sleeping in Mommy’s bed, toys, racing around the house like a crazy kitty, tall things to climb, and toys to chase.

Dislikes: Pixel, Oreo (see below), small children, and wearing a diaper (don’t ask!)

Monkey was adopted when hubby’s cat at home in New York passed on due to stomach cancer. When I saw him, I said he was climbing the wire enclosure like a little monkey. The name stuck and the shelter staff thought it fit perfectly. Now that he is older, he is a laid back and cool, just like any Cali surfer dude should be. He is also my best buddy and sleeps at my feet at night.

Oreo
3-4 years old
Belongs to Roommate

Likes: Being loved on, cuddling, and dinner.

Dislikes: Being wagged around like a stuffed doll.

Oreo belongs to my roommate, but she is currently a citizen of the farm, so I figured I would include her so that no one felt left out. She’s sweet, cuddly, and is almost as wide as she is tall. Oh, and a teeny tiny little head. Cute as a button and sweet as candy, she wormed her way into everyone’s laps and hearts. Missy had better count her animals when she moves on, because she might be missing one…

Dogs

Apparently, a mini-farm is not a mini-farm without a faithful dog. Being a cat lover myself, I haven't had much truck with dogs. I have loved particular dogs.

Boots-A German Shepard who lived next door to us growing up. He used to be our pony. He would get so worked up about not being able to see us in our backyard and not being able to protect us, that my dad and our neighbor agreed to cut a "window" in the fence so that Boots could check on us when we were playing in our backyard.

Yukon-my first canine love (RIP, my friend) Sweet and wonderful, I loved this guy to bits. He was the dog that truly made me like dogs again. I loved how loyal he was to his owner and I loved to sit and pet him any time I could.

Cisco (my bff Jenny's canine baby!)- Sweet, wonderful energetic boy. He always makes me feel happy. I loved dogsitting him when his mom and dad would go out of town. Well, maybe not the poop bags, but either way....

And since it was only a matter of time (since apparently my farm needs a dog), meet Buddy...

Quiet, sweet, energetic, bouncy boy. He doesn't mind being picked up and wagged around, have his ears or tail pulled by his over-zealous 4 year old friend and loves to be loved on. So I guess I'll just have to keep him. And maybe buy him a bandana or three. 



Anthony's Birthday Party

Anthony turned four the other day. And as always, his birthday was a little bittersweet. Sweet, because my baby is growing up into a wonderful little boy, bitter for exactly the same reason. He is losing all of the baby in his face and I can see the new mature features. We decided to hold a Cowboy Pony Party for him. Missy Roberts Pony Parties came out and decorated the horse that we got Anthony for his birthday and then gave fun rides to all the kids at the party. Her website is http://www.mrhrt.webs.com/ and she did an amazing job. Please check her out if you are in the Houston area. She also does reunions, church parties, and basically anywhere you need to entertain kids. We also ordered a cake from Layer Cakes in Pearland, TX. Saint Sepulveda did a fantastic job decorating the cake to match the party plates that we got. Her website is http://www.layercakes.net/  Please check her out if you are in the area.


The kids had a blast. We got squirt guns for the kids to have a western shootout, a piñata for them to beat up, and sheriff’s stars so that they could feel like part of the old west. Without further ado….the pictures…

 Anthony's Cake

 The birthday boy

 Daddy with Anthony and his birthday present, Abby

 Missy Roberts coordinated rides and decorated Abby

 A little friend taking her first pony ride

 Water gun shootout at the Sorta-OK corral

 Blowing out his candle

Intensely concentrating on the pinata



Absentee-ism and Home Repair

I have been noticeably absent from the blogging world lately. You know that house that I bought? Well, it has most certainly turned into a mini-farm and one great big project. There were a bunch of little ones that we have been working on as time and budget have allowed. But two big ones have recently taken over our lives. First, we started cleaning off the walls in the dining room and kitchen so that we could repaint. The walls were covered in painted-over wall paper. Which means that they have been amazingly difficult to get cleaned. Oh, and the wall paper glue was really good. So the wallpaper is coming off in tiny little chunks and is taking FOREVER. I have logged about 20 hours in scraping time and it still isn’t finished. Guess I’m going to continue spending my evenings scraping instead of writing.

During the wall scraping project, we discovered that the back door to the house needed some serious repair. It was letting a lot of daylight in. The threshold had dry rotted off and the bottom part of the door was delaminating. So we repaired it too and replaced all the doorknobs with new knobs and locks.

So it has been an exercise in time, money and patience. As soon as the dining room and kitchen are repainted, we will be painting Anthony’s room, and then re-doing the guest bathroom. Needless to say, I will be checking in with pictures and stories from the work.

A pic of the dining room in progress.

Closing a Chapter (and Opening a New One)

I'm strong enough to write this post today. I have been thinking about it for a week, but then all the little stuff piled up and I got distracted.

It seems like in my life stuff hits all at once. So I guess that it was no real suprise that I was offered a new job at the same time as I bought a house. It really is closing a chapter. One filled with craziness and mishaps, with a few good things along the way. We moved home to Texas in 2008. We had a just shy of 1 year old baby, a new rental house, and a new job to get accustomed to. Stressful doesn't even begin to describe it. But it got us out of a worsening situation in California, where the declining economy drove the company I was working for almost out of existance. Then I started rebuilding in the middle of the economic mess.

The rebuilding chapter is over.

I'm moving on into success. I have a house that is my own where no one can tell me what to do (yes, I know the bank really owns it, but they don't care what color I paint my bathroom). I am moving into a new job with a national firm where I am going to get the exposure and experience that I need to keep moving up. My old company was great for rebuilding and getting a foothold (notice the rebuild again?!), but my needs exceed what they are able to provide. My car is paid off as of last month. I am starting to feel like myself again before we moved to Texas. There are exciting things on the horizon, both professionally and personally.

Bring it, baby.