|
| This will be a bit of repeat for those on facebook, but I wanted to put this story here as a diary entry for myself.
I know this is insane, but lately I've been desperately wanting a new "baby". Matilda left a huge hole in my heart that six other dogs have not been able to fill. Plus, as some of you know, my old dogs, ranging in age from twelve to nineteen, barely interact anymore, except to get up and eat, or to have pills shoved down their throats. And Jonesie, well, she's Matt's dog.
I've been keeping an eye on the rescue listings through Petfinder and yesterday I found out one of the associations, from about an hour away, was going to be at Petsmart. I had a slight interest in one of the dogs, but wasn't going to see any specific one really. We were dressed to ride and all of a sudden I just got this panicked feeling, like I was missing something, so I dragged Matt down there in half chaps and breeches. :D
At first I didn't see anything but cats, so I was disappointed but also slightly relieved...until I saw the signs leading to the dog rooms. Sigh. At the same time I was trying to bid on a pair of shoes on ebay, with Matt's iPhone, so was only just doing a run through. As I was bidding I knelt down to look at a couple of marginally cute dogs wearing T-shirts (so you couldn't really see them), and this little curled up ball suddenly perked up and crawled out of her bed to come over and say hello...up to this point she looked kind of antisocial.
I had brought Jonesie Turtle, because Jonesie hates everyone, so I told the woman I wouldn't mind seeing what Matt and Jonesie thought about this little girl. When I came back with the two of them the entire staff of the rescue nearly pounced on us. Evidently we seem to be prime adoption candidates (suckers). <G> Of all the other people in the room looking for dogs, the lady I spoke to for literally a minute was suddenly introducing us to everyone, saying, "this is the lady I just told you about". LOL Evidently I asked the right questions and got to the heart of the matter.
The woman told me this dog had chosen me, and before I could get out the door to discuss it with Matt she asked if I wanted to foster her to see if she worked out, and was agreeing to waive the fees. She said in rescue sometimes you come across the "special" ones, the ones that there is no way to convey how sweet they really are, and to find a home good enough for their heart is a challenge...she said that this girl is one of those, and I tend to believe it.
The kicker. Jonesie Turtle is doing her very best to get along with this dog. It's like nothing I've seen from her terrier self, true restraint. They rode in the backseat together, curled up, and when the new girl stood up to look out the window, then stepped all over her, Jonesie never objected the first time. She also asked to be let out last night when she just couldn't contain herself anymore.
When I went to pick out a collar for her, I sat down on the floor at Petsmart, and she crawled in my lap and proceeded to thank me for coming to get her. She then pranced out like she was the fanciest thing in the world. A lot scares her, and she is kind of a lap/couch dog, but it's like she just fits. She slept plastered up next to me all night and follows me from room to room. I know it must be the right thing, because the rescue lady told me they are bringing two of her puppies to the adoption next weekend, and I didn't even consider it for longer than two seconds. I wanted her, even though I have no doubt her babies are adorable.
Considering the names Bella Muse, or Savannah Mae. :)
Shannon<------who doesn't need another dog, but almost cried with relief when she snuggled up next to me in the aisleway at Petsmart.
She is an obvious Mutt, who resembles a Dingo, Hyena, or maybe Bat..or maybe even Anteater because her tongue is so long.....though most people say Gremlin. ;)
I think she's just beautiful. We think she is Catahoula and something else. Her head looks exactly like the Taco Bell dog to me, but she's around 14 or 15 lbs, maybe less. She is spayed, microchipped, and up to date on everything. So now we just pray she works out. I can take her back at any time, but I don't see that happening.
  
| | |
| Wow, what a weekend! Monsoon probably doesn't even begin to cover it. 
We had a few "adventures" when we rode Saturday to let the horses stretch their legs and get used to their surroundings. Alasdair decided for some reason to start randomly leaping in the air and trying to rear and spin. This wouldn't have been a problem except after the first leap he kind of got me airborn, then twisted his neck and jumped again, causing me to REALLY have some air between my butt and the saddle. I could have stuck with him except I was riding in Matt's dressage saddle, which is far too big, and really slippery too. Anyway, I got launched, but came down MAD. When I hit the ground I was already running at Alasdair in correction mode. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but he was pretty good for the rest of the ride. LOL
The next day we were doing fantastic in the warmup, until a child in a flapping blue plastic rain thing entered the picture. He started doing his bronco routine again so I had to move him off to the side to avoid running into anyone. We did however manage to stay in the ring during his test, and bit check was much less traumatic than last time, probably because he knew the girls who were sticking their fingers in his mouth. :D
Unfortunately during his test he was still focused on the flapping blue tarp kid, so he forgot BOTH his leads, something he's never really had a problem with. Ah well, in his defense he's also never had to work in the rain, or that much mud, or try to do a test with the wind whipping and water going down his ears. He was a star in stadium and cross country though. We had one rail, which was entirely my fault, and he went happily forward to every jump. He practically dragged me into the water jump...(for you horse people), I was half halting and giving him a big wide approach so he could see it, kind of asking, "don't you want to look". And he said, "nope, stop pulling up there and just let me work this one out". He only had one spooky moment in the woods, on a stretch of trail that usually has Roman leaping sideways every third stride. They are very different creatures. This one was paying attention and taking his job seriously, and managed to do it with only minimal support from me.
Now, if we could only get that to carry over to his behavior on the ground. When we were saddling him up for cross country he didn't want to stand still, so he reared up, fell over, and since the girth was not yet fastened he ran off dragging my saddle. :O He managed to terrify two or three people, with me yelling for the parents of two small children to MOVE...which they weren't doing, and narrowly managed to avoid hitting any cars or trailers in his wild gallop up the hill. He found an empty stall in the barn and ran in there. Matt was yelling for this little girl to close the gate, but she and her father just stared at him until he sprinted over and slammed it shut. Our friends, who were leaving for the day, said they looked at each other as Alasdair flew past, asked if that was their "Godhorse" and turned around to help give chase. LOL Soo, all's well that ends well...but what a weekend. I am however, truly proud of this horse for his progress compared to the last show. He really enjoys the game, and in time he will understand what is expected of him, and hopefully grow up to be a really good show horse. So far I must say he's wayy more focused than his brother, who should have been named Playboy instead of Roman. Like Roman though, he is a favorite with little girls, who gave him cookies all weekend.
Matt's cross country course got re-routed so they didn't have to drop down a bank into what had evidently become a stream, so once again he missed his chance to take Diva swimming. Other than that he had a great ride, finishing in second place, and showing some improvement on things he's been working on. We have decided they do better in slick footing because Diva slows down and is more careful, rather than her typical fire breathing runaway self.
This morning I have located someone to fix the saddle, so at least that might be taken care of.
Fall is in the air, I'm a bit nervous about getting our business back up and running, but things will soon be looking up. After several years of freedom from my office, brought about by the first hurricane when the construction work was so plentiful, we are now ready to go back to what we were doing before. This is good in many ways, not least of which will be us being on site more, so able to ride when we please, and work on our house and office during the day. While the regular paychecks weren't bad, it really is an ambition killer for the self employed to work for one person for too long. So, keep a good thought for us as we start this new/old chapter. Luckily the talented are always sought after, and if nothing else we are a multi talented bunch.
On with the pictures.
 Matt and the Diva
 Both of them are too bold.
 Looking ahead for the next thing.
LOL Alasdair at the first jump, unsure how much effort it might take, so he jumps high enough you can see the other levels jumps under his belly. I don't thinking jumping is a problem for this horse.
 My leg slid back, but this was a pretty good representation of how he jumped the whole course. Calm, quiet, forward, and kept a constant pace all on his own. A good boy. Will have to take him an apple and see if he's forgiven me for being mad at him. I forgave him for trying to destroy my saddle, it's the least he can do. LOL
| | |
| Nothing much new to report, other than most of the horses needing shoes because of ouchie feet....hopefully this will set everyone right before our first show of the fall, the first week of Oct. Haven't have a chance to ride in weeks, so jello legs would be an understatement. It will be Alasdair's first show at the beginner level where things get a little challenging. Hopefully he'll be a trooper and not freak out. Roman will stay home healing his feet. Really hate that for multiple reasons...not least of which is me not being able to relax when he's in someone else's care.
Spent the weekend putting bricks in the aisleway of the barn, will take pictures when it stops raining. Also need "after" pictures of the finished house and metal building projects from work. Need more work- note to Powers That Be.
Have to go to court over vandalism on our bulldozer. Joy. The parents of kids today take no responsibility and there is no accountability.
Need to win the lottery so we can go foxhunting in Ireland. Also saw a shelter dog I desparately want to save, but with the ancients hanging in there I have told Matt to NEVER let me have another dog. See lottery above...would buy a farm and let my pack of geriatric dogs go around with me . Birthday coming up- the big 4-0, wanted a huge birthday party, but with current job winding up will probably need to be sensible. We are going to the U2 concert next month, and went to the Depeche Mode concert recently, so we've had fun during our "off" time from horse showing. Might just go out dancing and eat lots of cake...it's always a good day when cake is involved. LOL I am fortunate, the flowers are blooming, and the sun comes up every day.
On a different topic:. Interestingly, as I do near my 40th year, I have finally come to terms with with the fact that I cannot change the people around me. It's very peaceful to acknowledge that, and try to focus on just one person- ME. I can voice my opinion about others behavior or lifestyle choices, but in the end I am only hurting myself by taking things personally, or taking on their burdens and internalizing that kind of stress. I can't save everyone, so trying to head them off before they do something destructive is only causing me pain. As we used to say as kids, "you're not the boss of me". Indeed, I am nobody's boss anymore. Hopefully this feeling sticks, because being angry a lot of the time is not who I am, or want to be. People just resent you for telling the truth, so you end up being tuned out anyway. So, I will smile and carry on, letting people see the picture they have painted for themselves, without my OCD detailed explanations of it...for better or worse. Now to practice that smile through firmly clenched teeth. 
| | |
| Well, I have started and restarted writing here at least four times, and then get sidetracked....
The short story is that I'm a little overwhelmed right now. My plan of spending the Summer "catching up" has not been terribly successful.
The problem is that for each "project" you must complete about a million other unimportant ones. For instance: A few weekends ago we wanted to cut up a very large tree, and burn it. Seems simple right? The reason we wanted to do this was to clean up the side yard, to gain access to the swimming pool that must be dismantled and carried away, in order to gain access to the side of the house that must be leveled before we can consider installing sheetrock...you see where this is going? Working our way from outside the circle to reach the middle.
Except..... after cutting up some of the tree it became apparent that heavy equipment would be needed to continue, so we stopped to go get the Bobcat, which had to be jumpstarted for some reason, and a tire needed some air.......
During all this I decided we had to mow an area around what would be a burn pile, in order to not catch anything on fire... sooo, I brought my trusty push mower all the way over from the shop, and it ran out of gas after one pass. Matt says, "why don't you just use the riding mower?", so we spent the next half hour trying to get it to start, finally did, then proceeded to mow a circle around the burn pile. Then I figured I might as well mow the front yard while I'm at it, so off I go on another sidetrack. <G>
About this time Matt was starting the chain saw, and as he was pulling the cord his new iPhone fell out of its case....just as I came along on the riding mower. Naturally I ran over it, but luckily it wasn't hurt. But since I was so freaked out over the phone being lost I turned the riding mower OFF, so I could go look for the phone. LOL Of course it didn't even want to THINK about starting again (turns out the starter needs to be replaced).
Matt stopped what he was doing to start pushing the mower back to the shop. I guess he figured maybe this was the safest thing to do, since I had walked off in complete disgust. Really though I just went to get us a beer. ;)
We then started piling up stuff to burn (after taking all the hoses from the barn, joining them together, and attaching to the renter's water source because it was closer), and all of a sudden the throttle cable on the Bobcat came loose...which means it was barely idling, and of course would not go.
So I stuck my arm into the motor area and grabbed the end of the pulley thing, because we needed to get it back up on the concrete to work on it....and every time it hit a bump my arm came awfully close to the exhaust, and the engine was comically alternating between revving and idling, depending on how much heat I could stand, and how far away I could get my arm. To make matters even more interesting the door kept swinging around trying to squish me...and it's a BIG door. When I asked Matt if he thought we should get the Front End Loader he just laughed at me. We ended up picking pears and cutting vines from the trees in the front yard. Sooo, that is the story of why we still haven't gotten close to the side of the house that needs leveling.
Last weekend we both had something that seemed like Swine Flu, or whatever appears to be going around, so didn't do too much in the way of real work. We did however go riding in the construction zone that will be a neighborhood on the property behind us. We jumped some plastic culverts they had stacked up and had a race between Diva and Lucian, so nothing productive, but still fun.
We also went to the Depeche Mode concert in the Woodlands. WOW! The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion is fantastic. Even thought it's over an hour and a half drive for us, it's totally worth it.
This weekend, hmm, not yet productive. More mowing, grocery shopping, put out a round bale, errands, rode two horses. We came in last night to a completely bloody living room. It seems the two Jack Russells finally decided they had had enough of each other. It's a wonder they didn't kill each other, and they are much more "holy" than they were before. It seems trying to rip ears from your opponent is a top priority. :( Silly creatures. They seem mostly OK, though we are a little worried about our geriatric one as she's sore and swollen this morning.
This set me off an a side trip of cleaning all their ears (six of them, or twelve ears total), which was not much fun since the two most ancients are convinced I'm trying to kill them, evidently by sucking their brains out with a Q-tip and herbal ear wash. Also pulled manes some this morning while the horses were eating. The evil Queen took total exception to this and kept swinging her head around trying to bite me, and when that failed she kept hopping up in the back and threatening to kick me (she KNOWS better than to do that). Roman is still lame, though not as bad, and I'm wondering if I should call the farrier and have him come dig around in his foot, or hope an abscess pops out on its own. Must figure this out in the next few days as show entries have to go out. Alasdair will definitely go, because last night we had some of the prettiest, steadiest trot work going on. He is SUCH a fast learner, and he tries really hard. Hopefully we don't have stops on cross country or in stadium, but even if we do I just want it to be a good experience for him. Roman will stay at his level for two more shows, then we're going to give moving up a try.
OK, off to find something to focus on. Maybe fence building....or roof repair. Sigh. Vacation would be nice.
| | |
|
Premium
