Windshield Wiper Words of Wisdom

Remember when I said that it seems like something epic happens every weekend around here? Well, this weekend was no exception. It started out like every other weekend. We vowed to move the hot wire so the horses could get new grazing. We were going to celebrate our anniversary with a night out, dinner and a movie. We were going to trim hooves, take a ride, get a new phone because my husband's is fried, go to the library, go shopping, and maybe even clean! We also have to go worm and give shots to a colt we sold to my uncle (but we still take care of his vet and farrier care) Then, I found out that my mother and I had to make a cake for my aunt's 70th birthday Sunday, and there was a dinner Saturday night. Sounds busy for two days right? Well, our weekends are 4 days long thanks to the 4 on 4 off night shift my husband works.

Friday was great. We ate Mexican food and listened to a Mariachi Band while we ate. Then, we went to the drive through and watched the new Transformer's movie and Star Trek. The Transformer's was kind of disappointing. The plot kind of stunk and the language was bad. The Star Trek movie was surprisingly good. We aren't die hard Trekkies, but it wasn't a bad double feature at all. Then, we received a text message that my husband's mother was going to be in town Sunday and wanted to see the kids. Alright, one more thing on the list.

Saturday started off OK. The lady that wanted our last kitten we had been socializing had to cancel that morning and reschedule for Sunday because of a health emergency of a friend. We had the cake made and were eating lunch. Then we got the call. You know, the call that says your weekend just went to hell. My mother-in-law's father had just passed away. To make an extremely long story worthy of a best selling novel short, she's actually my step mother-in-law, but she has earned her place as a a blood relative in my book. We love her to death.

So, the decision was made. We were driving 400 miles to Paris, TX so we could at least be there for the viewing. The funeral was Tuesday morning, and my husband had to be back at work that evening so we would have to drive back Monday night. Two loads of laundry, one grocery store trip for diapers, a vehicle swap with my parents (an expedition is more comfy for 5 than a trail blazer), a frantic packing instruction, and one million instructions for pet care later, we were on our way.

Why is it, that when you are in a hurry to get somewhere, it rains? Why is it that your windshield wipers work.. until it rains? Here in West Texas, having your windshield wipers crack out is a common occurrence. It's so dry and windy here, they just don't last that long. I guarantee you that if you did a survey, over half the cars here would have windshield wipers that didn't work well enough to pass inspection. Rubber just doesn't stand a chance around here.

Our trip began with a 3 hour drive through pouring rain with semi-working windshield wipers (and really crappy visibility). Then we got pulled over for doing a whopping 6 miles over the speed limit and then we found out that the registration had been expired since April. Apparently, this newbie felt sorry for my husband who had a wife and 3 small children in the back of a car, in the middle of the night, with another 5 hours left to go to get to a funeral. He let us off with a warning to slow down and get our car registered. Yep. GREAT trip. Good thing the kids slept most of the way.

Long, sad, funeral type story short, we had a very short visit but they in-laws both thanked us for coming on such short notice. It was the very first time my mother-in-law and my grandfather-in-law had seen the baby, so I believe they were happy. Driving home.. more rain, more bad windshield wipers.

And, we're back to now. The hot wire is still where it was. The horses feet look terrible. They haven't been ridden. My husband's phone is still fried. There are no library books. My house is a wreck. The colt is still unvaccinated. I missed my aunt's 70th birthday and the kids didn't see their Nana. But... we were there in a time of need. Thus is life. Moral of the story? Always check the damn windshield wipers before you take a trip!

Izzy's (very long) story

Alright, I promised the story of Izzy, a crazy TB mare that wormed her way into my heart. This is Izzy when we first got her. Looks great huh? Yea, didn't think so. They said she had GAINED weight. Yep. Gained. Gotten FAT in fact. Yep. FAT. So, we'll call this the fat picture. (I wish I were so fat)

Anyway, Izzy's real name is Isabel which is a very proper and lady like name. Doesn't fit her in the least so Izzy stuck. She was purchased at the back of the race barn as a cull by the father of the people we bought her from.(got that?! :D) She obviously never made it to the races because there is no tattoo. They were going to use her as a broodmare for paint crosses. She was halter broke, but as far as they knew, never ridden. They ended up gelding the paint for a riding horse, so Izzy was thrown by the wayside because they didn't feel comfortable breaking her.

When we went to see her, she was hard to catch, but pretty obedient when you finally caught her. She was just the biggest love bug and cookie hog we had ever seen and she wormed her big way into our hearts immediately. One problem though, she WOULD NOT get in our two horse. Wouldn't fit if we could get her in there!! So, we purchased her and had to wait for a week while they found a trailer we could take her home with.

Well, the time rolled around and she FINALLY was in our driveway, but completely freaked out from her long ride in an open top stock trailer.. tied BACKWARDS. She was tied that way so she wouldn't get rain in her face. Yep, drug through a thunderstorm in an open top stock trailer. When they untied her, she spazzed out, flipped over backwards, and got her halter stuck in a prong meant to hold a canvas top. We were terrified she'd kill herself or break a leg trying to get out of it, but she managed with only a scrape to the side of her jaw. She went immediately to her pen for some r&r and hay to munch on. The picture above was taken the next day.

Well, she gained weight and healed quickly so we started the breaking process. She had no clue how to lunge, but picked it up quickly. She took saddling in stride, although she didn't like the bridle. By the end of the first day, she was riding. Doesn't she look great? Almost like an old pro.

Well, the VERY NEXT DAY, I awoke to the worst sound you could imagine. It was like a crash, metal clank, and thud with screams. My heart sank. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I see this huge thoroughbred limping past the front gate. I thought maybe my husband had let her out by mistake so I called him. Nope. Didn't let her out and I'd better catch her and put her back in!!! Well, as I walked further into the pasture, I could see EXACTLY why she got out and why I couldn't put her back in. Half the coral had been torn down and standing next to it, was a donkey. Not just any donkey either. The exact same stud donkey that had gotten out the year before so he could try to breed our old gelding. (Yes, gelding.. completely skipped the pony mare and her filly)

There he is, the menace to society. That jack (or jerk) knocked down a cable and hot wire fence, three barbed wire fences, another hot wire, and half a coral to get to my poor Izzy. Apparently, he bent the coral panels bad enough to pin her and she jumped. She managed to slice her neck open, both her back flanks, down her sides, and then I saw the worst part. She had gashed her leg all the way down to the bone. It took us 20 minutes to catch her and then we lost her because the damn jack tried to breed her while we were holding her. So, we let go and she ran. It took another half an hour to catch the ass and his owner had to drag him home.. literally. Then another half hour to re-catch poor Izzy because she was so wound up.

The next day, Izzy was put onto the only trailer we could find that she would fit in (an open top that was only 5 feet tall) and hauled to the vet. Diagnosis: she might be lame for the rest of her life. The cut severed muscles and nerves. There is no telling if they will grow back. So we did hydrotherapy and crossed our fingers. Finally, in June, she was sound and ridable again. We began the slow process of breaking her to ride all over again.

We did several rides around the cotton fields and she was a star. By October, she was in her first parade and she was terrific. We took her on a trail ride through Palo Duro Canyon and she was better than the other horse we took, who had more training than her. Her only obstacle was a water puddle that grew teeth. She decided that running through a tree was her best option and ... well... at least mud is softer than rocks. The next week, we took her to the local roping and she pushed cattle. She LOVED pushing cattle.

As it always does, life happened. Our little packer pony took ill. It turns out she was allergic to the new weeds that sprung up in the pasture. Rather than make her suffer while we tried to kill them out (took 2 years BTW), we sold her to a lady who happens to live by my uncle. She's living happily as a packer pony for a 7 year old girl. So, obviously we were in need of another packer pony and I found one. Only, she was just a tad out of our price range and she was in foal as a 3 in 1 package. Well, that meant saving more money and needing more space.

We took a good hard look around and decided that Izzy would be the one that needed to go. As our tallest and calmest horse, she would be easiest to re home. It took awhile, but we finally found her a home where she'd have a friend and a family willing to send her to the trainers. Last I heard, she was re homed again. I wish her well. Even now when I go to the auctions, I still look for her.. hoping to get her back. She was definitely one of a kind. BTW, if you see her.. I want her.. k?

The most uneventful vet visit EVER

Yep, this one was... normal? I'll have to get opinions on what normal is though, because it seems like for the first time in.. well, as long as I can remember, that the vet visit was pretty calm. We walked in, checked in, got the awesome waiting spot, waited uneventfully for an hour, got seen and medicated, and left. I'm still in shock!

The awesome waiting spot is this half wall boxed in area separate from other animals and can be locked if necessary. Most people use it for nervous cats not in a carrier or for a very sick animal or multiple pets. However, it was the ONLY spot left so I snagged it. It was soooo great. I let my puppy off her leash. (BTW, my puppy is 8 years old :D) I gave my toddler her leash to play with, and held the baby until we were seen. It sure beats what normally happens, which I will get into in a minute.

When we were finally called back, the tech held my puppy (while I stared on in amazement that she didn't protest), showed us into a room, and promptly took her to the back to persuade her to pee. However, my dog is NOT okay with peeing on anything but grass (and I whole-heartedly agree). So, she got a needle in the bladder. Poor baby. Afterwards, she got the ever elusive treat from my toddler which she nommed with relish. Prognosis, "We don't know" ended with an antibiotic shot good for 14 days and I am just fine with that because I was not looking forward to playing hide the pill for the next two weeks. We're just keeping our fingers crossed that her kidneys aren't spazzing out due to another hormonal imbalance again. So, $150 and one very pissed dog later, we're home again and life is once again good.... for now.

On to the "normal for us" vet visits. We've never been minimalists when it comes to animals. We don't have just one dog, we have 3 or 4. We don't have just one horse, we have 3-6. See a trend? Anyway, we usually keep everyone on the same schedule for shots so it gets a little insane when you try to wrangle them all in, although we don't try this with just one human. On a "normal for us" visit, we load all the dogs (or horses) up and wrestle them out of the car. Wrestling a golden retriever, a corgi/collie mix, a dachshund, and a rat terrier is not just the easiest thing in the world. But, it was much better than dealing with the biggest chicken dog this side of the equator.

He is gone now, but this lab/chow mix used to drag us under benches in an attempt to hide. He was always a strange dog from the beginning and only bonded with my husband, myself, and my mother. Every vet visit was an event which ended with him peeing and even pooping all over himself and completely stressed out to the point of passing out. The best visit EVER was when his nose started bleeding at home 20 minutes before the vets closed. This also coincided with us fixing to load him in the car to be taken to the boarding kennel because we were going to Florida for the week. The vet visit entailed driving at 90 miles an hour to get there before they closed, muzzling the chicken dog, sitting on him while they took his blood (ever tried to manhandle a 90 lb freak of nature in panic mode?), dragging him out from under the bench so they could medicate him, and ended with us signing boarding papers for the week so they could monitor him. He had erlichia. Yep, just another normal vet visit.

I could tell hundreds of stories about our adventures. I could talk about the trip I took for a routine gelding. It isn't easy to load a stallion while you have a broken leg, so I took my father along who hasn't been around a horse regularly in 25 years. This particular visit came with a phone call saying that he was crypt and they would have to drug and flip him to finish the procedure, which shot my bill up to $600 (and I did almost faint after that). Or the time my crazy TB almost killed herself and earned a mad dash to the vet's office to be sewn up. (I'll tell her story in another post because it really is a great one). Maybe the fatal visit after chicken dog attacked my elderly dog and we ended up putting her down.

Normal: nor-mal/Pronunciation [nawr-muhl]
–adjective
1.
conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.
2.
serving to establish a standard.

Well, I guess I have established my normal, so from now on, this vet visit goes down in my books as the most abnormal visit ever. Take that "normal" people!!

Farewell to Chirp and Tweet

Having chickens is a completely new experience for me. I've always wanted them though, and being in the country.. I CAN!!! So, we got a bunch of game chickens from a friend. 11 to be exact: 3 hens and 8 roosters. Nice mix, huh. Well, it didn't take long for them to start disappearing. Some of the stupid ones flew in the pen with the dogs (they are free range) and some just... mysteriously disappeared without a trace. So, now we're down to 1 rooster and 2 hens. Well, you can imagine my excitement when the hens hatched out some chicks!!!

Our first hen hatched out 11 babies.. and now we have one left. I was devastated when 8 disappeared in one night. The other hen is a bitch and a half and will try to kill you if you even THINK about looking at her babies. Well, she hatched out 5. I found the 5th one at the bottom of a feed barrel. Poor thing fell out of the nest and couldn't get out. So, I faithfully took him to raise in my tub, except for one problem. The feral kittens I am socializing. Yea, NOT a good mix, so my wonderful mommy took him. We decided to take all but one chick to raise for the hen because of the last disaster of a brood. THAT was fun and one pissed off hen later, we had one baby chick. She had already lost 2 of them the first day out of the nest.

The days passed and my chat buddies (see post below) came up with chirp and tweet as names. Nice... non-gender names since I have no clue what sex they were. Sadly, a few days later, we lost chirp. He just.. failed to thrive. I'm pretty sure he was the one I scooped out of the bottom of the barrel as his beak was a bit splintered. The second, however, was just as strong as ever. He grew so quickly, and would follow my mom around. Sooo kyoooot.

On Father's Day, we went to my parent's house to celebrate and I brought my dog along, not thinking that it would be a problem. All of the sudden we hear SCRAPE... followed by desperate chirps and screams. My dog had decided to go for the baby chick. There was only one small puncture wound. Tweet was a bit shaken, but doing fine. Until today. My mom came over with little Tweet in a towel to show me the huge abscessy looking thing on his breast, which I have found out is a breast blister. Little Tweet has Staph and an advanced case at that, so rather than see him suffer, we ended his short little life.

Today, my dog has been acting like she now has a bladder infection. GREAT. So, tomorrow, I get to drag 3 kids and my little anti-social menace to the vet for a check up. Moral of the story? Just let mother nature raise chicks from now on.

Dirty Little Secret

Yes, that's right. Feel free to sing the song. I have a confession to make though. My name is Proudmomma and I have an addiction to forums. Not just any forums though, horse forums. I guess it's a nasty side effect of equine-itis. It started out innocently enough. I put up a thoroughbred for sale on the internet and in the newspapers. She was the only horse I ever fell off of, but that wasn't why I sold her. I'll have to blog about her later. She's got a great story. (BTW, if you haven't figured it out by now, don't ever give me free reign writing. I'll bore you to death for hours!)

I put her up on a site called Horseville and in my no so trusty sales site savvy, I stumbled upon their forum. There were only a handfull of active posters and even fewer active posts, but I became intrigued immediately. It was my first look into the horse world outside of my little town and I LOVED it. LOVED. I don't have many peeps here, so I got to know some on that board. Made me feel spechul and stuff. After the first blow up drama thread, I was hooked. I had to check back every couple of minutes to see if anything new had been posted. I was.. well.. addicted! Then, it happened. Someone linked me to my very first blog (clarification: the first I've ever read): http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/

Back then, the Fugly blog was much different that it is now. It was solid posts on people being idiots and involving horses. It gave new meaning to the word snark and I loved it too. From there, I found my second absolute vice, the FiSH board (Free-Speech Horse forum) but it was called the Fugly forum when I found it. It was my new crack, a much more fast paced and snarky place to visit with hundreds of people posting all the time. I spent all my spare time there. Eventually, I got on 6 more forums and actively posted on all but one of them.

Now almost out of control, I had to put my foot down. I started visiting some only once a week or so. After I found a chat room, it made it easier to give up a few more boards, but I was spending most of my time chatting! I LOVE to chat. Live conversations with (what I hope are) warm bodies about whatever happens to be on the mind at the time. I don't get that at home so it was my little outlet. But once again, it started controlling my life. I HAD to know what was going on, who was chatting, what the topic was, etc. So, once again, the foot went down. I have now banished myself from all of them... or for a while at least!?

And yet, here I am... with my own blog. Kinda ironic huh. I have no dilusions that I am going to be the next J K Rowling though. Well, name any successful female author EVER and I'll make sure to take note of another person who will be more famous than me. In fact, I've only given one person a link to this blog. (hint hint!!) So, for the one person that might read this, stay tuned. I'll post interesting stories of all the horses we've owned and maybe even the epic chicken adventure. :)

In the beginning......

There was a young urbanite. She was raised primarily in small cities and towns and rarely had more than a city lot for a back yard. Bugs were her nemesis and she couldn't see going anywhere without indoor plumbing and air conditioning. Then she met a young cowboy and fell in love. Thus begins... the rehab of an urban transplant.

Story fit for a fairy tale book? Mmmm.. maybe not, but it's true. Now I live on 7 acres in the "semi-country" which to me means between the city and BFN. We have neighbors and paved roads, but we live off well water and co-op power. As an added bonus, no one can look through your bathroom window from next door! However, now I have to deal with wildlife that I've only encountered on TV. For instance, did you know that if you don't feed the chickens at the same time everyday, the rooster will come knock on your front door to remind you? Me either, but he does. Every morning. After considerable crowing.

However, a few years after moving out here, my husband gave me a disease. I call it equine-itis. It is the assurance that we will always be broke because the horses need food, shots, and that really cool double bridle we saw on ebay! Add three children to that, ages 5,3, and 2 months, and you have a three ring circus.. a really poor one! So, stay tuned because it seems that something epic happens every weekend.