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.