4-H Winter Points - Western Riding Day 2010

Today was the Western Riding portion of the 4-H Winter Points show.  There are only two shows a year in which the kids can earn points towards the silver buckels given to the winners at the end of the season.  This show, and the one that happens at the Pima County Fair.  So all the horse shows thus far this season, have been practice for this show.  It's been kind of a long day, and we have to get up bright and early tomorrow to go back to the fairgrounds for the English Riding portion of the point show.  So, all I'm going to do is post a few pictures and videos and climb into my bunk for the evening.  I do believe that is the first time I have ever written the word bunk.  Somehow it seemed appropriate for Western Day.  I wonder what the English call it.

She didn't place in the Western Bareback Riding, but I have to say this is the one that I am most proud of.  She went out there and competed even though she was scared to do it. 

Gizmo

Sometimes I feel sorry for Gizmo.  Whenever the poor guy falls asleep on the floor, someone feels the need to pick him up and treat him like a baby.  How he can possibly get a decent nap in, I'll never know.



Silver Spurs Pre-Point Horse Show 2010

We had a good time at the pre-point show.  Here are some pictures that my folks took.  For some reason I was having problems with my camera and most of my pictures were blury.

Getting Ready

English Showmanship

English Showmanship

English Pleasure

She swears she doesn't play with thr rubber bands on her braces, but all these pictures show it.  LOL  The next show we are going to try going without rubber bands so she can paste that show smile on her face.

Western Showmanship (lots of competition)

Part of the trail course.

In these three pictures, you can see one of the obstacles where she had to enter a square and then turn the horse a full 360 degrees without touching the logs.  Not so easy on a big horse like Mrs. Arnold.

The bridge on the trail course (no sweat)

Minus a Ton or Two

I’m going to try to lose some tonnage.  I went for a short walk with the girls last evening and it felt okay.  My legs were fine, but my back hurt for a while afterwards.  Being too fat is sure tough on the back.  Kris walks faster than me now, so it is good to have her along to set a pace that will get me working harder.  Krystal has no problems keeping up with her but she said it was nice to have a more casual walk.  She is used to trying to keep up with Grandpa who gets up and goes.  We only went a mile, but that was plenty for me.  Hell, I am carrying around another person!  Let’s see how you feel after giving someone of your same weight a piggy back ride for a mile.  Wow, that’s a revelation.  I want to lose half my weight.

I would like to get down to a weight where I am comfortable getting on a horse.  At my current weight, any horse would suffer a great deal. LOL

P.S. Went on another walk with the girls and all the dogs since writting this.  Made it 1.25 mi this time.  I hope it doesn't take too long for the muscles in my back to get used to this.  I also figured out how to get my GPS to keep track of the distance and time walked.  Pretty cool tool.

Gonna move to Arizona

Gotta love this you tube song by Brian Haner

Million Dollar Ticket!

When I think about a million dollar ticket, my mind goes to a lottery ticket. Not in this case. A man in Sweden has broken the world record for the most expensive speeding ticket, previously set at $290,000.00. Yes, he has broken the million dollar fine mark. Caught doing 180 miles per hour, the man was arrested and had his car confiscated. It seems that in Sweden, the amount of your speeding ticket not only depends on your speed, but also your income. This guy may be filthy rich, but he lacks imagination. His excuse for driving so fast? He thinks the speedometer in his new Mercedes SLS AMG is broken. I can just see it now. Honest officer, I thought I was only going 75 MPH. LOL

Story Here

The Employee Song

A coworker sent this to me today and I thought it was such a great stress reliever that I should share.

T Bone

This is my favorite geocache container that I have made. I got the idea from my brother who has had several interesting hides along the same lines. The hole was drilled using a typical spade bit then I set the pill container down inside. It fit pretty loose and I didn’t want it falling out so I just wrapped some duct tape around it. Once I had the fit the way I wanted, covered the hole with thin plastic wrap then put the pill container in. Then I used a five minute epoxy and poured over the top. The plastic wrap kept the epoxy from adhering to the wood but was thin enough to allow it to conform to the contours of the hole. Then I used some of the wood shavings to blend the look of the epoxy so it would blend in. Once dry, I just pealed away the plastic and everything fit perfectly. Since this was a micro out in the desert, I didn’t want to make it to difficult so I placed it in a clearing where there were other twigs and such. It still proved to be too difficult for some. This cache for some reason just screamed out to people to move. It was reported missing once and I found it a good 20 feet away from where I had placed it. Another time I stopped by for a normal check since no one had logged anything in a while and it was about 40 feet away and on the other side of the road. It was finally reported missing and I couldn’t find it when I checked on it so I archived the cache. It kept nagging at me though, so about a month later I went back out and spent more time and finally located it. I have it in the shed for a future cache placement, so when you least expect it you may find this one on one of your hunts.

The cache was called “T Bone” (GC1A3TX) and lasted from March of 2008 until the last find in November of 2009. It had 52 finds and 6 reported DNFs. There were other DNFs because I was told of them. One person stated in their log and others told me in person that they had actually picked up the cache, put it down and continued searching. Lots of people get irritated at micros in the desert and woods, but what kind of a challenge is a regular every time you are out of the city. I did have a clear warning on the cache page that this was not one to hunt if that sort of thing bothered you.  Click on the blog title to take you to the cache page.

A picture of the cache in its hiding spot.

Pima County Fair - Sunday April 18

Sunday was pretty much filled with a lot of waiting. Kris packed up a bunch of our stuff in the RV to make it easier to unload, and then we just hung out at the fairgrounds until the judges came through to rate the stalls one last time. Once the word was given, the real work began. All of the kids in the club pitched in and cleaned out all of the bedding in the stalls. They had to make it just as clean as before we arrived there in order to get back all the deposit money. Once all of that was done, we loaded up all the horses again and headed home. To say we were all exhausted is an understatement. We are very proud of everything Krystal accomplished over this season, and had a great time ourselves.


The list of people we have to thank is a long one.

Thank you to Mom & Dad for delivering, setting up, picking up, and cleaning the RV!!
Thank you to Midge, Krysti, Diane, Dan, Gail & Lynn who have taught us so much.
And another huge thank you to Lynn who let us use Missy this season.
Thank you to all of the club members; Kyle, Emma, Alex, Mark and Connor. With a very special thank you to Calli who took Krystal under her wing and helped her prepare her horse for fair and made sure she had fun on the rides!

And for everyone not listed here, I’m sorry because I know there are a lot of you I neglected to thank.

Pima County Fair – Saturday April 17th

5AM wakeup again for the big day of Western Rider’s competition. Krystal was still a little difficult to get up, but she was ready well before 6AM. I wasn’t sure if anyone else would be down at the stable so I gave her a ride. I’m glad I did, since the place was deserted and the lights weren’t even on. After feeding, we went back to the RV to get ready for the day.

Her first competition was Showmanship. This showcases how well they can prepare their horse and control it from the ground. The horse has to be spotless, with hooves painted (or clear polish if the horse has socks), main flat, facial hair and ears trimmed etc…

Krystal got all prettied up in her black outfit and did a wonderful job. One of the things the horse has to accomplish is to pivot on one foot while turning, and Missy was perfect. In addition to the pictures here, you can see the video at this blog. They won the overall blue ribbon (First Place) in Showmanship.

The second competition was Horsemanship, They have to ride a set pattern in this one. Showing control from the saddle, they have to memorize the pattern then perform it in the arena. They change gaits, and change leads for direction changes. Once again, they performed beautifully and pulled out a blue ribbon (second place) for Horsemanship.

Her third competition for the day was Western Pleasure. This is one of the rail classes because they ride along the outside rail the whole time. The competitors are told when to change gait, change direction etc… This is supposed to show how pleasurable your horse is to ride. They had gone through several gait changes and direction changes already, when something spooked Missy and she freaked out. Krystal did a good job staying on until she felt like she may be thrown over the front of the horse so she bailed off to the side. She is still a little sore, but I think her pride took the most damage. She opted out of trying the trail course after her rodeo ride.

Pima County Fair - Friday April 16th

The alarm went off at 5AM again on Friday. I woke up Krystal, then I woke up Krystal. After that, I woke up Krystal and eventually, she even got out of bed. She headed down to the stalls at about 6AM to feed. I headed back to bed.

Friday was for the English rider competition and Krystal only rides Western so she was helper for the day. Since Calli was using two different horses, Krystal spent a lot of her time holding one of them. When she wasn’t doing that, she was helping in the stables to keep them clean and organized.

Friday morning, Kris and I had ran into a couple who we see at Ranch sorting every other week. They had a litter of Border Collies that they had been slowly adopting out. As a matter of fact, several of our club members had already adopted some of them. Well, they had the last two of the litter with them. I got to thinking that it might be nice for Rocky to have a friend around the house when we aren’t there. They only wanted $15 to cover the shots and yes, we ended up with a cute little one. Krystal decided to call her Shania.

Friday evening, the kids hit the rides again for another late night of fun before hitting the showers and bed.

Pima County Fair - Thursday April 15th

Well, our portion of the Pima County Fair is over so it is time for a recap. We didn’t have access to the net while living at the fairgrounds so I wasn’t able to keep up with it daily.

Thursday, April 15th.

We woke up around 5AM and finished loading the truck with the remaining articles we would need for the show. We had already taken all of our clothing and personal items out to my parent’s house and loaded it all into the RV Wednesday. My folks were kind enough to not only let us borrow it, but also to deliver it to the fair on Thursday morning while we were going after the horse!

We headed out to the stables where we met up with Calli and her mom. We had arranged to haul their two horses out with us as well. Loading everyone was an adventure. Missy loaded fine, and Slicker went in without much trouble either. When it came to Ice, that was another story. And our problem wasn’t that she didn’t want to load, it was that she was so excited and wound up, she was hard to control. When Calli let her get in the trailer, she had so much energy flowing she didn’t know what to do and as soon as no one had a hold of her lead rope, out she flew. Luckily she ran in between two sets of stalls where Bill was feeding horses and he was able to catch her quickly. On the second try, I climbed up on the wheel well of the trailer and grabbed her lead rope as she came in and was able to get her hooked up while they closed the door in behind her. I could feel her moving around in there all the way out to the fairgrounds.

The Ranch Sorting competition started at 9AM and by the time we got out there it was already after eight, so as soon Ice was situated in her stall, the girls tacked up and headed out to the warm up area to get the horses ready.

Krystal is in the beginner category so she had a long wait for her first run. She got in there and was able to get three moved from one pen to the other before time ran out (60 seconds). It wouldn't be so hard if you didn't have to do them in the correct order. 

After another long wait, she had her second run and sorted one calf in the allotted time. There was one calf that just wouldn’t break away from the herd.  We found out later that she did well enough to get a red ribbon with the points added from the Winter Points Show to this show.

After Ranch Sorting was over, she put her horse away and the rest of the day was spent keeping the stalls clean. Part of the competition is the appearance of the stalls. Every year, a different theme is designated and all the clubs decorate. Then, they are judged daily. They never know when the judges may show up so they have to keep the horse droppings cleaned up all day long. And adults are not permitted to help at all during any of the competitions. The only things adults are allowed to do is help with a saddle that is to heavy, or help with anything safety related. We get to just stand around and be bossy LOL.

Thursday evening, a bunch of us went to eat at Piggly Wiggly’s which is your typical fried food heaven at the fair. The women were convinced that it isn’t so bad on the first day since the grease is fresh. I of course had to bring up the point that they probably hauled it in from the last fair where they were set up. After supper, the kids went to enjoy the rides and we headed back to the RV. They went on a few rides and then came back to get their shower stuff so they could go down to the arena to get cleaned up. By the time they were in bed it was after midnight.

I Can't Believe it.

I heard about this on the radio the other day and finally had a chance to check out the video. I watched it, and heard the words coming from this man's mouth and STILL could not believe he was saying it. How can an individual attain a post so high and be so ignorant? This man really needs to turn on the Discovery channel from time to time. Is this the best that Georgia could find to represent them?

Remember folks, this is one of the individuals who thinks he knows better than we do how to run our own lives.

I really have to hand it to the Admiral! I don’t think I could have managed to sit there with a straight face and keep the conversation moving forward without calling Johnson an idiot. I would have at least had fun with him. “Well congressman, we don’t expect it to be a problem as long as all the people keep spread out. If there is a big beach party and everyone congregates at one side of the island, it could be catastrophic! We could always pull up the anchors and move the island closer to a large continent so people wouldn’t have so far to swim in an emergency.” AAAAHHHHH

Goodbye Annie

We lost a part of the family yesterday and I thought writing about it might be therapeutic for me. I was at work when my wife called to tell me that a veterinarian had been called out to the stables to euthanize Annie, our horse. As I’ve mentioned here before, Annie was 27 and had been having problems with arthritis in her joints and so we stopped using her for Krystal’s 4-H competitions. Charlie, where we had been stabling her was kind enough to care for her and let her stay there free and she earned her keep by giving rides to kids on the weekends. We have been looking for horse property off and on in the hopes that we could move her and the horse we are leasing out to our own place. Well, this past week she just got so bad that she didn’t even want to get up to eat. Charlie and Grace were taking food and water out to her so she could eat since it was so difficult for her to stand. I guess Friday was especially bad, so the decision was made to end her suffering.

Charlie called Kris to let her know the vet was due to arrive at three. She called to let me know and said she was on the way to Krystal’s school so they could both go out to say goodbye. Now, you need to know that I purposely tried not to get to close to Annie because ever since she was given to us, I figured I would have to be the one to put her down. I guess I was too ignorant to think a vet would be called to do it. Little did I know how much she means to me. When I called the school to ask them to get Krystal out of class, I couldn’t even verbalize the reason without starting to cry. I had to compose myself and call a second time to get them to understand what was going on. Then to embarrass myself even more, I started to cry when I went into my boss’ office to ask to leave work early. Hell, I’ve even had to stop writing this a couple times in order to compose myself enough to continue. Sometimes, no matter how much you try not to, you just can’t help but fall in love with your critters.

I arrived at the stables first to find the vet had already done his job and was leaving. I called Kris to let her know so they wouldn’t come on out, but they both insisted on seeing Annie one last time. It was hard to keep it together after they showed up, but you know sometimes you have to be strong for your girls. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done is to watch my daughter saying her goodbyes to the ole girl.

Annie was eleven days shy of her twenty eighth birthday. She was born Louisa Nubar, March 30, 1982, and came into our lives on March 15th, 2008. She was registered with the American Quarter Horse Association

We loved her and will always remember her loving nature. Please keep her and our family in your prayers.

Bountiful Baskets

We picked up our first order today from Bountiful Baskets and are very pleased.  My brother turned me onto this Co-Op that pools money to buy fruits and vegetables at greatly reduced prices.  They bypass supermarkets and go direct to the suppliers to get great deals.  It is always a mystery as to what you will get, but that is one of the most fun and appealing aspects of it.  You may get something you have never tried before, and may not have picked out for yourself at the supermarket.  Pictured is the standard package, plus the items on the far left are an added Mexican ingredients package that we got.  It had cilantro, jalapenos, limes, garlic, mexican squash, dried red peppers and chipotle, and onions.  The tortillas are half of the package my brother bought.  We figured neither family could eat them all so we split them.  We got all of this for about $25-$30.  I'm already wondering what they will have in store for us two weeks from now.

Everyone gets a basket of veggies and one of fruit.

Horny ?

Project 365

02/25/2010

Oh yea, I knew you would look at this one!  I headed for Nogales today for work and spotted the horns on this building from the intersate.  On the way back to the office, I pulled off at the Arivaipa exit to get a closer look.  I must have looked a little suspicious when I pulled over across the street and then backed up to get a clear view, because a border patrol agent pulled up right behind me.  I figured I could get my picture while he ran my plates so I continued what I was doing.  I think he saw the camera and figured I was harmless because he left without ever talking with me. 

Once I saw the front of the builing, I suddenly remembered being here before.  My brother and I had passed here on a little jeeping excursion we took back in the late 80's or early 90's.

Coronary Failure

Project 365

02/24/2010

I was just getting off work when the girls called to tell me I was on my own for supper.  I of course ran by Lukes for a quick heart attack in a plain brown bag.  Man, I sure do love an Italian Sausage with cheese and peppers "hot", and an order of rings.

Going Nowhere Fast

Project 365

02/23/2010

Do you ever feel like you're not getting anywhere in life?  I get a little depressed sometimes thinking about a job I don't like and wonder if I'm getting ahead or if I'm just stagnant.  Then I look at my daughter and the person she is growing up to be, and figure there is something to show for it after all.  I guess I'm not a half bad Dad.